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Title: The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 04 (of 12)

Author: William Hazlitt

Editor: Arnold Glover
        A. R. Waller

Release date: April 6, 2020 [eBook #61763]
                Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images generously made available by The
        Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLLECTED WORKS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT, VOL. 04 (OF 12) ***

                                  THE
                   COLLECTED WORKS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT
                           IN TWELVE VOLUMES


                              VOLUME FOUR




                         _All rights reserved_

[Illustration:

  _William Hazlitt._

  _From a miniature on ivory Executed by John Hazlitt about 1784_
]




                         THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
                            WILLIAM HAZLITT


                         EDITED BY A. R. WALLER
                           AND ARNOLD GLOVER

                        WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

                              W. E. HENLEY

                                   ❦

                           A Reply to Malthus
                         The Spirit of the Age
                                  Etc.

                                   ❦

                                  1902
                        LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO.
                   McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.: NEW YORK




     Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, (late) Printers to Her Majesty




                                CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE
 A REPLY TO MALTHUS’S ESSAY ON POPULATION                              1

 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE                                               185

 PREFACE, ETC., FROM AN ABRIDGMENT OF THE LIGHT OF NATURE PURSUED    369

 PREFACE FROM A NEW AND IMPROVED GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE       387

 NOTES                                                               397




      A REPLY TO THE ESSAY ON POPULATION BY THE REV. T. R. MALTHUS
  IN A SERIES OF LETTERS. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, EXTRACTS FROM THE ESSAY,
                               WITH NOTES




                          BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE


Published anonymously in one 8vo vol. of 378 pages (1807) with the
following title-page: ‘A Reply to the Essay on Population, by the Rev.
T. R. Malthus. In a Series of Letters. To which are added, Extracts from
the Essay; with notes. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and
Orme, Paternoster Row. 1807.’ The volume was printed by Arliss and
Huntsman, 32 Gutter Lane, Cheapside.




                             ADVERTISEMENT


The three first of the following letters appeared originally in
Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register. There are several things, in which
they may seem to require some apology. First, some persons, who were
convinced by the arguments, have objected to the style as too flowery,
and full of attempts at description. If I have erred in this respect, it
has been from design. I have indeed endeavoured to make my book as
amusing as the costiveness of my genius would permit. If however these
critics persist in their objection, I will undertake to produce a work
as dry and formal as they please, if they will undertake to find
readers. Secondly, some of the observations may be thought too severe
and personal. In the first place, I shall answer that the abuse, of
which there is to be sure a plentiful sprinkling, is not I think
unmerited or unsupported; and in the second place, that if I could have
attacked the works successfully, without attacking the author, I should
have preferred doing so. But the thing was impossible. Whoever troubles
himself about abstract reasonings, or calm, dispassionate inquiries
after truth? The public ought not to blame me for consulting their
taste. As to the diffuseness, the repetitions, and want of method to be
found in these letters, I have no good defence to make. I may however
make the same excuse for the great length to which they have run, as the
Frenchman did, who apologised for writing a long letter by saying, that
he had not time to write a shorter.




                               LETTERS IN

                         ANSWER TO MALTHUS, &c.




                                LETTER I
                              INTRODUCTORY


SIR,—As the proposed alteration in the system of the Poor Laws must
naturally engage your attention, as well as that of the public; and, as
the authority of Mr. Malthus has often been referred to, and has great
weight with many people on this subject, it may not be amiss to inquire,
how far the reputation which that gentleman has gained, as a moral and
political philosopher, can be safely reposed on as the foundation of any
part of a system which is directed to objects of national utility, and
requires close, comprehensive, and accurate reasoning. You, Sir, are not
ignorant, that a name will do more towards softening down prejudices,
and bolstering up a crude and tottering system, than any arguments
whatever. It is always easier to quote an authority than to carry on a
chain of reasoning. Mr. Malthus’s reputation may, I fear, prove fatal to
the poor of this country. His name hangs suspended over their heads, _in
terrorem_, like some baleful meteor. It is the shield behind which the
archers may take their stand, and gall them at their leisure. He has set
them up as a defenceless mark, on which both friends and foes may
exercise their malice, or their wantonness, as they think proper. He has
fairly hunted them down, he has driven them into his toils, he has
thrown his net over them, and they remain as a prey to the first
invader, either to be sacrificed without mercy at the shrine of cold
unfeeling avarice, or to linger out a miserable existence under the
hands of ingenious and scientific tormentors.—There is a vulgar saying,
‘Give a dog a bad name, and hang him.’ The poor seem to me to be pretty
much in this situation at present. The poor, Sir, labour under a natural
stigma; they are _naturally_ despised. Their interests are at best but
coldly and remotely felt by the other classes of society. Mr. Malthus’s
book has done all that was wanting to increase this indifference and
apathy. But it is neither generous nor just, to come in aid of the
narrow prejudices and hard-heartedness of mankind, with metaphysical
distinctions and the cobwebs of philosophy. The balance inclines too
much on that side already, without the addition of false weights. I
confess I do feel some degree of disgust and indignation rising within
me, when I see a man of Mr. Malthus’s character and calling standing
forward as the accuser of those ‘who have none to help them,’ as the
high-priest of ‘pride and covetousness,’ forming selfishness into a
regular code, with its codicils, institutes and glosses annexed, trying
to muffle up the hand of charity in the fetters of the law, to suppress
‘the compunctious visitings of nature,’ to make men ashamed of
compassion and good-nature as folly and weakness, ‘laying the flattering
unction’ of religion to the conscience of the riotous and luxurious
liver, and ‘grinding the faces of the poor’ with texts of scripture.
Formerly the feelings of compassion, and the dictates of justice were
found to operate as correctives on the habitual meanness and selfishness
of our nature: at present this order is reversed; and it is discovered
that justice and humanity are not obstacles in the way of, but that they
are the most effectual strengtheners and supporters of our prevailing
passions. Mr. Malthus has ‘admirably reconciled the old quarrel between
speculation and practice,’ by shewing (I suppose in humble imitation of
Mandeville) that our duty and our vices both lean the same way, and that
the ends of public virtue and benevolence are best answered by the
meanness, pride, extravagance, and insensibility of individuals. This is
certainly a very convenient doctrine; and it is not to be wondered at,
that it should have become so fashionable as it has.[1]

While the prejudice infused into the public mind by this gentleman’s
writings subsists in its full force, I am almost convinced that any
serious attempt at bettering the condition of the poor will be
ineffectual. The only object at present is to gain time. The less it is
meddled with either with good or bad intentions, the better. Tampering
with the disease ‘will but skin and film the ulcerous part, while foul
corruption, mining all within, infects unseen.’ I have not confidence
enough either in the integrity, the abilities, or the power of our
state-doctors to be willing to trust it entirely in their hands. They
risk nothing, if they fail. The patient is in too desperate a state to
bring any imputation on their skill; and after all, it is only trying
experiments _in corpore vili_. The only thing they need be afraid of is
in reality doing _too much_ good. This is the only error which would
never be forgiven by those whose resentment they have most reason to
dread. This however there will be no danger of. The state of public
feeling, the dispositions of individuals, the narrow jealousy of
parties, and the interests of the most powerful members of the community
will, I suspect, suffer little effectually to be done for bettering the
condition, exalting the character, enlightening the understandings, or
securing the comforts, the independence, the virtue and happiness of the
lower classes of the people. But, I am not equally sure that the means
employed for this very purpose may not be made a handle for stifling
every principle of liberty and honour in the hearts of a free people. It
will be no difficult matter, as things are circumstanced, under pretence
of propriety and economy, to smuggle in the worst of tyrannies, a
principle of unrelenting, incessant, vexatious, over-ruling influence,
extending to each individual, and to all the petty concerns of life.

This is what strikes me on the first view of the subject. I would ask,
Is Mr. Whitbread sure of the instruments he is to employ in the
execution of his scheme? Is he sure that his managing partners in this
new political firm of opulent patronage will not play the game into the
hands of those whose views of government and civilization are very
different from his own? But it seems, that whether practicable, or no,
Mr. Whitbread must bring in a Poor Bill. The effect of it appears to me
to be putting the poor into the wardship of the rich, to be doing away
the little remains of independence we have left, and making them once
more what they were formerly, the vassals of a wealthy aristocracy. For
my own part, who do not pretend to see far into things, and do not
expect miracles from human nature, I should wish to trust as little as
possible to the liberality and enlightened views of country squires, or
to the _tender mercies_ of justices of the peace.

The example of Scotland is held out to us as a proof of the beneficial
effects of popular education, and we are promised all the same
advantages from the adoption of the same plan. The education of the poor
is the grand specific which is to cure all our disorders, and make the
leper whole again; and, like other specifics, it is to operate equally
on all constitutions and in all cases. But I may ask, Is the education
of the poor the only circumstance in which Scotland differs from
England? Are there no other circumstances in the situation of this
country that may render such a scheme impracticable, or counteract its
good effects, or render it even worse than nugatory? Is knowledge in
itself a principle of such universal and indisputable excellence that it
can never be misapplied, that it can never be made the instrument and
incentive to mischief, or that it can never be mixed and contaminated
with ‘baser matter’? Do not the peculiar principles and discipline of
the church of Scotland, does not the traditional and habitual faith in
the doctrines of religion, do not the general manners not of the poor
only, but of the other classes of society, does not the state of
cultivation, do not the employments of the people, the absence of
luxury, and temptation, the small number of great towns, and the remains
of ancient customs, tend to strengthen, to forward, to give consistency
to, and secure the good effects of education? Or will Mr. Whitbread say
that he can supply the place of these with a beadle, a white wand, a
spelling book, and a primmer? Supposing it practicable, will the
adoption of a general plan of education have the same effect in our
great manufacturing towns, in our sea-ports, in the metropolis, that it
has in the heart of Scotland, or in the mountains of Cumberland? Will it
not have the contrary effect?

It is not reading in the abstract, but the kind of reading they are
likely to meet with, and the examples about them leading them to emulate
the patterns of sobriety and industry, or of vice and profligacy held
out to them in books, that will do either good or harm to the morals of
a people. In the country the people read moral or religious, or, at
least, innocent books, and therefore, they are benefited by them; in
towns, they as often meet with licentious and idle publications, which
must do them harm. It is in vain to say that you will give them _good_
books, they will get _bad ones_. Will those hotbeds of vice, the
factories of Manchester, &c., be less fruitful for having the _farina_
of knowledge sprinkled over them? Will not corruption quicken faster,
and spread wider for having this new channel opened to it? Will a
smattering in books, and the current pamphlets of the day tend to quench
and smother the flame of the passions, or will it add fuel to them? I do
not scruple to assert, that religion itself, when it comes in contact
with certain situations, may be highly dangerous. It is the soil in
which the greatest virtues and the greatest vices take root. Where it
has not strength to stop the torrent of dissolute manners, it gives it
additional force by checking it; as the bow that has been bent the
contrary way, recoils back with tenfold violence. It is for this reason
that the morals of the people in the trading towns in the north of
England are, I believe, worse than they are farther south, because they
are brought up more religiously. The common people there are almost all
of them originally dissenters. Again, it may be asked, will the poor
people in the trading towns send their children to school instead of
sending them to work at a factory? Or will their employers, forgetting
their own interests, compel them to do it? Or will they give up their
profits and their wealth for the sake of informing the minds, and
preserving the morals of the poor? Oh! no. It may be replied, that it is
chiefly for the peasantry and country people, who compose the largest
part of the community, that this plan of education is intended. But they
are the very people who do not stand in need of it, and to whom, if it
does no harm, it will do little good. If working hard, and living
sparingly are the chief lessons meant to be inculcated in their minds,
they are already tolerably perfect in their parts. As for the rest, it
is in vain to attempt to make men any thing else but what their
situation makes them. We are the creatures not of knowledge, but of
circumstances.

For all these reasons I cannot help looking at this general parallel
between the benefits derived from education in Scotland, and those
expected from it in this country as little better than a _leurre de
dupe_. The advantages of education in the abstract are, I fear, like
other abstractions, not to be found in nature. I thought that the rage
for blind reform, for abstract utility, and general reasoning, had been
exploded long since. If ever it was proper, it was proper on general
subjects, on the nature of man and his prospects in general. But the
spirit of abstraction driven out of the minds of philosophers has passed
into the heads of members of parliament: banished from the closets of
the studious, it has taken up its favourite abode in the House of
Commons. It has only shifted its ground and its objects according to the
character of those in whom it is found. It has dwindled down into petty
projects, speculative details, and dreams of practical, positive
matter-of-fact improvement. These new candidates for fame come in
awkwardly holding up the train of philosophy; and, like the squires of
political romance, invite you to sit down with them to the spoonfuls of
whipt syllabub, the broken scraps of logic, and the same banquet of
windy promises which had been so much more handsomely served up, and to
satiety, by their masters.

I know nothing of Mr. Whitbread personally. His character stands fair
with the public, for consistency and good intention. But I cannot
recognise in his plodding, mechanical, but ill-directed and unsuccessful
endeavours to bring to justice a great public delinquent, in his flowery
common-place harangues, or in the cold, philosophic indifference of the
sentiments he has expressed upon the present occasion, either the
genius, penetration, or generous enthusiasm, (regulated, not damped by
the dictates of reason) which shall be equally proof against the
artifices of designing men, against the sanguine delusions of personal
vanity, or the difficulties, the delays, the disgust, and probable odium
to be encountered in the determined prosecution of such a task. The
celebrated Howard fell a martyr to the great cause of humanity in which
he embarked. He plunged into the depth of dungeons, into the loathsome
cells of disease, ignominy, and despair; he sacrificed health and life
itself as a pledge of the sincerity of his motives. But what proof has
Mr. Whitbread ever given of his true and undissembled attachment to the
same cause? What sacrifices has he made, what fatigues has he suffered,
what pain has he felt, what privation has he undergone in the pursuit of
his object, that he should be depended on as the friend and guardian of
the poor, as the dispenser of good or ill to millions of his
fellow-beings? The ‘champion’ should be the ‘child’ of poverty. The
author of our religion, when he came to save the world, took our nature
upon him, and became as one of us: it is not likely that any one should
ever prove the _saviour_ of the poor, who has not common feelings with
them, and who does not know their weaknesses and wants. To the officious
inquiries of all others, What then are we to do for them? The best
answer would perhaps be, Let them alone.—

I return to the subject from which I set out, and from which I have
wandered without intending it; I mean the system of Mr. Malthus, under
the auspices of whose discoveries it seems the present plan is
undertaken, though it differs in many of its features from the
expedients recommended by that author. I am afraid that the parent
discovery may, however, in spite of any efforts to prevent it, overlay
the ricketty offspring. Besides, the original design and principle gives
a bias to all our subsequent proceedings, and warps our views without
our perceiving it. Mr. Malthus’s system must, I am sure, ever remain a
stumbling block in the way of true political economy, as innate ideas
for a long time confused and perplexed all attempts at philosophy. It is
an _ignis fatuus_, which can only beguile the thoughtless gazer, and
lead him into bogs and quicksands, before he knows where he is. The
details of his system are, I believe, as confused, contradictory, and
uncertain, as the system itself. I shall, however, confine my remarks to
the outlines of his plan, and his general principles of reasoning. In
these respects, I have no hesitation in saying that his work is the most
complete specimen of _illogical_, crude and contradictory reasoning,
that perhaps was ever offered to the notice of the public. A clear and
comprehensive mind is, I conceive, shewn, not in the extensiveness of
the plan which an author has chalked out for himself, but in the order
and connection observed in the arrangement of the subject, and the
consistency of the several parts. This praise is so far from being
applicable to the reasoning of our author, that nothing was ever more
loose and incoherent. ‘The latter end of his commonwealth always forgets
the beginning.’ Argument threatens argument, conclusion stands opposed
to conclusion. This page is an answer to the following one, and that to
the next. There is hardly a single statement in the whole work, in which
he seems to have had a distinct idea of his own meaning. The principle
itself is neither new, nor does it prove any thing new; least of all
does it prove what he meant it to prove. His whole theory is a continued
contradiction; it is a nullity in the science of political philosophy.

I must, however, defer the proof of these assertions to another letter,
when, if you should deem what I have already said worthy the notice of
your readers, I hope to make them out to their and your satisfaction.




                               LETTER II
         ON THE ORIGINALITY OF MR. MALTHUS’S PRINCIPAL ARGUMENT


SIR,—The English have been called a nation of philosophers; as I
conceive, on very slender foundations. They are indeed somewhat slow and
dull, and would be wise, if they could. They are fond of deep questions
without understanding them; and have that perplexed and plodding kind of
intellect, which takes delight in difficulties, and contradictions,
without ever coming to a conclusion. They feel most interest in things
which promise to be the least interesting. What is confused and
unintelligible they take to be profound; whatever is remote and
uncertain, they conceive must be of vast weight and importance. They are
always in want of some new and mighty project in science, in politics,
or in morality for the morbid sensibility of their minds to brood over
and exercise itself upon: and by the time they are tired of puzzling
themselves to no purpose about one absurdity, another is generally ready
to start up, and take its place. Thus there is a perpetual restless
succession of philosophers and systems of philosophy: and the proof they
give you of their wisdom to-day, is by convincing you what fools they
were six months before. Their pretensions to solidity of understanding
rest on the foundation of their own shallowness and levity; and their
gravest demonstrations rise out of the ruins of others.

Mr. Malthus has for some time past been lord of the ascendant. But I
will venture to predict that his reign will not be of long duration. His
hour is almost come; and this mighty luminary, ‘who so lately scorched
us in the meridian, will sink temperately to the west, and be hardly
felt as he descends.’ It is not difficult to account for the very
favourable reception his work has met with in certain classes of
society: it must be a source of continual satisfaction to their minds by
relieving them from the troublesome feelings so frequently occasioned by
the remains of certain silly prejudices, and by enabling them to set so
completely at defiance the claims of ‘worthless importunity in rags.’
But it is not easy to account for the attention which our author’s
reasonings have excited among thinking men, except from a habit of
extreme abstraction and over-refined speculation, unsupported by actual
observation or a general knowledge of practical subjects, in consequence
of which the mind is dazzled and confounded by any striking fact which
thwarts its previous conclusions. There is also in some minds a low and
narrow jealousy, which makes them glad of any opportunity to escape from
the contemplation of magnificent scenes of visionary excellence, to hug
themselves in their own indifference and apathy, and to return once more
to their natural level. Mr. Malthus’s essay was in this respect a nice
_let-down_ from the too sanguine expectations and overstrained
enthusiasm which preceded it. Else, how a work of so base tendency, and
so poorly glossed over, which strikes at the root of every humane
principle, and all the while cants about sensibility and morality, in
which the little, low, rankling malice of a parish-beadle, or the
overseer of a work-house is disguised in the garb of philosophy, and
recommended as a dress for every English gentleman to wear, in which
false logic is buried under a heap of garbled calculations, such as a
bad player might make at cribbage to puzzle those with, who knew less of
the game than himself, where every argument is a _felo de se_, and
defeats its own purpose, containing both ‘its bane and antidote’ within
itself, how otherwise such a miserable reptile performance should ever
have crawled to that height of reputation which it has reached, I am
utterly unable to comprehend. But it seems Mr. Malthus’s essay was a
_discovery_. There are those whom I have heard place him by the side of
Sir Isaac Newton, as both equally great, the one in natural, the other
in political philosophy. But waving this comparison, I must confess,
that were I really persuaded that Mr. Malthus had made any discovery at
all, there is so little originality, and so much ill-nature and
illiberality in the world, that I should be tempted to overlook the
large share of the latter which Mr. Malthus possesses in common with the
rest of mankind (and which in him may probably be owing to
ill-digestion, to a sickly constitution, or some former distaste
conceived against poverty) and to consider him merely in the light of a
man of genius. _Multum abludit imago._ Indeed I do not much see what
there is to discover on the subject, after reading the genealogical
table of Noah’s descendants, and knowing that the world is round. But
even allowing that there was something in the nature of the subject
which threw over it a veil of almost impenetrable obscurity, Mr. Malthus
was not the first who found out the secret. Whatever some of his
ignorant admirers may pretend, Mr. Malthus will not say that this was
the case. He has himself given us a list of authors, some of whom he had
read before, and some since the first publication of his Essay,[2] who
fully understood and clearly stated this principle. Among these Wallace
is the chief. He has not only stated the general principle with the
utmost force and precision, by pointing out the necessary disproportion
between the tendency in population and the tendency in the means of
subsistence to increase after a certain period, (and till this period,
namely till the world became _full_, I must contend in opposition to Mr.
Malthus that the disproportion would not be _necessary_, but
artificial); but what is most remarkable, he has brought this very
argument forward as an answer to the same schemes of imaginary
improvement, which the author of the Essay on population first employed
it to overturn.[3] For it is to be remembered that the use which our
author has since made of this principle to shut up the work-house, to
_snub_ the poor, to stint them in their wages, to deny them any relief
from the parish, and preach lectures to them on the new-invented crime
of matrimony, was an after-thought. His first, his grand, his most
memorable effort was directed against the modern philosophy. It was the
service his borrowed weapons did in that cause, that sanctified them at
all other purposes. I shall have occasion by and by to examine how far
the argument was a solid one; at present I am only inquiring into the
originality of the idea. And here I might content myself with referring
your readers to Wallace’s work; or it might be sufficient to inform them
that after indulging in the former part of it in all the schemes of
fancied excellence and Utopian government, which Sir Thomas More and so
many other philosophers and speculators have endeavoured to establish,
he then enters into an elaborate refutation of them, by describing the
evils, ‘the universal confusion and perplexity in which all such perfect
forms of society must soon terminate, the sooner on account of their
perfection,’ from the principle of population, and as he expresses it,
‘from these primary determinations in nature, a limited earth, a limited
degree of fertility, and the continual increase of mankind.’ However, as
it is probable that most of your readers may not have the book within
their reach, and as people do not like to take these things upon trust,
or from a mere general representation of them, I must beg your insertion
of the following extract from the work itself; and though it is pretty
long, yet as you, Sir, seem to be of opinion with me that the subject of
Mr. Malthus’s reputation is a matter of no mean interest to the public,
I am in hopes that you will not think your pages misemployed in
dissipating the illusion. As to Mr. Malthus himself, if he is a vain
man, he ought to be satisfied with this acknowledgement of his
importance.

‘But without entering further into these abstracted and uncertain
speculations, it deserves our particular attention, that as no
government which hath hitherto been established, is free from all seeds
of corruption, or can be expected to be eternal; so if we suppose a
government to be perfect in its original frame, and to be administered
in the most perfect manner, after whatever model we suppose it to have
been framed, such a perfect form would be so far from lasting for ever,
that it must come to an end so much the sooner on account of its
perfection. For, though happily such governments should be firmly
established, though they should be found consistent with the reigning
passions of human nature, though they should spread far and wide; nay,
though they should prevail universally, they must at last involve
mankind in the deepest perplexity, and in universal confusion. For how
excellent soever they may be in their own nature, they are altogether
inconsistent with the present frame of nature, and with a limited extent
of earth.

‘Under a perfect government, the inconveniences of having a family would
be so intirely removed, children would be so well taken care of, and
everything become so favourable to populousness, that though some sickly
seasons or dreadful plagues in particular climates might cut off
multitudes, yet in general, mankind would encrease so prodigiously, that
the earth would at last be overstocked, and become unable to support its
numerous inhabitants.

‘How long the earth, with the best culture of which it is capable from
human genius and industry, might be able to nourish its perpetually
encreasing inhabitants, is as impossible as it is unnecessary to be
determined. It is not probable that it could have supported them during
so long a period as since the creation of Adam. But whatever may be
supposed of the length of this period, of necessity it must be granted,
that the earth could not nourish them for ever, unless either its
fertility could be continually augmented, or by some secret in nature,
like what certain enthusiasts have expected from the philosopher’s
stone, some wise adept in the occult sciences, should invent a method of
supporting mankind quite different from any thing known at present. Nay,
though some extraordinary method of supporting them might possibly be
found out, yet if there was no bound to the increase of mankind, which
would be the case under a perfect government, there would not even be
sufficient room for containing their bodies upon the surface of the
earth, or upon any limited surface whatsoever. It would be necessary,
therefore, in order to find room for such multitudes of men, that the
earth should be continually enlarging in bulk, as an animal or vegetable
body.

‘Now since philosophers may as soon attempt to make mankind immortal, as
to support the animal frame without food; it is equally certain, that
limits are set to the fertility of the earth, and that its bulk, so far
as is hitherto known, hath continued always the same, and probably could
not be much altered without making considerable changes in the solar
system. It would be impossible, therefore, to support the great numbers
of men who would be raised up under a perfect government; the earth
would be overstocked at last, and the greatest admirers of such fanciful
schemes must foresee the fatal period when they would come to an end, as
they are altogether inconsistent with the limits of that earth in which
they must exist.

‘What a miserable catastrophe of the most generous of all human systems
of government! How dreadfully would the magistrates of such
commonwealths find themselves disconcerted at that fatal period, when
there was no longer any room for new colonies, and when the earth could
produce no further supplies! During all the preceding ages, while there
was room for increase, mankind must have been happy; the earth must have
been a paradise in the literal sense, as the greatest part of it must
have been turned into delightful and fruitful gardens. But when the
dreadful time should at last come, when our globe, by the most diligent
culture, could not produce what was sufficient to nourish its numerous
inhabitants, what happy expedient could then be found out to remedy so
great an evil?

‘In such a cruel necessity, must there be a law to restrain marriage?
Must multitudes of women be shut up in cloisters like the ancient
vestals or modern nuns? To keep a ballance between the two sexes, must a
proportionable number of men be debarred from marriage? Shall the
Utopians, following the wicked policy of superstition, forbid their
priests to marry; or shall they rather sacrifice men of some other
profession for the good of the state? Or, shall they appoint the sons of
certain families to be maimed at their birth, and give a sanction to the
unnatural institution of eunuchs? If none of these expedients can be
thought proper, shall they appoint a certain number of infants to be
exposed to death as soon as they are born, determining the proportion
according to the exigencies of the state; and pointing out the
particular victims by lot, or according to some established rule? Or,
must they shorten the period of human life by a law, and condemn all to
die after they had compleated a certain age, which might be shorter or
longer, as provisions were either more scanty or plentiful? Or what
other method should they devise (for an expedient would be absolutely
necessary) to restrain the number of citizens within reasonable bounds?

‘Alas! how unnatural and inhuman must every such expedient be accounted!
The natural passions and appetites of mankind are planted in our frame,
to answer the best ends for the happiness both of the individuals and of
the species. Shall we be obliged to contradict such a wise order? Shall
we be laid under the necessity of acting barbarously and inhumanly? Sad
and fatal necessity! And which, after all, could never answer the end,
but would give rise to violence and war. For mankind would never agree
about such regulations. Force, and arms, must at last decide their
quarrels, and the deaths of such as fall in battle, leave sufficient
provisions for the survivors, and make room for others to be born.

‘Thus the tranquillity and numerous blessings of the Utopian governments
would come to an end; war, or cruel and unnatural customs, be
introduced, and a stop put to the increase of mankind, to the
advancement of knowledge, and to the culture of the earth, in spite of
the most excellent laws and wisest precautions. The more excellent the
laws had been, and the more strictly they had been observed, mankind
must have sooner become miserable. The remembrance of former times, the
greatness of their wisdom and virtue, would conspire to heighten their
distress;[4] and the world, instead of remaining the mansion of wisdom
and happiness, become the scene of vice and confusion. Force and fraud
must prevail, and mankind be reduced to the same calamitous condition as
at present.

‘Such a melancholy situation in consequence merely of the want of
provisions, is in truth more unnatural than all their present
calamities. Supposing men to have abused their liberty, by which abuse,
vice has once been introduced into the world; and that wrong notions, a
bad taste, and vicious habits, have been strengthened by the defects of
education and government, our present distresses may be easily
explained. They may even be called natural, being the natural
consequences of our depravity. They may be supposed to be the means by
which providence punishes vice; and by setting bounds to the increase of
mankind, prevents the earth’s being overstocked, and men being laid
under the cruel necessity of killing one another. But to suppose that in
the course of a favourable providence, a perfect government had been
established, under which the disorders of human passions had been
powerfully corrected and restrained; poverty, idleness, and war
banished; the earth made a paradise; universal friendship and concord
established, and human society rendered flourishing in all respects; and
that such a lovely constitution should be overturned, not by the vices
of men, or their abuse of liberty, but by the order of nature itself,
seems wholly unnatural, and altogether disagreeable to the methods of
providence.

‘By reasoning in this manner, it is not pretended that ’tis unnatural to
set bounds to human knowledge and happiness, or to the grandeur of
society, and to confine what is finite to proper limits. It is certainly
fit to set just bounds to every thing according to its nature, and to
adjust all things in due proportion to one another. Undoubtedly, such an
excellent order, is actually established throughout all the works of
God, in his wide dominions. But there are certain primary determinations
in nature, to which all other things of a subordinate kind must be
adjusted. A limited earth, a limited degree of fertility and the
continual increase of mankind are three of these original constitutions.
To these determinations, human affairs, and the circumstances of all
other animals, must be adapted. In which view, it is unsuitable to our
ideas of order, that while the earth is only capable of maintaining a
determined number, the human race should increase without end. This
would be the necessary consequence of a perfect government and
education. On which account it is more contrary to just proportion, to
suppose that such a perfect government should be established in such
circumstances, than that by permitting vice, or the abuse of liberty in
the wisdom of providence, mankind should never be able to multiply so as
to be able to overstock the earth.

‘From this view of the circumstances of the world, notwithstanding the
high opinion we have of the merits of Sir Thomas More, and other admired
projectors of perfect governments in ancient or modern times, we may
discern how little can be expected from their most perfect systems.

‘As for these worthy philosophers, patriots, and law-givers, who have
employed their talents in framing such excellent models, we ought to do
justice to their characters, and gratefully to acknowledge their
generous efforts to rescue the world out of that distress into which it
has fallen, through the imperfection of government. Sincere, and ardent
in their love of virtue, enamoured of its lovely form, deeply interested
for the happiness of mankind, to the best of their skill, and with
hearts full of zeal, they have strenuously endeavoured to advance human
society to perfection. For this, their memory ought to be sacred to
posterity. But if they expected their beautiful systems actually to take
place, their hopes were ill founded, and they were not sufficiently
aware of the consequences.

‘The speculations of such ingenious authors enlarge our views, and amuse
our fancies. They are useful for directing us to correct certain errors
at particular times. Able legislators ought to consider them as models,
and honest patriots ought never to lose sight of them, or any proper
opportunity of transplanting the wisest of their maxims into their own
governments, as far as they are adapted to their particular
circumstances, and will give no occasion to dangerous convulsions. But
this is all that can be expected. Though such ingenious romances should
chance to be read and admired, jealous and selfish politicians need not
be alarmed. Such statesmen need not fear that ever such airy systems
shall be able to destroy their craft, or disappoint them of their
intention to sacrifice the interests of mankind to their own avarice or
ambition. There is too powerful a charm which works secretly in favor of
such politicians, which will for ever defeat all attempts to establish a
perfect government. There is no need of miracles for this purpose. The
vices of mankind are sufficient. And we need not doubt but providence
will make use of them, for preventing the establishment of governments
which are by no means suitable to the present circumstances of the
earth.’ See Various Prospects of mankind, nature and providence. Chap.
iv. p. 113.

Here then we have not only the same argument stated; but stated in the
same connection and brought to bear on the very same subject to which it
is applied by the author of the Essay. The principle and the
consequences deduced from it are exactly the same. It often happens that
one man is the first to make a particular discovery or observation, and
that another draws from it an important inference of which the former
was not at all aware. But this is not the case in the present instance.
As far as general reasoning will go, it is impossible that any thing
should be stated more clearly, more fully and explicitly than Wallace
has here stated the argument against the progressive amelioration of
human affairs, from the sole principle of population. ‘So will his
anticipation prevent Mr. Malthus’s discovery;’ for it happens that
Wallace’s book was published so long ago as the year 1761. As to the
details of the Essay, I shall leave them to the _connoisseurs_, not
pretending to know much about the matter; but as to the general
principle or ground-work, I must contend that it was completely
pre-occupied: Mr. Malthus has no more pretentions to originality on that
score, than I or any one else would have, who after having read Mr.
Malthus’s work undertook to retail the arguments contained in it and did
it in words a little different from his own.—‘Oh! but,’ I hear some one
exclaim, ‘the geometrical and arithmetical series! Has Wallace said any
thing of them? did he find them out, or was not this discovery reserved
entirely for the genius and penetration of Mr. Malthus?’ Why really I do
not know: whether after having brought his principle to light, he
christened it himself, is more than I can pretend to determine. It seems
to me sufficient for Wallace to have said that let the one ratio
increase as fast as it would, the other would increase much faster, as
this is all that is practically meant by a geometrical and arithmetical
series. I should have no objection to let Mr. Malthus have the honour of
standing godfather to another’s bantling (and Mr. Shandy was of opinion
that it was a matter of as great importance to hit upon a lucky name for
a child as to beget it) but that the technical phrase he has employed as
a convenient shorthand method of explaining the subject, in reality
applies only to one half of it. The gradual increase applies only to the
degree of cultivation of the earth, not to the quantity. These two
things are palpably distinct. It does not begin to take place till the
whole surface of the earth has been cultivated to a certain degree, or
only with respect to those parts of it which have been cultivated. It is
evident that while most of the soil remained wholly unoccupied and
uncultivated, (which must have been the case for many ages after these
two principles began to operate, and is still the case in many
countries) the power of increase in the productions of the earth, and
consequently, in the support of population would be exactly in
proportion to the population itself, for there would be nothing more
necessary in order to the earth’s maintaining its inhabitants than that
there should be inhabitants enough to till it. In this case the
cultivation of the earth would be limited by the population, not the
population by the state of the cultivation. Where there was no want of
room, and a power of transporting themselves from place to place, which
there would naturally be in great continents, and in gradually
increasing colonies, there could be no want of subsistence. All that
would be wanted would be power to raise or gather the fruits which the
earth had in store, which as long as men were born with hands they would
be always able to do. If a certain extent of ground easily maintained a
certain number of inhabitants, they would only have to spread themselves
over double the surface to maintain double the number. The difficulty is
not in making more land maintain more men, but in making the same spot
of ground maintain a greater number than it did before. Thus Noah might
have taken possession of the three contiguous quarters of the globe for
himself and his three sons; and, if instead of having three sons, he had
had three hundred, there would, I believe, have been no danger of their
starving, but the contrary, from the rapid increase of population. What
I mean to shew is, that it is not true as a general principle that the
increase of population and the increase of subsistence are necessarily
disproportionate to each other, that the one is in a geometrical, the
other is in an arithmetical ratio; but, that in a particular and very
important view of the subject, the extent of population is only limited
by the extent of the earth, and that the increase of the means of
subsistence will be in proportion to the greater extent of surface
occupied, which may be enlarged as fast as there are numbers to occupy
it. I have been thus particular, because mathematical terms carry with
them an imposing air of accuracy and profundity, and ought, therefore,
to be applied strictly, and with the greatest caution, or not at all. I
should say, then, that looking at the subject in a general and
philosophical point of view, I do not think that the expression of an
arithmetical and geometrical series applies: for, with respect to the
extent of ground occupied, which is one thing on which population
depends, and in the first instance always, this might evidently be
increased in any ratio whatever, that the increase of population would
admit, until the earth was entirely occupied; and after that there would
be no room either for a geometrical or arithmetical progression; it
would be at an absolute stand. The distinction is therefore confined to
the degree of art and diligence used in the cultivation of those parts
which have been already occupied. This has no doubt gone on at a very
slow kind of snail’s pace from the very first, and will I dare say
continue to do so. Or to adopt Wallace’s distinction, the increase of
population is either not restricted at all by the ‘limited nature of the
earth,’ or it is limited absolutely by it: it is only kept back
indefinitely by the ‘limited fertility’ of the earth; and it cannot be
said to be kept back necessarily by this, while there are vast tracts of
habitable land left untouched. Till there is no more room, and no more
food to be procured without extreme exertion and contrivance, the
arithmetical and geometrical ratios do not naturally begin to operate;
and the gradual increase that might take place after that period, is not
in my opinion (who am no great speculator) of sufficient importance to
deserve a pompous appellation. I would, therefore, rather stop there,
because it will simplify the question. Till the world is full, or at
least till every country is full, that is, maintains as many inhabitants
as the soil will admit, namely, till it can be proved satisfactorily
that it might not by taking proper methods be made to maintain double
the number that it does, the increase of mankind is not necessarily
checked by the ‘limited extent of the earth,’ nor by its ‘limited
fertility,’ but by other causes. Till then population must be said to be
kept down, not by the original constitution of nature, but by the will
of man. Till then, Mr. Malthus has no right to set up his arithmetical
and geometrical ratios upon the face of the earth, and say they are the
work of nature. You, Sir, will not be at a loss to perceive the fallacy
which lurks under the gloss which Mr. Malthus has here added to
Wallace’s text. His readers looking at his mathematical scale will be
apt to suppose, that population is a naturally growing and necessary
evil; that it is always encroaching on and straitening the means of
existence, and doing more harm than good: that its pernicious effects
are at all times and in all places equally necessary and unavoidable;
that it is at all times an evil, but that the evil increases in
proportion to the increase of population; and that, therefore, there is
nothing so necessary as to keep population down at all events. This is
the imperious dictate of nature, the grinding law of necessity, the end
and the fulfilling of the commandment. I do not mean to say, that Mr.
Malthus does not often shift his ground on this subject, or that he is
not himself aware of the deception. It is sufficient for him that he has
it to resort to, whenever he is in want of it, that he has been able to
throw dust in his readers’ eyes, and dazzle them by a specious shew of
accuracy; that he has made out a bill of indictment against the
principle of population as a common nuisance in society, and has
obtained a general warrant against it, and may have it brought into
court as a felon whenever he thinks proper. He has alarmed men’s minds
with confused apprehensions on the subject, by setting before their
eyes, in an orderly series, the malignant nature and terrible effects of
population, which are perpetually increasing as it goes on: and they are
ready to assent to every scheme that promises to keep these dreadful
evils at a distance from them. ‘_Sacro tremuere timore._ Every coward is
planet-struck.’ But nothing of all this is the truth. Population is only
an evil, as Mr. Malthus has himself shewn, in proportion as it is
excessive; it is not a necessary evil, till the supply of food can, from
natural causes, no longer keep pace with it: till this is the case, no
restraints are necessary, and when this is the case, the same wholesome
degree of restraint, the same quantity of vice and misery, will operate
equally to prevent any tremendous consequences, whether the actual
population is great or small; that is, whether it is stopped only from
having reached the utmost limits prescribed by nature, or whether it has
been starved and crushed down long before that period by positive,
arbitrary institutions, and the perverse nature of man. But this is
entering upon a matter which I intended to reserve for another letter in
which I shall examine the force of the arguments which Mr. Malthus has
built upon this principle. At present, I have done all that was
necessary to the performance of the first part of my engagement, which
was to shew that Mr. Malthus had little claim to the praise of
originality.




                               LETTER III
   ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION AS AFFECTING THE SCHEMES OF UTOPIAN
                              IMPROVEMENT

     ‘A swaggering paradox, when once explained, soon sinks into an
                        unmeaning common-place.’

                                                                BURKE.


SIR,—This excellent saying of a great man was never more strictly
applicable to any system than it is to Mr. Malthus’s paradox, and his
explanation of it. It seemed, on the first publication of the Essay on
Population, as if the whole world was going to be turned topsy-turvy,
all our ideas of moral good, and evil were in a manner confounded, we
scarcely knew whether we stood on our head or our heels: but after
exciting considerable expectation, giving us a good shake, and making us
a little dizzy, Mr. Malthus, does as we do when we shew the children
_London_,—sets us on our feet again, and every thing goes on as before.
The common notions that prevailed on this subject, till our author’s
first population-scheme tended to weaken them, were that life is a
blessing, and that the more people could be maintained in any state in a
tolerable degree of health, comfort and decency, the better: that want
and misery are not desirable in themselves, that famine is not to be
courted for its own sake, that wars, disease and pestilence are not what
every friend of his country or his species should pray for in the first
place: that vice in its different shapes is a thing, that the world
could do very well without, and that if it could be got rid of
altogether, it would be a great gain. In short, that the object both of
the moralist and politician was to diminish as much as possible the
quantity of vice and misery existing in the world: without apprehending
that by thus effectually introducing more virtue and happiness, more
reason and good sense, that by improving the manners of a people,
removing pernicious habits and principles of acting, or securing greater
plenty, and a greater number of mouths to partake of it, they were doing
a disservice to humanity. Then comes Mr. Malthus with his octavo book,
and tells us there is another great evil, which had never been found
out, or at least not sufficiently attended to till his time, namely
excessive population: that this evil was infinitely greater and more to
be dreaded than all others put together; and that its approach could
only be checked by vice and misery: that any increase of virtue or
happiness, was the direct way to hasten it on; and that in proportion as
we attempted to improve the condition of mankind, and lessened the
restraints of vice and misery, we threw down the only barriers that
could protect us from this most formidable scourge of the species,
population. Vice, and misery were indeed evils, but they were absolutely
necessary evils; necessary to prevent the introduction of others of an
incalculably, and inconceivably greater magnitude; and that every
proposal to lessen their actual quantity on which the measure of our
safety depended, might be attended with the most ruinous consequences,
and ought to be looked upon with horror. I think, Sir, this description
of the tendency and complexion of Mr. Malthus’s first essay is not in
the least exaggerated, but an exact and faithful picture of the
impression, which it made on every one’s mind.

After taking some time to recover from the surprise and hurry into which
so great a discovery would naturally throw him, he comes forward again
with a large quarto, in which he is at great pains both to say and unsay
all that he had said in his former volume, and upon the whole concludes,
that population is in itself a good thing, that it is never likely to do
much harm, that virtue and happiness ought to be promoted by every
practicable means, and that the most effectual as well as desirable
check to excessive population is _moral restraint_. The mighty
discovery, thus reduced to, and pieced out by common sense, the wonder
vanishes, and we breathe a little freely again. Mr. Malthus is however,
by no means willing to give up his old doctrine, or _eat his own words_:
he stickles stoutly for it at times. He has his fits of reason and his
fits of extravagance, his yielding and his obstinate moments,
fluctuating between the two, and vibrating backwards and forwards with a
dexterity of self-contradiction which it is wonderful to behold. The
following passage is so curious in this respect that I cannot help
quoting it in this place. Speaking of the reply of the author of the
Political Justice to his former work, he observes, ‘But Mr. Godwin says,
that if he looks into the past history of the world, he does not see
that increasing population has been controlled and confined by vice and
misery _alone_. _In this observation I cannot agree with him._ I will
thank Mr. Godwin to name to me any check, that in past ages has
contributed to keep down the population to the level of the means of
subsistence, that does not fairly come under some form of vice or
misery; except indeed the check of _moral restraint, which I have
mentioned in the course of this work_; and which to say the truth,
whatever hopes we may entertain of its prevalence in future, has
undoubtedly in past ages operated with very inconsiderable force.’[5]
When I assure the reader that I give him this passage fairly and fully,
I think he will be of opinion with me, that it would be difficult to
produce an instance of a more miserable attempt to reconcile a
contradiction by childish evasion, to insist upon an argument, and give
it up in the same breath. Does Mr. Malthus really think that he has such
an absolute right and authority over this subject of population, that
provided he mentions a principle, or shews that he is not ignorant of
it, and cannot be caught _napping_ by the critics, he is at liberty to
say that it has or has not had any operation, just as he pleases, and
that the state of the fact is a matter of perfect indifference. He
contradicts the opinion of Mr. Godwin that vice and misery are not the
only checks to population, and gives as a proof of his assertion, that
he himself truly has mentioned another check. Thus after flatly denying
that moral restraint has any effect at all, he modestly concludes by
saying that it has had some, no doubt, but promises that it will never
have a great deal. Yet in the very next page, he says, ‘On this
sentiment, whether virtue, prudence or pride, which I have already
noticed under the name of moral restraint, or of the more comprehensive
title, the _preventive_ check, it will appear, that in the sequel of
this work, I shall lay considerable stress,’ p. 385. This kind of
reasoning is enough to give one the head-ache. But to take things in
their order.

The most singular thing in this singular performance of our author is,
that it should have been originally ushered into the world as the most
complete and only satisfactory answer to the speculations of Godwin,
Condorcet and others, or to what has been called the modern philosophy.
A more complete piece of wrong-headedness, a more strange perversion of
reason could hardly be devised by the wit of man. Whatever we may think
of the doctrine of the progressive improvement of the human mind, or of
a state of society in which every thing will be subject to the absolute
control of reason, however absurd, unnatural, or impracticable we may
conceive such a system to be, certainly it cannot without the grossest
inconsistency be objected to it, that such a system would necessarily be
rendered abortive, because if reason should ever get this mastery over
all our actions, we shall then be governed entirely by our physical
appetites and passions, without the least regard to consequences. This
appears to me a refinement on absurdity. Several philosophers and
speculatists had supposed that a certain state of society very different
from any that has hitherto existed was in itself practicable; and that
if it were realised, it would be productive of a far greater degree of
human happiness than is compatible with the present institutions of
society. I have nothing to do with either of these points. I will allow
to any one who pleases that all such schemes are ‘false, sophistical,
unfounded in the extreme.’ But I cannot agree with Mr. Malthus that they
would be _bad_, in proportion as they were _good_; that their excellence
would be their ruin; or that the true and only unanswerable objection
against all such schemes is that very degree of _happiness_, virtue and
improvement to which they are supposed to give rise. And I cannot agree
with him in this because it is contrary to common sense, and leads to
the subversion of every principle of moral reasoning. Without perplexing
himself with the subtle arguments of his opponents, Mr. Malthus comes
boldly forward, and says, ‘Gentlemen, I am willing to make you large
concessions, I am ready to allow the practicability and the
desirableness of your schemes, the more happiness, the more virtue, the
more refinement they are productive of the better, all these will only
add to the “exuberant strength of my argument”; I have a short answer to
all objections, to be sure I found it in an old political receipt-book,
called Prospects, &c. by one Wallace, a man not much known, but no
matter for that, _finding is keeping_, you know’: and with one smart
stroke of his wand, on which are inscribed certain mystical characters,
and algebraic proportions, he levels the fairy enchantment with the
ground. For, says Mr. Malthus, though this improved state of society
were actually realised, it could not possibly continue, but must soon
terminate in a state of things pregnant with evils far more
insupportable than any we at present endure, in consequence of the
excessive population which would follow, and the impossibility of
providing for its support.

This is what I do not understand. It is, in other words, to assert that
the doubling the population of a country, for example, after a certain
period, will be attended with the most pernicious effects, by want,
famine, bloodshed, and a state of general violence and confusion, this
will afterwards lead to vices and practices still worse than the
physical evils they are designed to prevent, &c. and yet that at this
period those who will be the most interested in preventing these
consequences, and the best acquainted with the circumstances that lead
to them will neither have the understanding to foresee, nor the heart to
feel, nor the will to prevent the sure evils to which they expose
themselves and others, though this advanced state of population, which
does not admit of any addition without danger is supposed to be the
immediate result of a more general diffusion of the comforts and
conveniences of life, of more enlarged and liberal views, of a more
refined and comprehensive regard to our own permanent interests, as well
as those of others, of corresponding habits and manners, and of a state
of things, in which our gross animal appetites will be subjected to the
practical control of reason. The influence of rational motives, of
refined and long-sighted views of things is supposed to have taken place
of narrow, selfish and merely sensual motives: this is implied in the
very statement of the question. ‘What conjuration and what mighty magic’
should thus blind our philosophical descendants on this single subject
in which they are more interested than in all the rest, so that they
should stand with their eyes open on the edge of a precipice, and
instead of retreating from it, should throw themselves down headlong, I
cannot comprehend; unless indeed we suppose that the impulse to
propagate the species is so strong and uncontrolable that reason has no
power over it. This is what Mr. Malthus was at one time strongly
disposed to assert, and what he is at present half inclined to retract.
Without this foundation to rest on, the whole of his reasoning is
unintelligible. It seems to me a most childish way of answering any one,
who chooses to assert that mankind are capable of being governed
entirely by their reason, and that it would be better for them if they
were, to say, No, for if they were governed entirely by it, they would
be much less able to attend to its dictates than they are at present:
and the evils, which would thus follow from the unrestrained increase of
population, would be excessive.—Almost every little Miss, who has had
the advantage of a boarding-school education, or been properly tutored
by her mamma, whose hair is not of an absolute flame-colour, and who has
hopes in time, if she behaves prettily, of getting a good husband, waits
patiently year after year, looks about her, rejects or trifles with half
a dozen lovers, favouring one, laughing at another, chusing among them
‘as one picks pears, saying, this I like, that I loathe,’ with the
greatest indifference, as if it were no such very pressing affair, and
_all the while behaves very prettily_; till she is at last smitten with
a handsome house, a couple of footmen in livery, or a black-servant, or
a coach with two sleek geldings, with which she is more taken than with
her man:—why, what an idea does Mr. Malthus give us of the grave,
masculine genius of our Utopian philosophers, their sublime attainments
and gigantic energy, that they will not be able to manage these matters
as decently and cleverly as the silliest women can do at present! Mr.
Malthus indeed endeavours to soften the absurdity by saying that moral
restraint at present owes its strength to selfish motives: what is this
to the purpose? If Mr. Malthus chooses to say, that men will always be
governed by the same gross mechanical motives that they are at present,
I have no objection to make to it; but it is shifting the question: it
is not arguing against the state of society we are considering from the
consequences to which it would give rise, but against the possibility of
its ever existing. It is absurd to object to a system on account of the
consequences which would follow if we were to suppose men to be actuated
by entirely different motives and principles from what they are at
present, and then to say, that those consequences would necessarily
follow, because men would never be what we suppose them. It is _very_
idle to alarm the imagination by deprecating the evils that must follow
from the practical adoption of a particular scheme, yet to allow that we
have no reason to dread those consequences, but because the scheme
itself is impracticable.—But I am ashamed of wasting your reader’s time
and my own in thus beating the air. It is not however my fault that Mr.
Malthus has written nonsense, or that others have admired it. It is not
Mr. Malthus’s nonsense, but the opinion of the world respecting it, that
I would be thought to compliment by this serious refutation of what in
itself neither deserves nor admits of any reasoning upon it. If however
we recollect the source from whence Mr. Malthus borrowed his principle
and the application of it to improvements in political philosophy, we
must allow that he is merely _passive_ in error. The principle itself
would not have been worth a farthing to him without the application, and
accordingly he took them as he found them lying snug together; and as
Trim having converted the old jack-boots into a pair of new mortars
immediately planted them against whichever of my uncle Toby’s garrisons
the allies were then busy in besieging, so the public-spirited gallantry
of our modern engineer directed him to bend the whole force of his
clumsy discovery against that system of philosophy which was the most
talked of at the time, but to which it was the least applicable of all
others. Wallace, I have no doubt, took up his idea either as a paradox,
or a _jeu d’esprit_, or because any thing, he thought, was of weight
enough to overturn what had never existed anywhere but in the
imagination, or he was led into a piece of false logic by an error we
are very apt to fall into, of supposing because he had never been struck
himself by the difficulty of population in such a state of society, that
therefore the people themselves would not find it out, nor make any
provision against it. But though I can in some measure excuse a lively
paradox, I do not think the same favour is to be shewn to the dull,
dogged, voluminous repetition of an absurdity.

I cannot help thinking that our author has been too much influenced in
his different feelings on this subject, by the particular purpose he had
in view at the time. Mr. Malthus might not improperly have taken for the
motto of his first edition, ‘These three bear record on earth, vice,
misery, and population.’ In his answer to Mr. Godwin, this principle was
represented as an evil, for which no remedy could be found but in
evil;—that its operation was mechanical, unceasing, necessary; that it
went strait forward to its end, unchecked by fear, or reason, or
remorse; that the evils, which it drew after it, could only be avoided
by other evils, by actual vice and misery. Population was in fact the
great devil, the untamed Beelzebub that was only kept chained down by
vice and misery, and that if it were once let loose from these
restraints, it would go forth, and ravage the earth. That they were
therefore the two main props and pillars of society, and that the lower
and weaker they kept this principle, the better able they were to
contend with it: that therefore any diminution of that degree of them
which at present prevails, and is found sufficient to keep the world in
order, was of all things chiefly to be dreaded.—Mr. Malthus seems fully
aware of the importance of the stage-maxim, To elevate and surprise.
Having once heated the imaginations of his readers, he knows that he can
afterwards mould them into whatever shape he pleases. All this bustle
and terror, and stage-effect, and theatrical-mummery, was only to serve
a temporary purpose, for all of a sudden the scene is shifted, and the
storm subsides. Having frighted away the boldest champions of modern
philosophy, this monstrous appearance, full of strange and inexplicable
horrors, is suffered quietly to shrink back to its natural dimensions,
and we find it to be nothing more than a common-sized tame looking
animal, which however requires a chain and the whip of its keeper to
prevent it from becoming mischievous. Mr. Malthus then steps forward and
says, ‘the evil we were all in danger of was not population,—but
philosophy. Nothing is to be done with the latter by mere reasoning. I
therefore thought it right to make use of a little terror to accomplish
the end. As to the principle of population you need be under no alarm,
only leave it to me and I shall be able to manage it very well. All its
dreadful consequences may be easily prevented by a proper application of
the motives of common prudence and common decency.’ If however any one
should be at a loss to know how it is possible to reconcile such
contradictions, I would suggest to Mr. Malthus the answer which Hamlet
makes to his friend Guildenstern, ‘’Tis as easy as lying: govern these
ventiges (the poor-rates and private charity) with your fingers and
thumb, and this same instrument will discourse most excellent music;
look you, here are the stops,’ (namely, Mr. Malthus’s Essay and Mr.
Whitbread’s Poor Bill). To sum up the whole of this argument in one
word. Let us suppose with Mr. Malthus that population can only be kept
down by a certain degree of vice and misery. Let us also suppose that
these checks are for a time removed, and that mankind become perfectly
virtuous and happy. Well, then, according to the former supposition,
this would necessarily lead to an excessive increase of population. Now
the question is, to what degree of excess it would lead, and where it
would naturally stop. Mr. Malthus, to make good his reasoning, must
suppose a miracle to take place; that after population has begun to
increase excessively, no inconvenience is felt from it, that in the
midst of the ‘imminent and immediate’ evils which follow from it, people
continue virtuous and happy and unconscious of the dangers with which
they are surrounded; till of a sudden Mr. Malthus opens the flood-gates
of vice and misery, and they are overwhelmed by them, all at once. In
short he must suppose either that this extraordinary race of men, in
proportion as population increases, are gradually reduced in size, ‘and
less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room, throng numberless, like that
pygmean race beyond the Indian mount, or fairy elves’; or that they have
some new world assigned them as a breeding-place, from which attempting
to return they are immediately squeezed to death, like people rushing
into a crowded theatre. On the other hand, I contend that in the natural
course of things, that is, if we suppose people to retain their usual
dimensions, to eat, and drink, and beget children, and bring them up in
the usual way, all this could never happen: for it is impossible but
they must see and feel that there was only room for a certain number.
The moment population became excessive from the _excess_ of virtue and
happiness, its inconveniences would return, and people would no longer
be _perfectly virtuous and happy_: that is, the old checks of a certain
degree of vice and misery would come into play again, and a less degree
of them (I suppose about as much as we enjoy the advantage of at
present) would be sufficient to deter men from plunging into greater,
would put a stop to the further increase of population, and anticipate
those tremendous evils which Mr. Malthus apprehends from it, which could
never happen unless we suppose people to have come to a previous,
deliberate resolution mutually to starve one another to death. There is
therefore no foundation for the alarm given by Mr. Malthus, for vice and
misery are such ready and sure resources that we can be at a loss for
them at no time; and farther with respect to the state of society
supposed by Mr. Malthus, that is if we could once drive vice and misery
out of the world, I really do not see what occasion we should have for
them afterwards.

The most important question yet remains, which is not how Mr. Malthus
came by his discovery, nor whether he was right in endeavouring to
exemplify it in the first instance by shewing its effects on an
imaginary state of society where it would be naturally disarmed of its
malignity, but whether the practical conclusions he has drawn from it
are not of weight and moment in themselves, and whether they are not
established so clearly and fully as to make it necessary for us to
reverse almost entirely all our old reasonings on the principles of
political economy. I confess, I have some difficulty in determining,
whether Mr. Malthus’s principles do or do not materially affect the
commonly received notions on this subject, because I really do not know
what those principles are, and till Mr. Malthus himself tells us,
whether he would have us believe in the new revelation or the old, it is
impossible that any one should. If we are to consider those as Mr.
Malthus’s real and chastized opinions which are the least like himself,
which most flatly contradict his former assertions, which being forced
from him may be looked upon as confessions of the truth, I see nothing
in these that in any manner interferes with the common sense of mankind.
And though Mr. Malthus still perseveres in almost all his extreme
conclusions, yet as those conclusions are for the most part
unwarrantable assumptions, disproved even by his own concessions, and
shew nothing more than Mr. Malthus’s qualifications for the delicate
office of conscience-keeper to the rich and great, I am so far from
considering them as new and important discoveries, that I must be
excused if I consider them as in the highest degree false and dangerous,
and treat them accordingly.




                               LETTER IV
            ON THE GENERAL TENDENCY OF POPULATION TO EXCESS


SIR,—Mr. Malthus’s argument against a state of _unlimited_ improvement,
of perfect wisdom, virtue and happiness, from the vice, misery, and
madness inseparable from such a state would, if admitted, be an
effectual bar to all limited improvement whatever. It is for this
reason, that I have dwelt so long on the subject. If out of timidity, or
complaisance, or prejudice against an unpopular system, we suffer
ourselves to be wheedled into a silly persuasion, that the worst thing
that could happen for the human race would be their being able to
realise not in words only, but in deed all the fine things, that have
been said of them, we then fairly throw ourselves upon the mercy of our
adversaries. For what is there in this case, to hinder Mr. Malthus, or
any one else, from representing every degree of practical improvement as
an approximation to this deplorable crisis, from binding up the slips
and scyons of human happiness with this great trunk of evil, and root of
all our woe, from marking with his slider and graduated scale all our
advances towards this ideal perfection, however partial or necessary, as
so many deviations from the strict line of our duty, and only sphere of
our permanent happiness? It is evident, that the only danger of all
imaginary schemes of improvement arises from their being _exaggerations_
of the real capacities of our nature, from supposing that we can pick
out all the dross, and leave nothing but the gold; that is, from their
being carried to excess, and aiming at more than is practicable. But if
we allow that improvement is an evil in the abstract, and that the
greater the improvement, the greater the mischief, that the actual and
complete success of all such schemes would be infinitely worse even than
their failure, for that the most complete and extensive improvement
would only prepare the way for the most deplorable wretchedness, and
that the very next step after reaching the summit of human glory would
plunge us into the lowest abyss of vice and misery,—why truly there will
be little encouragement to set out on a journey that promises so very
disagreeable a conclusion; such a representation of the matter will not
add wings to our zeal for practical reform, but will rather make us stop
short in our career, and refuse to advance one step farther in a road,
that is beset with danger and destruction. People will begin to look
with a jaundiced eye at the most obvious advantages, to resist every
useful regulation, and dread every change for the better. Our feelings
are governed very much by common-place associations, and are most
influenced by that sort of logic which is the shortest. Thus, ‘that the
parts are contained in the whole,’ is a general rule which is found to
hold good in most of the concerns of life; and it is not therefore easy
to drive it out of people’s heads. For this reason, it will always be
difficult to persuade the generality of mankind that a less degree of
improvement is a good thing, though a greater would be a bad thing, or
that the subordinate parts of a system, that would in reality embody all
the ills of life, can be very desirable in themselves. Mr. Malthus has
however by no means left this conclusion to the mere mechanical
operation of our feelings. He endeavours formally to establish it. The
following passage seems the connecting link in the chain, which unites
the two worlds of theory and practice together; it cements the argument,
gives solidity and roundness to it, and renders it complete against all
improvement, real or imaginary, present or future, against all absolute
perfection or imperfect attempts at it, and gradual approaches to it. It
fairly blocks up the road.

‘It cannot but be a matter of astonishment that all writers on the
perfectibility of man, and of society, who have noticed the argument of
an overcharged population, treat it always very slightly, and invariably
represent the difficulties arising from it, as at a great, and almost
immeasurable distance. Even Mr. Wallace, who thought the argument itself
of so much weight as to destroy his whole system of equality, did not
seem to be aware that any difficulty would occur from this cause, till
the whole earth had been cultivated like a garden, and was incapable of
any further increase of produce. Were this really the case, and were a
beautiful system of equality in other respects practicable, I cannot
think that our ardour in the pursuit of such a scheme ought to be damped
by the contemplation of so remote a difficulty. An event at such a
distance might fairly be left to providence; but the truth is, that if
the view of the argument given in this Essay be just, the difficulty so
far from being remote, would be imminent and immediate. _At every period
during the progress of cultivation_, from the present moment to the time
when the whole earth was become like a garden, _the distress for want of
food would be constantly pressing on all mankind_, if they were equal.
Though the produce of the earth _might be increasing every year_,
population _would be increasing much faster_; and the redundancy must
_necessarily_ be repressed by the periodical or constant action of vice
and misery.’[6]

In answer to this statement (allowing however that it is a fair
inference from Wallace’s reasoning, and from our author’s own principle)
I would simply ask, whether _during this progress of cultivation, the
distress for want of food would be constantly pressing on all mankind_
more than it does at present. Let us suppose that men remain just as
vicious, as imprudent, as regardless of their own interests and those of
others as they are at present, let us suppose them to continue just what
they are, through all the stages of improved cultivation to the time
when the whole earth was become like a garden, would this in the
smallest degree detract from the benefit? Would nothing indeed be gained
by the earth’s being cultivated like a garden, that is, by its producing
ten times the quantity of food that it does at present, and being able
to maintain ten times the quantity of inhabitants in the same degree of
comfort and happiness that it does at present, because forsooth they
would not at the same time be ten times better off than they are now? Is
it an argument against adding to the happiness of mankind tenfold, by
increasing their number, their condition remaining the same, that we
cannot add to it a hundred-fold, by increasing their number and
improving their condition proportionably? Or is it any objection to
increasing the means of subsistence by the improved cultivation of the
earth, that the population would keep pace with it? It appears to me
that there must be a particular perversity, some egregious bias in the
mind of any person who can either deny the inference to be drawn from
these questions, or evade it as a matter of indifference, by
equivocation and subterfuge. We might as well assert that because it is
most likely that the inhabitants of the rest of Europe are not better,
nor indeed quite so well off as the people of England, that it would
therefore be no matter if the whole continent of Europe were sunk in the
sea, as if human life was merely to be considered as a sample of what
the thing is, and as if when we have a sample of a certain quality, all
the rest might be very well spared, as of no value. As however I
conceive that Mr. Malthus is not a man to be moved either by common
feelings or familiar illustrations, I shall venture to lay down one dry
maxim on the subject, which he will get over as well as he can, namely,
that an improved cultivation of the earth, and a consequent increase of
food must necessarily lead to one or other of these two consequences,
either that a greater number of people will be maintained in the same
degree of comfort and happiness, other things being the same, or that
means will be afforded for maintaining an equal number in greater ease,
plenty, and affluence. It is plain either that existence is upon the
whole a blessing and that the means of existence are on that account
desirable; that consequently an increased population is doubly a
blessing, and an increase in the means of existence doubly desirable; or
else life is an evil, and whatever tends to promote it is an evil, and
in this case it would be well if all the inhabitants of the earth were
to die of some easy death to-morrow!

For my own part, ‘who am no great clerk,’ I cannot by any efforts, of
which I am capable, separate these two propositions, that it is
desirable either that population should have stood still at first, or
that it should go on increasing till the earth is absolutely full; or in
other words, I see no rational alternative between the principle of
extermination (as far as it is in our power) and the principle of the
utmost possible degree of populousness. It is, I conceive, an
incontrovertible axiom, that the proportion between the population and
food being given (and Mr. Malthus tells us that it holds nearly the same
in all the stages of society) the actual increase of population is to be
considered as so much clear gain, as so much got into the purse, as so
much addition to the sum of human happiness. Mr. Malthus says in another
place (second edition, p. 357), ‘The only point in which I differ from
M. Condorcet in this description’ [of the evils arising from increased
population,] ‘is with regard to the period, when it may be applied to
the human race. M. Condorcet thinks that it cannot possibly be
applicable, but at an era extremely distant. If the proportion between
the natural increase of population and food, which was stated in the
beginning of this essay, and which has received considerable
confirmation _from the poverty that has been found to prevail in every
stage and department of human society_, be in any degree near the truth,
it will appear on the contrary, that the period, when the number of men
surpass their means of subsistence, has long since arrived, &c.’ Mr.
Malthus in different parts of his work makes a great _rout_ about the
distinction between _actual_ and _relative_ population, and lays it down
that an actual increase of population is an advantage, except when it
exceeds the means of subsistence; yet he here seems to treat the
proportion between the increase of population, and food, which he says
has always continued pretty much the same, as the only thing to be
attended to, and to represent the progressive increase of the actual
population, unless we could at the same time banish poverty entirely
from the world, as a matter of the most perfect indifference, or rather
as the most dangerous experiment, that could be tried. Is not this being
wilfully blind to the consequences of his own reasoning? Oh! but, says
Mr. Malthus, you do not state the case fairly. If men were to continue
what they are at present; if there were the same proportionable quantity
of vice, and misery in the world, what you say would be true. Every
thing would then go on as well, or indeed better than before. But this
is impossible, because this increased cultivation, and a more equal
distribution of the produce of the earth could only take place, in
consequence of the increased civilization, virtue, good sense, and
happiness of mankind: and this would necessarily spoil all. For remove
the present quantity of vice and misery existing in the world, and you
remove the only checks, that can keep population down. ‘Though the
produce of the earth might be increasing every year, the population
would be increasing much faster; and the redundancy must be repressed by
the old restraints of vice and misery.’ That is to say, though
(according to the second edition) vice, misery, and moral restraint,
operate mutually as checks to population, and though the diminution of
vice and misery could only be the consequence of the increased strength
in the principle of moral restraint, yet this latter principle would in
reality have no effect at all, and in proportion as the other checks to
population, viz. vice and misery, were superseded, they would become
more and more necessary. If there could be a gradual, and indefinite
improvement in the cultivation of the soil, and every facility could be
afforded for the supply of an increasing population, without supposing
some change in the institutions of society, which would render men
better and wiser, than they now are, Mr. Malthus will perhaps with some
reluctance, and uncertainty hanging over his mind, allow that this would
be a considerable advantage; the population might in this case be kept
within some bounds, and not increase faster than the means of
subsistence: but as this is a change that cannot be looked for without
supposing a correspondent improvement in the morals and characters of
men, we must set off one thing against another, and give up the chance
of improvement, to prevent the shocking alternative connected with it.
With our present modicum of wit and command over our passions, we do
contrive in some measure to make both ends meet, or to cut our coat
according to our cloth, or look before we leap, and are not carried
away, neck or nothing, by this high-mettled courser, Population, over
all the fences and barriers of common sense. But if we were to make any
considerable improvements in horsemanship, or in our _knack_ at
calculation, we should instantly, belying all reasonable expectation,
throw the bridle on the horse’s neck, rush blindly forward in spite of
all obstacles, and freed from the shackles of necessity without having
acquired the discipline of reason, though the one always instantly
resumes its sway, the moment the other ceases, plunge into all the
miseries of famine, without remorse, or apprehension.

This I conceive is an express contradiction in terms. Yet I grant that
it is a logical inference from Mr. Malthus’s original statement, that
vice and misery are the only adequate checks to population. If this were
indeed the case, all the consequences that Mr. Malthus describes, the
utmost degree of vice and misery, would necessarily be the lot of man in
all stages and departments of society, whether in his improved or
unimproved state, because in all cases and at all times his reason would
be of no use to him. However great or however small our attainments in
arts or science, or in all other virtues might be, in this respect we
should still be the same; that is, we should be exactly in the condition
of the brutes, entirely governed by an impulse, over which we should
have neither check nor control. Mr. Malthus, however, finding that this
account is inconsistent with the state of human life, and with those
checks which certainly do keep population back from going its natural
lengths, now adds moral restraint as a convenient supplement to his
theory, and as our chief security against vice and misery, though he
still insists that where its effect must be greatest, it would have no
effect at all. He gives up his principle, but retains his conclusion, to
which he has no right. He is like a bad poet who to get rid of a false
concord alters the ending of his first line, and forgets that he has
spoiled his rhyme in the second. On the whole, then, it appears, that at
no one period during the progress of cultivation from the present moment
to the time when it should have reached its utmost limits, would the
distress for want of food be greater than it is at present. In the mean
time, the number of mankind, and consequently their happiness would go
on increasing with the means of their happiness, or subsistence, till
the whole earth had been cultivated like a garden, and was incapable of
any further increase, and we should then be exactly where we are now
with respect to the checks on population. That is, the earth would
maintain ten times its present number of inhabitants in the same comfort
as at present, without our having involved ourselves in any of those
straits and difficulties, those pits and snares, against which we are so
kindly warned by Mr. Malthus. The population, and the means of
subsistence would indeed be stationary, but so they may be said to be at
present. The only difference is that they are at present unnecessarily
stationary from artificial causes, from moral and political
circumstances; in that case the line would be drawn by nature herself,
in other words, by the limited extent of the earth, and by its limited
fertility. _This being the case and were a beautiful system of equality
in other respects practicable_, (for observe, reader, I leave the
question as _to those other respects_ exactly where I found it) _I
cannot think that our ardour in pursuit of such a scheme can in any wise
be damped by the contemplation of the difficulties attendant upon it
from the principle of population._ All that could be gained, would be
pure gain without any loss whatever. In short, the principle of
population does not, as I conceive, affect the future improvement of
society in any way whatever, whether on a larger or a smaller scale,
theoretically or practically, generally, or particularly. I have thus,
Sir, endeavoured to answer Mr. Malthus’s argument against the improved
cultivation of the earth, and an increase of population, from the
increased difficulties (as he falsely represents them), that would all
the way press upon society during its progress. He has rendered his
paradox in some measure palatable to the reader, by introducing it as
one branch of his answer to Condorcet, and others of the same school,
herein imitating the policy of the house of commons, who sometimes
prevail on the house of lords to pass a bill which they do not much
like, by tacking a money-bill to it. However as the two subjects are
entirely distinct, I beg that they may not be confounded. The question
is simply, whether we are to look upon the progress of agriculture,
civilization, and the populousness which would follow, (no matter to
what extent, nor by whom it is brought about, whether it is projected by
a junto of philosophers, or decided upon in a committee of the house of
commons, enlightened by the genius of Mr. Malthus and guided by Mr.
Whitbread’s wisdom), whether I say, as a general principle we are to
look upon an addition to the inhabitants of a state, if there is enough
to support them, as a good or an evil. Mr. Malthus has chosen to answer
this question under the head, _modern philosophy_, so that he is secure
of the protection of the court. I have been willing not to deprive him
of this advantage, and have answered it under the same head. If however
any of my readers should dislike the argument in this connection, they
may easily take it out of the mould in which it is cast, without doing
it the least hurt. To shew how lightly all schemes of improvement sit on
Mr. Malthus’s mind, how easily he thinks they may be puffed aside with
the least breath of sophistry, it will be sufficient to quote the
following passage. After allowing in general that even the best
cultivated countries in Europe might be made to produce double what they
do at present, he says, ‘We should not be too ready to make inferences
against the internal economy of a country from the appearance of
uncultivated heaths without other evidence.’ [It is wonderful with what
slowness and circumspection Mr. Malthus always proceeds in his
disapprobation of any thing, that comes in the prepossessing garb of an
evil. He is only confident and severe in his decisions against those
hidden mischiefs, which lie concealed under a delusive appearance of
good. There is something in the prospect of dearth and barrenness which
is perfectly congenial to the disposition of Mr. Malthus. He is
unwilling to give up a subject which promises so much scope for his
singular talents of bringing good out of evil.] ‘But the fact is, that
as no country has ever reached, or probably will ever reach its highest
possible acme of produce, it _appears always_, as if the want of
industry, or the ill-direction of that industry was the actual limit to
a further increase of produce and population, and not the absolute
refusal of nature to yield any more; but a man who is locked up in a
room, may be fairly said to be confined by the walls of it, _though he
may never touch_ them; and with regard to the principle of population,
it is never the question whether a country will produce _any more_, but
whether it may be made to produce a sufficiency to keep pace with an
unchecked increase of people.’ This I confess is a singular passage for
a practical philosopher to write. Mr. Malthus here lays it down that the
question is not whether we should do all the good we can, but whether we
should do what we cannot. As to his illustration of a man locked up in a
room, though it is smart and clever, it is not much to the purpose. The
case is really that of a man who has the range of a suite of rooms and
who in a fit of the spleen, or from indolence, or stupidity, or from any
other cause you please, confines himself to one of them, or of a man who
having hired a large commodious apartment, says, I never make use of the
whole of this apartment, I never go within a foot of the walls, I might
as well have it partitioned off, it would be snugger and warmer, and so
still finding that he does not run against his partition any more than
against the wall, should continue, being determined to have no
unnecessary spare-room, to hemm himself in closer and closer till at
last he would be able to stir neither hand nor foot. That any one,
allowing as Mr. Malthus does, that with proper management and industry
this country might be made to maintain _double_ its present number of
inhabitants, or twenty millions instead of ten, should at the same time
affect to represent this as a mere trifling addition, that practically
speaking cannot be taken into the account, can I think only be explained
by supposing in that person either an extreme callousness of feeling, or
which amounts to pretty much the same thing, a habit of making his
opinions entirely subservient to his convenience, or to any narrow
purpose he may have in view at the moment.—Perhaps if the truth were
known, I am as little sanguine in my expectations of any great
improvement to be made in the condition of human life either by the
visions of philosophy, or by downright, practical, parliamentary
projects, as Mr. Malthus himself can be. But the matter appears to me
thus. It requires some exertion and some freedom of will to keep even
where we are. If we tie up our hands, shut our eyes to the partial
advantages we possess, and cease to exert ourselves in that direction in
which we can do it with the most effect, we shall very soon ‘go deep in
the negative series.’ Take away the hope and the tendency to
improvement, and there is nothing left to counteract the opposite
never-failing tendency of human things ‘from bad to worse.’ There is
therefore a serious practical reason against losing sight of the object,
even when we cannot attain it. However, I am ‘free to confess’ (to
borrow the language of my betters) that there is as much selfishness as
public spirit in my resistance to Mr. Malthus’s contradictions. It is a
remote question whether the world will ever be much wiser than it is:
but what I am certainly interested in, is not to submit to have all my
ideas confounded by barren sophistry, nor to give up the little
understanding which I may actually possess. Nor for my own part, were I
confined to my room, should I think myself obliged to any one for
blocking up my view of a pleasant prospect, because I could not move
from the place, where I was.

The fundamental principle of Mr. Malthus’s essay is that population has
a constant tendency to become excessive, because it has a tendency to
increase not only in a progressive, but in a geometrical ratio, whereas
the means of subsistence are either positively limited, or at most can
only be made to increase in an arithmetical ratio. But to be sure of
avoiding any thing like misrepresentation in this part of the argument,
where the least error or omission might be fatal to our author’s whole
scheme, let us take his own words.

‘It may be safely affirmed that population when unchecked goes on
doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical
ratio.

‘That we may be the better able to compare the increase of population
and food, let us make a supposition, which without pretending to
accuracy, is clearly more favourable to the power of production in the
earth, than any experience that we have had of its qualities will
warrant.

‘Let us suppose that the yearly additions which might be made to the
former average produce, instead of decreasing, which they certainly
would do, were to remain the same; and that the produce of this island
might be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what
it at present produces; the most enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose
a greater increase than this. In a few centuries it would make every
acre of land in the island like a garden.

‘If this supposition be applied to the whole earth, and if it be allowed
that the subsistence for man which the earth affords, might be increased
every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what it at present
produces; this will be supposing a rate of increase much greater than we
can imagine that any possible exertions of mankind could make it.

‘It may be fairly pronounced therefore that considering the present
average state of the earth, the means of subsistence, under
circumstances the most favourable to human industry, could not possibly
be made to increase faster than in an arithmetical ratio.

‘The necessary effects of these two different rates of increase, when
brought together, will be very striking. Let us call the population of
this island eleven millions; and suppose the present produce equal to
the easy support of such a number. In the first twenty-five years the
population would be twenty-two millions, and the food being also
doubled, the means of subsistence would be equal to this increase. In
the next twenty-five years, the population would be forty-four millions,
and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of thirty-three
millions. In the next period, the population would be eighty-eight
millions, and the means of subsistence just equal to the support of half
that number. And at the conclusion of the first century, the population
would be a hundred and seventy-six millions, and the means of
subsistence only equal to the support of fifty-five millions; leaving a
population of a hundred and twenty-one millions totally unprovided for.

‘Taking the whole earth instead of this island, emigration would of
course be excluded: and supposing the present population equal to a
thousand millions, the human species would increase as the numbers 1, 2,
4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and subsistence as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
9. In two centuries the population would be to the means of subsistence
as 256 to 9; in three centuries as 4096 to 13, and in two thousand
years, the difference would be almost incalculable.

‘In this supposition no limits whatever are placed to the produce of the
earth. It may increase for ever, and be greater than any assignable
quantity; yet still _the power of population being in every period_ so
much superior, the increase of the human species can only be kept down
to the level of the means of subsistence by the _constant operation of
the strong law of necessity_ acting as a check upon the greater power;’
or as he elsewhere expresses it ‘_by misery or the fear of misery_.’

Oh! my good Sir, spare your calculations. We do not wish to be informed
what would be the exact proportion of the _imaginary_ means of
subsistence to the _imaginary_ population at a period, and at a rate of
increase, at which, if it had been possible for it to have gone on only
half so long as you suppose, the whole race would have been long ago
_actually_ extinct. Mr. Malthus here treats us as the fantastical
landlord treated _Sancho Panza_, by giving him a magnificent list of a
great variety of delicacies, which it appeared on examination were not
to be had, but made no mention of an excellent dish of cow-heel, which
was the only thing he had in the house, and which exactly suited the
stomach of the squire. I am, like Sancho, disposed to be satisfied with
what I can get; and therefore I must fairly tell Mr. Malthus that if he
will only spare me that first ratio of his, of a doubled population with
respect to this island, or to the whole earth (though there, begging his
pardon, if all other things went right, his arithmetical and geometrical
distinction would not as I have shewn come into play for some time), I
say if he will allow, as far as the principle of population is
concerned, that it is possible to double the number of inhabitants of
this country or of the world without any injury, I shall be perfectly
content with this concession: this first ratio shall be to me the golden
number of Pythagoras, and he may do as he pleases with all the remaining
links of an impossible series, which he has started only, I imagine, as
we throw out a tub to a whale by way of diversion. As to any serious
argument, it is perfectly immaterial, perfectly irrelevant to the
question, _whether we should double our population_, that we cannot
forsooth go on doubling it for ever; unless indeed it could be shewn
that by thus doubling it once, when we can do it without any
inconvenience, we should be irresistibly impelled to go on doubling it
afterwards when it would have become exceedingly inconvenient, and in
fact till the consequence would be general famine and the most extensive
misery. Without this addition to his argument, either expressed or
implied, Mr. Malthus’s double series is of no use or avail whatever: it
looks very pretty upon paper, and reads very neat, but is of no
practical importance. The evils which it describes so accurately as
arising from the increased disproportion between the ratios at every
step are mere imaginary things, existing no where but in the morbid
enthusiasm of Mr. Malthus’s mind, unless we suppose that every increase
of the existing population, either with or without a proportionable
increase in the means of subsistence, is a vicious habit, a species of
phrensy, where one step only leads to another, till we are plunged into
irretrievable ruin. But I would ask, supposing the inhabitants of a
country to have increased gradually in consequence of an increase in the
means of subsistence, from two millions to four, how that population of
four millions would have a greater tendency to excess, than the present
population of two millions? Would not the same sense of inconvenience,
the same dread of poverty, the same regard to the comforts of life,
operate in the same way and just as much upon every individual of the
four millions, as upon every individual of the two millions? What then
becomes of the increased tendency to excessive population in consequence
of its actual increase? Yet without this, an increased population is not
in itself an evil, or a good necessarily leading to evil, but a pure and
unmixed good unconnected with any greater evil.

Even our author’s own account will give us a new country and a new
earth; it will double all the happiness and all the enjoyment that there
is at present in the world. If he had been a man of sanguine or poetical
feelings, methinks this single consideration would have been enough to
have made his heart leap up with a lively joy—to see ‘fast by hanging in
a golden chain this pendant world,’ &c. but he is a man whom you may
call rather of a saturnine than of a sanguine disposition. He therefore
had no leisure to behold this cheering object, but passes on ‘to
nature’s farthest verge,’ till he enters once more into ‘the confines of
Chaos, and the bosom of dim night.’ Mr. Malthus somewhere speaks
familiarly of the association of ideas, as if he were acquainted with
that doctrine. He has here at any rate very skilfully availed himself of
that kind of reasoning, which owes all its weight to that mechanical
principle. In all the stages of an unchecked population, except the
first, it having appeared that there is a great disproportion between
this principle and the progress of agriculture, our author concludes
that his readers will forget that that, which is so often represented as
an evil, can ever be a good, and therefore peremptorily adds, in
defiance of his own statement, that in _every period_ of the increase,
the power of population is much superior to the other. Though it appears
to me then that Mr. Malthus by his ratios has gained nothing in point of
argument over his readers, he has gained much upon their imagination. By
representing population so often as an evil, and by magnifying its
increase in certain cases as so enormous an evil, he raises a general
prejudice against it. Whenever you talk of any improvement or any
increase of population consequent upon it, he immediately plays off his
infinite series against you. He makes the transition from a practicable
to an impracticable increase of population, from that degree of it,
which is desirable to that which is excessive, by the assistance of his
mathematical scale, as easily as you pass from the low notes of a
harpsichord to the high ones. There seems no division between them. It
is true that so long as we confine ourselves to the real question before
us and distinguish between what is practicable, and what can never
possibly happen, the evil consequences of the system we contend for are
merely chimerical. But as Hercules in order to strangle the earth-born
Antæus was obliged to lift him from the ground, Mr. Malthus, in order to
complete his triumph over common sense, is obliged to call to his aid
certain airy speculations and fanciful theories of dangers, that, by his
own confession, can never possibly exist. Whenever you are for setting
out on the road of reform, Mr. Malthus stops you on the threshold, and
says, Do you consider where you are going? Don’t you know where this
road will lead you? and then, with a ‘come on, sir, here’s the place:
look how fearful and dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eye so low’; he hurries
you forward to his imaginary precipice, and shews you the danger you
have so narrowly escaped. However, it is not Mr. Malthus’s rhetoric, but
our own wilful blindness, that must persuade us that we have escaped
being dashed to pieces down any precipices, when he himself tells us
that the road is nothing more than a long winding declivity.

I conceive there were two very capital errors in Mr. Malthus’s first
essay, which though he has abandoned or in a great measure softened them
down in his subsequent edition, still adhere to all his reasonings, and
give them a wrong bias. The first of these was, that vice and misery are
the only checks to population: secondly, that if population were for any
time freed from these restraints, it would in that case go on increasing
with a force and rapidity, which nothing would be able to withstand, and
which would bear down the feeble mounds that had before opposed its
progress till the whole would end in one wide scene of universal uproar
and confusion. As if, in the first place, mere misery of itself, without
a sense of greater misery, and a desire to avoid it, would do any thing
to prevent population; and in the second place, as if though the tax of
vice and misery were taken off for a time, yet the recurrence of the
same evils afterwards would not operate in the same way to repress
population, or as if population would in the mean time have acquired any
preternatural strength, with which its counteracting causes would be
unable to contend, or as if the mere mechanical checks to population
from the actual evils attendant upon it were not always necessarily a
match for, and proportioned to, the strength of the principle itself,
and its immediate tendency to excess. It is astonishing to see how those
men, who pique themselves the most on the solidity of their
understandings, and on a kind of dull matter-of-fact plodding accuracy,
are perpetually led away by their imaginations: the more so because they
are the dupes of their own vanity, and never suspect that they are
liable to any such deception. In the present instance our author has
been hurried into an unfounded assumption by having his imagination
heated with a _personification_. He has given to the principle of
population a personal existence, conceiving of it as a sort of infant
Hercules, as one of that terrific giant brood, which you can only master
by strangling it in its cradle; forgetting that the antagonist principle
which he has made its direct counterpoise, still grows with its growth
and strengthens with its strength, being in fact its own offspring: and
that the sharper evils which excessive population brings along with it,
more severe in proportion to its excess, naturally tend to repress and
keep population down to the same level, other circumstances being
supposed the same. Nothing can be clearer to my understanding than this;
yet it is upon the misrepresentation or misconception of this principle
that most of Mr. Malthus’s sophisms and ambiguities hinge.

It is necessary to make a distinction between the tendency in population
to increase, and its power to increase; otherwise we may fall into great
errors. The power of population to increase is an abstract thing
independent of circumstances, and which is therefore always the same.
Its effects may therefore be very well described by a mathematical
series. When we speak of the power of population to increase in a
certain continued ratio, we do not mean to say that it will or will not
do so, but merely that it is possible that it should do so from the
nature of the principle itself. The power of population to increase is
in fact the same both before and after it has become excessive. But I
conceive this is not the case with its _tendency_ to increase, unless we
mean its _unchecked tendency_, which is saying nothing; for if we speak
of its real tendency to increase, this certainly is not always the same,
but depends exceedingly on circumstances, that is, is greater or less in
proportion as the population is or is not excessive. The ratio in which
Mr. Malthus has represented population as having a natural tendency to
increase, can therefore only relate to its unchecked progress, or to its
increase while the means of subsistence can be made to keep pace with
it; inasmuch as it has an actual tendency to increase in this ratio,
only while it is free from checks; but the moment these checks begin to
operate it is necessarily limited by them, or kept down within a certain
point to the level of the means of subsistence. In short, as a practical
guide, Mr. Malthus’s table is extremely fallacious; for the population
has a tendency to go on as 1, 2, 4, 8, &c. only while the subsistence
answers to it, or is as 1, 2, 4, 8, &c. and when the means of
subsistence can only be made to increase as 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. then the
population will, in the natural course of things, come down to it and
increase only as 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. or supposing it to have generally a
certain tendency to excess, it will then increase as 1¼, 2½, 3¾, 5, &c.
The actual, positive, practical tendency in population _to increase_ is
not therefore always the same, and for that very reason its tendency _to
excess_ is always the same, neither greater nor less, in consequence of
the absolute increase in population. Mr. Malthus himself admits fully
the distinction between the actual increase of population and its
excessive increase, between the tendency of population to increase with
the means of subsistence and its tendency to increase beyond those
means. In fact, almost one half of his voluminous work is taken up by
extensive historical researches to prove that the population is in all
ages and countries, in every form of society, and stage of civilization
kept down _nearly_ to the means of subsistence: that population has not
therefore at one time more than another, when it is strong than when it
is weak, in an improved than in a neglected state of cultivation, a
tendency to rush on beyond its necessary limits: yet if there is any one
inference to be drawn from the general spirit and tenor of Mr. Malthus’s
reasonings, it is this, that we ought not to encourage population, nor
be anxious about the increase of the means of subsistence, but ought
rather to keep them back as much as possible, because every addition
made to population by whatever means or in whatever circumstances, has a
direct and unavoidable tendency to make it go on increasing with an
accelerated force; or that the positive benefit of an enlarged
population is always counterbalanced by the increased danger of the
excess to which it naturally leads. Mr. Malthus by setting a certain
degree of plenty against a certain degree of excessive population, has
made it appear as if the two things were inseparably connected, as if
supposing a certain progress made in the one ratio you may then by
passing over to the opposite line see immediately what progress had been
made at the same time in the other, that is, what quantity of actual and
excessive population, proportioned to the increase in the means of
subsistence and its immediate consequence, would require to be cut off
by forcible and unnatural means, by vice and misery. It therefore looks
very much as if plenty were the immediate fore-runner of famine, as if
by sowing the seeds of virtue and happiness you were ensuring a larger
harvest of vice and misery, the evil engrafted on any good being always
greater than the real benefit itself, and as if by advancing population
and increasing the means of its support, you were only opening a new
Iliad of woes, and giving larger scope to the baneful operation of this
principle. So that it is not the increase of good that we are to think
of, but the introduction of evil that we are to guard against. The
proportion by which we are to be guided is clear and demonstrable; it is
as 256 to 9, and so regularly through all the gradations upwards and
downwards. At this rate it is pretty clear that our only object must be
to confine human happiness within as narrow limits, and to keep the
population down as low as possible, at least to suffer no addition to
it. We are something in the condition of a man suspended on a balance
with sharp-pointed spikes placed close to his body, and who must not
stir for his life. Now the source of this fallacy (on which the whole
turns, for without it it is null and abortive) lies here, namely in
supposing that of the two ratios here connected together, the one is the
cause of, or has any thing to do with the other. For the ratio in the
upper line being at number 256 does not depend on the other ratio being
at number 9, but simply on its being so many removes from the root or
first number. It only expresses a possible or imaginary series, or the
independent, direct, physical power of increase, or abstract tendency to
increase in population at each step, and what that increase would amount
to in a given number of steps, being left entirely to itself. If it
expresses any thing else, or the actual increase of population combined
with and in reference to the means of subsistence, it is utterly false
and delusive, and a contradiction in terms. For population as regulated
by, and arising out of the means of subsistence cannot have got the
start of it in so prodigious a manner, and as unconnected with the
increase of the latter cannot depend upon it. In the one case,
population instead of being to the means of subsistence as 256 to 9,
will only be a little a-head of it, or as 9½ to 9: in the other case it
will be as 256, whether the food has in a given time increased from 1 to
9, or only from 1 to 6, or whether it has stood still at 1. The number
of inhabitants from the beginning of the world, proceeding by the
geometrical ratio, would have been going on just the same whether they
had ever had any thing to eat or not (they are a kind of enchanted
people who live without food) whether the quantity of food had been more
or less, whether there has been any improvements in agriculture or not.
Though the improvements in agriculture had stood still at 1 in the
arithmetical scale this would not lessen or alter the height to which
the geometrical scale would have mounted in the interval. ‘It keeps on
its way unslacked of motion.’ By advancing in the arithmetical scale or
increasing the means of subsistence, you do not advance the geometrical
scale, much less by increasing the disproportion between the two, do you
increase the _waste_ population of the world, which must be greater in
proportion as less of it had been provided for. On the other hand, you
necessarily lessen this disproportion. For instead of supposing that if
we had remained at 1 in the lower scale, we should then have been at 1
in the upper, or that if we had advanced no further than 3, the
disproportion would then only have been 4 to 3, and so on, whereas by
going on it is now as 256 to 9, the fact is that the disproportion
instead of being as 256 to 9, would have been 256 to 1, or 2, or 3: and
that the further we go in the one scale, though we cannot keep up with,
or overtake the other, yet we lose so much the less ground and are
nearer it than we should otherwise be. To argue otherwise is to be like
the children who when they cannot keep up with others, stand still and
begin to cry, thinking this the likeliest way to make them slacken their
pace. I shall therefore beg leave to look upon every increase in the
means of subsistence or actual population, as so much gained upon the
_infinite series_: by keeping back the _actual_ means of subsistence, I
do not lessen the _possible_ or abstract tendency of population to
increase, and I only add to its actual tendency to increase in
proportion as I add to its actual means of support. We have therefore a
clear addition to its actual quantity without any addition to its
tendency to excess, or without strengthening the evil principle, the
germ of incalculable mischief, which population contains within it. Mr.
Malthus has taken no pains to guard his readers against the conclusion,
that by increasing the actual population, you increase its actual
tendency to increase, as if either the disposition to propagate the
species were stronger in proportion to the number of those who possess
it, or as if in proportion as the power is spread over a larger surface,
it were not counteracted by being accompanied in each individual with a
proportionable share of common sense and reason, so that he will not be
a bit more likely to run upon famine because there will be twice as many
to keep him company as there used to be. The tendency to excessive
population in any community does not depend upon the number of
individuals in it, who have the power of abusing their liberty, or on
the quantity of mischief they _might_ do, but upon the moral character
of the individuals composing it, upon the difference between the
strength of moral restraint and the strength of physical appetite, or on
the actual inconvenience to which they _will_ submit for the sake of
gratifying their passions. In short the tendency to excess does not
depend on the point in the scale where the _limit_ is drawn, but upon
the tendency to overleap that limit; now this tendency or _impetus_ is
not increased by the distance which it has gone, like a stone rolling
down a hill, or like a torrent of water accumulating, but is like a cart
or waggon left on a declivity with a drag-chain fastened to one of the
wheels, which is carried forward till the chain is pulled tight and then
it stops of itself. This is a very clumsy comparison, but it has some
resemblance to the thing. We are not to calculate the actual tendency to
excess in population by the excess of the power itself over the means of
subsistence, which is greater as we advance, but by the excess of the
power restrained by other motives and principles over the means of
subsistence. In algebraic language the tendency to excess is not equal
to the power of population simply, but to the power, _minus_ the
difficulty of providing for its support, or the influence which that
difficulty has on the conduct of rational beings.

If we suppose a barren island with half a dozen savages upon it, living
upon roots, vermin, and crawfish, without any of the arts or any of the
conveniences of life, ignorant of agriculture, neither knowing nor
caring how to improve their condition, passing their time in stupid
indolence, with as little pretensions to reason or refinement as can
well be desired, in short a very unphilosophical, improgressive,
viscious, miserable set of barbarians as need be; now what difference
would it make in the condition of these poor uninformed wretches, or how
would it add to their vices, their ignorance, or ‘squalid poverty,’ if
we suppose another island at a few leagues distance, of about the same
circumference, maintaining nearly the same number of inhabitants living
in the same manner? Yet as it is probable that these poor lousy
wretches[7] leading a life of sloth and hunger, may upon the whole have
more enjoyment than misery (for even the life of a savage seems better
than no life at all, nay some have gone so far as to say that it was
better than any other life) it would be desirable that there should be
such another island so inhabited. But it is exactly the same thing
whether we suppose twice the number of people inhabiting twice the
extent of ground, or maintained on the same ground, being twice as much
cultivated; population would not press the more on the means of
subsistence, nor would the misery be greater, nor the checks required to
prevent it greater. That is to say, an advance made in the state of
cultivation and in the arts of life so as to maintain double the
population must always be the means of doubling the numbers and
enjoyment of any people. The only possible difference would be that as
this increased population would be the consequence of greater industry
and knowledge, it would, one should think, denote of itself, that the
people would be less liable to unforeseen accidents, and less likely to
involve themselves in wilful distress than before. This is the first
step in the progress of civilization and in the history of all nations.
From this description of a barren island supporting a few wandering
half-starved ignorant savages, such as England might have been once, let
us turn our eyes to what England is now;—populous, enlightened, free,
rich, powerful and happy; excelling equally in arts, and arms, the
delight and terror of the rest of the world; the abode of science, the
nurse of virtue, the darling seat of the muses; boasting her long line
of heroes, and sages; her Bacon, her Newton, her Shakespear, her Milton,
and her Locke;[8] blest with the most perfect government administered in
the most perfect manner; having a king, lords, and commons, each
balancing the other, and each in their several station and degree being
security for every kind of liberty and every kind of property,
harmoniously conspiring together for the good of the whole, taking care
first of their own rights and interests as the most important, and then
of those of others: subject to mild and equal laws, which afford the
same immediate protection to every one in the enjoyment of his liberty
and his property, whether that property is five thousand a year or no
more than a shilling a day: maintaining in different degrees of comfort,
and affluence, from the common necessaries to the highest luxuries of
life, ten millions of souls, all supported by their own labour and
industry or that of others; all plying close with cheerful and patient
activity to some ingenious and useful handicraft, or some more severe
but necessary labour, or else reclining in ease and elegance, and
basking in the sunshine of life; her meanest beggar owing the rags which
cover his nakedness, and the crust of bread which keeps his body and
soul together to some of the most useful inventions which support, and
to that humanity which is only to be found in civilized society. Shall
we forget her schools, her colleges, her hospitals, her churches, her
crowded cities, her streets lined with shops, enriched with the produce
and manufactures of her own soil, or glittering with the spoils of a
hundred nations, her thronged assemblies, her theatres, her balls, her
operas, her ‘palaces, her ladies and her pomp’; her villas, her parks,
her cottages, her hamlets, her rich cultivated lands, teeming with
plenty, her green valleys, her ‘upland swells, echoing to the bleat of
flocks,’ her brave contented peasantry, their simple manners and honest
integrity; and shall we wish to degrade this queen of nations, this
mistress of the world once more into a horde of fierce barbarians,
treading back our steps, and resigning this splendid profusion of all
that can adorn and gladden human life, this gay variety, this happy
union of all that is useful and all that is ornamental, the refinements
of taste and decorations of fashion, the beautiful distinctions of
artificial society, and the solid advantages derived from our
constitution in church and state, for the groveling dispositions, the
brutal ignorance, the disgusting poverty, the dried skins and miserable
huts of the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, or New Holland? Yet this it
seems from the doctrine of Mr. Malthus is our only safe policy, since
the lower we are in the scale of existence, the fewer and more miserable
we are, the farther removed we must be from the tremendous evils of
excessive population, which are the necessary consequences of the
progress of refinement and civilization. But as the fact _so far_ does
not, as I suppose Mr. Malthus will himself allow, square with his
theory, (for at no time during the progress of cultivation does the
population appear to have been pressing with increased force on the
means of subsistence, so that though the produce of the earth was
increasing every year, the inhabitants were increasing much faster,
every addition to the actual produce only occasioning some new addition
to the swoln and bloated state of population, and aggravating the
already dreadful symptoms of the disease) as I say the progress of
cultivation and improvement of different kinds has not produced any of
those fatal consequences we might be led to expect from it, so neither
do I apprehend any of these fatal consequences in future from carrying
it as much farther as it can go. I should just reverse the reasoning of
Mr. Malthus, who taking the evil as at its greatest height when the
world is supposed to be completely full and completely enlightened,
thence argues downwards against all attempts at improvement as dangerous
innovations; so I, finding that an improved cultivation and enlarged
population are good things through the inferior gradations, am apt to
think they would continue so, proceeding upwards to the topmost round of
the ladder, as far as population is concerned, for I once more give full
and fair warning that I engage in this question no farther, any loose,
general or accidental expressions to the contrary notwithstanding. To
make good Mr. Malthus’s argument against population, we must suppose, as
I have said before, that the tendency in population to increase goes on
increasing with the thing itself: this would be true, if as our author
supposes in his first edition, the passion always required the same
vent, in all circumstances, that is if we suppose man to be a mere
headstrong animal in this respect, his reason having no influence
whatever over his conduct, or which amounts to the same thing, that
_actual_ vice and misery (not foreseen, but felt) are the only checks to
population. At this rate, it is evident that the degree of misery
attending the gratification of the passion would have no effect to
restrain it, all degrees being alike indifferent or that the quantity of
actual misery incurred would be in proportion to the increased power of
producing it. I shall examine these positions more at large in another
letter; I here wish to shew in a few words that as applied to the
subject of increasing population, they lead to a direct absurdity. If we
suppose this passion to be perfectly blind and insensible, to be deaf to
all remonstrance, and regardless of all consequences, then no matter in
what depths of misery it involves us, it will have its way, and go its
own lengths. Take away the preventive check of _moral restraint_ (which
only comes in as a snivelling interpolation in some places of the second
edition) and the population would no doubt go on doubling as fast as it
could, not as fast as the means of subsistence would let it; that is,
the excess of population would be great in proportion to the actual
previous increase, or the excessive multiplication of the species would
be the necessary consequence of, and commensurate with the power of
excessive multiplication, which would depend on the number of persons
having that power. Now this is contrary to all we know of facts and
human nature, since in this case there could be no restraint to
population at any time, but the extreme of vice or the extreme of
misery. The power of population to increase is (we will grant)
unlimited, but the tendency to increase is necessarily limited by its
tendency to excess and limited by it in proportion to the excess. That
is to say, it does not follow that though when there ought to be only
two millions of inhabitants, there may be four, owing to the weakness of
the above-mentioned principle of _moral restraint_, that therefore that
four (by the tendency of population to increase in a geometrical ratio
or to double itself,) will in like manner become eight, and so on,
namely because the checks to it will increase in proportion; or though
the prospect of the inconveniences arising from doubling the population
in the first instance, the quantity of food remaining the same, might
not be sufficient to deter people, or overcome this propensity, yet the
prospect of famine consequent upon the second doubling undoubtedly
would, because their regard to consequences is supposed to remain the
same, and the evils they have to dread in the one case are greater, and
unless we suppose them to have become more stupid and brutal, must
operate upon them more forcibly than in the other. The strength of the
passion itself may be considered as always the same, or a given
quantity: but the motives to resist it arising from the consequences of
its indulgence are not always the same, but may be either none at all,
or very slight, or considerable, or extreme, as the obstacles to its
indulgence may be either none at all, of a trifling inconvenience, or
poverty, or absolute famine. Now the degree of excess in population, or
the inconveniences to which we expose ourselves by inconsiderate
gratification will depend entirely on the difference, be it more or
less, between the strength of the passion in each individual, and the
strength of moral restraint. If the latter principle is weak, it will
require to be stimulated by the immediate apprehension of some very
great inconvenience, before it will become a match for the importunity
of physical desire. If it is strong, a general conviction of the
propriety or prudence of self-denial will be sufficient to incline the
balance. But in no case unless we suppose man to be degraded to the
condition of the brutes, will this principle be so low and weak as to
have no effect at all, so that no apprehension of the last degree of
wretchedness, as the consequence, would take off or abate the edge of
appetite. There is therefore always a point at which the excess ceases,
and we have seen what this point at all times is. Thus if the operation
of rational motives is so much upon a level with the physical impulse,
as to keep population exactly or nearly down to the means of
subsistence, it will do so equally whether that population is actually
greater or less, whether it is stationary or progressive, for it will
increase only with the means by which it is supported. On the other hand
if from the manners, the habits, and institutions of society, there is a
considerable tendency in population to excess, this tendency to excess
will not be greater or less in proportion to the actual number of
inhabitants, or the actual quantity of food, nor will it depend on their
being progressive or stationary, but on the morals of the people being
retrograde, progressive, or stationary; for the tendency of population
itself to excess or to _increase_ excessively (a dubious kind of
expression) is not a perpetual, indefinite, invariable tendency to
increase from 2 to 4, from 4 to 8, &c. (as I have just shewn) but a
tendency to increase _beyond_ the means of subsistence to a certain
point or degree. This tendency to excess will consequently be the same
wherever we fix the point of subsistence, because it is only a given
tendency to outstrip that limit whether nearer or farther off, whether
advancing or retreating.[9] It is true there is a tendency in population
in this case to increase _faster_ than the means of subsistence, but not
to increase _faster and faster_, or to get more and more a-head of it.
It is in fact only a disproportionate superiority in certain motives
over others, which subjects the community or certain classes of it to a
great degree of want and hardship: and as far as their imprudence and
folly will carry them, they will go, but they will not go farther. They
will submit to be _pinched_, but not to be _starved_, unless this
consequence may sometimes be supposed to follow from the partial and
unnatural debasement of certain classes of the community, by driving
them to despair and rendering them callous to suffering. But the general
tendency in population to become excessive can only be increased by the
increased relaxation of moral restraint, or by gradually weakening the
motives of prudence, reason, &c. I cannot make this matter plainer.

Mr. Malthus has not I conceive given this question of increasing
population and practical improvement fair play. He has contrived to
cover over its real face and genuine features with the terrible mask of
modern philosophy. His readers having been prevailed upon to give up the
fee-simple of their understandings into his hands, that no undue
advantages might be taken of them by the _perfectibility_ school, they
find it difficult to get it back out of his hands, though they want it
to go on again (the alarm being over) in the old road of common sense,
practical improvement, and liberal discussion. He had persuaded himself
that population was such an enormous evil in connection with a scheme of
unlimited improvement, that he can hardly reconcile himself to it, or
tell whether to think it a good or an evil in any shape, or according to
any scheme. By indulging his prejudices, he has so confounded his
perceptions, that he cannot judge rightly, even when he wishes to do it.
He found it most convenient, when he had to confute Mr. Godwin, to
describe reason as a principle of no practical value whatever, as a mere
negation. As therefore by the removal of vice and misery the office of
checking population would devolve upon this principle, which could do
nothing, population would in fact have no check left to it, and then
certainly the most terrible consequences would ensue. The only question
would be, how soon we should begin cutting one another’s throats, or how
many (whether a greater or a smaller number) had better be employed on
this kind of work. We perceive very plainly that this must be the
inevitable consequence of increased population, if it can only be kept
down by the positive checks of vice and misery. We apply the theory very
clearly to a future stage of the progress; but though, if the theory
were true, exactly the same scenes ought to be acting before our eyes at
present on a smaller scale, yet as we find that this is not the case, we
leave this circumstance out of the question, and conclude that there
must be some secret difference, some occult cause, something we cannot
very well explain, which makes the present state of things preferable to
all others: at least whatever might be the consequences of population,
if certain alterations and improvements were to take place, we are sure
that it produces no such consequences at present. With respect to the
lower, or actual stages of population and improvement, Mr. Malthus
supposes the _preventive_ checks to operate as well as the _positive_,
the fear of misery as well as the misery itself, because we know that it
does: but whenever you suppose any alteration or improvement to take
place in the world, so that you have not the fact to confront him with,
he immediately assumes the positive checks, or actual vice and misery,
as the only checks to population; herein trusting to his theory.
Whenever you are found to be advancing in the scale (which must be
indeed from some of the restraints being taken off) he directly supposes
that you are to be set free from all restraints whatever. He lets loose
his ratios upon you, and away they go like a clock running down. This
indeed would not be so well. Mr. Malthus thus artfully makes the
question of progressive improvement to be, whether we are to be governed
as now by mixed motives, or to be released from all moral restraint, for
he supposes that if population once passes a certain bourne, which he
points out to you, it will then become perfectly untractable, all its
future excesses will be prevented only by actual vice and misery. Thus
though all the good of our present situation, all wherein it differs
from a state of brutal violence or lingering want, is in fact owing to
the prevalence of a less degree of reason and foresight, yet that if
that principle were strengthened, and the consequence were an increase
of population, and a more general diffusion of the comforts of life,
this principle would then be of no avail in preventing or correcting the
excesses to which the unrestrained indulgence of our appetites would
give rise. There is a degree of absurdity, which staggers belief and
almost challenges our conviction, by making it incredible that if we
ourselves do not labour under some strong deception, the human
understanding should be capable of such extreme folly.

I shall conclude this letter by laying down two or three general maxims,
which appear to me to follow clearly from the view which has been here
taken of the subject.

First, while population goes on increasing at that tremendous rate
described by Mr. Malthus, it shews that there is nothing to restrain it;
that there is no need of any thing to restrain it: that it is wanted,
that its increase is a thing to be desired, not to be dreaded, and that
if it were possible for it to increase ten times faster, it would be so
much the better.

Secondly, when it arrives at a certain point, that is, where the
population begins to press on the means of subsistence, either from
natural or artificial causes, or when it threatens to become an evil
from excess, it naturally stops short of its own accord, the checks to
it from vice, misery and moral restraint taken all together becoming
stronger as the excess becomes greater. It therefore produces its own
antidote and produces it in quantities exactly in proportion to its own
extent. It is not therefore (as Mr. Malthus would, when he pleases, have
us believe) like a stone hanging suspended over a precipice, which if it
once loses its balance will be hurled furiously down, rolling and
bounding from steep to steep with increased velocity till it reaches the
bottom, but like a balance suspended by a check-weight, where you cannot
increase the pressure on one side without increasing the resistance
proportionably on the other. It may therefore at worst be left very
safely to itself, instead of being considered as an evil against whose
unforeseen ravages no precautions are sufficient.

Thirdly, as the same quantity of vice and misery co-operating with the
same degree of moral restraint, will always keep population at the same
(relative) point, so a less degree of actual vice and misery operating
on a greater degree of moral restraint, that is, of reason, prudence,
virtue, &c. will produce the same effect: and we may always judge of the
happiness of a people, and of the beneficial effects of population by
the prevalence of moral restraint over vice and misery, instead of
supposing that vice and misery are the best pledges of the happiness of
a state, and the only possible security against excessive population.
Consequently, the object of the philosopher must be to increase the
influence of rational motives, and lessen the actual operation of vice
and misery. It is only in proportion as he does this, that he does any
thing; for not only are vice and misery such cheap commodities that they
may be had at any corner merely with asking for (any bungler may
contract for them in the gross) but farther though they undoubtedly
operate as checks to population, I must be excused from admitting that
they _remedy_ the evils of population, unless the disease can be
considered as its own remedy, for in the degree in which they generally
exist, they are the only evils, that are ever likely to rise from it,
and as to those imaginary, unknown and unheard of evils, with which Mr.
Malthus is perpetually threatening us in order to reconcile us to those
we bear, I deny the possibility of their existence upon any known
principles of human society, either in its improved, or unimproved
state.

I do not mean to say that there is any thing in the general principles
here stated that Mr. Malthus is at present disposed to deny, or that he
has not himself expressly insisted on in some part or other of his
_various_ work; it is enough for my purpose that there are other parts
of his work in which he has contradicted them and himself, and that the
uniform tenor of his first work leans directly the opposite way; and it
is not my business so much to inquire, how much Mr. Malthus retains of
his old philosophy, as how many of their old feelings his readers retain
on the subject, on which he will be able to build as many false
conclusions as he pleases, and with more safety to himself, than if he
still persevered in the direct and unqualified assertion of exploded
error. Plain, downright consistent falsehood is not dangerous: it is
only that spurious mixture of truth and falsehood, that perpetual
oscillation between the two extremes, that wavering and uncertainty that
baffles detection by rendering it difficult to know on what ground you
are to meet your adversary, that makes the sophist so formidable as he
is. In order therefore that Mr. Malthus may not avail himself of his
inconsistencies, I shall assume a right to contradict him as often as he
contradicts himself, and to consider the peculiar doctrines of his work
as its essential and only important doctrines.




                                LETTER V
WHETHER VICE AND MISERY ARE THE NECESSARY CONSEQUENCES OF, AND THE ONLY
                 CHECKS TO, THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION


SIR—I have in my last letter taken more pains than, I believe, was
necessary to shew that the tendency of population to increase is not a
_dangerous_ one; or at any rate that the actual increase of population
does not increase the danger. The same proportionable quantity of vice
and misery would always be _sufficient_ to keep down the excess of
population beyond the means of subsistence, whether we suppose those
means to be great or small: there is another question, whether the same
quantity of vice and misery is always _necessary_ for this purpose; and
further, whether all the vice and misery in the world are not only
necessary checks to, but the immediate effects of, the principle of
population, and of nothing else.

Before I proceed, I must stop to observe that I have just been perusing
the corrections, additions, &c. to the third and _last_ edition of the
Essay; and I confess I have not much heart to go on. The pen falls from
my hand. For to what purpose is it to answer a man, who has answered
himself, who has hardly advanced an opinion that he has not retracted,
who after all your pains to overturn the extravagant assertions he had
brought forward, comes and tells you, Why I have given them up myself;
so that you hardly know whether to look upon him in the light of an
adversary or an ally. I do not like this shadow-fighting, any more than
Sancho liked his master’s fighting with enchanters. When Don Quixote had
to encounter the knight of the Prodigious Nose, his valour was inflamed,
and he rushed fiercely on his antagonist, but when after having unhorsed
him, he found that it was his old friend and neighbour the Batchelor
Carrasco, the fury of his arm was suspended, and he knew not what to say
or do.[10] Till Mr. Malthus lays aside his harlequin’s coat and sword,
and ceases to chase opinions through a rapid succession of varying
editions, it is not an easy matter to come up with him or give him fair
battle. It was thought a work of no small labour and ingenuity to make a
harmony of the Evangelists. I would recommend it to some one (who thinks
himself equal to the task) to make a harmony of Mr. Malthus’s different
performances. Till this is done, it seems impossible to collect the
sense of his writings, and consequently to answer them. It should not
therefore be the object of any one who would set himself to answer Mr.
Malthus, so much to say that such and such are the real and settled
opinions of that author, as that such opinions are floating in different
parts of his writings, that they are floating or fixed in the minds of
his readers, and that those opinions are not so correct as they might
be. If Mr. Malthus had chosen to disclaim certain opinions with their
consequences, advanced in the first edition, instead of denying that he
ever held such opinions, though he may still be detected with the
_manner_, he would have saved me the trouble of writing, and himself the
disagreeable task of reading, this _rude_ attack upon them.

Mr. Malthus lays down as the basis of all his reasonings the two
following positions, viz. ‘First, that food is necessary to the
existence of man.’

‘Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary, and will
remain nearly in its present state.’

‘These two laws,’ he adds, ‘ever since we have had any knowledge of
mankind, appear to have been fixed laws of our nature; and as we have
not hitherto seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude
that they will ever cease to be what they are now, without an immediate
act of power in that Being who first arranged the system of the
universe. The best arguments for the perfectibility of man are drawn
from a contemplation of the great progress that he has already made from
the savage state, and the difficulty of saying where he is to stop. But
towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no progress
whatever has hitherto been made. It appears to exist in as much force at
present as it did two thousand, or four thousand years ago. There are
individual exceptions now as there always have been. But, as these
exceptions do not appear to increase in number, it would surely be a
very unphilosophical mode of arguing to infer merely from the existence
of an exception, that the exception would in time become the rule, and
the rule the exception.’

As to the first position here laid down that food is necessary to the
existence of man, I shall not certainly dispute it. As to the second
kind of necessity, the gratification of the passion between the sexes, I
must beg leave to deny that this necessity is ‘like unto the first’ or
to be compared with it. Does Mr. Malthus really mean to say that a man
can no more abstain from the commerce of women, than he can live without
food? If so, he states what is not the fact. Does he mean to assert,
that the impulse to propagate the species, call it lust, or love, is a
principle as strong, as ungovernable, as importunate, as uniform in its
effects, as incapable of being subjected to the control of reason, or
circumstances, in short as much an affair of mere physical appetite, as
hunger? One would suppose so, for he makes no distinction between them,
but speaks of them both in the same terms, as equally _necessary_, as
equally fixed, and immutable laws of our nature, the operation of which
nothing short of a miracle can suspend or alter. There are two
circumstances, the mentioning of which will however be sufficient to
shew that the two kinds of necessity here spoken of are not of the same
order, or cogency, and cannot be reasoned upon in the same manner,
namely, that there are many instances of persons who have lived all
their lives without any intercourse with the other sex, whereas there is
no instance of any person living without food; in the second place, what
makes a most marked distinction between the two cases, is that the
longer we have been accustomed to do without the indulgence of the one
appetite, the more tractable we find it, whereas the craving occasioned
by the want of food, the longer it continues, becomes more and more
pressing, and at last utterly ungovernable, and if not satisfied in
time, is sure in all cases whatever, without a single exception, to
destroy the person’s life. These two considerations are of themselves
quite sufficient to overturn the analogy which is here pretended to be
set up between love and hunger (a delicate comparison)—to shew that the
first of these impulses is not an affair of mere physical necessity,
that it does not operate always in the same way, and that it is not a
thing, over which reason, or circumstances have no power. What can be a
stronger instance of the power of reason, or imagination, or habit over
this principle than the number of single women, who in every country,
till the manners become quite corrupt, preserve either through their
whole lives, or the best part of them the greatest purity and propriety
of conduct? One would think that female modesty had been a flower that
blossomed only in other climes (instead of being the peculiar growth of
our own time and country!) that Mr. Malthus in the heat of his argument,
and urged on by the ardour of his own feelings, is blind to the example
of so many of his fair countrywomen, in whom the influence of a virtuous
education, of virtuous principles, and virtuous dispositions prevails
over the warmth of the passions and force of temptation. Mr. Malthus’s
doctrine is a most severe satire against the modesty and self-denial of
the other sex, and ruins in one sweeping clause the unblemished
reputations of all those expecting or desponding virgins who had
hitherto been supposed to live in the daily, hourly practice of this
virtue. Trenched as he is behind history, philosophy, and a knowledge of
human nature, he laughs at all their prudery and affectation, and tells
them fairly that the thing is impossible; and that unless a miracle
could be worked in their favour, they might as well pretend to live
without eating or drinking, or sleeping, as without the men. He must be
of opinion with Iago, that ‘their greatest merit is not to leave it
undone but keep it unknown.’ Surely, _no maid could live near such a
man_.—Though this is what Mr. Malthus _might_ say, it is not what he
_does_ say: on the other hand, when he comes to particulars, (as he is
rather a candid man, and does not trouble himself much about
consistency) instead of representing real chastity as a kind of miracle
or monster in nature, he represents it as a very common thing and bears
honourable testimony to the virtue of most women, particularly in the
middle and higher ranks of life, in this respect. But then this virtue
is confined entirely to the women; the men neither do, nor ever will be
able to practise it; and this again salves the objection to his
argument. But this is of all others the strongest proof of the futility
of Mr. Malthus’s reasoning: for to what is this difference owing but to
the opinion of the world respecting their conduct, that is, to moral
causes? It cannot be said I presume that the greater command which the
other sex have over themselves is because their heads are stronger and
their passions weaker, (this would, I am sure, be out of all anatomical
proportion): it is owing solely to the institutions of society, imposing
this restraint upon them; though these institutions, if we are to
believe Mr. Malthus, can never in any circumstances whatever have any
effect on this passion. It is impossible to add any thing to the force
and conclusiveness of this argument by enlarging upon it: it speaks for
itself. I can only say, that I am willing to rest the whole controversy
on this single fact. If the passion is thus capable of being modified
and influenced by circumstances, opinion, and manners, and not merely
slightly modified, or for a short time, in one or two solitary
instances, as an exception to the general rule (though even this would
shew that the necessity is not absolute, invincible, fatal) but actually
kept under (as far as it has any thing to do with population, or
child-bearing) by one half the sex in every well-regulated community, I
conceive Mr. Malthus can only be justified in saying, that no possible
circumstances will ever render this passion entirely subject to the
control of reason, by saying that no circumstances will ever arrive in
which it would be the imperious and indispensable duty of every one to
habituate himself to such restraint, in which that necessity would be
generally felt and understood and enforced by the opinion of the whole
community, and in which nothing but a general system of manners formed
upon that opinion could save the community from ruin, or from the evils
of excessive population, which is point-blank contrary to Mr. Malthus’s
whole doctrine. In short, Mr. Malthus’s whole book rests on a malicious
supposition, that all mankind (I hope the reader will pardon the
grossness of the expression, the subject is a gross one) are like so
many animals _in season_. ‘Were they as prime as goats, as hot as
monkeys, as salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross as ignorance
made drunk,’ matters could then be no worse than he represents them.
Population could then only be checked by vice and misery and by nothing
else. But I hope things are not quite so bad.[11] Mr. Malthus says,
‘that the passion between the sexes is necessary, or at least that it
will remain nearly in its present state.’ To this I might perhaps
assent, if I knew what ‘its present state’ is. Does Mr. Malthus mean by
its present state its present state in England or in Scotland, or in
Italy, or in Asia, or in Africa, or America, for in all or most of these
places is its present state a very different thing from what it is in
the rest of them? One would imagine from the easy complacency with which
Mr. Malthus treats the subject, that the present state of this passion
was a something really given, a fixed quantity, a general rule like the
relation between two and two and four, or _between food and the human
stomach_,[12] that it was indulged universally and equally in all
countries, instead of being as various in itself and its effects as
climate and all other causes, natural and artificial, can make it.—Thus
to give an example as much in point as can be, is the present state of
this passion, _i.e._ of the indulgence of it, the same in Lancashire,
that it is in Westmoreland, the very next county to it? In the one you
find the most profligate manners, and the most extreme licentiousness,
in the other there is hardly any such thing. Mr. Malthus often says, he
will never dispute any thing that is proved by experience and a real
observation of human life. Now I conceive that the observation which I
have just stated is a _fact_. Yet Mr. Malthus seems to have been quite
insensible to this, and many other facts of the same kind. But the truth
is, that your practical reasoners, your matter-of-fact men are the
dullest of all mortals. They are like justices of the peace who are
bound to receive no evidence unless it is given in upon oath, and who
without descending from the bench and forfeiting the dignity of their
pretensions cannot attend to any of those general surmises, those
obvious sources of information or casual impressions, by which other
people arrive at common sense, and human feelings.—They shut their eyes
to the general face of nature, and trying to grope their way by the help
of facts as they call them, wander like blind men from _pillar to post_,
without either guide or object, and are lost in a labyrinth of dates,
names, capital letters, numeros, official documents, authenticated
copies of lying affidavits, curious records that are nothing to the
purpose, registers of births, deaths, marriages, and christenings,
voyages and travels.—Mr. Malthus may perhaps mean, when he says that
‘the sexual passion will remain nearly in its present state,’ that it
will remain in the same state in each country. To this I should also
assent, if I could agree with him, ‘that ever since we have had any
knowledge of mankind, the passion of which we are speaking, appears to
have been a fixed law of our nature, and that as we have not hitherto
seen any alteration in it, we have no right to conclude that there will
ever be any.’ If Mr. Malthus in this passage meant to confine him to the
passion or impulse itself, I should not certainly be at much pains to
contradict him. But that is not the question. The question relates
solely to the irregular indulgence of, or the degree of restraint
imposed on the passion; and in this respect his assertion is evidently
false. The difference in the state of manners in the same country at
different periods is as striking and notorious as that between the
manners of different countries. There is as much difference between what
England was in this respect a hundred and sixty years ago, and what she
is now, as there is between England and Italy at the present day. Was
there no difference between the manners of ancient Rome in the early
periods of her history, and towards the decline of the empire? May not
the state of manners in Italy under the republic, under the emperors,
and under the popes, be distinctly traced to the influence of religious
or political institutions, or to other causes, besides the state of
population, or the facility of gratifying the abstract instinctive
propensity to sexual indulgence? Was there not a striking difference
between the severity and restraint which was required and undoubtedly
practised under Charles I. and in the time of the Puritans, and that
torrent of dissipation and undisguised profligacy which burst upon the
kingdom after the restoration of Charles II.? This sudden transition
from demure and saint-like or hypocritical austerity to open shameless
licentiousness cannot assuredly be accounted for from the increasing
pressure of population. Nor can it be pretended to have been owing to
this principle that the tide afterwards turned again at the Revolution
with the habits and fashions of the court, and with the views and maxims
of that party who had now got the ascendancy. A learned writer might
easily fill a volume with instances to the same purpose. But the few
which are here skimmed from the mere surface of history, and which must
be familiar to every one, are sufficient to disprove Mr. Malthus’s
assertion, not as a metaphysical refinement, but as a practical rule,
that the passion between the sexes and the effects of that passion have
remained always the same. The indulgence of that passion is so far from
being a law antecedent to all other laws, and paramount to all other
considerations, that it is in a manner governed almost entirely by
circumstances, and may be said to be the creature of the imagination.
But Mr. Malthus says, that no regular or gradual progress has hitherto
been made towards the extinction of this passion, and that it exists in
as much force at present, as it did two thousand, or four thousand years
ago. The question is whether this passion is fixed and stationary,
always remaining at the same point, controuling circumstances, but not
controuled by them, not whether the change of circumstances and lapse of
time may not bring it back to the same point again. I think it probable
that if Mr. Malthus had to preach a sermon on the truth and excellence
of revealed religion, he would be inclined to take for one of his topics
the benefit we have derived from it in the government of our passions,
and general purity of our manners. He might launch out into a
description shewing how the contemplation of heavenly things weans the
affections from the things of the world, and mortifies our carnal
desires, how a belief in future rewards and punishments strengthens our
resolution, and is indeed the only thing that can render us proof
against every species of temptation; he might enlarge on the general
purity and elevation which breathes through the sacred writings, on the
law confining the institution of marriage to pairs; he might dwell on
the grossness and pernicious tendency of the Pagan mythology; he might
glance at the epistle to the Romans, or the preamble to the Jewish laws,
and finding that the practices there described are not common among
_us_, without travelling to Rome, or inquiring into the present state of
Chaldæa, conclude by felicitating his hearers on the striking contrast
between ancient and modern manners, and on the gradual improvement of
morals and refinement of sentiment produced by the promulgation of
christianity. Though we in general reason very incorrectly in comparing
ancient and modern manners, (for we always confound the former with
eastern, and the latter with our own manners) I am apt to think that
some change has taken place in this passion in the course of time. It
seems to be more modified by other feelings than it used to be; it is
less a boiling of the blood, an animal heat, a headlong, brutal impulse
than it was in past ages. The principle is somewhat taken down and
weakened, the appetite is not so strong, we can stay our stomachs better
than we used to do, we do not gorge indiscriminately on every kind of
food without taste or decency. The vices of the moderns are more
artificial than constitutional. They do not arise so much from instinct
as from a depraved will. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
We stimulate ourselves into affected passion: we are laborious imitators
of folly, and ape the vices of others in cold blood. But whatever may be
the result of an inquiry into the comparative state of ancient and
modern manners, I cannot allow that it has any thing to do with the
present question. I will allow that the progress of refinement and
knowledge has in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred tended to
deprave instead of improving the morals of men, that at the same time
that it has taken away the gross impulse, it has introduced an
artificial and studied depravity, the operation of which is more subtle,
dangerous and universal; in short that nations as they grow older like
individuals grow worse, not from constitution, but habit. Still this
fact if granted (and I am afraid it is too near the truth) will not at
all prove Mr. Malthus’s theory, that this passion remains always the
same, being influenced neither by time nor circumstances. Secondly, it
will not overturn the speculations respecting the possibility of making
an entire change in the passion ‘in a state of society altogether
different from any that has hitherto existed,’ but will on the contrary
render such a change more desirable and necessary, as our only resource
against the general contagion of vice and profligacy. If this vice is
found to spread gradually wider and wider, clinging to the support of
institutions, which in all other respects favour selfishness and
sensuality, if it is not the only one among the vices, which, while all
others spread and flourish and are fostered in the eye of the world,
does not hide its diminished head, this is not to be wondered at. But it
would be a singular way of defending the present institutions of
society, that from all our past experience we find that their progress
has been attended with the gradual corruption of manners, and has
uniformly ended in an utter debasement of character and the relaxation
of every moral tie; and it would be a strange kind of inference to say
that no alteration in the circumstances or institutions of society would
ever make men different from what they are, because as long as those
circumstances and institutions have been known to exist, mankind have
remained always the same, or have been growing worse instead of better.
Mr. Malthus denies that Mr. Godwin has any right to conclude that
because population has not produced the dreadful effects he ascribes to
it in any known state of society, it would not therefore produce them in
a state of society quite different from any other; and in the same
manner I should deny that Mr. Malthus has any right to infer because the
progress of the human mind has not in the past history of the world been
productive of any very beneficial consequences, that it will never be
productive of any such consequences under very different circumstances.
Knowledge, as I have shewn in a former letter, is not a necessary,
absolute good: neither is it a necessary evil. Its utility depends on
the direction which is given to it by other things; e.g. in Scotland,
the case before alluded to, knowledge does not seem to be the enemy of
sobriety and good manners, but a support to them. The decay in the
purity and simplicity of Scotch manners, whenever it arrives, will not I
dare say be owing to the increase of knowledge, but to the spread of
luxury, or other external causes. When the whole mass is tainted, it
cannot be expected that knowledge should escape the infection. All
therefore that the advocates for the future progressive improvement of
mankind have to prove in order to make out a consistent case, is that
the state of the passion between the sexes depends not upon physical,
but moral causes; that where these latter causes have been favourable to
severity of manners, and the elevation of the character, these effects
have uniformly flowed from them, and may be seen not in one or two
singular exceptions, but in large classes of people, in the prevailing
manners of whole ages and nations. Thus we do not merely know that
Scipio was chaste, and Nero profligate, but we know that there was
nothing singular in the chastity of the one, or the profligacy of the
other; it was little more than the emanation of the character and
circumstances of the times in which they lived. The leaders of the
republican party in the time of Cromwell, such men as Milton, Hampden,
Pym, Marvel, Sydney, were not I believe in the command over their
passions exactly on a level with the young courtiers in the following
reign: but though the names of these men stand out and ever will stand
out in history, giving dignity to our nature in all its parts, yet it is
not to be supposed that they alone drank of the pure waters of faith and
reason, which flowed freely at that time; but that the same lofty
thoughts, the same common exertions, and the same passions, growing out
of the circumstances of the times, must have imparted a sort of severe
and high-toned morality to men’s minds in general, influencing the
national character in a very different way from the foreign fopperies
and foreign vices, from the train of strumpets, buffoons, fiddlers, and
obscene rhymers let loose upon the people in the succeeding reign. It is
not necessary to prove that manners have always changed for the better,
but that they have always changed for the better, as far as those
general causes have operated in part, from the complete success of which
a total change is predicted. This passion as it runs into licentiousness
is certainly one great obstacle in the way of improvement, and one of
those passions which we must conquer before we can hope to become
perfectly reasonable beings (if this is a thing either desirable or
possible). But to say, that we may get a complete mastery over our
passions, and that we shall still be in danger from the principle of
population is to me a paradox. Population is only dangerous from the
excess of this passion, and I see no reason why its excesses may not be
restrained as well as those of any other passion. We find by uniform
experience that it is, like other passions, influenced by example,
institution, and circumstances, according to the degree of strength they
have; and if there is reason to suppose it possible that any of the
other passions should ever be totally eradicated, or subjected to moral
restraint, there is no reason why this should not be so too. It does not
form any anomaly to the other prevailing passions of men. It is not,
like hunger, a necessary instinct. Its effects are more like those of
drunkenness: and we might as well make this latter vice an
insurmountable objection to the good order and happiness of society, by
saying that there will always be as many drunken disputes, brawls and
riots, as there are at present, because there are as many instances of
people getting drunk now as there were two thousand years ago, as
pretend to deduce the same consequence from the existence of such a
passion as lust.—To judge from his book, I should suppose Mr. Malthus to
be a man of a warm constitution, and amorous complexion. I should not
hesitate in my own mind, to conclude that this is ‘the sin that most
easily besets him.’ I can easily imagine that he has a sufficient
command over himself, in all other respects. I can believe that he is
quite free from the passions of anger, pride, avarice, sloth,
drunkenness, envy, revenge, and all those other passions which create so
much disturbance in the world. He seems never to have heard of, or never
to have felt them; for he passes them over as trifles beneath the notice
of a philosopher. But the women are _the devil_.—The delights and
torments of love no man, he tells us, ever was proof against: there all
our philosophy is useless; and reason but an empty name. ‘The rich
golden shaft hath killed the flock of all affections else,’ and here
only he is vulnerable. The smiles of a fair lady are to him
irresistible; the glimpse of a petticoat throws him into a flame; and
all his senses are up in arms, and his heart fails within him, at the
very name of love. His gallantry and devotion to the fair sex know no
bounds; and he not only answers for himself, but undertakes to prove
that all men are made of the same combustible materials. His book
reminds one of the title of the old play, ‘All for love, or the world
well lost.’ If Mr. M.’s passions are too much for him, (though I should
not have the worse opinion of him on this account) I would advise him to
give vent to them in writing love-songs; not in treatises of philosophy.
I am aware, however, that it is dangerous to meddle in such matters. As
long as Mr. Malthus gravely reduces the strength of the passion to a
mathematical certainty, he is sure to have the women on his side; while
I, for having the presumption to contradict his amorous conclusions,
shall be looked upon as a sour old batchelor, and convicted of rebellion
against the omnipotence of love.

But to return. It is the direct object of Mr. Malthus’s philosophy to
draw our attention from the slight and superficial influence which human
institutions have had on the happiness of man, to those ‘deeper-seated’
causes of misery which arise out of the principle of population. These,
he says, are by far the most important, and the only ones worth our
attending to, because they are the only ones on which all our reasonings
and all our exertions will have no effect. He very roundly taxes Mr.
Godwin and others as men who talked about what they did not understand,
because they did not perceive that social institutions, and the
different forms of government, and all the other means in our power of
affecting the condition of human life are ‘but as the dust in the
balance,’ compared with a principle entirely out of our power, which
renders the vices of those institutions necessary, and any essential
improvement in them hopeless. He is also angry with Hume for saying
something about ‘indolence.’ We are in no case to look beyond the
principle of population, in accounting for the state of man in society,
if we would not fall under Mr. Malthus’s displeasure, but are to resolve
every thing into that. In his hands, population is the Aaron’s rod which
swallowed up all the other rods. The piety of some of the old divines
led them to see all things in God. Mr. Malthus’s self-complacency leads
him to see all things in the Essay. He would persuade us that his
discovery supersedes all other discoveries; that it is the category of
political science; that all other causes of human happiness and misery
are merged and sunk in that one, to which alone they owe their
influence, and their birth. So that we are in fact to consider all human
institutions, good, bad, and indifferent, all folly, vice, wisdom,
virtue, knowledge, ignorance, liberty and slavery, poverty and riches,
monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, polygamy, celibacy, all forms and
modes of life, all arts, manufactures, and science, as resulting
mechanically from this one principle; which though simple in itself, yet
in its effects is a jumble, a chaos of contradictions, a mass of
inconsistency and absurdity, which no human understanding can unravel,
or explain. Over this crew and medley of opinions, Mr. Malthus ‘sits
umpire, and by decision more embroils the fray by which he reigns’: for
he is not quite undetermined in his choice between good and evil, but is
always inclined to give the preference to vice and misery, not only as
the most natural, but as the most safe and salutary effects of this
principle, as we prescribe a low diet and blisters to persons of too
full a temperament. ‘Our greatest good is but plethoric ill.’—Mr.
Malthus may perhaps plead in his own defence that at the outset of his
work (second edition) he professes to treat only of _one_ of the causes
which have hitherto impeded the progress of virtue and happiness, and
that he was not therefore, by the terms of the agreement, bound to take
cognizance of any of the other causes which have tended to produce the
same effect. He is like a man who takes it into his head to make a huge
map of Scotland, (larger than any that ever was made of the whole world
besides) and gives you into the bargain as much or as little of Ireland
or the rest of Great Britain as he pleases. Any one else who chuses, may
make a map of England or Ireland on the same scale. There is something
fair and plausible in this. But the fact really is, that Mr. Malthus
will let nobody make a map of the country but himself: he has put
England, Wales, and Ireland in the three corners of his great map (for
the title takes up one of the corners) and he insists upon it that this
is quite sufficient.—What he aims at in all his plans and calculations
of existing grievances is to magnify the evils of population, to
exonerate human institutions, and to throw the whole blame on nature
herself. I shall therefore try to give such a sketch, or bird’s-eye view
of the subject as may serve to shew the unfairness of our author’s
statement. How little he has confined himself to his professed object,
and how little he can be considered in the light of a joint-inquirer
after truth, will be seen by quoting the following passages at large.

‘The great error under which Mr. Godwin labours throughout his whole
work is, the attributing of almost all the vices and misery that prevail
in civil society to human institutions. Political regulations, and the
established administration of property are with him the fruitful sources
of all evil, the hotbeds of all the crimes that degrade mankind. Were
this really a true state of the case, it would not seem an absolutely
hopeless task to remove evil completely from the world; and reason seems
the proper and adequate instrument for effecting so great a purpose. But
the truth is, that though human institutions _appear_ to be the obvious
and obtrusive causes of much mischief to mankind, they are, in reality,
light and superficial, in comparison with those deeper-seated causes of
evil which result from the laws of nature.’

Now by ‘the laws of nature,’ of which human institutions are here made
only a sort of _cat’s-paw_, our author means neither more nor less than
the principle of population. For after supposing in compliment to Mr.
Godwin, a state of society in which the spirit of oppression, the spirit
of servility, and the spirit of fraud, in which envy, malice, and
revenge, in which every species of narrowness and selfishness are
banished from the world, where war and contention have ceased to exist,
where unwholesome trades and manufactures are no longer encouraged, &c.,
he breaks out into his usual cant of, ‘I cannot conceive a form of
society so favourable upon the whole to population.’ He then proceeds
gravely to shew, by a train of reasoning which has been already
recapitulated, and which need not surely be refuted twice, how in such a
state of happy equality population would go on increasing without limit,
because all obstacles to it, ‘all anxiety about the future support of
children,’ would be entirely removed, though it would at the same time
be attended in every stage of the progress with increasing and
aggravated wretchedness, because those very obstacles, and the same
difficulty of providing for the support of children would still remain.

‘Here then,’ he says, ‘no human institutions existed, to the
perverseness of which Mr. Godwin ascribes the original sin of the worst
men. No opposition had been produced by them between public and private
good. No monopoly had been created of those advantages which reason
directs to be left in common. No man had been goaded to the breach of
order by unjust laws. Benevolence had established her reign in all
hearts. And yet in so short a period as fifty years, violence,
oppression, falsehood, misery, every hateful vice, and every form of
distress, which degrade and sadden the present state of society, seem to
have been generated by the most imperious circumstances, by laws
inherent in the nature of man, and absolutely independent of all human
regulations.’

‘It is a perfectly just observation of Mr. Godwin, that _there is a
principle in human society by which population is perpetually kept down
to the level of the means of subsistence_. The sole question is, what is
this principle? Is it some obscure and occult cause? Is it some
mysterious interference of heaven, which at a certain period strikes the
men with impotence, and the women with barrenness? Or is it a cause open
to our researches, within our view; a cause which has constantly been
observed to operate, though with varied force, in every state in which
man has been placed? Is it not misery and the fear of misery,’
[certainly two very different things] ‘the necessary and inevitable
results of the laws of nature, which human institutions, so far from
aggravating, have tended considerably to mitigate, though they can never
remove?’ He then proceeds to shew how the distinctions of property and
the other regulations of society would necessarily result from the
principle of population, and adds, that ‘certainly if the great
principle of the Essay be admitted, it affects Mr. Godwin’s whole work,
and essentially alters the foundations of political justice. A great
part of his book consists of an _abuse_ of human institutions’ [very sad
indeed] ‘as productive of all or most of the evils which afflict
society. The acknowledgement of a new and totally unconsidered cause of
misery must evidently alter the state of these arguments,’ [comfortable
again] ‘and make it absolutely necessary that they should be either
newly modified, or _entirely rejected_.’—How fortunate to have
discovered that the evils in society are not owing to a cause which
might be remedied, but to one that renders their removal absolutely
hopeless!

I might here, if I were to follow the impulse of my own levity, say that
the yellow fever has I believe made its appearance since the first
edition of Political Justice, though I do not know that this
circumstance would make it necessary entirely to new-model the
arguments. As to Mr. Malthus’s ‘new and unconsidered cause of misery,’ I
deny that the necessity of providing a proportionable quantity of food
for an increase of people was new or unconsidered. All that Mr. Malthus
has discovered is that the population would go on increasing, though
there was nothing to support it!—Our author has chosen to justify or
palliate the real disorders which prevail in society by supposing a case
of fictitious distress; by which means he proves incontestably that the
present vices and defects of political institutions, &c. are
_comparative_ blessings. He supposes that in a state of society where
the public good was the constant guide of action, men would entirely lay
aside the use of their reason, and think of nothing but begetting
children, without considering in the least how they were to be
maintained. Now I will also for a time take a license from common sense,
and make a supposition as wise as Mr. Malthus’s. I will suppose all the
inhabitants of this town to come to a determination to live without
eating, and do nothing but drink gin. What would be the consequence?
Perpetual intoxication, quarrels, the fierceness of hunger, disease,
idleness, filth, nakedness, maudlin misery, sallow faces, sights of
famine and despair, meagre skeletons, the dying, and the dead. But why
need I attempt to describe what has been already so much better
described by Hogarth? Here then, I might exclaim, no human institutions
existed, no unjust laws, no excessive labour, no unwholesome trades, no
inequality, no malice, envy, lust, or revenge, to produce the dreadful
catastrophe we just have witnessed: yet in the short space of a single
month or fortnight we see that scenes of distress, shocking beyond any
thing of which we can at present form even a conception, would arise out
of the most imperious circumstances, from laws inherent in the nature
and constitution of man, and absolutely independent of all human
regulations, namely, _from the unrestricted use of gin_. The inference
is direct and unavoidable, that we ought to submit patiently and
thankfully to all the abuses, vices, and evils that are to be found in
this great city, and flatter, excuse, and encourage them by all the
means in our power, _because_ they all of them together do not amount to
a tenth part of the mischief that would be the consequence of the
unrestrained indulgence of a single pernicious habit. This is something
the way in which Mr. Malthus reasons about the unrestricted increase of
population. But the absurdity is too gross even for burlesque.

The following is, I conceive, a fair summary of Mr. Malthus’s theory.
First, that the principle of population is a necessary, mechanical
thing, that it is the ‘grinding law of necessity,’ unavoidably leading
to a certain degree of vice and misery, and in fact accounting for
almost all the evils in human life. Secondly, that all the other sources
of vice and misery which have been so much and idly insisted on, have no
tendency to increase the necessary evils of population, but the
contrary, or that the removal of those different sources of evil would
instead of lessening the evils of population, which are much the most
important, really aggravate them. Here then three questions naturally
present themselves.

First, how much of the vice and misery in society is actually owing to
human institutions, or the passions, follies, imperfections, or
perversities of human nature, independently of the principle of
population.

Secondly, whether the removing or diminishing the evils produced by
those causes would necessarily increase the evils of population, and
open a door to the influx of more vice and misery than ever.

Thirdly, whether the tendency of population to excess is the effect of a
simple principle operating mechanically, whether it is to be looked upon
as one of the laws inherent in our very nature, or whether the state of
morals in every country does not depend greatly and principally on the
state of society, on the condition of the people, on public opinion, and
on a variety of other causes which are more or less within our power;
that is, whether human institutions, laws, &c. instead of being the mere
blind instruments of this principle, do not re-act very powerfully upon
it, and give it its direction and limits.—If it can be shewn under this
last head, that there is some connection between the form of government
and the state of morals, and that the better the government, the better
the morals, the evils of population instead of forming an excuse for bad
governments will only aggravate their mischief, and increase the
necessity of getting rid of them. Again, if it can be made to appear
that there is no necessary, or general proportion between the degree of
vice in any country, and the pressure of population on the means of
subsistence, that it is not always the effect of want, but constantly
outruns the occasion, being self-propagated, and often spreading like a
contagion through those countries and those ranks in life, where the
difficulty of providing for a family is least felt, this will shew that
the mere existence of vice is no proof of its being necessary, or that
it is to be considered as a test of the excessive increase of
population.

Farther, if on the other hand, improving the condition of the lower
classes of the people is generally found, instead of leading to an
unrestrained increase of population, and thus adding to their misery, to
give them a greater attachment to the decencies and comforts of life, to
make them more cautious how they part with them, to open their ideas and
prospects, to strengthen the principle of moral restraint, and so
confine population within reasonable limits, this will be an additional
motive for improving their condition (really and truly, not by taking
from them the comforts and privileges they already possess). Again, if
it should be found that independently of the immediate acts of tyranny
exercised by particular governments, and the poverty and wretchedness
experienced by certain classes of the community there is a tendency in
some governments to keep population down infinitely below the level to
which it might rise by a proper encouragement of agriculture, and the
methods of industry by which population is supported, it will be but a
poor defence of the folly or tyranny of such governments to say, that
they are a necessary expedient to prevent the excess of population.

Lastly, if those states or communities, where the greatest equality
prevails, are those which maintain the greatest number of inhabitants,
and where the principle of moral restraint is likely to operate with
most effect, that is, where population is soonest able to reach its
utmost limits, and goes the least beyond them, certainly those
institutions which favour the greatest disparity of conditions, the
extremes of poverty and the extremes of luxury, will receive no very
striking support from the principle of population. These are I think the
chief points and inferences to which I wish to direct the reader’s
attention in the few slight remarks which I have to make upon the
subject.

It may be proper to observe, in the first place, that Mr. Malthus by
making vice and misery the necessary consequences of his favourite
principle lays himself open to a very obvious objection. For if he means
to prove any thing by his theory, the question immediately is, what
degree of vice and misery is rendered necessary by this principle, or by
the _physical constitution of man_? Are we to suppose that only so much
evil is necessary as naturally grows out of the British constitution? Or
does this principle also prove that all the evils that are suffered
under the Turkish government, or that were suffered under the old
government of France, or that may arise out of its present government
are equally necessary and salutary? How far are we to go? Where are we
to stop? Are we to consider every evil and abuse as necessary, merely
because it exists, or only as much of the thing as we cannot get rid of?
But how much can we really get rid of? Are vice and misery uniformly
owing to the development of this principle in certain situations, or are
they to be in part ascribed to the intervention of other arbitrary, and
gratuitous causes, the operation of which may be more easily set aside?
In what manner are we to distinguish between what is necessary, and what
is not? All these questions require to be asked before we can proceed to
build any practical conclusions on Mr. Malthus’s theory of the evils of
population. The vague, general term, ‘vice and misery,’ gives us no
clue. It is mere cant; and applies equally to the best and worst of all
possible governments. It proves either nothing, or it proves a great
deal more than I conceive Mr. Malthus would in all cases wish to prove
by it.

There is no species of vice or oppression that does not find a ready
excuse in this kind of reasoning. And besides, by leaving the quantity
of vice and misery always uncertain, we never subject ourselves to the
necessity of following a general principle into any obnoxious
conclusions; and are always at liberty to regulate our opinions
according to our convenience by saying—I would have no more vice and
misery than at present prevails: but that degree of vice and misery
which is inwoven with the present constitution of things, I would by no
means have removed, it might endanger the whole fabric. This is a double
advantage. We thus sacrifice to the powers that be, without violating
decorum, or being driven off our guard by an inflexible and pedantic
logic. I have so good an opinion of Mr. Malthus that I do not think he
has any predilection for vice and misery in the abstract, or for their
own sakes: I do not believe he would stand forward as the advocate of
any abuses from which he himself does not reap some benefit, or which he
may not get something by defending.

I do not know that I can go so far as with Mr. Godwin to ascribe the
original sin of the worst men to social institutions, but of this I am
very sure that that original sin and those institutions do not proceed
entirely from the principle of population. There are other vices and
mischievous propensities inherent in our nature, besides the love of
pleasure. We are troubled with a complication of disorders, and it is
bad advice to say, that we ought to direct all our attention to the one
that is perhaps the most inveterate, or because we despair of doing any
thing with that, make no attempts to counteract the progress of the
others, either by palliatives or otherwise. If we are deceived with
respect to the real extent, and sources of our disorders, it is
impossible we should hit upon the right method of cure, whatever might
be the case, if we were informed of our true situation.—The principle of
population alone, according to the description Mr. Malthus gives of it
as a principle of unbridled and insatiable lust, would indeed be
sufficient to account for all the vice and misery in the world, and for
a great deal more than there is in the world. It would soon overturn
every thing. But we have seen that that account is not just. It is in
fact only one of the principles or passions by which the conduct of
mankind is influenced; and he would be a bold man who should assert that
neither ambition, nor avarice, nor sloth, nor ignorance, nor prejudice
have had any share in producing the various evils that abound in civil
society. The other passions are sturdy claimants and know how to bustle
for themselves, and will not be so easily pushed out of the world. Let
any one write the words, ambition, pride, cruelty, hatred, oppression,
falsehood, selfishness, indolence, lust, and hunger in the same line,
and let him see if there is any peculiar charm in the two last, which
draws all their virtue and meaning out of the rest. Yet this is the
impression which Mr. Malthus seems anxious to leave on the minds of his
readers. Indeed all the others appear to owe their efficacy and their
sting to lust alone. If it were not for this one principle, the world
might go on very well.

Mr. Malthus charges it as a great error on Mr. Godwin’s system that
‘political regulations and the established administration of property
are with him the fruitful sources of all evil, the hotbeds of all the
crimes that degrade mankind.’ Be it so, that this is an error. The next
question is, as Mr. Malthus does not deny that these institutions are
the immediate causes of many of the evils that exist, to what principle
they really owe their rise. Mr. Malthus says, they are the necessary
results of laws inherent in our nature, and that though all the other
passions and vices of men could be got rid of altogether, the principle
of population alone would still render those institutions with all the
abuses belonging to them as necessary as ever. This I take upon me to
dispute. Will he say, that (leaving the principle of population entirely
out of the question) pride, avarice, and indolence have had no share in
the establishment, or continuance of the inequality of property, in
goading men on to the accumulation of immense riches by oppression,
extortion, fraud, perjury, and every species of villainy, or in making
them undergo every kind of distress, sooner than apply themselves to
some regular and useful occupation. If I were inclined to maintain a
paradox on the subject, I might take up Hume’s assertion, ‘that
indolence is the source of all mischief in the world.’ For if men had
not been averse to labour, if there had been no idlers to take advantage
of, to offer temptation to, and enlist upon any terms in any lawless
enterprize, that promised an easy booty, the tyrant would have been
without his slaves, the robber without his gang, and the rich man
without his dependents. But these smart points and pithy sayings are
soon found to be fallacious, if we attend a little closely to the
subject. For instance, it may be true that if there had been no idle
people, there would have been no one to take advantage of, but if there
had been no pride, rapacity, or selfishness, there would have been no
one to take an undue advantage of them, or foment the mischief. The
fellows that generally compose a gang of robbers only wish to gain a
cheap livelihood by acts of violence; the captain of the gang is also
actuated by vanity, revenge, the spirit of adventure, and the desire to
keep the country for twenty or thirty miles round in awe of him. The
common soldier is glad of sixpence a-day to be shot at every now and
then, and do nothing the rest of his time: the general is not easy,
unless he can lay waste provinces, overrun kingdoms, and make the world
ring with the terror of his name. The lazy and unthinking would not do
half the mischief, of which they are capable, without the active, the
enterprizing and turbulent: fools and knaves are as necessary to the
body politic, as the head and limbs are to the human body. The Romans
might have staid quietly within their own walls, but for the plotting
heads at home that sent them out to victory; and his thirty thousand
followers would no more have thought of setting out to India of their
own accord, than Alexander would have thought of marching there by
himself.

It is to me pretty clear that as long as there are such passions as
sloth and rapacity, these will be sufficient to account for the unequal
division of property, and will render the laws relating to it necessary:
and it is equally clear to my mind that if these passions could be
completely subdued, so that no one would refuse his share in the common
labour, or endeavour to take an unfair advantage of others either by
force or fraud, that the established administration of property would be
no longer necessary.[13] If, as Mr. Malthus supposes, ‘Benevolence had
so far established her reign in all hearts,’ that every one was ready to
give up the enjoyments of ease and luxury as far as related to himself,
I do not think that in such a state of unparalleled disinterestedness
and heroic virtue, any madman would be found to violate the public
happiness, and begin the work of contention anew, for the sake of
transmitting a contingent inheritance of vice and misery _to his heirs_!
If reason and virtue are at present no match for the principle of
population, neither are they a match for the principle of selfishness,
or for any of our other passions. But truly, if benevolence had once
established her reign in all hearts, we should see wonders, she would
perform the part of vice and misery to a miracle.—It is evident then
that the seeds of inequality, of vice and misery are not sown entirely
in the principle of population; that the same untoward passions which
first rendered civil establishments necessary, have continued to operate
ever since, that they have produced most of the disorders in the world,
and are still in as much force as ever; that they very well deserve a
chapter by themselves in the history of human nature, and ought not to
come in as a note or parenthesis to Mr. Malthus’s great work.

But whatever account we may chuse to give of the origin of the
establishment of property or government in general, this has nothing to
do with the real question, unless it could be shewn that the same form
of government, the same inequality of conditions, and the same degree of
vice and misery are to be found alike in every country. Mr. Malthus’s
system goes to the support of all political regulations and existing
evils, or it goes to the support of none. Let us cast our eyes over the
map of Europe, and ask whether all that variety of governments and
manners by which it is distinguished took their rise solely from the
principle of population. A principle common to human nature, a law
inherent in the physical constitution of man, may in its progress be
necessarily attended with a certain degree of vice and misery; but it
cannot be productive of different degrees of vice and misery in
different countries; as the stern law of necessity, it must operate
every where alike. If it does not do so, this of itself shews that it is
not the sole moving spring in all human institutions, that it is not
beyond the reach of all regulation and control, and that there are other
circumstances, accidents, and principles on which the happiness of
nations depends. Whatever difference there is, then, between one
government and another, whether that government is despotic, or mixed,
or free; whatever difference there is in the administration of that
government, whether it is cruel, oppressive, and arbitrary in the
extreme, or mild, just, and merciful; whatever difference there is
between the manners of one nation and those of another, whether the most
licentious that can be, or strict and exemplary; whatever difference
there is in the arts and conveniences of life, in the improvements of
trade and agriculture in various countries, whatever differences are
produced by religion, by contrarieties of opinion, by the state of
knowledge, by useful or mischievous regulations of all kinds, all these
cannot be owing to one and the same cause.

Will Mr. Malthus say that all these differences are as nothing, that
they are not worth insisting on, or contending about, that they are
nominal, rather than real, or at any rate that what is gained in one way
is lost in another, for that the principle of population still requires
the same vent, and produces first or last the same quantity of vice and
misery of one sort or other in every country? He must assert on the one
hand that all other causes put together do not materially affect the
happiness of a people, or on the other hand that the state of all those
other causes depends on, and arises out of the state of population,
though they do not in the least influence the principle of population
itself. These absurdities, than which it would be difficult to advance
greater, are however necessary to bear out the author’s conclusion, that
arts, knowledge, liberty and virtue, and the best institutions can do
little for the happiness of mankind. For instance, if it is true that
religion or opinion of any kind exerts a direct influence over morals,
then it is not true that morals depend entirely on the state of
population. Or if it is true, that the invention of a useful art, which
is accident, or the public encouragement of it, which is design, may
contribute to the support of a larger population without multiplying its
inconveniences, then it is not true that all human happiness or misery
can be calculated according to a mechanical ratio. But these matters
are, I confess, set in the clearest light by a reference to facts, and I
can quote no better authority than Mr. Malthus himself.

He says, ‘It will not be difficult, from the accounts of travellers, to
trace the checks to population, and the causes of its present decay [in
Turkey]; and as there is little difference in the _manners_ of the
Turks, whether they inhabit Europe or Asia, it will not be worth while
to make them the subject of distinct consideration.’ [I shall presume
that I have so far reconciled the reader’s mind to the bugbear,
population, that he will not regard _depopulation_ as one of the most
beautiful features in the economy of a state.]

Our author then proceeds, ‘The fundamental cause of the low state of
population in Turkey, compared with its extent of territory, is
undoubtedly the nature of its government. Its tyranny, its feebleness,
its bad laws and worse administration of them, with the consequent
insecurity of property, throw such obstacles in the way of agriculture,
that the means of subsistence are necessarily decreasing yearly, and
with them, of course, the number of people. The _miri_ or general
land-tax, paid to the sultan, is in itself moderate; but by abuses
inherent in the Turkish government, the pachas, and their agents have
found out the means of rendering it ruinous. Though they cannot
absolutely alter the impost which has been established by the sultan,
they have introduced a number of changes, which, without the name,
produce all the effect of an augmentation. In Syria, according to
Volney, having the greatest part of the land at their disposal, they
clog their concessions with burthensome conditions, and exact the half,
and sometimes even two-thirds of the crop. When the harvest is over,
they cavil about losses, and, as they have the power in their hands,
they carry off what they think proper.’ [What they leave behind them, is
what Mr. Malthus when he gets into his abstractions calls ‘_the fund
appropriated to the maintenance of labour_,’ or, ‘_the aggregate
quantity of food possessed by the owners of land beyond their own
consumption_.’] ‘If the season fail, they still exact the same sum, and
expose every thing that the poor peasant possesses to sale. To these
constant oppressions are added a thousand accidental extortions.
Sometimes a whole village is laid under contribution for some real or
imaginary offence. Arbitrary presents are exacted on the accession of
each governor; grass, barley, and straw are demanded for his horses’;
[Mr. Malthus thinks, farther on in his book, that ‘the waste of the
rich, and the horses kept for pleasure’ in this country are no detriment
to the poor _here_, but rather a benefit, page 478.] ‘and commissions
are multiplied, that the soldiers who carry the orders may live upon the
starving peasants, whom they treat with the most brutal insolence and
injustice. The consequence of these depredations is, that the poorer
class of inhabitants, ruined, and unable any longer to pay the _miri_,
become a burden to the village,’ [something I suppose in the same way
that the poor among us become a burden to the parish] ‘or fly into the
cities; but the _miri_ is unalterable, and the sum to be levied must be
found somewhere. The portion of those who are thus driven from their
homes falls on the remaining inhabitants, whose burden, though at first
light, now becomes insupportable. If they should be visited by two years
of drought and famine, the whole village is ruined and abandoned; and
the tax, which it should have paid, is levied on the neighbouring lands.
The same mode of proceeding takes place with regard to the tax on
Christians, which has been raised by these means,’ [by what means, by
the principle of population?] ‘from three, five, and eleven piastres, at
which it was first fixed, to thirty-five and forty, which absolutely
impoverishes those on whom it is levied, and obliges them to leave the
country. It has been remarked that these exactions have made a rapid
progress during the last forty years, from which time are dated the
decline of agriculture, the depopulation of the country, and the
diminution in the quantity of the specie carried to Constantinople. The
peasants are every where reduced to a little flat cake of barley, or
_doura_, onions, lentils, and water. Not to lose any part of their corn
they leave in it all sorts of wild grain, which often produces bad
consequences. In the mountains of Lebanon and Nablous, in time of
dearth, they gather the acorns from the oak which they eat after boiling
or roasting them on the ashes. By a natural consequence of this misery,
the art of cultivation is in the most deplorable state. The husbandman
is almost without instruments, and those he has are very bad. His plough
is frequently no more than the branch of a tree cut below a fork and
used without wheels. The ground is tilled by asses and cows, rarely by
oxen, which would bespeak too much riches. In the districts exposed to
the Arabs, as in Palestine, the countryman must sow with his musket in
his hand, and scarcely does the corn turn yellow before it is reaped and
concealed in subterraneous caverns. As little as possible is employed
for seed corn, because the peasants sow no more than is barely necessary
for their subsistence. Their whole industry is limited to the supply of
their immediate wants, and to procure a little bread, a few onions, a
blue shirt, and a bit of woollen, much labour is not necessary. The
peasant lives therefore in distress, but at least he does not enrich his
tyrants, and the avarice of despotism is its own punishment.’
[_Note._—These are the unhappy persons, as our author expresses it in a
passage, which may hereafter be quoted at length, ‘who in the great
lottery of life have drawn a blank; and with whose exorbitant and
unreasonable demands the owners of the aforesaid surplus produce neither
think it just nor natural to comply.’ I confess, I cannot account for
all the contention and distress which is here implied, for the conflict
between famine and riches, when I seriously consider with Mr. Malthus,
‘that the quantity of food, which one man can consume, is necessarily
limited by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; that it is not
certainly probable that he should throw away the rest; or if he
exchanged his surplus produce for the labour of others, that this would
be better than that these others should absolutely _starve_.’ But human
life, as well as our reasonings about it, is a mystery, a dream.] ‘This
picture which is drawn by Volney, in describing the state of the
peasants in Syria, seems to be confirmed by all the other travellers in
these countries, and according to Eton, it represents very nearly the
condition of the peasants in the greater part of the Turkish dominions.
Universally the offices of every denomination are set up to public sale,
and in the intrigues of the seraglio, by which the disposal of all
places is regulated, every thing is done by means of bribes. The pachas
in consequence, who are sent into the provinces, exert to the utmost
their power of extortion, but are always outdone by the officers
immediately below them, who, in their turn, leave room for their
subordinate agents. The pacha must raise money to pay the tribute, and
also to indemnify himself for the purchase of his office; support his
dignity, and make a provision in case of accidents; and as all power,
both civil and military, centers in his person, from his representing
the sultan, the means are at his discretion, and the quickest are
invariably considered as the best. Uncertain of to-morrow, he treats his
province as a mere transient possession, and endeavours to reap, if
possible, in one day, the fruit of many years, without the smallest
regard to his successor, or the injury that he may do to the permanent
revenue. The cultivator is necessarily more exposed to these extortions
than the inhabitants of the towns. From the nature of his employment, he
is fixed to one spot, and the productions of agriculture do not admit of
being easily concealed. _The tenure of the land and the right of
succession are besides uncertain._ When a father dies, the inheritance
reverts to the sultan, and the children can only redeem the succession
by a considerable sum of money. These considerations naturally occasion
an indifference to landed estates. The country is deserted, and each
person is desirous of flying to the towns, where he will not only in
general meet with better treatment, but may hope to acquire a species of
wealth, which he can more easily conceal from the eyes of his rapacious
masters. To complete the ruin of agriculture, a maximum is in many cases
established, and the peasants are obliged to furnish the towns with corn
at a fixed price. It is a maxim of Turkish policy, originating in the
feebleness of the government, and the fear of popular tumults, to keep
the price of corn low in all the considerable towns. In the case of a
failure in the harvest, every person who possesses any corn is obliged
to sell it at the price fixed, under pain of death: and if there be none
in the neighbourhood, other districts are ransacked for it. When
Constantinople is in want of provisions, ten provinces are perhaps
famished for a supply. At Damascus, during a scarcity in 1784, the
people paid only one penny farthing a pound for their bread, while the
peasants in the villages were absolutely dying with hunger. _The effect
of such a system of government_ on agriculture, need not be insisted on.
The causes of the decreasing means of subsistence are but too obvious;
and the checks which keep the population down to the level of these
decreasing resources, may be traced with nearly equal certainty, and
will appear to include almost every species of vice and misery.’ Happy
country, secured by the very nature of its government from the terrors
of increasing population, and where every species of vice and misery,
wisely anticipated, on the principle that the imagination of a thing is
worse than the reality, takes away all fear of any greater evils than
those they already endure!

In the same chapter, he says, that in Persia ‘the lower classes of
people are obliged to defer marriage till late; and that it is only
among the rich that this union takes place early. The dreadful
convulsions to which this country has been subject for many hundred
years, must have been fatal to her agriculture. The periods of repose
from external wars, and internal commotions have been short and few, and
even during the times of profound peace, the frontier provinces have
been constantly subject to the ravages of the Tartars.—The effect of
this state of things is such as might be expected. The proportion of
uncultivated to cultivated land, Sir John Chardin states to be, ten to
one; and the mode in which the officers of the state and private owners
let out their lands to husbandmen, is not that _which is best calculated
to reanimate industry_. The other checks to population in Persia are
nearly the same as those in Turkey. _The superior destruction of the
plague in Turkey is perhaps nearly balanced by the greater frequency of
internal commotions in Persia._’

These extracts furnish, I think, a tolerably clear idea of the manner in
which it is possible for human institutions to aggravate instead of
mitigating the _necessary_ evils of population. We have a sufficient
specimen of the effects of bad government, of bad laws, of the worse
execution of them, of feeble and selfish policy, of wars and commotions,
or of diseases probably occasioned for the most part by the numbers of
people who are huddled together in dirt and poverty in the great towns
in the manner we have seen—in altering the natural proportion between
the produce of the soil, and the maintenance of the inhabitants; in
wantonly diminishing the means of subsistence by a most unjust and
unequal distribution of them; in diverting the produce of industry from
its proper channels, in drying up its sources, in causing a stagnation
of all the motives and principles which animate human life, in
destroying all confidence, independence, hope, cheerfulness, and manly
exertion, in thwarting the bounties of nature by waste, rapacity,
extortion and violence, and spreading want, misery, and desolation in
their stead. How admirably does Mr. Malthus balance his checks! What the
plague does in Turkey, is in Persia happily effected by means of civil
commotions. Population is thus kept down to the level of the means of
subsistence. But it seems, that wars, and intestine commotions, those
blind drudges of Providence in clearing away the filth, rubbish, and
other evils of a too crowded population, sometimes go beyond their
errand, or do their work the wrong way, by striking at the root of
population instead of lopping off its superfluous branches. According to
our author’s general system, the killing ten, or twenty, or a hundred
thousand men is an evil of a very trifling magnitude, if it is to be
looked upon as an evil at all. Population will only go on with the
greater alacrity, marriage will be rendered more practicable, and the
deficiency will soon be supplied from the sprightly and ever-teeming
source of nature. The dreadful convulsions, however, to which Persia has
been subject for so many hundred years have not been merely vents to
carry off the excess of population beyond the means of subsistence, but
they have further been fatal to agriculture itself, or to those very
means of subsistence. The proportion of _uncultivated_, to _cultivated_
land, we find, is ten to one; so that the population is not only reduced
to a level with the means of subsistence, but reduced ten times lower
than it need be.[14]

I beg leave to accompany this description of the effects of political
regulations and the established administration of property in Turkey,
with the following critical commentary, taken from another part of the
same work, which will throw considerable light on the _necessity_ of
those institutions to prevent the evils of population. Mr. Malthus’s
usual plea for ‘vice and misery,’ is that nothing else can put a stop to
the excesses of population; which _they_ do in the most effectual and
eligible manner. But he has here deserted his idols.

‘It has appeared, I think, clearly, in the review of different
societies given in the former part of this work, that those countries,
the inhabitants of which were sunk in the most barbarous ignorance, or
oppressed by the most cruel tyranny, however low they might be in
actual population, were very populous in proportion to their means of
subsistence; and upon the slightest failure of the seasons, generally
suffered the severities of want.’ [Yet it was the sole object of Mr.
Malthus’s discovery to prove the converse proposition, that the
highest degree of knowledge, and a perfect exemption from every
species of tyranny would only lead to the lowest state of human
wretchedness.]—‘Ignorance and despotism seem to have no tendency to
destroy the passion which prompts to increase; _but they effectually
destroy the checks to it from reason and foresight_. The improvident
barbarian who thinks only of his present wants, or the miserable
peasant, who from his political situation feels little security of
reaping what he has sown, will seldom be deterred from gratifying his
passions by the prospect of inconveniences which cannot be expected to
press on him under three or four years. But though this want of
foresight, which is fostered by ignorance and despotism, tend thus
rather to encourage the procreation of children, it is absolutely
fatal to the industry which is to support them. Industry cannot exist
without foresight and security. The indolence of the savage is well
known; and the poor Egyptian or Abyssinian farmer, without capital,
who rents land, which is let out yearly to the highest bidder and who
is constantly subject to the demands of his tyrannical masters, to the
casual plunder of an enemy, and not unfrequently to the violation of
his miserable contract, can have no heart to be industrious, and if he
had, could not exercise that industry with success. Even poverty
itself, which appears to be the great spur to industry, when it has
once passed certain limits, almost ceases to operate. The indigence
which is hopeless, destroys all vigorous exertion, and confines the
efforts to what is sufficient for bare existence. _It is the hope of
bettering our condition and the fear of want, rather than want itself,
that is the best stimulus to industry, and its most constant and best
directed efforts will almost invariably be found among a class of
people above the class of the wretchedly poor._’

What a pity that a man, who writes so well at times, should, for the
sake of an hypothesis, involve ‘himself in absurdities and
contradictions that would disgrace the lips of an ideot.’ Mr. Malthus
will excuse me, if I make use of some of the hints contained in this
excellent passage, for the benefit of our English poor, who I think
should not have harder measure dealt them than others, and try to soften
some of the harshest constructions of the grinding law of necessity in
their favour. I do not see why they alone are to be the martyrs of an
abstraction. But Mr. Malthus reserves the application of his theory _in
its purity_ for his own countrymen. He has some natural feelings, and a
certain degree of tender weakness for the distresses of other countries,
but he will not suffer his feelings for a moment to get the better of
his reason, with regard to those to whom he is bound by stronger ties,
and over whose interests he watches with a paternal anxiety. He will
hear of no palliations, no excuses, no shuffling temporary expedients to
put off the evil day, he insists upon their submitting to the full
operation of the penalty incurred by the laws of God and of nature,
nothing short of the utmost severity will satisfy him, (’tis death to
spare) he will not bate them a jot of his argument, he makes them drain
the unsavoury cup of misery to the very dregs.

In the same chapter, which is entitled ‘Of the principal sources of the
prevailing errors on population,’ he says, ‘It has been observed that
many countries at the period of their greatest populousness have lived
in the greatest plenty, and have been able to export corn; but at other
periods, when their population was very low, have lived in continual
poverty and want, and have been obliged to import corn. Egypt,
Palestine, Rome, Sicily, and Spain are cited as particular
exemplifications of this fact; and it has been inferred, that an
increase of population in any state, not cultivated to the utmost, will
tend rather to augment than diminish the relative plenty of the whole
society,’ &c. After contradicting this inference without giving any
reasons against it, he goes on, ‘Scarcity and extreme poverty,
therefore, may or may not accompany an increasing population, according
to circumstances. But they must always accompany a permanently declining
population; because there has never been, nor probably ever will be, any
other cause than want of food, which makes the population of a country
permanently decline. In the numerous instances of depopulation which
occur in history, the causes of it may always be traced to the want of
industry, or the ill-direction of that industry, arising from violence,
bad government, ignorance, &c. which first occasions a want of food, and
of course depopulation follows. When Rome adopted the custom of
importing all her corn, and laying all Italy into pasture, she soon
declined in population. The causes of the depopulation of Egypt and
Turkey have already been alluded to; and in the case of Spain, it was
certainly not the numerical loss of people, occasioned by the expulsion
of the Moors; but the industry and capital thus expelled, which
permanently injured her population.’ [I do not myself see, how the
expulsion of capital could permanently injure the population.] ‘When a
country has been depopulated by violent causes, if a bad government,
with its usual concomitant, insecurity of property, ensue, which has
generally been the case in all those countries which are now less
peopled than formerly; neither the food nor the population, will recover
themselves, and the inhabitants will probably live in severe want,’ &c.
Yet Mr. Malthus elsewhere affects to consider all human institutions and
contrivances as perfectly indifferent to the question. We have here,
however, a truer account of the matter. The state of population is
evidently no proof of what it might be: to judge whether it is more or
less than it might or ought to be, we must take into consideration good
and bad government, the progress of civilization, &c. It is a thing _de
facto_, not _de jure_. It is not that rock, against which whosoever sets
himself shall be dashed to pieces, but the clay moulded by the potter
into vessels of honour or dishonour. With respect to Spain, it is
allowed that her population is deficient, or short of what it might be.
The problem of political economy I take to be, how far this is the case
with respect to all other countries, and how to remedy the defect; or
how to support the greatest number of people in the greatest degree of
comfort. But I have said this more than once before.

To the same purpose I might quote Algernon Sydney, who in his Discourses
on government gives the following account of the decline and weakness of
many of the modern states from the loss of liberty.[15]

‘I take Greece to have been happy and glorious, when it was full of
populous cities, flourishing in all the arts that deserve praise among
men; when they were courted and feared by the greatest kings, and never
assaulted by any but to his own loss and confusion; when Babylon and
Susa trembled at the motion of their arms: and their valour, exercised
in those wars and tumults, which our author [Filmer] looks upon as the
greatest evils, was raised to such a power, that nothing upon earth was
found able to resist them. And I think it now miserable, when peace
reigns within their empty walls, and the poor remains of those exhausted
nations, sheltering themselves under the ruins of the desolated cities,
have neither any thing that deserves to be disputed among them, nor
spirit or force to repel the injuries they daily suffer from a proud and
insupportable master.’

‘The like may be said of Italy. Whilst it was inhabited by nations
governing themselves by their own will, they fell sometimes into
domestic seditions, and had frequent wars with their neighbours. When
they were free, they loved their country and were always ready to fight
in its defence. Such as succeeded well, increased in vigour and power;
and even those which were the most unfortunate in one age, found means
to repair their losses, if their government continued. While they had a
property in their goods, they would not suffer the country to be
invaded, since they knew they could have none, if it were lost. This
gave occasion to wars and tumults; it sharpened their courage, kept up a
good discipline, and the nations that were most exercised by them,
always increased in power and number: so that no country seems ever to
have been of greater strength than Italy was when Hannibal invaded it,
and after his defeat the rest of the world was not able to resist their
valour and power. They sometimes killed one another; but their enemies
never got any thing but burying-places within their territories. All
things are now brought into a very different method by the blessed
governments they are under. The fatherly care of the king of Spain, the
pope, and other princes has established peace among them. We have not in
many ages heard of any sedition among the Latins, Sabines, Volsci, Equi,
Samnites, and others. The thin, half-starved inhabitants of walls
supported by ivy fear neither popular tumults, nor foreign alarms; and
their sleep is only interrupted by hunger, the cries of their children,
or the howling of wolves. Instead of many turbulent, contentious cities,
they have a few scattered, silent cottages; and the fierceness of those
nations is so tempered, that every rascally collector of taxes extorts,
without fear, from every man, that which should be the nourishment of
his family. And if any of those countries are free from these pernicious
vermin, it is through the extremity of their poverty.’

[How differently do people see things! According to Mr. Malthus, this
rascally tax-gatherer, this vile nuisance, is a very sacred sort of
character, a privileged person, one of the most indispensable and active
instruments in the procession of vice and misery, those harbingers of
human happiness; and all our reproaches and indignation should fall on
the poor peasant, for bringing beings into the world whom he could not
maintain, in ‘the face of the clearest warning, and in defiance of the
express command of God,’ as proved by the tax-book. Our superficial
politician was not aware (Mr. Malthus tells us that first appearances
are very deceitful) that the produce of the husbandman’s labour was much
better employed in supporting the waste and extravagance of the rich,
than in affording nourishment to his family, as this would only enable
him to _rear_ his family, which must operate as an encouragement to
marriage, and this again would produce other marriages, and so on _ad
infinitum_, to which unrestricted increase of population it is necessary
to put a timely stop.]

‘Even in Rome a man may be circumvented by the fraud of a priest, or
poisoned by one, who would have his estate, wife, whore, or child; but
nothing is done that looks like violence or tumult. The governors do as
little fear Gracchus as Hannibal; and instead of wearying their subjects
in wars,’ [We have not yet reached this pitch of perfection] ‘they only
seek by perverted laws, corrupt judges, false witnesses, and vexatious
suits, to cheat them of their money and inheritance. This is the best
part of their condition. Where these arts are used, there are men, and
they have something to lose; but for the most part, the lands lie waste;
and they who were formerly troubled with the disorders incident to
populous cities, now enjoy the quiet and peaceable estate of a
wilderness.—Again, there is a way of killing worse than that of the
sword; for as Tertullian says upon a different occasion, _vetare nasci
est interficere_; those governments are in the highest degree guilty of
blood, which by taking from men the means of living, bring some to
perish through want, drive others out of the country, and generally
dissuade men from marriage, _by taking from them all ways of supporting
their families_.’ [Our author, we see, has not here put the cart before
the horse. He seems to have understood the necessity of food to
population, though Mr. Malthus’s essay had not then been heard of.]
‘Notwithstanding all the seditions of Florence, and other cities of
Tuscany, the horrid factions of Guelphs and Gibelines,[16] Neri and
Bianchi, nobles and commons, they continued populous, strong, and
exceeding rich; but in the space of less than a hundred and fifty years,
the peaceable reign of the Medici is thought to have destroyed nine
parts in ten of the people of that province. Among other things it is
remarkable, that when Philip the second of Spain gave Sienna to the Duke
of Florence, his embassador then at Rome sent him word, that he had
given away more than six hundred and fifty thousand subjects; and it is
not believed there are now twenty thousand souls inhabiting that city
and territory. Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, and other towns, that
were then good and populous, are in the like proportion diminished, and
Florence more than any. When that city had been long troubled with
seditions, tumults, and wars, for the most part unprosperous, it still
retained such strength, that when Charles the eighth of France, being
admitted as a friend with his whole army, which soon after conquered the
kingdom of Naples, thought to master them, the people, taking up arms,
struck such a terror into him, that he was glad to depart upon such
conditions as they thought fit to impose. Machiavel reports, that in the
year 1298 Florence alone, with the Val d’Arno, a small territory
belonging to that city, could, in a few hours, by the sound of a bell,
bring together a hundred thousand well-armed men. Whereas now that city,
with all the others in that province, are brought to such despicable
weakness, emptiness, poverty, and baseness, that they can neither resist
the oppressions of their own prince, nor defend him or themselves, if
they were assaulted by a foreign enemy. The people are dispersed or
destroyed, and the best families sent to seek habitations in Venice,
Genoa, Rome, and Lucca. This is not the effect of war or pestilence:
they enjoy a perfect peace, and suffer no other plague than the
government they are under. But he who has thus cured them of disorders
and tumults does in my opinion deserve no greater praise than a
physician, who should boast there was not a sick person in a house
committed to his care, when he had poisoned all that were in it. The
Spaniards have established the like peace in the kingdoms of Naples and
Sicily, the West Indies, and other places. The Turks by the same means
prevent tumults in their dominions. And they are of such efficacy in all
places, that Mario Chigi, brother to pope Alexander the seventh, by one
sordid cheat upon the sale of corn, is said within eight years to have
destroyed above a third part of the people in the ecclesiastical state.
And that country, which was the strength of the Romans in the time of
the Carthaginian wars, suffered more by the covetousness and fraud of
that villain, than by all the defeats received from Hannibal, &c. Chap.
ii. p. 223.

It will be worth the reader’s while to turn to Lord Kaims’s account of
the kingdom of Siam, which, though one of the most fertile countries in
the world, is reduced to the lowest state of poverty and wretchedness by
the absurd and tyrannical policy of its government. Some of the finest
districts that were formerly cultivated, are now inhabited only by wild
beasts. One of the arts by which they preserve the balance of population
in that country is, that the keeper of the king’s menagerie is
authorized to let loose the elephants into the gardens of all those
within a given distance of the capital, who do not pay him a large fine
yearly to be excused from this intrusion. Yet according to our Essayist,
human institutions have a very slight influence on the happiness of a
people, because they cannot alter the necessary ratios of the increase
of food and population. It is probable, however, that some of the cases
here cited, which seem to bear rather hard on Mr. Malthus’s rule, might
have led those hasty writers, whom he censures for their want of a due
insight into the subject, to conceive an unjust prejudice against human
institutions; and perhaps some of my readers may also be led to suspect,
from not comprehending fully the scope and connection of his arguments,
that bad governments are not quite such innocent things, as Mr. Malthus
would sometimes represent them. Is it necessary to press this subject
any farther? I do not pretend to be very deep-read in history, in the
constitution of states, the principles of legislation, the progress of
manners, or the immediate causes of the revolutions that have taken
place in different countries. All that I can presume to bring to this
question is a little stubborn common sense, an earnestness of feeling,
and a certain familiarity with abstruse subjects, that is not willingly
or easily made the dupe of flimsy distinctions. But without much
learning in one’s self, it is easy to take advantage of the learning of
others. By the help of a common-place book, which is all that is wanted
in these cases (and I am fortunate enough to have such a one by me in
the collections of ‘that honest chronicler,’ James Burgh) I might soon
swell the size of these letters to a bulk, which the bookseller would
not like, by a number of striking illustrations from the most celebrated
authors. I might make myself a splendid livery of the wisdom of others.
But I have no taste for this pompous drudgery. However, to satisfy those
readers who are unable to discern the truth without the spectacles of
facts, it will not be amiss to refer to the opinions of a few of the
writers, who seem with sufficient clearness to have traced the causes of
the rise and fall of particular states to principles quite independent
of, which were neither first set in motion nor afterwards regulated by
the principle of population, and the effects of which were utterly
disproportionate to the actual operation of that principle. After all,
it is impossible to answer a paradox satisfactorily. The real answer
consists of the feelings and observations of our whole lives; and of
course, it must be impossible to embody these in any single statement.
All that can be done in these cases is to set the imagination once more
in its old track.

‘Hear,’ says my authority, ‘the excellent Montague on the prevalence of
luxury among the Romans.’

‘If we connect the various strokes interspersed through what we have
remaining of the writings of Sallust, which were levelled at the vices
of his countrymen, we shall be able to form a just idea of the manners
of the Romans in his time. From this picture, we must be convinced, that
not only those shocking calamities, which the republic suffered during
the contest between Marius and Sylla, but those subsequent and more
fatal evils, which brought on the utter extinction of the Roman liberty
and constitution, were the natural effects of that foreign luxury, which
first introduced venality and corruption.’ [Now by _luxury_ we may
understand a very great superabundance of the good things of this life,
either in the community at large or in certain classes of it, but it
cannot by any construction be made to signify the general and absolute
want of them. Luxury in some classes may produce want in others, but
poverty is in this case the effect of the unequal distribution of the
produce of the earth, not of its real deficiency. Or if by luxury we
understand only certain exterior decorations or artificial indulgences,
which have nothing to do with the real support of life, such as dress,
furniture, buildings, pictures, gold and silver, rarities, delicacies of
all kinds, every thing connected with shew and expence (though all these
things among the Romans being the effects not merely of leisure or of
supernumerary hands, but of _power_, and foreign dominion, must imply a
command over the more substantial necessaries of life) yet even in this
sense the passion for luxury or for those indulgences (which is here
said to have been one great instrument in the overthrow of the state) is
certainly a very different thing from the passion of hunger, or want of
food, Mr. Malthus’s key to the solution of all problems of a political
nature.] ‘Though the introduction of luxury from Asia preceded the ruin
of Carthage in point of time, yet as Sallust informs us, the dread of
that dangerous rival restrained the Romans within the bounds of decency
and order. But as soon as ever _that obstacle was removed_, they gave a
full scope to their ungoverned passions. The change in their manners was
not gradual, and by little and little as before, but rapid and
instantaneous. Religion, justice, modesty, decency, all regard for
divine or human laws, were swept away at once by the irresistible
torrent of corruption. The nobility strained their privileges, and the
people their liberty, alike into the most unbounded licentiousness.
Every one made the dictate of his own will, his only rule of action.
Public virtue, and the love of their country, which had raised the
Romans to the empire of the universe, were extinct. Money, which alone
could enable them to gratify their darling luxury, was substituted in
its place. Power, dominion, honours, and universal respect were annexed
to the possession of money. Contempt, and whatever was the most
reproachful was the bitter portion of poverty; and to be poor, grew to
be the greatest of all crimes, in the estimation of the Romans. Thus
wealth and poverty contributed alike to the ruin of the republic. The
rich employed their wealth in the acquisition of power, and their power
in every kind of oppression and rapine for the acquisition of more
wealth. The poor, now dissolute and desperate, were ready to engage in
every seditious insurrection, which promised them the plunder of the
rich, and set up both their liberty and country to sale, to the best
bidder. The republic, which was the common prey to both, was thus rent
to pieces between the contending factions.—A state so circumstanced must
always furnish an ample supply of proper instruments for faction. For as
luxury consists in an inordinate gratification of the sensual passions,
and as the more they are indulged, the more importunate they grow, the
greatest fortune must at last sink under their insatiable demands. Thus
luxury necessarily produces corruption. As wealth is necessary to the
support of luxury, all those who have dissipated their private fortunes
in the purchase of pleasure, will be ever ready to enlist in the cause
of faction for the wages of corruption. And when once the idea of
respect and homage is annexed to the possession of wealth alone, honour,
probity, every virtue and every amiable quality will be held cheap in
comparison and looked upon as awkward, and quite unfashionable. But as
the spirit of liberty will yet exist in some degree, in a state which
retains the name of freedom, even though the manners of that state
should be generally depraved, an opposition will arise from those
virtuous citizens, who know the value of their birth-right, liberty, and
who will not submit tamely to the chains of faction. Force will then be
called in to the aid of corruption, a military government will be
established on the ruins of the civil, and all commands and employments
will be at the disposal of arbitrary, lawless power. The people will be
fleeced to pay for their own fetters, and doomed, like the cattle, to
unremitting toil and drudgery, for the support of their tyrannical
masters.’ [All this is evidently erroneous, when we apply to it the
touch-stone of the theory of population. The people are not fleeced and
worked in this manner for the benefit of those who fleece and work them,
to gratify any appetites or passions of theirs, it is out of pure
good-will to the poor wretches themselves, that they may live more at
their ease, and in a greater degree of affluence than they would without
this timely warning of the evils of poverty.] ‘Or if the outward form of
civil government should be permitted to remain, the people will be
compelled to give a sanction to tyranny by their own suffrages, and to
elect oppressors instead of protectors.—From this genuine portrait of
the Roman state it is evident that the fatal catastrophe of that
republic, of which Sallust himself was an eye-witness, was the natural
effect of the corruption of their manners; and again, that this
corruption was the effect of the introduction of foreign wealth and
luxury. This fatal tendency was too obvious to escape the notice of
those who had any regard for liberty and their ancient constitution.
Many sumptuary laws were made to restrain the excesses of luxury; but
these efforts were too feeble to check the over-bearing violence of the
torrent. Cato proposed a severe law, enforced by the sanction of an
oath, against bribery and corruption at elections; where the scandalous
traffic of votes was established by custom, as at a public market. But
he only incurred the resentment of both parties by that salutary
measure. The rich, who had no other merit to plead but what arose from
their superior wealth, thus found themselves precluded from all
pretensions to the highest dignities. The electors abused, cursed and
even pelted him as the author of a law which reduced them to the
necessity of subsisting by labour. Corruption was arrived at its height,
and those excesses which were formerly esteemed the _vices_ of the
people were now, by the force of custom, become the _manners_ of the
people. To pilfer the public money and to plunder the provinces by
violence, though state crimes of the most heinous nature, were grown so
familiar, that they were looked upon as no more than mere office
perquisites.’ Really I am afraid that the reader will suspect me of
falsifying the historical record to write a satire against our own
times. Some of these remarks are I confess _home_ truths. To a person
who has not that mysterious kind of penetration which the author of the
Essay possesses, they carry more weight, and give a clearer insight into
the principles that operate in the decomposition of states, than all Mr.
Malthus’s indiscriminate and shadowy reasonings on the evils of
population, which can no more prove anything decisively on the subject,
than we can account for the inequalities in the surface of the earth
from its being round.

The same author adds, ‘Though there is a concurrence of several causes
in the ruin of a state, yet where luxury prevails, that parent of all
our fantastic wants, ever craving, and ever unsatisfied, we may safely
assign it as the leading cause; since it ever was and ever will be the
most baneful to public virtue. _As luxury is contagious from its very
nature_, it will gradually descend from the highest to the lowest ranks
till it has ultimately affected a whole people.—We see luxury gradually
increasing and prevailing over the Roman spirit and virtue, till at
length the contagion _even_ reached ladies of the greatest distinction,
who in imitation of the prince and his court, had their assemblies and
representations in a grove, planted by the Emperor, where booths were
built, and in them sold whatever incited to sensuality and wantonness.
Thus was even the outward appearance of virtue banished the city, and
all manner of avowed lewdness, depravity and dissoluteness introduced in
its room, men and women being engaged in a contention to outvie each
other in glaring vices, and scenes of impurity. Again.—About the time
that the Roman republic was tottering to its fall, it was observed that
there was an universal degeneracy of manners prevailing, particularly
that the women were very scandalous in their behaviour at Rome, while
those of the countries called by them barbarous were remarkably
exemplary in this respect.’ Was this difference wholly owing to the
difference in the state of population? Or shall we believe that the
ladies of Roman knights, that the wives and daughters of Emperors, that
the mistresses of those to whom the world was tributary, who scattered
pearls and gold among their followers, who gave largesses of corn to the
people, and entertained them at ten thousand tables at a time, who ate
the tongues of peacocks and nightingales, and the brains of parrots,
whose dogs were fed with the livers of geese, their horses with raisins,
and their wild beasts with the flesh of partridges and pheasants, shall
we believe that these delicate creatures, who dreamt of nothing but
pleasure and feasting, who reclined on silken couches, whose baths were
made of rose-water and wine, who scented the air with all the perfumes
of the East, whose rich dresses were upborne by a train of
waiting-women, and idle boys, were driven to the necessity of
stimulating their passions by lewd exhibitions, and wanton dances, and
lascivious songs, and soft music and obscene practices, because they
were hindered from gratifying their honest desires in a lawful way by
the difficulty of providing for their future offspring, or the pressure
of population on the means of subsistence? Yet this is what we must be
led to suppose from Mr. Malthus’s theory, according to whom vice is the
natural consequence of want, and want the effect of increasing
population. For any one who is acquainted with the state of manners, and
the mode of living among the great at Rome at this time to pretend that
all this was owing to nothing but the advanced state of population, just
as the rising or falling of the weather-glass depends on the pressure of
the air outside, betrays a most astonishing ignorance of human nature. I
think I am warranted in laying down the two following maxims; that
luxury is itself an immediate cause of dissoluteness of manners;
secondly, that example, particularly that of the great, has a powerful
influence over manners.

Before I quit this subject of Roman luxury, I shall just mention a fact
quoted by my author, which seems to contradict Mr. Malthus’s notion that
the luxuries of the rich do not in the least affect the condition of the
poor. ‘The good Emperor Aurelius,’ says Burgh, ‘sold the plate,
furniture, jewels, pictures and statues of the imperial palace, _to
relieve the distresses of the people_, occasioned by the invasion of
barbarians, pestilence, famine, &c. the value of which was so great,
that it maintained the war for five years, beside other inestimable
expences.’ If according to Mr. Malthus’s reasoning on this subject in
different parts of his work, every man’s stomach can hold only a certain
quantity of food, and what does not go into one man’s stomach
necessarily goes into some other’s, that is, if every person has as
large a share as it is possible he should have of the necessaries of
life, I do not see what this moving of pictures or statues about, or
setting them up to auction should have to do with the state of
provisions, or how it should relieve the necessities of the poor. Mr.
Malthus’s reasonings are sometimes as remarkable for their simplicity as
they are at others for their complexity. He sees things in the most
natural or in the most artificial point of view, as he pleases. At one
time, every thing comes round by a labyrinth of causes, and all the
intricate secretions of the state; at another time the whole science of
political economy is reduced to a flat calculation of the size of a
quartern loaf, and the size of the human stomach.

All authors (but Mr. Malthus) seem agreed that luxury has been fatal to
the spirit of liberty, and that the loss of liberty has led to the loss
of independence. ‘The welfare of every country depends upon the morals
of the people. Though a nation may become rich by trade, thrift, and
industry, or from the advantages of soil and situation, or may attain to
great eminence and power either by force of arms, or by the sagacity of
their councils; yet when their manners are depraved, they will decline
insensibly, and at last come to utter destruction. When a country is
grown vicious, industry decays, and the people become unruly,
effeminate, and unfit for labour. Luxury, when introduced into free
states, and suffered to spread through the body of the people was ever
productive of that degeneracy of manners, which extinguishes public
virtue, and puts a final period to liberty. Thus the Assyrian empire
sunk under the arms of Cyrus with his poor but hardy Persians. The
extensive and opulent empire of Persia fell an easy prey to Alexander
and a handful of Macedonians. And the Macedonian empire, when enervated
by the luxury of Asia, was compelled to receive the yoke of the
victorious Romans. The descendants of the heroes, philosophers, orators,
and free citizens of Greece are now the slaves of the Grand Turk. The
posterity of the Scipios and Catos of Rome are now singing operas, in
the shape of Italian eunuchs, on the English stage.’[17] It should seem
from the length of time which these countries have remained in the same
degraded condition without a single effort or even wish to relieve
themselves from it, that there must be other causes of the permanent
depression of states, and other channels of transmission, by which the
habits, and characters of the people, their customs and institutions,
are handed down through successive generations without any hope of a
change for the better, besides the mechanical fluctuations in the
principle of population. If all laws, institutions, manners, and customs
were only so many _expressions_ (as I may say) of the power of that
principle, kingdoms would rise and fall with the operation of the checks
provided for it; their alternate renovation and decay would be as
regular as the ebbing and flowing of the tide; in proportion as they
sank deep in wretchedness, they would tower to greater happiness and
splendour; the foundation of their future prosperity would be laid in
the lowness of their fortune; the exhausted state would rise, like the
phœnix, out of its own ashes, and enter the career of liberty and glory
in all its pristine vigour. But we do not find that the accounts in
history correspond with the oscillations of Mr. Malthus’s theory. We
find through a long, dreary tract of time, during which our author’s
ratios must have been ascending and descending like buckets in a well,
that the inhabitants of those devoted countries have remained just where
they were,—in the lowest scale of human being. They have for a great
many hundred years been undergoing the wholesome discipline of vice and
misery without being the better for it, the iron yoke of necessity to
which they have so long and patiently submitted does not seem ever to
have been relaxed in their favour, and they have reaped none of those
reversionary benefits which might be expected from slavery and famine.
These powerful principles have not done much to rekindle in their
breasts their ancient love of liberty, the glow of genius,—or to open a
new field for the rapid increase of population. They have not been
favoured with any of those _ups_ and _downs_, those pretty whirls and
agreeable vicissitudes of good and evil, which Mr. Malthus describes as
the natural consequence of the principles on which his machine of
population is constructed. This is a radical objection to his machine;
it shews plainly that it is not constructed on true principles, that we
cannot safely trust ourselves in it, and will I hope deter us from
getting up into it.

‘The Swiss keep the same unchanged character of simplicity, honesty,
frugality, modesty, bravery. These are the virtues which preserve
liberty. They have no corrupt court, no blood-sucking placemen, no
standing army, the ready instruments of tyranny, no ambition for
conquest, no debauching commerce, no luxury, no citadels against
invasions and against liberty. Their mountains are their fortifications,
and every householder is a soldier, ready to fight for his country.’
This is the account which Voltaire gives of that country. Since that
time, it has fallen by a power greater than its own, and paid with its
liberty for the folly and madness of the rest of Europe. I hope I shall
not offend any of the sycophants of power, any of the enlightened
patriots of the day who regard the general distinctions of liberty and
slavery as slight and evanescent, by adding to my list of political
grievances foreign conquest as an evil, and an evil that tends to no
certain good.—I would fain know from the adepts in the science of
population whether according to that system it would be an advantage to
this country to be conquered by the French. The necessary ratios of the
increase of food and population (which according to our author are every
thing,—he utterly rejects the idea that established governments can do
any mischief) would of course remain the same; and as to the practical
part, population would, if any thing, go on slower than before. I cannot
but think however that most of my readers would in such a case
anticipate the consequences which our political reformer describes in
his croaking old-fashioned way as proceeding from another cause, the
corruption of the people, and the abuses of government at home. ‘I see’
he says, ‘my wretched country in the same condition as France is now.’
[This was written at a time when it was the fashion for the English to
reproach all other countries for their misery and slavery, as they have
since been in the habit of hunting them down for their attempts at
liberty.] ‘Instead of the rich and thriving farmers, who now fill or who
lately filled, the country with agriculture, yielding plenty for man and
beast, I see the lands neglected, the villages and farms in ruins, with
here and there a starveling in wooden shoes, driving his plough, his
team consisting of an old goat, a hide-bound bullock, and an ass, value
in all forty shillings. I see the once rich and populous cities of
England in the same condition with those of Spain; whole streets lying
in rubbish, and the grass peeping out between the stones in those which
continue still inhabited. I see the harbours empty, the warehouses shut
up, and the shop-keepers playing at draughts, for want of customers. I
see our noble and spacious turnpike roads covered with thistles and
other weeds, and hardly to be traced out. I see the studious men reading
the Political Disquisitions, and the histories of the eighteenth
century, and execrating the stupidity of their fathers, who in spite of
the many faithful warnings given them, sat still, and suffered their
country to be ruined by a set of wretches, whom they could have crushed.
I see the country devoured by an army of 200,000 men. I see justice
trodden under foot in the courts of justice. I see _Magna Charta_, the
_Habeas Corpus_ act, the bill of rights, and trial by jury, obsolete,
and royal edicts and _arrets_ set up in their place. I see the once
respectable land-owners, tradesmen, and manufacturers of England sunk
into contempt, and placemen and military officers the only persons of
consequence, &c.’ I do not know but there may be some staunch adherents
to the new philosophy, some hyper-graduates in the school, who would
think such a state of things ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished.’ But
it is happy that where our reason leaves us, our prejudices often come
to our aid. Though there may be some persons in this country who would
not care a fig for the Bastile, or letters _de cachet_, there is no one
who has not a just dread of Buonaparte; or who would not indignantly
spurn at the wretch who told him that so long as the disproportion in
the increase of food and the increase of mankind continued, it was of
little consequence to him whether he was subject to the yoke of a
foreign tyrant, or governed by a mild and lawful sovereign.—It has
always been the custom for the English to extol themselves to the skies
as the freest and happiest nation on the face of the earth. Ever since I
was a boy, I remember to have heard of the trial by jury, Magna Charta,
and the bill of rights, of the Bastile in France, and the Inquisition in
Spain, and the man in the Iron mask. Now whether it is that I was a boy
when I first heard of these things, or that they carry some weight and
meaning in themselves, certain it is that they have made such a strong
and indelible impression on my mind as totally to preclude the effects
of Mr. Malthus’s philosophy. Whether it is owing to the strength of my
reason or my prejudices, I cannot receive the benefit of his new light.
As these are some of the strongest feelings I have, (though they may
perhaps be just as childish as those which I still have in reading the
story of Goody Two-Shoes, or the Little Red Riding-hood) it occurred to
me to make some use of them in answer to Mr. Malthus’s challenge to shew
that there is no difference between one government and another in the
essentials of liberty and happiness. Or I thought I might contrast the
constitution of this country with that of Denmark, where (says Lord
Molesworth) the peasants are as absolute slaves as the negroes in
Jamaica, and _worse fed_. This seemed to be strong ground. But then I
recollected that the very same expression had been applied by a person,
whom it would be unbecoming in me to contradict, to the peasants in this
country.[18] I also met with a passage something to the same purpose in
the Political Disquisitions, which a little damped my patriotic
eagerness. ‘A poor hard-working man, who has a wife and six children to
maintain’ [what a wicked wretch!] ‘can neither enjoy the glorious light
of heaven, nor the glimmering of a farthing candle, without paying the
window tax and the candle tax. He rises early and sits up late; he fills
the whole day with severe labour; he goes to his flock-bed with half a
belly-full of bread and cheese denying the call of natural appetite,
that his wife and little starvelings may have the more.’ [Why he is very
justly punished to be sure. True; but mark the sequel.] ‘In the mean
while the exactors of these taxes are revelling at the expence of more
money for one evening’s amusement, than the wretched hard-working man
(who is obliged to find the money for them to squander) can earn by half
a year’s severe labour.’ On the whole, I was obliged to relinquish my
project. I found that my picture must either want effect, or be out of
all keeping. And besides the relations of things had not only changed,
but men’s opinions had changed with them. An overcharged description of
English liberty and continental slavery would not be at all to the taste
of the times. It would sound like mere rant, and would come to nothing.
But when I came to that fine representation of the effects of slavery,
which Burgh has left us, with those exquisite figures of the old goat,
the bullock and the ass, and the group of shop-keepers playing at
draughts for want of something to do, I was determined to bring it in,
cost what it would. At last, I bethought me of the expedient of an
invasion,—at that word I knew that every true friend of his country
would grow pale, would see the odious consequences of slavery in their
native deformity, and turn with disdain from those vile panders to vice
and misery, those sanguine enthusiasts of mischief, who would artfully
reconcile them to every species of want, oppression, and unfeeling
barbarity, as the necessary consequences of the principle of population.
So much more credit do we attach to names, than things!—The whole of the
account of Denmark to which I have just referred, is well worthy of
attention: I cannot forbear giving the following extract. ‘The
consequence of this oppression is that the people of Denmark finding it
impossible to secure their property’ [from the tax-gatherers] ‘squander
their little gettings, as fast as they can, and are irremediably poor.
Oppression and arbitrary sway beget distrust and doubts about the
security of property; doubts beget profusion, men chusing to squander on
their pleasures what they apprehend may excite the rapaciousness of
their superiors; and this profusion is the legitimate parent of that
universal indolence, poverty and despondency, which so strongly
characterize the miserable inhabitants of Denmark. When Lord Molesworth
resided in that country, the collectors of the poll-tax were obliged to
accept of old feather-beds, brass and pewter pans, &c. instead of money,
from the inhabitants of a town, which once raised 200,000 rix dollars
for Christiern IV. on twenty-four hours’ notice. The quartering and
paying the king’s troops is another grievance no less oppressive. The
boors are obliged to furnish the king and every little insolent courtier
with horses and waggons in their journeys, and are beaten like cattle.
Consequently, Denmark, once very populous, is become thin of
inhabitants; as poverty, oppression, and meagre diet do miserably check
procreation, besides producing diseases which shorten the lives of the
few who are born.’ [How miserably short-sighted must our author have
been not to perceive that these were great advantages!] ‘All this the
rich and thriving and free people of England may bring themselves to, if
they please’ [by following up Mr. Malthus’s theory.] ‘It is only letting
the court go on with their scheme of diffusing universal corruption
through all ranks, and it will come of course.’—There is one passage in
this account, which malevolence itself cannot apply to the history of
this country. ‘Before the government of Denmark was made hereditary and
absolute in the present royal family, by that fatal measure in 1660, the
nobility lived in great splendour and affluence. _Now they are poor and
their number diminished._’

I shall conclude these extracts with the following passages, taken at
random, which will at least serve to shew the strange prejudices that
prevailed on the subject, before Mr. Malthus, like the clown in
Shakespear, undertook to find out an answer that should explain all
difficulties. ‘It must indeed be an answer of most monstrous size that
fits all demands.’ But perhaps Mr. Malthus is by this time convinced,
that ‘a thing may serve long, and not serve ever.’

‘The richest soil in Europe, Italy, is full of beggars; among the
Grisons, the poorest country in Europe, there are no beggars. The
bailage of Lugane is the worst country, the least productive, the most
exposed to cold and the least capable of trade of any in all Italy, and
yet is the best peopled. If ever this country is brought under a yoke
like that which the rest of Italy bears, it will soon be abandoned, for
nothing draws so many people to live in so bad a soil, when they are in
sight of the best soil in Europe, but the easiness of the government.’
Burnet’s Travels.

‘Italy shews, in a very striking light, the advantages of free
government.[19] The subjects of the Italian republics are thriving and
happy. Those under the Pope, the dukes of Tuscany, Florence &c. wretched
in the extreme.—Lucca, to mention no other, is a remarkable instance of
the happy effects of liberty. The whole dominion is but thirty miles
round, yet contains, besides the city, 150 villages, 120,000
inhabitants, and all the soil is cultivated to the utmost. Their
magistrates are re-elected every two months out of a body of nobility,
who are chosen every two years.’ Modern Universal History. See also A.
Sydney as before quoted.—These differences cannot be accounted for by
the length of time or the force with which the principle of population
has operated in these states. The countries are equally old, and the
climate very nearly the same.

‘In England an industrious subject has the best chance for thriving,
because the country is the freest. In the Mogul’s dominions the worst,
because the country is the most effectually enslaved.’

‘The title of freemen was formerly confined chiefly to the nobility and
gentry, who were descended of free ancestors. _For the greatest part of
the people_ was restrained under some species of slavery, so that they
were not their own masters.’ Spelman’s Glossary.[20]—On this passage my
author remarks very gravely, ‘What has been in England may be again. If
liberty be on the decline, no one knows how low it may sink, and to what
pitch of slavery and cruelty it may grow.’ Mr. Malthus’s theory tends to
familiarise the mind to such a change as the necessary effect of the
progress of population. But this pretext is here clearly done away, as
we have fought up to our present free, and flourishing state, in the
_teeth_ of this principle. Our progress has not been uniformly
_retrograde_, as it ought to have been to make any thing of the
argument.

‘It is constantly (said a member in Queen Elizabeth’s time) in the
mouths of us all, that our lands, goods and laws are at our prince’s
disposal.’ We do not at present come _quite_ up to the loyalty of this
speaker.

‘Nations have often been deceived into slavery by men of shining
abilities.’ Perhaps the late Mr. Burke was an instance of this. I by no
means insist that he was, because there may be differences of opinion on
that point. But of this I am sure, that the effect of his writings, good
or bad, cannot be measured—by the principle of population.

‘A single genius changes the face and state of a whole country, as
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, and Peter the great of Russia. Confucius
produced a reformation in one of the oriental kingdoms in a few months.’

‘Commerce introduced by the czar Peter introduced luxury. Universal
dissipation took the lead, and profligacy of manners succeeded. _Many of
the lords began to squeeze and grind the peasants to extort fresh
supplies from them for the incessant demands of luxury_’—not of
population.

‘The extreme poverty occasioned by idleness and luxury in the beginning
of Lewis XIII. of France filled the streets of Paris with beggars. The
court disgusted at the sight, which indeed was a severe reproach on
them, issued an order, forbidding all persons, on severe penalties, to
relieve them, intending thereby to drive them out of the town, and not
caring though they dropped down dead, before they could reach the
country towns and villages.’ This was a project worthy of the genius of
Mr. Malthus.

‘Government, according to Plato, is the parent of manners. One judicious
regulation will often produce a very salutary effect on a whole people,
as experimental philosophy shews us, that a wire will secure a castle
from the once irresistible force of lightning.—Mankind may be brought to
hold any principles and to indulge any practices, and again to give them
up.—Is there any notion of right and wrong, about which mankind are
universally agreed? Is it not evident that mankind may be moulded into
any shape? How come we to know that antimony or quicksilver may, by
chemical processes, be made to pass through twenty different states, and
restored again to their original state? Is it not by experiment? Are not
the various legislations, institutions, regulations of wise or designing
statesmen, priests, and kings, a series of experiments, shewing that
human nature is susceptible of any form or character?’ According to the
most modern discovery, these things never did, nor ever will have any
effect at all. The question is simply whether the state of food and the
state of population being the same, the different causes here alluded to
have not produced very different results with respect to the degree both
of vice and misery existing in the world.[21]

‘The great difference we see between the behaviour of the people called
Quakers, and all others; between English, Scotch, Irish, French,
Spanish, Heathens, Mahometan, Christian, Popish, Protestant manners and
characters, &c. the regular and permanent difference we see between the
manners of all these divisions of mankind, shews beyond all doubt that
the principles and habits of the people are very much in the power of
able statesmen.’

‘Among the Lacedemonians there was no such crime as infidelity to the
marriage-bed: yet Lycurgus in framing his laws had used no precaution
against it, but the virtuous and temperate education he prescribed for
the youth of both sexes.—The influence which education has on the
manners of a people is so considerable that it cannot be estimated. But
by _education_ it is to be observed, we must understand not only what is
taught at schools and universities, but the impressions young people
receive from parents, and from the world, which greatly outweigh all
that can be done by masters and tutors. Education, taken in this
enlarged sense, is almost all that makes the difference between the
characters of nations; and it is a severe satire on our times, _that the
world makes most young men very different beings from what those who
educated them intended them to be_.’ This last remark is I think of the
utmost force and importance; and has never been sufficiently attended to
by those who prate most fluently and triumphantly about the inherent
perversity of human nature. A young man is seldom tainted by the world,
till he becomes dependent on it. I have known several persons who I am
sure have set out in life with the utmost purity of intention, and a
noble ingenuousness of mind, and were prepared to act on very different
principles from those, which they found prevailing in the world. Is the
fault in this case in the wood, or in the carver? Is it in the stuff, or
in the mould, in which it is cast? The difficulty seems to be, how to
get a better mould.

‘Aristotle lays down very strict rules concerning the company young
people may be allowed to keep, the public diversions they may attend;
the pictures they may see, and against obscenity, intemperance, &c. And
the eighth book of his politics is employed wholly on education, in
which he shews, that youth ought to be strongly impressed with the idea
of their being members of a community, whose good they are to prefer to
their private advantage in all cases where they come in competition. He
commends the wisdom of the Spartans in paying such attention to this
great object. Such is the delicacy of this old Heathen, that he
hesitates about the propriety of young men’s applying to music, as being
likely to enervate the mind.’

‘Lycurgus did not allow the Spartans to travel, lest they should be
tainted by the manners of other nations.’ I do not chuse to name all the
vices that have been imported into this country within the last fifty
years by the aid of foreign travel. Vice is unfortunately of a very
tenacious quality, and there is no quarantine against the epidemics of
the mind. In return, however, we have learned to converse, to dress, and
dance better than we used to do.

‘At Sparta, the poets could not publish any thing without a license; and
all immoral writings were prohibited. A very wise man[22] said he
believed, if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not
care who made the laws of a nation. The ancient legislators did not
pretend to reform the manners of the people without the help of the
poets.’

‘The grave Romans did not allow a person of character to dance! It was a
saying among them, no one dances unless he is drunk or mad.’

‘In the old English laws, we find punishments for wanton behaviour, as
touching the breasts of women, &c.—By the ancient laws of France, the
least indecency of behaviour to a free woman, as squeezing the hand,
touching the arm or breast, &c. was punishable by fire.’[23] What odd,
sour, crabbed notions must have prevailed in those days! Not squeeze a
lady’s hand! No—a much more agreeable latitude of behaviour is allowed
at present: we are as much improved in our notions of gallantry as of
liberty. The polite reader will not suspect me of a design to hold up
the shocking manners of our ancestors as models of imitation in the
present day; I only mention them to shew what a wide difference there
may be in the notions of decency and propriety at different times!

If a stranger, on entering a large town, London for example, should be
struck with that immense number of prostitutes, ‘who elbow us aside in
all our crowded streets,’ and not well knowing how to account for this
enormous abuse, should apply to a disciple of the modern school for some
explanation of it, he would probably be told with great gravity, _That
it was a necessary consequence of the progress of population, and the
superior power of that principle over the increase in the means of
subsistence_.—If Mr. Malthus, contented to follow in the track of common
sense, and not smitten with the love of dangerous novelty, had
endeavoured to trace the torrent of vice and dissipation which threatens
to bear down every principle of virtue and decency among us to the chief
sources pointed out by other writers, to the particular institutions of
society, to the prevalence of luxury, the inequality of conditions, the
facility of gratifying the passions from the power of offering
temptation, and inducements to accept it, the disproportion between the
passions excited in individuals, and their situation in life, to books,
to education, the progress of arts, the influence of neighbouring
example, &c. these are all causes, which, as they are arbitrary and
variable, seem as if they could be counteracted or modified by other
causes; they are the work of man, and what is the work of man it seems
in the power of man to confirm or alter. We see distinctly the source of
the grievance, and try to remedy it: hope remains, the will acts with
double energy, the spirit of virtue is not broken. Our vices grow out of
other vices, out of our own passions, prejudices, folly, and weakness:
there is nothing in this to make us proud of them, or to reconcile us to
them; even though we may despair, we are not confounded. We still have
the theory of virtue left: we are not obliged to give up the distinction
between good and evil even in imagination: there is some little good
which we may at least wish to do. Man in this case retains the character
of a free agent; he stands chargeable with his own conduct, and a sense
of the consequences of his own presumption or blindness may arouse in
him feelings that may in some measure counteract their worst effects; he
may regret what he cannot help: the life, the pulse, the spring of
morality is not dead in him; his moral sense is not quite extinguished.
But our author has chosen to stagger the minds of his readers by
representing vice and misery as the necessary consequences of an
abstract principle, of a fundamental law of our nature, on which nothing
can be effected by the human will. This principle follows us wherever we
go; if we fly into the uttermost parts of the earth, it is there:
whether we turn to the right or the left, we cannot escape from it. O
rather for that warning voice, that once cried aloud, _Insensés qui vous
plaignez, sans cesse de la nature, apprenez que tous vos maux vous
viennent de vous!_ As however I deny the sufficiency of our author’s
all-pervading principle, I may be required to point out more
particularly what I conceive to be the real and determining causes of
the decay of manners. I do not know that I can mention any that do not
come under the heads already alluded to, but if I must give a short
answer, I should say,—Great towns, great schools, dress, and novels.
These things are not regulated exactly by the size of the earth, and yet
must be allowed to have some influence on manners. To instance only the
two last. Is it to be wondered at that a young raw ignorant girl, who is
sent up from the country as a milliner’s or mantua-maker’s apprentice,
and stowed into a room with eight or ten others, who snatch every moment
they can spare from caps and bonnets, and sit up half the night to read
all the novels they can get, and as soon they have finished one, send
for another, whose heart, in the course of half a year, has been pierced
through with twenty beaux on paper, who has been courted, seduced, run
away with, married and put to bed under all the fine names that the
imagination can invent to as many fine gentlemen, who has sighed and
wept with so many heroes and heroines that her tears and sighs have at
last caused in her a defluction of the brain, and a palpitation of the
heart at the sight of every man, whose fancy is love-sick, and her head
quite turned, should be unable to resist the first coxcomb of real flesh
and blood, who in shining boots and a velvet collar accosts her in the
shape of a lover, but who has no thoughts of marrying her, because if he
were to take this imprudent step, he must give up his shining boots and
velvet collar, and the respect they procure him in the world? Zaleucus
ordained that no woman should dress herself gorgeously, unless she was a
prostitute. If I were a law-giver, and chose to meddle in such matters,
I would ordain that no woman should expose her shape publicly, unless
she were a prostitute.—The female form is more proper for child-bearing,
than for public exhibition; this secret analogy, when coupled with
modesty and reserve, is however its greatest charm. The strange
fancy-dresses, the perverse disguises, the counterfeit shapes, the stiff
stays, and enormous hoops worn by the women in the time of the Spectator
gave an agreeable scope to the imagination. The greedy eye and rash hand
of licentiousness were repressed. The senses were never satisfied in an
instant. Love was entangled in the folds of the swelling handkerchief,
and the desires might wander for ever round the circumference of a
quilted petticoat, or find a rich lodging in the flowers of a damask
stomacher. There was room for years of patient perseverance, for a
thousand thoughts, fancies, conjectures, hopes, fears, and wishes. There
seemed no end to difficulties and delays: to overcome so many obstacles
was the work of ages. A _wife_ had then some meaning in it: it was an
angel concealed behind whalebone, flounces, and brocade. The transition
from a mistress in masquerade to a wife in wedding sheets was worth
venturing for: now it is nothing, and we hear no more of faithful
courtships, and romantic loves. A woman can be _but_ undressed.—The
young ladies we at present see with the thin muslin vest drawn tight
round the slender waist, and following with nice exactness the
undulations of the shape downwards, disclosing each full swell, each coy
recess, obtruding on the eye each opening charm, the play of the
muscles, the working of the thighs, and by the help of a walk, of which
every step seems a gird, and which keeps the limbs strained to the
utmost point, displaying all those graceful involutions of person, and
all those powers of fascinating motion, of which the female form is
susceptible—these moving pictures of lust and nakedness, against which
the greasy imaginations of grooms and porters may rub themselves,
running the gauntlet of the saucy looks and indecent sarcasms of the
boys in the street, staring at every ugly fellow, leering at every
handsome man, and throwing out a lure for every fool (true Spartan
girls, who if they were metamorphosed into any thing in the manner of
Ovid, it would certainly be into valerian!) are the very same, whose
mothers or grand-mothers buried themselves under a pile of clothes,
whose timid steps hardly touched the ground, whose eyes were constantly
averted from the rude gaze of the men, and who almost blushed at their
own shadows. ‘Of such we in romances read.’ It does not require any
great spirit of divination to perceive that this change in appearance
must imply some change in manners. Is this change then owing entirely to
the increased pressure of the principle of population, or have not
French fashions, French milliners, and French dancing-masters had some
hand in producing it?[24]—Mr. Malthus inveighs with great severity
against squalid poverty, and the vices produced by filth and rags. I
allow the justice of his remarks, and think that the condition of the
poor in this respect is one of the chief nuisances of society. After
giving the poor a scrubbing with a coarse towel in the manner he has
done, it would not have been amiss if he had taken a clean white
clerical pocket-handkerchief, and applied it to wipe off the rouge from
the cheeks of painted prostitution, or thrown it as a covering over the
polished neck and ivory shoulders of ladies of high quality. The bishop
of London would have praised the attempt. Mr. Malthus might have
distinguished between the involuntary rents, and the unlucky loop-holes
which sometimes appear in a poor girl’s petticoat, and the elegant
dishabille and studied nakedness of high life. The dirt that sticks to a
wench’s face in cleaning a saucepan is I think likely to have less
effect on the character than the red paste daubed on the cheeks before a
looking-glass, to give _animation_ to the eyes. The contempt which dirt
and poverty excite must destroy all moral sensibility. Must not the
glare of fashion and the perpetual intoxication of personal vanity have
the same effect? The poor grovel in disagreeable sensations, the rich
wanton in voluptuous ones. The passions are not more likely to be
inflamed by stale porter, the screams of a fiddle, and the clattering of
a hornpipe at a hop in St. Giles’s, than by the elegant liqueurs, the
soft sounds of the clarionet and hautboy, and the languishing movements
of walses, allemandes, and minuets _de la cour_ at a ball in St.
James’s. A fair, or an opera may equally turn the head of any silly girl
that goes to one. Of the two, a tune on the salt-box would be got over
sooner than Narcissus and the Graces. The tawdry prints to be seen in
garrets, and the ballads sung at the corners of streets do not much
improve the morals of the people: but I put it to the conscience of our
sentimental divine, whether the Wanton Wife of Bath, or the tall captain
with his arm round the chambermaid’s waist, or Jemmy Jessamy lolling on
the sofa with his mistress, may be expected to produce more accidents
than those luscious collections of the poets, or those grave
scripture-pieces, or classical _chef-d’œuvres_ of Venus and Adonis, of
Leda with her Swan, Nymphs, Fawns, and Satyrs, which gentlemen of
fortune keep in their houses for the instruction of their wives and
daughters. Mr. Malthus is convinced that no young woman brought up in
nastiness and vulgarity, however virtuous she may seem, can be good for
any thing at twenty: I confess I have the same cynical opinion of those,
who have the good fortune to be brought up in the obscene refinements of
fashionable life.

I never fell in love but once; and then it was with a girl who always
wore her handkerchief pinned tight round her neck, with a fair face,
gentle eyes, a soft smile, and cool auburn locks. I mention this,
because it may in some measure account for my temperate, tractable
notions of this passion, compared with Mr. Malthus’s. It was not a
raging heat, a fever in the veins: but it was like a vision, a dream,
like thoughts of childhood, an everlasting hope, a distant joy, a
heaven, a world that might be. The dream is still left, and sometimes
comes confusedly over me in solitude and silence, and mingles with the
softness of the sky, and veils my eyes from mortal grossness. After all,
Mr. Malthus may be right in his opinion of human nature. Though my
notions of love have been thus aerial and refined, I do not know that
this was any advantage to me, or that I might not have done better with
a few of our author’s ungovernable transports, and sensual oozings.
Perhaps the workings of the heart are best expressed by a gloating
countenance, by mawkish sentiments and lively gestures. Cupid often
perches on broad shoulders, or on the brawny calf of a leg, a settlement
is better than a love-letter, and in love not minds, but bodies and
fortunes meet. I have therefore half a mind to retract all that I have
said, and prove to Mr. Malthus that love is not even so intellectual a
passion as he sometimes admits it to be, but altogether gross and
corporal.

I have thus attempted to answer the different points of Mr. Malthus’s
argument, and give a truer account of the various principles that
actuate human nature. There is but one advantage that I can conceive of
as resulting from the admission of his mechanical theory on the subject,
which is that it would be the most effectual recipe for indifference
that has yet been found out. No one need give himself any farther
trouble about the progress of vice, or the extension of misery. The
office of moral censor, that troublesome, uneasy office which every one
is so ready to set up in his own breast, and which I verily believe is
the occasion of more unhappiness than any one cause else, would be at an
end. The professor’s chair of morality would become vacant, and no one
would have more cause than I to rejoice at the breaking up for the
holidays; for I have plagued myself a good deal about the distinctions
of right and wrong. The pilot might let go the helm, and leave the
vessel to drift carelessly before the stream. When we are once convinced
that the degree of virtue and happiness can no more be influenced by
human wisdom than the ebbing and flowing of the tide, it must be idle to
give ourselves any more concern about them. The wise man might then
enjoy an Epicurean languor and repose, without being conscious of the
neglect of duty. Mr. Malthus’s system is one, ‘in which the wicked cease
from troubling, and in which the weary are at rest.’ To persons of an
irritable and nervous disposition, who are fond of kicking against the
pricks, who have tasted of the bitterness of the knowledge of good and
evil, and to whom whatever is amiss in others sticks not merely like a
burr, but like a pitch-plaister, the advantage of such a system is
incalculable.—

Happy are they, who live in the dream of their own existence, and see
all things in the light of their own minds; who walk by faith and hope,
not by knowledge; to whom the guiding-star of their youth still shines
from afar, and into whom the spirit of the world has not entered! They
have not been ‘hurt by the archers,’ nor has the iron entered their
souls. They live in the midst of arrows, and of death, unconscious of
harm. The evil thing comes not nigh them. The shafts of ridicule pass
unheeded by, and malice loses its sting. Their keen perceptions do not
catch at hidden mischiefs, nor cling to every folly. The example of vice
does not rankle in their breasts, like the poisoned shirt of Nessus.
Evil impressions fall off from them, like drops of water. The yoke of
life is to them light and supportable. The world has no hold on them.
They are in it, not of it; and a dream and a glory is ever about them.




                 EXTRACTS FROM THE ESSAY ON POPULATION
                      WITH A COMMENTARY, AND NOTES


I intended to have added another Letter on the principle of population
as affecting the laws of property, and the condition of the poor. But I
found it impossible to combat some of Mr. Malthus’s opinions without
bringing vouchers for them. I might otherwise seem to be combating the
chimeras of my own brain. There are some instances of perverse reasoning
so gross and mischievous, that without seeing the confidence with which
they are insisted on, it seems a waste of time to contradict them. The
reader may perhaps have had something of this feeling already. By
throwing the remainder of the work into the form of Extracts with notes
I shall at least avoid the imputation of ascribing to Mr. Malthus
singularities he never dreamt of, and have an opportunity of remarking
upon some incidental passages, which appeared to me liable to objection
in the perusal. My remarks will be confined almost entirely to the two
last books of the work.

‘M. Condorcet’s _Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progres de
l’esprit humain_, was written, it is said, under the pressure of that
cruel proscription which terminated in his death. If he had no hopes of
its being seen during his life, and of its interesting France in his
favour, it is a singular instance of the attachment of a man to
principles, which every day’s experience was, so fatally for himself,
contradicting. To see the human mind, in one of the most enlightened
nations of the world, debased by such a fermentation of disgusting
passions, of fear, cruelty, malice, revenge, ambition, madness, and
folly, as would have disgraced the most savage nations in the most
barbarous age, must have been such a tremendous shock to his ideas of
the necessary and inevitable progress of the human mind, that nothing
but the firmest conviction of the truth of his principles, in spite of
all appearances, could have withstood.’

Mr. Malthus in his pick-thank way, here takes occasion to sneer at
Condorcet for his attachment to principles, which, he asserts, every
day’s experience was contradicting. As this of mine is not a pick-thank
work, I must take the liberty of observing, as I have never read M.
Condorcet’s work, that if his ideas of the future progress of the human
mind were the same as those of other writers on the subject, that
debasement of character, and that mass of disgusting passions, which
developed themselves in the events to which Mr. Malthus here alludes,
were the strongest confirmation of the necessity of getting rid of those
institutions which had thus degraded the human character, and under
which such passions had been fostered: for to say that the progress of
the human mind, in spite of those institutions, was necessary and
inevitable, or that there were no such passions as fear, cruelty,
malice, revenge, &c. belonging to the character generated by the old
system in France (in which an immediate change could not be expected
without a miracle) would have been such a contradiction to common sense,
and to all their own favourite schemes of reform, as no madman in the
height of revolutionary madness was ever guilty of. All that could ever
be pretended by the advocates of reform was that there were capacities
for improvement in the mind, which had hitherto notwithstanding the
advantages of knowledge been thwarted by human institutions. The
contradiction rests therefore not with Condorcet, but with our author.
The same objection has been often made, and often refuted. But there are
some reasoners who care little how often a fallacy has been exposed, if
they know there are people who are still inclined to listen to it.

‘This posthumous publication is only a sketch of a much larger work
which he proposed should be executed. It necessarily wants, therefore,
that detail and application, which can alone prove the truth of any
theory.’ [This remark I cannot admit. I do not think for instance that
any detail or application is necessary to prove the truth of Mr.
Malthus’s general principle of the disproportion between the power of
increase in population, and in the productions of the earth, or to shew
the bad consequences of an unrestricted increase of population.] ‘A few
observations will be sufficient to shew how completely this theory is
contradicted, when it is applied to the real and not to an imaginary
state of things.’ [The _contre-sens_ implied in this expression is not a
slip of the pen, but a fixed principle in Mr. Malthus’s mind.] He has a
very satisfactory method of answering all theories relating to any
imaginary alterations or improvements in the condition of mankind, by
shewing what would be the consequences of a certain state of society, if
no such state of society really existed, but if every thing remained
just as it is at present. He thinks it sound sense and true philosophy
to judge of a theory which is confessedly imaginary or has never been
realized by comparing it ‘with the real and not with an imaginary state
of things.’ That is, he does not adopt the necessarian maxim that men
will be always the same while the circumstances continue, but he insists
upon it that they will be always the same, whether the circumstances are
the same or not. Some instances have already appeared of this in the
foregoing work. The following passage may serve as another instance.
After supposing Mr. Godwin’s system of equality to be realized to its
utmost extent, and the most perfect form of society established, he
exclaims, ‘this would indeed be a happy state; but that it is merely an
imaginary state with scarcely a feature near the _truth_, the reader, I
am afraid, is already too well convinced.’ Mr. Godwin himself was I
apprehend very well convinced that this imaginary state was very
different from the truth or from the present state of things, when he
wrote his book to shew how much better the one _would be_ than the other
_is_. He then goes on, ‘Man cannot live in the midst of plenty. All
cannot share alike the bounties of nature. Were there no established
administration of property, every man would be obliged to guard with
force his little store. Selfishness would be triumphant. The subjects of
contention would be perpetual,’ &c. If there were no established
administration of property, while men continued as selfish as they are
at present, (which is I suppose what Mr. Malthus means by applying the
theory _to the real state of things_‘) the consequences here mentioned
would no doubt follow. But it is supposed that there is no established
administration of property, because the necessity for it has ceased or
because selfishness is not triumphant, but vanquished. This is the
supposition. Mr. Malthus however persists, that were there no
established administration of property, ‘every man would be obliged to
guard with force his little store since selfishness would still be as
triumphant as ever.’ This is contrary to all the received rules of
reasoning. He then proceeds to examine, how long Mr. Godwin’s theory if
once realized might be expected to last, and how soon the present vices
of men would discompose this _perfect_ form of society, concluding very
wisely that ‘a theory that will not admit of application cannot possibly
be just.’ True: if a man tells you that a triangle has certain
properties, he is bound to make good this theory with respect to a
triangle, but not with respect to a circle.—The outcry which Mr. Malthus
here makes about experience is without any meaning. It is evident that
we cannot make this word a rule in all cases whatever. For instance, if
a man who is in the habit of drinking a bottle of brandy every day of
his life and consequently enjoys but an indifferent state of health, is
advised by his physician to leave off this practice, and told that _on
this condition_ he may recover his health and appetite, it would not be
considered as a proof of any great wisdom in the man, if he were to
answer this reasoning of his physician by applying it to the real, and
not to an imaginary state of things, or by saying, ‘The consequences you
promise me from submitting to your regimen are indeed very desirable;
but I cannot expect any such consequences from it: I have always been in
very bad health from the habit I have constantly been in of drinking
brandy; and it would be contrary to the experience of my whole life to
suppose, that I should receive any benefit from leaving it off.’ In like
manner, I conceive that it is not from any great depth of philosophy,
but from the strength of his attachment to the good things of this life,
that Mr. Malthus makes so many ill-judged appeals to experience. He is
afraid of launching into the empty regions of abstraction, he stands
shivering on the brink; or if he ventures a little way, soon turns back
again, frightened out of his wits, and muttering something about
population. His imagination cannot sustain for a moment the idea of any
real improvement or elevation in the human character, but instantly
drops down into the filth of vice and misery, out of which it had just
crawled. His attempts at philosophy put me in mind of the exploits of
those citizens who set out on a Sunday morning to take an excursion into
the country, resolved to taste the fresh air, and not be confined for
ever to the same spot, but who get no farther than Paddington, White
Conduit-house, or Bagnigge-wells, unable to leave the smoke, the noise
and dust, to which they have so long been used! Mr. Malthus is a perfect
_cockney_ in matters of philosophy.

M. Condorcet, allowing that there must in all stages of society be a
number of individuals who have no other resource than their industry, or
that ‘there exists a necessary cause of inequality, of dependence and
even of misery,[25] which menaces without ceasing the most numerous and
active class of the community,’ proposes to establish a fund, which
should assure to the old an assistance, produced in part _by their own
former savings_, and partly by the savings of others, who die before
they reap the benefit of it; and that this fund might extend to women
and children, who had lost their husbands or fathers, and afford a
capital to young beginners, sufficient for the developement of their
industry. To those who have not fathomed all the depths and shoals of
the principle of population, this plan seems feasible enough. Mr.
Malthus’s cautious reserved humanity, his anxious concern about the
support of the aged, the infirm, the widow, and the orphan, his wish to
give every encouragement to industry, and above all, his regard for the
rights and independence of his fellows, lead him to see nothing but
difficulties and objections in the way of such a plan.

‘Such establishments may appear very promising upon paper; but when
applied to real life, they will be found to be absolutely nugatory. M.
Condorcet allows, that a class of people which maintains itself entirely
by industry is necessary to every state. Why does he allow this? No
other reason can well be assigned, than because he conceives, that the
labour necessary to procure subsistence for an extended population, will
not be performed without the goad of necessity. If by establishments,
upon the plans that have been mentioned, this spur to industry be
removed; if the idle and negligent be placed upon the same footing with
regard to their credit, and the future support of their wives and
families, as the active and industrious, can we expect to see men exert
that animated activity in bettering their condition, which now forms the
master-spring of publick prosperity. If an inquisition were to be
established to examine the claims of each individual, and to determine
whether he had, or had not, exerted himself to the utmost, and to grant
or refuse assistance accordingly, this would be little else than a
repetition upon a larger scale, of the English poor laws, and would be
completely destructive of the true principles of liberty and equality.’

This passage only shews the shyness of our author’s benevolence. He will
hear of no short-cuts or obvious expedients for bettering the condition
of the poor. All his benefits are extracted by the Cæsarean
operation.—In the first place, he contradicts himself. He first supposes
that labour cannot be performed without the _goad of necessity_, and
then affirms that it is _the prospect of bettering their condition_,
that makes men exert themselves, and forms the master-spring of public
prosperity. But why is it necessary that the idle and negligent should
be put upon the same footing with the industrious, with respect to their
credit, the support of their families, &c.? As to the first of these, it
is proposed to be only temporary, to serve as a beginning, and if a
proper use is not made of it, the goad of necessity, to which Mr.
Malthus is so ready to resort on all occasions, will soon begin to do
its office. As to the second object, the support of a surviving family,
in case of accidents, did Mr. Malthus never hear of any distress
produced in this way, but in consequence of the idleness and negligence
of the deceased? Is not a poor family necessarily reduced to distress by
the death of the husband, let his industry and sobriety have been never
so great, and even reduced to greater distress in proportion to his
industry, as they must miss his help the more? Besides, it is not likely
that the withholding this assistance from a man’s family after his death
will be any inducement to the idle and negligent to exert themselves,
when the sight of the actual distress in which their families are
involved by their ill conduct has no effect upon them. I see no
objection to proportioning the allowance to the old, or to those who
have had time to make a provision for themselves, to the contributions
they have really made to the fund in a given length of time. This would
be a sufficient test of the validity of their pretensions, as they could
not contribute largely, without proportionably straitening themselves,
and the idle and profligate are not very apt to part with their present
gains to provide for any speculative uncertainties or future difficulty.
(Mr. Malthus may measure the support allotted to their families in the
same way.) While the distinction of the idle and industrious continued,
and while it was necessary to encourage the one and discountenance the
other, I do not understand what objection there can be to this mode, or
how it would trench upon the true principles of liberty and equality.
True equality supposes equal merit and virtue. But Mr. Malthus is
alarmed at this scheme, because, he says, it is little else than a
repetition on a larger scale of the English poor laws. If the English
poor laws are formed upon this principle, I should, I confess, be very
sorry to see them abolished.

‘Were every man sure of a comfortable provision for a family, almost
every man would have one; and were the rising generation free from the
“killing frost” of misery, population must increase with unusual
rapidity.’

This is an utter falsification of the argument, as I have already shewn.
Every man could not be sure of a comfortable provision for a family,
unless this provision existed, and I see no reason why the rising
generation should not be free from the killing frost of misery, at least
while they can. To argue that our enlightened posterity will feel
‘secure that the general benevolence will supply every deficiency,’ is
to suppose them strangely unacquainted with the principles of Mr.
Malthus’s Essay.

‘The period when the number of men surpass their means of subsistence
has long since arrived.’ p. 357.

This I must deny. That the period of the utmost degree of populousness
would have arrived long ago, if nothing had prevented it, I am very
ready to grant. But that it has ever actually arrived, is another
question. Because population would have arrived at its greatest possible
or desirable height long before our time, if it had not been kept back
by any artificial and arbitrary checks, is that any reason why it should
never attain that height, or should not now be suffered to go on, though
those checks have always operated to keep it back much more than was
necessary, viz. below the level not only of the possible, but of the
_actual_ means of subsistence or produce of the earth? As to the period
when the world is likely to maintain the greatest possible number of
inhabitants in the greatest possible comfort, I have no notion that it
will ever arrive at all. If however it should ever arrive, it must be in
consequence either of a gradual or immediate complete improvement in the
state of society. If this improvement is gradual, the increase in
population will be so too, and will not reach its farthest limit till a
considerably remote period; if the improvement is sudden and rapid,
still it must be some time before the operation of the new system of
things will have overcome all obstacles, and completely peopled the
earth. So that in either case the event seems a good way off. The danger
of arriving at this point does not therefore appear to be ‘immediate or
imminent,’ but doubtful and distant.

Mr. Malthus in his examination of Condorcet’s arguments, in favour of
the indefinite prolongation of human life, (one of those absurdities
against which no good reason can be given, but that it shocks all common
sense) shews considerable ingenuity, mixed up with a great deal of that
minute verbal logic, to which he seems to have accustomed his mind, and
which is perpetually leading him into erroneous methods of reasoning,
even when he happens to be right in his conclusions. As in the following
passages.

‘Variations from different causes are essentially distinct from a
regular and unretrograde increase. The average duration of human life
will, to a certain degree, vary, from healthy or unhealthy climates,
from wholesome or unwholesome food, from virtuous or vicious manners,
and other causes; but it may be fairly doubted, whether there has been
really the smallest perceptible advance in the natural duration of human
life, since first we had any authentic history of man. The prejudices of
all ages have, indeed, been directly contrary to this supposition.’

Now this statement is very unsatisfactory, to say the least. For the
only reason that can be given why the causes here mentioned, on which
Mr. M. allows that the duration of human life depends, have not produced
a regular and permanent effect _must be_, that they themselves have
neither been regular nor permanent. The mere fact, therefore, of the
variableness in the length of human life proves nothing but the
variableness of those moral and artificial causes, which are supposed to
have some influence on our physical constitution. But Condorcet supposes
a regular advance to be made in these causes, and that an indefinite
advance in some of them (as the knowledge of medicine for instance) is
probable, will hardly be disputed. The question (in this point of view)
of the necessary duration of human life is not properly a question of
fact, or history, but depends on a comparison of the present
circumstances of mankind with their past circumstances, and on the
probability that may thence appear of preventing or counteracting those
maladies and passions which are most unfavourable to long life. That our
reason may sometimes get the start of our experience is what no one can
deny. Thus when the art of printing was first discovered it required no
great stretch of thought to perceive that knowledge and learning would
soon become more generally diffused than they had hitherto been, though
till this event no perceptible or regular progress had ever been made.
Those who reason otherwise are a kind of stereographic reasoners who
take things in the lump without being able to analyse or connect their
different principles. Experience is but the alphabet of reason. With
respect to the general shortness of human life compared with what it was
in the first ages of mankind, this fact seems rather against Mr.
Malthus, for if there is no certain date, no settled period to human
life, beyond which it cannot hold out, but that it has varied from a
thousand to a hundred years, so far there is no reason why we should not
tread back our steps, or even go beyond the point from which we set out.
There is no fixed limit; the present length of human life is not
evidently a general law of nature. The mere naked fact of its never
exceeding a certain length at present is just as decisive against its
ever having been longer, as it is against its ever being longer in
future. Mr. Malthus argues about human life, as Hume argues about
miracles.

‘It will be said, perhaps, that the reason why plants and animals cannot
increase indefinitely in size, is, that they would fall by their own
weight. I answer, how do we know this but from experience? from
experience of the degree of strength with which these bodies are formed.
I know that a carnation, long before it reached the size of a cabbage,
would not be supported by its stalk; but I only know this from my
experience of the weakness, and want of tenacity in the materials of a
carnation stalk. There are many substances in nature, of the same size,
that would support as large a head as a cabbage.

‘The reasons of the mortality of plants are at present perfectly unknown
to us. No man can say why such a plant is annual, another biennial, and
another endures for ages. The whole affair in all these cases, in
plants, animals, and in the human race, is an affair of experience; and
I only conclude that man is mortal, because the invariable experience of
all ages has proved the mortality of those materials of which his
visible body is made.

              ‘What can we reason but from what we know.’

This is making use of words without ideas. It is endeavouring to
confound two things essentially distinct, because the same lax
expression may be applied to them both. It is an attempt to deprive men
of their understanding, and leave them nothing but the use of their
senses, by a trick of language. Does it follow because all our knowledge
may be traced in some way to something which may be called _experience_,
that all our conclusions are nothing but an affair of memory? Does Mr.
Malthus know of only one sort of experience? Is there not a blind and a
rational experience? Is it not one thing merely to know a fact, or a
number of facts, and another to know the _reason_ of them? Or if our
philosopher is determined to intrench himself behind a word, is there
not a knowledge founded on the experience of certain positive results,
(which often extends no further than those results) and a knowledge
founded on the experience of certain general principles or laws, to
which all particular effects are subject? Mr. Malthus seems to insinuate
that the knowledge of the general law or principle adds nothing to the
knowledge of the fact, because both are equally an affair of experience.
He might as well assert that a ligature of iron would not strengthen a
deal plank, because they are both held together by the same law of
cohesion. The fact expresses nothing more than the actual co-existence
of certain things in certain circumstances, and while all those
circumstances continue, no doubt the same consequences will follow. But
we know that they are hardly ever the same, and the question is, which
of them is necessary to produce the effect talked of. This the _reason_
points out, that is, it points out a relation between certain things,
which has been found to hold not merely in the given circumstances, but
in all others, which is properly the relation of cause and effect. Our
idea of cause and effect is not derived from our immediate but from our
_comparative_ experience: it is only by taking our experience to pieces,
by seeing what things are, or are not necessarily connected together in
different circumstances, that we learn to reason with clearness and
confidence on the succession of events.

The succession of events is not the same thing as the succession of
cause and effect. By assigning a reason for a thing, I mean then being
able to refer it to a general rule or principle collected from and
proved by an infinite number of collateral instances, and confirming the
particular fact or instance to which it is applied. It is drawing
together the different ramifications of our experience, and winding them
round a particular bundle of things, and tying them fast together. Thus
suppose we have never seen a carnation of the size of a cabbage: does it
follow that we never shall, or that there can be no such thing? We might
say, I know no _reason_ why a flower of a certain shape, colour, &c.
should not reach a certain size, but that it has never been so within my
knowledge. This might however be owing to the soil, culture, or a
thousand circumstances, which are not invariable.—But the moment the
reason is given (supposing it to be a good one) namely, the connection
between the contexture and weight, (though this reason is also derived
indirectly from the general fund of our experience) there is an end at
once of the question. To suppose a flower to grow to a greater height
than it could support from the slenderness of the stalk would be to
suppose what never happened not only with respect to that particular
flower, the carnation, but with respect to any other flower, or plant,
or animal, or any other body whatever. We know that climate has such an
effect that what are plants with us, in the tropical climates become
large trees: but the necessary proportion between the size or weight of
the plant, and the strength of the stalk that is to support it, is what
no change of soil or climate can supersede, unless we could supersede
the law of gravitation itself. The mere experimental or historical proof
is here then buttressed up by the general rule, or reason of the
thing.—I have always seen a stone fall to the ground; I remember a house
always to have stood where it does; a hill has never stirred from the
place where I first saw it. Is the inference to be drawn from these
different cases equally certain? Am I to conclude that the house will
last as long as the mountain, because I have the same positive evidence
of their permanence? No: because though I have never seen any alteration
in that particular house, I have seen other houses pulled down and built
up; and besides, from the size of the objects, the shape and nature of
the materials, I know that one of them may be very easily destroyed,
whereas nothing but some great convulsion in nature is ever likely to
destroy the other or remove it from its place. Our particular experience
is only to be depended on, as it is explained and confirmed by analogy
to other cases, viz. by a number of other facts of the same kind, or by
general observation. Secondly, the aggregate of our experience with
respect to any given class of events is constantly over-ruled by the
_reason of the case_, viz. by our knowledge of cause and effect, by the
intelligible, explicit connections of things, and by considering whether
the principles concerned in the production of a series of events,
(forming a body of facts, or the concrete mass of our experience) are
resolvable into a simple law of nature operating universally,
unchangeably, without ever being suspended for a moment, (as for
instance, the law of gravitation which holds equally of all bodies in
all cases, and can never be separated from our reasonings upon them) or
whether the event has been owing to a combination of mixed causes, which
do not always act alike and with equal force, or the effect of which
depends upon circumstances, which we know may be altered, (as in the
case of soils, climates, methods of culture,[26] &c. to return to the
former example). Suppose a rock to have stood for ages on the summit of
a mountain. Am I sure that it will stand there always? Yes, if nothing
happens to prevent it. But can I be sure that nothing will ever remove
it, because nothing has ever done so hitherto? On the contrary, I know
that if a man points a cannon against it, it will be shattered to pieces
in an instant, though it has stood there for ages, and though there is
not at present the least appearance of a change in it. Here then my
experience is of no avail against my reason. In one sense of the word,
it is all thrown away, and goes for nothing. To judge rationally, I must
take other circumstances into the account, the effects of gunpowder, &c.
The resistance made by the rock will depend upon its hardness, not upon
the length of time it had stood there. Our experience then is not one
thing, or any number of things, taken absolutely or blindly by
themselves, but a vast collection of facts, and what is of infinitely
more importance, of rules, founded upon those facts, bearing one upon
another, and perpetually modified by circumstances. It is not upon any
single fact or class of facts, or on any single rule, but on the
combination of all these, and the manner in which they balance and
control one another, that our decisions must ultimately rest. It is from
this rational and abstracted experience that we obtain any certain
results, and infer from the altered relation of causes and events, that
things will happen which never happened before. The future is contained
in the past, only as it grows out of the same powers in nature, but
acting in different situations, and producing different practical
results by invariable laws. To apply all this to the question. If it is
allowed that the improvements in physic have an influence on the
duration of human life, and that these improvements may go on
indefinitely, I do not think Mr. Malthus’s answer a conclusive one that
no considerable progress will ever be made in this respect, because none
has hitherto been made. If the improvements in science have not hitherto
been regular and permanent, it cannot be expected that any advantages
depending on them should have been so: nor does the past history of
mankind in this instance furnish a rule for our future conjectures,
inasmuch as in all that relates to the permanence and general diffusion
of knowledge, a new turn has been given to the question (as before
observed) by the invention of printing. This single circumstance, which
was matter of mere accident, may be said in many respects to have given
a new aspect to human affairs; to say that it has not yet produced the
effects predicted from it, when it has had no time to produce them, is
like saying, that the repeated blows of a battering-ram will not break
down a stone-wall, because for the two or three first blows it does not
begin to move. The true question is, whether the cause is adequate to
the effect ascribed to it, that is, whether its operation is of a
sufficiently general and powerful nature to produce a correspondent
general change in the circumstances of mankind. I think it will hardly
be denied that printing may be applied with great success as an
instrument for the propagation of vice: may it not then be made use of
to give currency to the principles of virtue? At any rate, to deny that
it is a means of diffusing and embodying knowledge is to deny that such
a contrivance exists at all, or that books will be more generally read,
or less liable to be lost from the facility with which they are
multiplied. While therefore Mr. Malthus allows certain moral habits, and
the state of physical knowledge in a great measure to determine the
length of human life, he cannot object on any allowed principles of
philosophy to M. Condorcet’s employing these causes as intermediate
links in a chain of argument to establish the probability of the gradual
approach of mankind—to a state of immortality. The error does not lie in
M. Condorcet’s general principles of reasoning, but in the wrong
application of them; though I do not know that I could detect the error
better than Mr. Malthus has done. What I have endeavoured to shew in
these hasty remarks is that the admission of the rule laid down by our
author, that in our calculations of the future, we are to attend to
nothing but the general state of the fact hitherto, without giving any
weight to the actual change of collateral circumstances, or the
existence of any new cause which may influence the state of that fact,
would overturn every principle, not only of sound philosophy, but of the
most obvious common sense.[27] I dissent equally from M. Condorcet’s
paradoxical speculations and from Mr. Malthus’s paradoxical answers to
them. It would be unfair not to add that Mr. Malthus has made one good
distinction on the subject, between an unlimited and an indefinite
improvement. It is the old argument of the Heap, and is here stated with
considerable effect, and novelty of appearance. The conclusion of Mr.
Malthus’s argument on this idle question is a sensible and pleasant
account of the matter. After all, I do not quite dislike a man who
quotes Bickerstaff so well.

‘It does not, however, by any means, seem impossible, that by an
attention to breed, a certain degree of improvement, similar to that
among animals, might take place among men. Whether intellect could be
communicated may be a matter of doubt: but size, strength, beauty,
complexion, and perhaps even longevity, are in a degree transmissible.
The error does not seem to lie, in supposing a small degree of
improvement possible, but in not discriminating between a small
improvement, the limit of which is undefined, and an improvement really
unlimited. As the human race, however, could not be improved in this
way, without condemning all the bad specimens to celibacy, it is not
probable, that an attention to breed should ever become general; indeed,
I know of no well-directed attempts of the kind, except in the ancient
family of the Bickerstaffs, who are said to have been very successful in
whitening the skins, and increasing the height of their race by prudent
marriages, particularly by that very judicious cross with Maud the
milk-maid, by which some very capital defects in the constitutions of
the family were corrected.’

Mr. Malthus afterwards adds, ‘When paradoxes of this kind are advanced
by ingenious and able men, neglect has no tendency to convince them of
their mistakes. Priding themselves on what they conceive to be a mark of
the reach and size of their own understandings, of the extent and
comprehensiveness of their views; they will look upon this neglect
merely as an indication of poverty, and narrowness, in the mental
exertions of their contemporaries; and only think, that the world is not
yet prepared to receive their sublime truths.’—This is said _bitingly_
enough. For my own part, I conceive that the world is neither prepared
to receive, nor reject, nor answer them, nor decide any thing about them
but that they are contrary to all our notions of things, which, till we
know more about the matter, is perhaps a sufficient answer.

‘Mr. Godwin at the conclusion of the third chapter of his eighth book,
speaking of population, says, “There is a principle in human society, by
which population is perpetually kept down to the level of the means of
subsistence. Thus, among the wandering tribes of America and Asia, we
never find, through the lapse of ages, that population has so increased
as to render necessary the cultivation of the earth.” This principle,
which Mr. Godwin thus mentions as some mysterious and occult cause, and
which he does not attempt to investigate, has appeared to be the
grinding law of necessity—misery, and the fear of misery.’

There is a want of clearness here. The cause which Mr. Malthus thus
explains so accurately has still something dark and mysterious about it.
With respect to the savage tribes Mr. Malthus states in another place,
that it is not owing to the backwardness of population that agriculture
has never become necessary, but to the want of agriculture that
population has never increased among them. The passage is worth quoting.
‘It is not, therefore,’ he says, ‘as Lord Kaimes imagines, that the
American tribes have never increased sufficiently to render the pastoral
or agricultural state necessary to them; but, from some cause or other,’
[Mr. Malthus also deals in occult causes] ‘they have not adopted in any
great degree these more plentiful modes of procuring subsistence, and
therefore, cannot have increased so as to have become populous. If
hunger alone could have prompted the savage tribes of America to such a
change in their habits, I do not conceive that there would have been a
single nation of hunters and fishers remaining; but it is evident, that
some fortunate train of circumstances, in addition to this stimulus, is
necessary for this purpose; and it is undoubtedly probable, that these
arts of obtaining food, will be first invented and improved in those
spots that are best suited to them, and where the natural fertility of
the situation,’ [Is not the soil of America sufficiently fertile?] ‘by
allowing a greater number of people to subsist together, would give the
fairest chance to the inventive powers of the human mind.’—Here then we
see ‘the grinding law of necessity’ converted into a ‘fortunate train of
circumstances,’ so that we have a fact arising from a _necessary cause_,
and that necessary cause depending on an _accident_. The population is
kept down to the level of the means of subsistence, but not to _what it
is_, by the law of necessity; since there are ways and means of raising
that level, and the population along with it. Notwithstanding all the
misery, and all the fear of misery, which Mr. Malthus describes as thus
operating to keep population down to its proper level, he is altogether
unwilling to lighten their pressure, or to extend the benefits of that
fortunate train of circumstances and of those more plentiful modes of
obtaining food beyond their present necessary limits. Nothing can exceed
his jealousy on this point. He is apprehensive lest some speculative
philosopher should take it into his head ‘to exterminate the inhabitants
of the greatest part of Asia and Africa’ on a principle of humanity. He
proposes rather ‘to civilize and direct the industry of the various
tribes of Tartars and Negroes, as a work of considerable time, and as
having little chance of success.’ He looks with an enlightened concern
at the encroachments daily made by the thriving population of the
colonies on the deserts and uncultivated plains of North America,
grieving to see the few scattered inhabitants driven ‘from their
assigned and native dwelling-place,’ and foreseeing that by this means
the whole population of that vast continent will be some time or other
completely choaked up! It is, I know, a painful object to Mr. Malthus (I
cannot tell how it happens) to see plenty, comfort, civilisation and
numerous swarms of people succeed to want, ignorance, famine, misery,
and desolation. Those who are the well-wishers of the happiness of
mankind (among which number I reckon Mr. Malthus one) are always
diverted from their projects by their own delicacy and scruples. Those
who wish to enslave or destroy them never boggle at difficulties, or
stand upon ceremony!

Mr. Malthus says that the principle, by which population is perpetually
kept down to a certain level is the grinding law of necessity—misery and
the fear of misery. This may be true of the savage tribes there spoken
of, but if he means to apply it generally, ‘it is not in any degree near
the truth.’ At this rate, all those who do not formally set about
propagating their species ought to be restrained by want or the fear of
it. Is this the fact? Misery or the fear of misery may be the check to
population among the poor, but it cannot be the check to it among the
rich. Yet we do not find that the rich, any more than the poor,
regularly marry and get children. If this were the case, the rich would
long ago have multiplied themselves into beggars. They would all have
descendants, and those descendants would have others, till the world
would not have room for such a number of poor gentlemen. All their
wealth would be turned into rags, and they would be glad of a crust of
bread. The world would be one great work-house.[28] There must therefore
be some other principle which checks population among the higher
classes, and makes them stop short within many degrees of actual
poverty, besides ‘misery and the fear of misery.’ They do not even come
within sight of misery: the fact is that they are as unwilling to
descend from the highest pitch of luxury as the poor are to sink into
the lowest state of want.—Mr. Malthus by asserting in this careless
manner that population can only be checked by misery or the fear of
misery, gains a main point. He has always a certain quantity of misery
_in bank_, as you must put so much salt in your porridge, and so many
poor devils standing on the brink of wretchedness, as a sort of
out-guard or forlorn hope, to ward off the evils of population from the
society at large. Thus the enemy is sure to be defeated, before it can
make any impression on the body of the community. This would be very
well if we had to deal with an external, and not with an internal enemy.
But is it the poor then only, who are subject to this disease of
population? Are the rich quite proof against the evils of this
all-pervading principle, this inevitable law of nature? If the account
which Mr. Malthus gives of that principle were true, its ravages could
no more be checked by devoting a certain class of the community to glut
‘its ravenous maw,’ than you could keep the plague out of a house by
placing some one at the door to catch it. Either misery and the dread of
misery are not absolutely necessary to keep population within due
bounds, or nothing short of the general spread of misery and poverty
through the whole community could save us from it. Mr. Malthus tries to
shut the gates of mercy on mankind by an ill-natured manœuvre! From the
little trouble our author gives himself about the application of his
arithmetical and geometrical ratios to the rich, and his confidence in
the method of inoculating the poor only by way of prevention, one would
suppose that the former had no concern in the affair: that ‘they neither
marry nor are given in marriage’; but leaving the vulgar business of
procreation to their inferiors, only look on to see that they do not
overstock the world. Why no, says Mr. Malthus, I have always insisted on
_vice_ as one of the necessary checks to population; and though in the
upper ranks of life, the restraints on marriage cannot be said to be
imposed by misery or the fear of misery, yet it cannot be denied that
these restraints lead to a great deal of vice and profligacy, which
answer the purpose just as well.—There is one merit I shall not deny to
Mr. Malthus, which is, that he has adapted his remedies with great skill
and judgment to the different tempers, habits, and circumstances of his
patients. In his division of the evils of human life, he has allotted to
the poor _all_ the misery, and to the rich _as much vice as they
please_! These last will I daresay be very well satisfied with this
distribution.—These remarks sufficiently shew that we cannot apologize
for all the misery there is in the world by saying, that nothing else
can put a stop to the evils of population; nor for all the vice, by
saying that it is the alternative of misery. It cannot be pretended,
that no one would ever indulge in vicious gratifications, but from the
apprehension of reducing himself to want by having a family.—‘But he
cannot maintain them in a certain style.’—True: vice is then a very
convenient auxiliary to pride, vanity, luxury, artificial distinctions,
&c. but it is not a resource against want. I once knew an instance of a
gentleman and lady who had a very romantic passion for each other, but
who could not afford to marry because they could only muster seven
thousand pounds between them. Were they not to be pitied? What could
they do in this case? Why, the lady no doubt would behave with all the
wonted fortitude of her sex on the occasion: but the poor man must
certainly be driven into vicious courses. Oh! no: I had forgot he was a
clergyman; and his cloth would not admit of any such thing. Vice does
not therefore seem to be _always_ a necessary consequence of the
obstacles to marriage. Moral restraint is always practicable, where the
opinion of the world renders it necessary. At all events, I conceive
that either one or the other of Mr. Malthus’s remedies may be dispensed
with: they are not _both_ necessary. By his own account, (as formerly
seen) extreme poverty is a very ineffectual bar to population; and as to
vice, if it could be administered in doses, proportioned to the
occasion, so much and no more, it might be an excellent cure; but the
misfortune is, that when it once begins, there is no end of it. To
change my metaphor, it takes the bit in its mouth, and sets off at a
glorious rate, without the least spur from necessity, always keeping as
much a-head of the occasion as Mr. Malthus’s geometrical series keeps
a-head of his arithmetical one. Some persons may perhaps argue, that
there is a natural connection between vice and misery, inasmuch as
without the temptation of want among the poor, the vices of the rich
would lack proper objects to exercise themselves upon: so that, there
being no one to offer temptation to, and no one having any very great
temptations to offer, people would be forced to marry among their
_equals_, unless the trifling consideration of not being able to provide
immediately for a large family should induce them to moderate their
passions for a while. This is an argument which I shall not controvert:
the disturbing that beautiful harmony and dependence which at present
subsists between vice and misery would certainly lead us back in a great
measure to all the evils which Mr. Malthus anticipates as arising out of
a state of excessive virtue and happiness, and the most perfect form of
society.

I shall here quote at large Mr. Malthus’s account of the origin of the
distinctions of property as necessarily arising from the pressure of
population on the means of subsistence, and from that principle solely.
I shall mark what I think the most noticeable parts in italics, and make
some observations at the end.

‘It may be curious to observe in the case that we have been supposing,
how some of the principal laws, which at present govern civilized
society, would be successively dictated by the most imperious necessity.
As man, according to Mr. Godwin, is the creature of the impressions to
which he is subject, the goadings of want could not continue long before
some violations of public or private stock would necessarily take place.
As these violations increased in number and extent, _the more active and
comprehensive intellects of the society would soon perceive_, that while
population was fast increasing, the yearly produce of the country would
shortly begin to diminish. The urgency of the case would suggest the
necessity of some immediate measures being taken for the general safety.
Some kind of convention would then be called, and the dangerous
situation of the country stated in the strongest terms. _It would be
observed, that while they lived in the midst of plenty it was of little
consequence who laboured the least, or who possessed the least, as every
man was perfectly willing and ready to supply the wants of his
neighbour. But that the question was no longer whether one man should
give to another that which he did not use himself; but whether he should
give to his neighbour the food which was absolutely necessary to his own
existence. It would be represented that the number of those who were in
want very greatly exceeded the number and means of those who should
supply them_; that these pressing wants, which from the state of the
produce of the country, could not all be gratified, had occasioned some
flagrant violations of justice; that these violations had already
checked the increase of food, and would, if they were not by some means
or other prevented, throw the whole community into confusion: that
imperious necessity seemed to dictate, that a yearly increase of produce
should, if possible, be obtained at all events; that in order to effect
this first great and indispensable purpose it would be advisable to make
a more complete division of land, and to secure every man’s property
against violation by the most powerful sanctions.

‘It might be urged perhaps, by some objectors, that as the fertility of
the land increased, and various accidents occurred, the shares of some
men might be much more than sufficient for their support; and that when
the reign of self-love was once established, _they would not distribute
their surplus produce without some compensation in return_. It would be
observed in answer, that this was an inconvenience greatly to be
lamented; but that it was an evil which would bear no comparison to the
black train of distresses which would inevitably be occasioned by the
insecurity of property; _that the quantity of food which one man could
consume, was necessarily limited by the narrow capacity of the human
stomach; that it was not certainly probable that he should throw away
the rest; and if he exchanged his surplus produce for the labour of
others, this would be better than that these others should absolutely
starve._

‘It seems highly probable therefore, that an administration of property
_not very different from that which prevails in civilized states at
present_ would be established as the best though inadequate remedy for
the evils which were pressing on the society.

‘The next subject which would come under discussion, intimately
connected with the preceding, is the commerce of the sexes. It would be
urged by those who had turned their attention to the _true cause of the
difficulties under which the community laboured, that while every man
felt secure that all his children would be well provided for by general
benevolence, the powers of the earth would be absolutely inadequate to
produce food for the population which would inevitably ensue_; that even
if the whole attention and labour of the society were directed to this
sole point, and if by the most perfect security of property, and every
other encouragement that could be thought of, the greatest possible
increase of produce were yearly obtained; yet still the increase of food
would by no means keep pace with the much more rapid increase of
population; that some check to population therefore was imperiously
called for; that the most natural and obvious check seemed to be to make
every man provide for his own children; that this would operate in some
respect as a measure and a guide in the increase of population, as it
might be expected that no man would bring beings into the world for whom
he could not find the means of support; that where this notwithstanding
was the case, it seemed necessary for the example of others, that the
disgrace and inconvenience attending such a conduct should fall upon
that individual who had thus inconsiderately plunged himself and his
innocent children into want and misery.

‘The institution of marriage, or at least of some express or implied
obligation on every man to support his own children, seems to be the
natural result of these reasonings in a community under the difficulties
that we have supposed.

‘When these two fundamental laws of society, the security of property,
and the institution of marriage were once established, inequality of
conditions must necessarily follow. Those who were born after the
division of property would come _into a world already possessed_. If
their parents from having too large a family were unable to give them
sufficient for their support, what could they do in a world where every
thing was appropriated? We have seen the fatal effects that would result
to society if every man had a _valid claim to an equal share of the
produce of the earth._ The members of a family which was grown too large
for the original division of land appropriated to it, _could not then
demand a part of the surplus produce of others as a debt of justice. It
has appeared that from the inevitable laws of human nature some human
beings will be exposed to want. These are the unhappy persons who in the
great lottery of life have drawn a blank. The number of these persons
would soon exceed the ability of the surplus produce to supply. Moral
merit is a very difficult criterion except in extreme cases. The owners
of surplus produce would in general seek some more obvious mark of
distinction; and it seems to be both natural and just, that except upon
particular occasions their choice should fall upon those who were able,
and professed themselves willing to exert their strength in procuring a
further surplus produce, which would at once benefit the community, and
enable the proprietors to afford assistance to greater numbers. All who
were in want of food would be urged by imperious necessity to offer
their labour in exchange for this article, so absolutely necessary to
existence. The fund appropriated to the maintenance of labour would be
the aggregate quantity of food possessed by the owners of land beyond
their own consumption. When the demands upon this fund were great and
numerous it would naturally be divided into very small shares. Labour
would be ill paid. Men would offer to work for a bare subsistence; and
the rearing of families would be checked by sickness and misery. On the
contrary, when this fund was increasing fast; when it was great in
proportion to the number of claimants, it would be divided in much
larger shares. No man would exchange his labour without receiving an
ample quantity of food in return. Labourers would live in ease and
comfort, and would consequently be able to rear a numerous and vigorous
offspring._

‘_On the state of this fund the happiness or the degree of misery,
prevailing among the lower classes of people in every known state, at
present chiefly depends; and on this happiness or degree of misery
depends principally the increase, stationariness, or decrease of
population._

‘_And thus it appears, that a society constituted according to the most
beautiful form that imagination can conceive, with benevolence for its
moving principle instead of self-love, and with every evil disposition
in all its members corrected by reason, not force, would from the
inevitable laws of nature, and not from any original depravity of man,
or of human institutions, degenerate in a very short period into a
society constructed upon a plan not essentially different from that
which prevails in every known state at present; a society divided into a
class of proprietors and a class of labourers, and with self-love for
the mainspring of the great machine_; we may, therefore, venture to
pronounce with certainty, that if Mr. Godwin’s system of society were
established in its utmost perfection, instead of myriads of centuries,
not thirty years could elapse before its utter destruction from the
simple principle of population.’

Not to insist on the absurdity, with which Mr. Malthus seems to be
enamoured, of believing that the change here predicted would be the
consequence of the inevitable laws of nature, not of any inherent
depravity in the human mind, when it is evident that the whole mischief
originates in the folly and headstrong passions of the individuals
composing this extraordinary society, all the members of which are
actuated by the purest motives of reason and virtue, I shall at once
suppose a state of society not indeed perfect, but equal, and with
self-love, and a little common sense, instead of benevolence and perfect
wisdom, for its moving principles; and see whether it would not be
possible for such a state of practical equality, admitting neither
poverty nor riches, to last more than ‘thirty years, before its _utter
destruction from the simple principle of population_.’ The question is,
if I understand it rightly, how that principle _alone_ (I do not enter
into the general structure, foundations, or purposes of civil society, I
propose to examine the question only as a branch of political economy,
or as it relates to the physical sustenance of mankind, which is the
point of view in which Mr. Malthus has treated it) how I say that
principle imperiously requires, that there should be one class of the
community, ready to perish of want except as they are kept from it by
severe and unremitting exertion, and another class living in ease and
luxury for no other purpose than to keep the good things of this life
from the first class, because if they were admitted to a share of them
they would be immediately subjected to greater want and hardships than
ever. It is to be remembered that Mr. Malthus here pretends to bring
forward a new theory of property; to have added the key-stone to the
arch of political society, which, he says, was in danger of falling
without it; to enforce the rights of the rich, and set aside the claims
of the poor as false and unfounded; and by shewing how the distinctions
of property are immediately connected with the physical nature and very
existence of mankind in a way that had not been supposed before, to
point out the necessity of arming the law with new rigour, and steeling
the heart with fresh obduracy to second the decisions of his pragmatical
philosophy. The laws of England recognize the right of the poor man to
live by his labour; Mr. Malthus denies this right, and holds it up to
ridicule. The question is, which of them we shall believe. I shall
therefore examine the subject freely, having so good an authority on my
side.

All that I can find Mr. Malthus has discovered is, that it would be
necessary in the progress of society, in order to stave off the evils of
population, to make a regulation, that every man should be obliged to
work for a subsistence, and to provide for his own children. A great
matter truly! But having allowed to Mr. Malthus that these two
regulations would be _necessary_ in the common course of things, I
cannot at the same time help thinking that they would also be
_sufficient_—to avert the approach of famine, which is the point at
issue. I can easily understand if every man had a valid claim to an
equal share of the produce of the earth, that this abstract unqualified
right would lead to great inconveniences—but not when that abstract
right is clogged with the condition, that he should work for his share
of it. I can also admit that I can have no claim to the surplus produce
of another without some compensation in return. This would certainly be
hard. But it does not appear (upon the face of the argument) how I
should therefore have no claim to the produce of my own industry; or how
any other person has a right to force me to work for him without making
me what compensation I think fit. _He_ has a right to his estate, _I_
have a right to my labour. As to any produce, whether surplus or not,
which he may raise from it, he has a right to keep it to himself; as to
that which I raise for him, it seems to be a subject of voluntary
agreement. Again, if a man who is as industrious as myself, and equally
reaps the benefit of his industry chuses to have the additional solace
of a wife and family, as he has all the _fun_, I see no reason why he
should not have all the trouble; it is neither fair nor equal that I
should make a drudge of myself, or be put to inconvenience for the sake
of his amusements. Let us see then how the argument stands in this stage
of it. The reason which appeared for not allowing to every man a valid
claim to an equal share of the produce of the earth was, that the
admission of such a claim would only be an excuse for idleness. The
extravagant, the worthless, and indolent would thus prey upon the honest
and laborious part of the community. (We are supposing a case where
every evil disposition and original depravity had _not_ been completely
eradicated by reason and philosophy.) Even if no such characters
existed, they would hardly fail to be produced by having such fine
encouragement given them. On the other hand, if every one was at liberty
to saddle his neighbour or the community with as many children as he
pleased, there would either be no sufficient check to the inordinate
increase of population, or at least any one person who got the start in
the race of matrimony would have it in his power to deprive the others
of their right to the surplus produce of their labour by claiming it for
his family. It is necessary then to prevent the imposition of any one’s
fastening himself and children on another for support, that there should
be a certain _appropriation of the common stock_; that is, that each
man’s claim upon it should be in proportion to the share he had in
increasing it. The next consideration is whether with this hold upon
him, you would not be able to make him effectually exert himself, and at
the same time prevent him from having more children than he could
maintain, the same all-powerful stimulus of self-interest equally
counteracting his indolence and his indiscretion. Mr. Malthus says that
the true cause of the difficulties under which the community would
labour, would be the excessive tendency to population, arising from the
security felt by every man that his children would be well provided for
by the general benevolence: by taking away this security then, and
imposing the task of maintaining them upon himself, you remove the only
cause of the unavoidable tendency of population to excess, and of all
the confusion that would ensue, by making his selfishness and his
indolence operate as direct checks on his sensual propensities. He would
be tied to his good behaviour as effectually as a country fellow is at
present by being bound in a penalty of twenty pounds to the parish for
every bastard child that he gets. If every man’s earnings were in
proportion to his exertions, if his share of the necessaries, the
comforts, or even the superfluities of life were derived from the
produce of his own toil, or ingenuity, or determined by equitable
_compensation_, I cannot conceive how there could be any greater
security for regularity of conduct and a general spirit of industry in
the several members of the community, as far as was consistent with
health and the real enjoyment of life. If these principles are not
sufficient to ensure the good order of society in such circumstances, I
should like to know what are the principles by which it is enforced at
present. They are nothing more than the regular connection between
industry and its reward, and the additional charge or labour to which a
man necessarily subjects himself by being encumbered with a family. The
only difference is in the proportion between the reward, and the
exertion, or the rate at which the payment of labour is fixed. So far
then we see no very pressing symptoms of the dissolution of the society,
or of any violent departure from this system of decent equality, from
the sole principle of population. Yet we have not hitherto got (in the
regular course of the argument) so far as the distinction of a class of
labourers, and a class of proprietors. It may be urged perhaps that
nothing but extreme want or misery can furnish a stimulus sufficiently
strong to produce ‘the labour necessary for the support of an extended
population,’ or counteract the principle of population. But Mr. Malthus
himself admits that ‘the most constant and best directed efforts of
industry are to be found among a class of people above the class of the
wretchedly poor,’ among those who have something to lose, and something
to gain, and who, happen what will, cannot be worse off than they are.
He also admits that it is among this middling class of people, that we
are to look for most instances of self-denial, prudence, and a competent
resistance to the principle of population. I do not therefore understand
either the weight or consistency of the charge which he brings against
Paine of having fallen into the most fundamental errors respecting the
principles of government by confounding the affairs of Europe with those
of America. If the people in America are not forced to labour (and there
are no people more industrious) by extreme poverty, if they are not
forced to be prudent (and their prudence is I believe equal to their
industry) by the scantiness of the soil, or the unequal distribution of
its produce, no matter whether the state is old or new, whether the
population is increasing or stationary, the example proves equally in
all cases that wretchedness is not the _sine qua non_ of industry, and
that the way to hinder people from taking _desperate_ steps is not to
involve them in despair. The current of our daily life, the springs of
our activity or fortitude, may be supplied as well from hope as fear,
from ‘cheerful and confident thoughts’ as the apparition of famine
stalking just behind us. The merchant attends to his business, settles
his accounts, and answers his correspondents as diligently and
punctually as the shop-keeper. The shop-keeper minds his customers, and
puffs off his goods, tells more lies, is a greater drudge, and gets less
for his pains than the merchant. The shoeblack piques himself upon
giving the last polish to a gentleman’s shoes, and gets a penny for his
trouble. In all these cases, it is not strictly the proportion between
the exertion and the object, neither hope nor fear in the abstract, that
determines the degree of our exertions, but the balance of our hopes and
fears, the _difference_ that it will make to us in our situation whether
we exert ourselves to the utmost or not, and the impossibility of
turning our labour to any better account that habitually regulates our
conduct.[29] We all do the best for ourselves that we can. This is at
least a general rule.—But let us suppose, though I do not think Mr.
Malthus has thrown any new or striking light on the way, in which such a
change would be brought about, that it is found necessary to make a
regular division of the land, and that a class of proprietors and a
class of labourers is consequently established. Let us see in this case
what proportion of the surplus produce of the ground might be supposed
to fall to the share of the labourer, or whether if any thing more was
allowed him than what was just enough to keep him alive and enable him
to stagger through the tasks of the day, both rich and poor (but
especially the latter) would not suffer grievously from all such impious
and inhuman attempts, as our author afterwards calls them, to reverse
the laws of nature, or decrees of Providence (which you please) ‘by
which some human beings are inevitably exposed to want.’ I shall argue
the question solely on the ground stated by Mr. Malthus. I shall suppose
that every proprietor has an absolute right to his property, and to the
_whole_ produce of his own exertions. There are two other questions to
be considered, namely, whether the right to the labour of others and to
the produce of their labour attaches to the possession of the soil,
secondly, if that is not the case, to what proportion of the produce of
the ground the labourer is naturally entitled by his exertions. Mr.
Malthus infers that from the establishment of the two fundamental laws,
security of property, and the institution of marriage, inequality of
conditions must necessarily follow. I confess I do not see this
necessary consequence. I would ask, upon what plea Mr. Malthus succeeded
in establishing these two fundamental laws, but because they were
necessary and competent to stimulate the exertions and restrain the
passions of the community at large, that is, to maintain a general
practical equality, to regulate each person’s indulgences according to
their industry, to lay an even tax upon every man, and thus prevent the
return of fraud, violence, confusion, want and misery. Grant that the
most fatal effects would result to society, if every man had a valid
claim to _an equal share_ of the produce of the earth; it by no means
follows that the same fatal effects would result to society from
allowing to every man a valid claim to a share of the produce of the
earth _proportioned_ to his labour. Yet I doubt whether any great
inequality could subsist, while each man had this valid claim. It is one
thing to have a right to the produce of your own exertions, and another
to have a right to the produce of the earth, that is, of the labour of
others. It is so far from being fair to apply the same reasoning to
these two things, that the evils which would be the necessary
consequences of the one, cannot possibly result from the other. The one
is a direct contradiction to the other. It is on this distinction in
fact, that all property and all society is originally founded. By making
it equally the interest of each individual to exert himself, you in all
probability secure an equal degree of industry and comfort in each
individual. At least, a society formed upon this plan would have as fair
a chance of realising all the advantages of which it was capable, with
as few deviations from the original direction and design, as a society,
where only a less degree of equality was _possible_, would have of
coming up to its original idea. Industry and regularity of behaviour
must gain ground, where these habits were enforced by the general
example of the whole society, and where the sacrifice to be made was
less, and the reward more certain. I might appeal to the history of all
countries in proof of this. Industry flourishes most in those countries,
where there is the greatest equality of conditions, and where in
consequence instances of extreme distress can rarely occur. The
excessive depression of the lower class of the community can only (by
taking away the spring of hope, and making it nearly impossible for them
to fall lower,) dishearten industry, and make them regardless of
consequences. It cannot be laid down as an axiom, that you animate
industry, in proportion as you take away its reward. It may be said that
the poor will not go through extreme hardships but from the fear of
starving. I know no reason why such hardships are necessary but because
one man is obliged to do the work of several.—These general observations
are not set aside by supposing the right of property to be established.
All that I can understand by a right of property is a right in any one
to cultivate a piece of land, be it more or less, and a right at the
same time to prevent any one else from cultivating it, or reaping the
produce. This, in whatever way a man comes by it, is the utmost extent
of this right. ‘Those who were born after the division of property,’
says Mr. Malthus, ‘would come into _a world already possessed_.’ [How
the whole world should come to be possessed immediately after the
division of property I do not understand.] ‘If their parents, from
having too large a family, were unable to give them sufficient for their
support, what could they do in a world, where every thing was
appropriated?’ [Just now _the world_, and at present, _every thing in
it_ is appropriated.] ‘We have seen the fatal effects that would result
to society, if every man had a valid claim to an equal share of the
produce of the earth.’ [This has been answered.] ‘The members of a
family which was grown too large for the original division of land
appropriated to it could not then demand a part of the _surplus produce
of others_ as a debt of justice.’ [Certainly not. They would have no
right to it, because one man would have no right to another man’s
property; but that right, as far as relates to the surplus produce, is
not backed by the necessity of the case, as Mr. Malthus would lead us to
suppose, or because every thing is already appropriated.] ‘It has
appeared that, from the inevitable laws of human nature, some beings
will be exposed to want.’ [That is the question.] ‘The number of those
persons would soon exceed the ability of the _surplus produce_ to
supply.’ I believe so, if they depended on the surplus produce of the
labour of the rich to supply them. But the long and the short of it is
that these laborious landholders, these owners of surplus produce,
finding that their own exertions could not supply all their own wants,
and at the same time keep pace with their benevolence to those unhappy
persons, who in the great lottery of life had drawn a blank, would call
to their aid such of these as professed themselves able and willing to
exert their strength in procuring a _further surplus produce_, which
would enable the proprietors to afford assistance to greater numbers,
that is, out of the produce of their own labour, not out of that of the
proprietors. To hear Mr. Malthus talk, one would suppose that the rich
were really a very hard-working, ill-used people, who are not suffered
to enjoy the earnings of their honest industry in quiet by a set of
troublesome, unsatisfied, luxurious, idle people called _the poor_. Or
one might suppose that a landed estate was a machine that did its own
work; or that it was like a large plum-cake, which the owner might at
once cut up into slices, and either eat them himself, or give them away
to others, just as he pleased. In this case I grant that the poor might
be said to depend entirely upon the bounty or _surplus produce_ of the
rich; and as they would have no trouble in procuring their share but
merely that of asking for it, their demands would no doubt be a little
unreasonable, and in short, if they were complied with, the estate, the
surplus produce, or the plumb-cake (call it which you will) would soon
be gone. The question would no longer be ‘whether one man should give to
another that which he did not use himself: but whether he should give to
his neighbour the food which was absolutely necessary to his own
existence.’ But I cannot admit that they would be reduced to any such
necessity merely from allowing to the labourer as much of the additional
produce of the ground as he himself had really _added_ to it. I repeat
that I do not see how a man’s reaping the produce, and no more than the
produce of his industry, can operate as an inducement to idleness, or to
the excessive multiplication of children, when notwithstanding all his
industry it is impossible he should provide for them without either
diminishing his own comforts, or if the population is already full,
plunging them and himself into want and misery. This addition to the
argument is like a foil to a sword—it prevents any dangerous
consequences. If I say to a number of people, that they may each of them
have as much of a heap of corn as they desire, the whole of it would
very soon be bespoke, but if I tell them that they may each of them have
as much as they can _carry away_ themselves, there might be enough to
load them all, and I might have plenty left for my own consumption. The
ability and the willingness of a man to labour, (when these are made the
general foundation of his claim to the produce of the earth) at once set
bounds to his own rapacious demands, and effectually limit the
population.—If Mr. Malthus had shewn that nothing but extreme misery can
excite to industry or check population, he would then have shewn the
necessity of such a state. But if it has appeared in various ways that
there is no connection between these things, or that if there is, it is
directly contrary to what Mr. Malthus supposes it, then he has failed in
his attempt to regulate the price of labour by the principle of
population, or to prove that this should be fixed so low, as only just
to keep the labourer from starving. Certainly any advance in the price
of labour, or a more equal distribution of the produce of the earth
would enable a greater number of persons to live in comfort, and would
increase population; but it is the height of absurdity, as I have shewn
over and over again, to suppose that it would lead to an excessive or
unrestricted increase; as if by making people acquainted with comfort
and decency, you were teaching them to fall in love with misery. This is
the real jut and bearing of the question. The author of the Essay, to
assist his argument, transposes the question. He represents the
labouring class of the community as a set of useless, supernumerary
paupers, living on charity, or on the labour of the industrious
proprietor. If this representation had any foundation, I should be ready
to admit that these interlopers had no claim on any part of _the surplus
produce of others as a debt of justice_. They must owe every thing to
favour, and would be entirely at the mercy of their benefactors. Every
reader must perceive, how little this account is in any degree near the
truth. The case is not that of a person both willing and able to labour
for himself, and imparting freely to another, who had done nothing to
deserve it, a part of the surplus produce of the soil, but of a person
bargaining with another to do all his work for him, and allowing him as
a bribe part of the produce of his own labour in return. It is not
therefore a question of right any more than it is a question of
expediency, but a question of power on one side, and of necessity on the
other. On the degree of power, or on that of the necessity, and on
nothing else, will the price of labour depend. Mr. Malthus somewhere
talks of a man’s having no right to subsistence when his labour will not
_fairly_ purchase it. This word _fairness_ conveys to my ears no meaning
but that of the struggle between power and want, just spoken of. ‘A
man,’ he says, ‘born into a world already possessed, if the society do
not want his labour, has no claim of _right_ to the smallest portion of
food.’ This is, as if the question was of an individual, pestering a
laborious community for a job, when they do not want his assistance, and
not of the laborious part of the community demanding a small portion of
food or the means of subsistence out of the surplus produce of their
labour as _a fair compensation_ for their trouble! I sometimes think
that abstruse subjects are best illustrated by familiar examples, and I
shall accordingly give one. Suppose I have got possession of an island
which I either took from somebody else, or was the first to occupy. But
no matter how I came by it, I am in possession of it, and that is
enough. Suppose then I see another person coming towards it either in a
canoe (these questions are always first decided in a state very nearly
approaching a state of nature) or swimming from some other island as I
conceive either with intent to drive me from it, or to defraud me of the
produce of my labour. Now even allowing that I had more than enough for
myself, that part of my surplus produce was devoured by fowls or wild
beasts, or that I threw it for sport into the sea, yet I should contend
that I have a right, a strict right in one sense of the word, to take
out a long pole, and push this unfair intruder from the shore, and try
to sink his boat or himself in the water to get rid of him, and defend
my own _right_. But suppose that instead of his coming to me, I go to
him, and persuade him to return with me; and that when I have got him
home, I want to set him to work to do either part or the whole of my
business for me. In this case I should conceive that he is at liberty
either to work or refuse working just as he thinks proper, to work on
what terms he thinks proper, to receive only a small part, or the half,
or more than half the produce as he pleases; or if I do not chuse to
agree to his terms, I must do my work myself. What possible right have I
over him? His right to his liberty is just as good as my right to my
property. It is an excellent _cheveux-de-fris_, and if he is as idle as
I am lazy, he will make his market of it. I say then that this original
right continues in all stages of society, unless where it has been
specifically given up; and acts as a counterpoise to the insolence of
property. If indeed the poor will work for the rich at a certain rate,
they are not bound to employ others who demand higher wages, or a
greater number than they want: but as it is plain that they must either
work themselves, or get others to work for them, over whom they have no
right whatever, I contend that the mass of the labouring community have
always a right to _strike_, to demand what wages they please; the least
that they can demand is enough to support them and their families; and
the real contest will be between the aversion of the rich to labour, and
of the poor to famine. This seems to be the philosophy of the question.
It is also the spirit of the laws of England, which have left a
provision for the poor; wisely considering, no doubt, that they who
received their all from the labour of others were bound to provide out
of their superfluities for the necessities of such as were in want. If
it be said that this principle will lead to extreme abuse in practice, I
answer, No, for there is hardly any one, who will live in dependence, or
on casualties, if he can help it. The check to the abuse is sufficiently
provided in the miserable precariousness and disgusting nature of the
remedy. But if from the extreme inequality of conditions, that is, from
one part of the community having been able to engross all the advantages
of society to themselves, so that they can trample on the others at
pleasure, the poor are reduced so low in intellect and feeling as to be
indifferent to every consideration of the kind, neither will they be
restrained from following their inclinations by Mr. Malthus’s grinding
law of necessity, by the abolition of the poor laws, or by the prospect
of seeing their children starving at the doors of the rich. It is not by
their own fault alone that they have fallen into this degradation; those
who have brought them into it ought to be answerable for some of the
consequences. The way to obviate those consequences is not by
obstinately increasing the pressure, but by lessening it. It is not my
business to inquire how a society formed upon the simple plan
above-mentioned might be supposed to degenerate in consequence of the
different passions, follies, vices, and circumstances of mankind, into a
state of excessive inequality and wretchedness: it is sufficient for my
purpose to have shewn, that such a change was not rendered necessary by
the sole principle of population, or that it would not be absolutely
impossible for a state of actual equality to last ‘thirty years’ without
producing the total overthrow and destruction of the society. Equality
produces no such maddening effects on the principle of population, nor
is it a thing, any approaches to which must be fatal to human happiness,
and are universally to be dreaded. The connection therefore between that
degree of inequality, which terminates in extreme vice and misery, and
the necessary restraints on population, is not so obvious or
indissoluble, as to give Mr. Malthus a right to ‘qualify’ the luxuries
of the rich, and the distresses of the poor as the inevitable
consequences of the fundamental laws of nature, and as necessary to the
very existence of society. I shall here take the liberty of quoting the
two following passages from Mr. Malthus’s Essay, which seem exactly to
confirm my ideas on the subject, only better expressed, and stated in a
much neater manner. ‘In most countries, among the lower classes of
people, there appears to be something like a standard of wretchedness, a
point below which, they will not continue to marry and propagate their
species. This standard is different in different countries, and is
formed by various concurring circumstances of soil, climate, government,
degree of knowledge, and civilization, &c. The principal circumstances
which contribute to raise it, are, liberty, security of property, the
spread of knowledge, and _a taste for the conveniences and the comforts
of life_. Those which contribute principally to lower it are despotism
and ignorance.’ For what purpose did Mr. Malthus write his book? ‘In an
attempt to better the condition of the lower classes of society, our
object should be to raise this standard as high as possible, by
cultivating a spirit of independence, a decent pride, and a taste for
cleanliness and comfort among the poor. These habits would be best
inculcated by a system of general education and, when strongly fixed,
would be _the most powerful means of preventing their marrying with the
prospect of being obliged to forfeit such advantages; and would
consequently raise them nearer to the middle classes of society_.’ Yet
Mr. Malthus elsewhere attempts to prove that the pressure of population
on the means of subsistence can only be kept back by a system of terror
and famine, as the pressure of a crowd is only kept back by the
soldiers’ bayonets. I have thus endeavoured to answer the _play of
words_, by which Mr. Malthus undertakes to prove that the rich have an
absolute right to the disposal of the whole of the surplus produce of
_the labour of others_. After this preparation, I shall venture to trust
the reader’s imagination with the passages, in which he tries to put
down private charity, and to prove the right of the rich (whenever they
conveniently can) to starve the poor. They are very pretty passages.

‘There is one right, which man has generally been thought to possess,
which I am confident he neither does, nor can, possess, a right to
subsistence when his labour will not _fairly_ purchase it. Our laws
indeed say, that he has this right, and bind the society to furnish
employment and food to those who cannot get them in the regular market;
but in so doing, they attempt to reverse the laws of nature; and it is,
in consequence, to be expected, not only that they should fail in their
object, but that the poor who were intended to be benefited, should
suffer most cruelly from this inhuman deceit which is practised upon
them.

‘A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get
subsistence from his parents on whom he has a just demand, and if the
society do not want his labour, has no claim of _right_ to the smallest
portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At
nature’s mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to
be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders, if he do not work upon
the compassion of some of her guests. If these guests get up and make
room for him, other intruders immediately appear demanding the same
favour. The report of a provision for all that come, fills the hall with
numerous claimants. The order and harmony of the feast is disturbed, the
plenty that before reigned is changed into scarcity; and the happiness
of the guests is destroyed by the spectacle of misery and dependence in
every part of the hall, and by the clamorous importunity of those, who
are justly enraged at not finding the provision which they had been
taught to expect. The guests learn too late their error, in
counteracting those strict orders to all intruders, issued by the great
mistress of the feast, who, wishing that all her guests should have
plenty, and knowing that she could not provide for unlimited numbers,
humanely refused to admit fresh comers when her table was already full.’
This is a very brilliant description, and a pleasing allegory. Our
author luxuriates in the dearth of nature: he cannot contain his
triumph: he frolics with his subject in the gaiety of his heart, and his
tongue grows wanton in praise of famine. But let us examine it not as a
display of imagination, but as a piece of reasoning. In the first place,
I cannot admit the assertion that ‘at nature’s mighty feast there is no
vacant cover for the poor man.’ There are plenty of vacant covers but
that the guests at the head of the table have seized upon all those at
the lower end, before the table was full. Or if there were no vacant
cover, it would be no great matter, he only asks for the crumbs which
fall from rich men’s tables, and the bones which they throw to their
dogs. ‘She (nature) tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her
own orders, if he do not work on the compassion of some of the guests.’
When I see a poor old man, who after a life of unceasing labour is
obliged at last to beg his bread, driven from the door of the rich man
by a surly porter, and half a dozen sleek well-fed dogs, kept for the
pleasure of their master or mistress, jumping up from the fireside, or
bouncing out of their warm kennels upon him, I am, according to Mr.
Malthus, in the whole of this scene, to fancy nature presiding in person
and executing her own orders against this unwelcome intruder, who as he
is bent fairly double with hard labour, and can no longer get employment
in the regular market, has no claim of _right_ (as our author
emphatically expresses it) to the smallest portion of food, and in fact
has no business to be where he is. The preference which is often given
to the inferior animals over the human species by the institutions and
customs of society is bad enough. But Mr. Malthus wishes to go farther.
By the institutions of society a rich man is at liberty to give his
superabundance either to the poor or to his dogs. Mr. Malthus will not
allow him this liberty, but says that by the laws of nature he is bound
to give it to his dogs, because if we suffer the poor to work upon our
compassion at all, this will only embolden their importunity, ‘and the
order and harmony that before reigned at nature’s feast will be
disturbed and changed into want and confusion.’ This might probably be
the consequence, if the rich, or the chief guests had provided the
entertainment for themselves; or if nature, like a liberal hostess, had
kindly provided it for them, at her own proper cost and expence, without
any obligations to the poor. It might be necessary in this case for
those who had either provided the feast, or been expressly invited to
it, to keep a pretty strict hand over those idle and disorderly persons,
to whose importunity there was no end. But the question really is, not
whether all those should be supplied who press forward into the hall
without having contributed any thing to the plenty that abounds, but
whether after the different guests have contributed largely, each of
them having brought his share and more than his share, the proprietors
of the mansion have a right to turn them all out again, and only leave a
few scraps or coarse bits to be flung to them out of the windows, or
handed to them outside the door. Or whether if every man was allowed to
eat the _mess_ which he had brought with him in quiet, he would
immediately go out, and bring in half a dozen more, so that he would
have nothing left for himself, and the hall would be instantly
overcrowded. This statement is, I believe, considerably nearer the truth
than Mr. Malthus’s. And if so, we can have little difficulty in deciding
whether there is any ground for Mr. Malthus’s apprehensions of the
danger of raising the condition of the poor, or relieving the distresses
to which, in their present unnatural and unnecessary state of
degradation, they are unavoidably subject. ‘The spectacle of misery and
dependence’ never arises from the scantiness of the provision, or from
the nearly equal shares, in which it is divided, giving encouragement to
a greater number of applicants; for those helpless intruders, against
whom Mr. Malthus issues such strict orders, namely the _rising
generation_, never come into the world till they are sent for, and it is
not likely that those who find themselves warm in their seats with every
thing comfortable about them and nothing to complain of, should when
there is really no room for fresh comers, send for more people to shove
them out of their places, and eat the victuals out of their mouths. ‘The
Abbé Raynal has said that, “Avant toutes les loix sociales l’homme avoit
le droit de subsister.” He might with just as much propriety have said,
that before the institution of social laws, every man had a right to
live a hundred years. Undoubtedly he had then, and has still, a good
right to live a hundred years, nay a thousand _if he can_, without
interfering with _the right of others to live_; but the affair, in both
cases, is principally an affair of power, not of right. Social laws very
greatly increase this power, by enabling a much greater number to
subsist than could subsist without them, and so far very greatly enlarge
_le droit de subsister_; but neither before nor after the institution of
social laws, could _an unlimited number subsist_; and before, as well as
since, he who ceased to have _the power_, ceased to have _the right_.’
In this passage Mr. Malthus ‘sharpens his understanding upon his flinty
heart.’ The logic is smart and lively and unembarrassed: it is not
encumbered with any of the awkward feelings of humanity. After all, he
misses his aim. For his argument proves that the right of subsistence or
one man’s right to live is only limited by its interfering with the
right of others to live: that is, that a man has then only no right to
live, when there is nothing for him to live upon; in which case the
question becomes an affair of power, not of right. But it is not the
question whether the proprietor should starve himself in order that the
labourer may live; but whether the proprietor has a right to live in
extravagance and luxury, while the labourer is starving. As to his
absolute right to the produce of the soil, that is to say, of the labour
of others, we have seen that he has no such right either to the whole of
the surplus produce, or to _as much of it as he pleases_. With respect
then to the share of the produce which the labourer has a right to
demand, ‘it is not likely that he should exchange his labour, without
receiving a _sufficient_ quantity of food in return,’ to enable him to
live, unless the right of the proprietor to exact the labour of others
on what terms he chuses, is seconded by a kind of power, which has very
little connection with the power of the earth to bring forth no more
produce. As to the right of the rich, in a moral point of view, wantonly
to starve the poor, it is I think best to say nothing about it. Social
institutions, on which our author lays great stress as enlarging the
power of subsistence and the right along with it, do not deny relief to
the poor. For this very reason Mr. Malthus wishes to shoulder them
aside, in order to make room for certain regulations of his own, more
agreeable to _the laws of nature and the principle of population_. A
little farther on he says, ‘As a previous step even to any considerable
alteration in the present system, which would _contract_ or stop the
increase of the relief to be given, it appears to me that we are bound
in justice and honour ‘_formally to disclaim the right of the poor to
support_.’ It would be more modest in Mr. Malthus to let them _disclaim_
it for themselves. But it appears that the reason for _contracting_ the
relief afforded them by the present system, and denying the right
altogether, is that there is no subsistence for an unlimited number. As
to the point at which it may be prudent or proper for the rich to
withhold assistance from the poor, I shall not enquire into it. But I
shall dispute Mr. Malthus’s right to thrust the poor man out of
existence because there is no room for him ‘at nature’s mighty feast,’
till he can give some better reason for it than that there is not room
for an _unlimited number_!—The maintainance of the needy poor is a tax
on the inequality of conditions and the luxuries of the rich, which they
could not enjoy but in consequence of that general depression of the
lower classes which continually subjects them to difficulties and want.
It is a _douceur_ to keep them quiet, and prevent them from enforcing
those more solid, and important claims, not interfering with the right
of property, but a direct consequence of the right of personal freedom,
and of their right to set their own price on their own exertions, which
would raise them above the reach of want, and enable them to maintain
their own _poor_. But they cannot do this without a general combination
of the labouring part of the community; and if any thing of this kind
were to be attempted, the legislature we know would instantly interfere
to prevent it. I know indeed that the legislature assumes a right to
prevent combinations of the poor to keep themselves above want, though
they _disclaim_ any right to meddle with monopolies of corn, or other
combinations _in the regular course of trade_, by which the rich and
thriving endeavour to grind the poor. But though the men of property
have thus retained the legislature on their side, Mr. Malthus does not
think this practical security sufficient: he thinks it absolutely
necessary to recur to first principles; and that they may see how well
qualified he is to act as chamber counsel in the business, he makes them
a present of his Essay, written expressly for the purpose, and
containing a new institute of the laws of nature, and a complete theory
of population, in which it is clearly proved that the poor have no right
to live any longer than the rich will let them. In this work which those
to whom it is addressed should have bound in morocco, and constantly
lying by them as a text-book to refer to in all cases of difficulty, it
is shewn that there is no injustice in forcing the poorer classes to
work almost for nothing, because they have no right to the produce of
their labour, and no inhumanity in denying them assistance when they
happen to be in want, because they ought not to be encouraged in
idleness. Thus armed with ‘metaphysical aid,’ and conscience-proof, the
rich will I should think be able very successfully to resist the unjust
claims of the poor—to a subsistence!

Neither the fundamental laws of property then, nor the principle of
population seem to imply the necessity of any great inequality of
conditions. They do not even require the distinction of rich and poor,
much less do they imply the right of the rich to starve the poor. What
shews that there must be some radical defect in our author’s reasoning
is, that a substantial equality does really prevail in several
countries, where the right of property is established, and where the
_principle of population_ has been known to exist for a great length of
time. Property may certainly be made a handle for power; and that power
may, and does almost constantly lead to abuse, I mean to want and
wretchedness. But neither the power nor the abuse is any part of the
original right; and the original end and design of the right itself,
namely to procure a sufficient supply for the actual population, and to
prevent an unlimited increase of population, is just as well, or indeed
much better answered _without_, than _with_ the abuse.—But perhaps we
have mistaken Mr. Malthus all this while. Perhaps he only wishes to
secure to the rich their original right, which is to reserve a certain
share of the produce for their own use; and to prevent their being
driven out of house and home by the poor, under pretence of population.
He seems to say in one place, that the fund appropriated to the
maintenance of labour is the aggregate quantity of food possessed by the
owners of land beyond what is necessary for their own immediate
consumption. He says this, or something like it. In this case, it is
evident, that ‘no man would be forced to exchange his labour without
receiving an ample quantity of food in return.’ At this rate the
labourer would be as rich, only not so idle as the proprietor. The only
difference between them would be that one of them would get his share
for nothing, and the other would be obliged to work for it. It would in
fact be a common fund divided equally between the rich and poor, or more
properly speaking, between the sleeping and the acting partners in this
joint-concern. If so, I do not see what the poor could have to complain
of, as, if they were ever in want, it must be owing to their own
idleness, extravagance, and imprudence, and they would deserve to be
punished. Now Mr. Malthus is ready to prove with a pair of compasses
that this is always the state of the case. The poor are always just as
well off as the rich, if it is not their own fault, and the want in
which they are sometimes plunged is not owing to an unequal division of
the shares among as many as can possibly subsist, but to the folly of
pushing population beyond the verge of subsistence. By this means there
is nothing left for those who come last, who have consequently no right
to be where they are, because there is nothing for them. ‘The quantity
of food’ (says Mr. Malthus) ‘which one man can consume is necessarily
limited by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; it is not certainly
probable that he should throw away the rest; and if he exchange his
surplus produce for the labour of others, this is better than that these
others should absolutely starve.’ Here then we see the necessary limits
of the inequality of conditions, or of the almost imperceptible
difference in the advantages which the rich have over the poor. But is
there really then no difference between being gorged and _not_ being
starved, between eating venison and turtle-soup, and drinking three
bottles of wine a-day, and living on crusts of bread and water? Is it
physically impossible that one man should eat more than does him good,
or that another should not get his full share? But it may be asked, what
advantage can it be to the rich to consume more than they want? None.
But the food which is thus misapplied, might be of great use to the
poor. Is there no such thing as waste in great houses, which must
considerably diminish the disproportion between the quantity of food,
and the narrow capacity of the human stomach? When I consider that the
rich are neither a bit taller, nor stouter, nor born with larger
stomachs than other men, it does indeed seem at first sight a little
extraordinary that they should make such havoc in the world as they do.
But the wonder vanishes the instant we recollect that crowd of
dependents always dangling about them, who intercept the surplus produce
long before it can reach the labourer, and who instead of dividing his
toil with the husbandman, or sharing in other tasks not less useful or
necessary are maintained by the distresses and hardships of the poor. A
rich man has not only himself and his family to keep, but he has to keep
his gentlemen, his valet, his butler, his cook, his coachman, his groom,
his horses, his hounds, his ornamental gardener, his architect, his
upholsterer, his jeweller, his silversmith, his man’s-mercer, and
haberdasher, his pimps, parasites, and players, his poets, painters, and
musicians, not to mention a hundred more, who are of no service on the
face of the earth, nor have any mortal thing to do—but to tend upon his
person, to dress his hair, to brush his clothes, or air his shirt, to
run on his errands, to do his jobs, to manage his affairs, to please his
taste, to pamper his appetites, to study his humours, to follow his
steps, to fawn and cringe and bow and smile as he directs. All these
persons depend entirely on the bounty of their patron; and though they
do nothing to increase the produce of the ground, they do not devour it
the less eagerly, and it may be supposed that they make a good gap in
it. In the mean time, the productive labourer, and hard-working mechanic
are straitened in their circumstances, and doomed to unremitting toil
and drudgery, that these hangers-on of the rich may live at their ease,
or contribute only to the vanity and convenience of their employers.
This as I understand it is the pinch of the grievance.—The rich man has
not only to supply his own wants, but the wants of those who depend upon
him, and who do nothing to support either him or themselves. He is
something in the situation of a balance-master, who undertakes to
support twenty men, some on his head, some on his shoulders, and others
suspended from different parts of his body: his own weight is nothing:
it is the weight of those who hang upon him that makes the rich man a
burthen to the poor. I see a little old emaciated man riding on a poney
along the street, and a stout healthy, well looking man riding behind
him at some distance, who follows him like his puppet, who turns as he
turns, and whenever he passes him touches his hat in a respectful
manner. What is the meaning of this? It is a nobleman, and his servant.
The man is as well-fed, as comfortably clothed, and as well-mounted as
his master: what makes all the difference is, that there are thirty or
forty gradations of society between them, each looking up with envy, or
down with contempt on the other, as they have more or less power over
the necessaries and conveniences of life not for themselves, but others,
and so can hire the respect of a certain number of dependents. So little
can we judge of the state of society in the mechanical way pointed out
by Mr. Malthus. But it is time to proceed with my author.

‘As Mr. Godwin seems disposed to understand, and candidly to admit the
truth of, the principal argument in the essay, I feel the more
mortified, that he should think it a fair inference from my positions,
that the political superintendents of a community are bound to exercise
a paternal vigilance and care over the two great means of advantage and
safety to mankind, misery and vice; and that no evil is more to be
dreaded than that we should have too little of them in the world, to
confine the principle of population within its proper sphere.’ [This I
think a fair statement of the argument.] ‘I am at a loss to conceive
what class of evils Mr. Godwin imagines is yet behind, which these
salutary checks are to prevent.’ [It is not Mr. Godwin’s business, but
our author’s to find out such a class of evils.] ‘For my own part, I
know of no stronger or more general terms than vice and misery; and the
sole question is, respecting a greater or less degree of them. The only
reason why I object to Mr. Godwin’s system, is, my full conviction that
an attempt to execute it, would very greatly increase the quantity of
vice and misery in society.’

Be it so. But still Mr. Malthus thinks a less degree of them necessary
to prevent a greater; and it therefore seems a fair inference from his
positions to say, that the greatest care ought to be taken, not to
diminish the necessary quantity. He approves much of the things in his
own mind, but he does not like to hear them called by their names in a
disrespectful way. He does not like the odium attached to them.

‘Mr. Godwin observes, that he should naturally be disposed to pronounce
that man strangely indifferent to schemes of extraordinary improvement
in society, who made it a conclusive argument against them, that, when
they were realized, they might peradventure be of no permanence and
duration. And yet, what is morality, individual or political, according
to Mr. Godwin’s own definition of it, but a calculation of
consequences?’ [This, I must say, is a very _abortive_ kind of
argument]. ‘Is the physician the patron of pain, who advises his patient
to bear a present evil, rather than betake himself to a remedy, which,
though it might give momentary relief, would afterwards greatly
aggravate all the symptoms?’ [The real case is of a physician, who tells
his patient he must not get well, and endeavours to keep him from doing
so, because if he were once in perfect health, he would be subject to
more violent returns of his disorder]. ‘Is the moralist to be called an
enemy to pleasure, because he recommends to a young man just entering
into life, not to ruin his health and patrimony in a few years, by an
excess of present gratifications, but to economize his enjoyments, that
he may spread them over a longer period?’ [Our Essayist would advise the
young man to neglect his affairs, and ruin his health, because by a
contrary method his estate would increase so that he would not be able
to manage it, and it would be thrown into complete and total disorder,
at the same time that his improved health and spirits would urge him to
plunge into much greater excesses, than, if his constitution were
debilitated in time, he would be capable of committing]. ‘Of Mr.
Godwin’s system, according to the present arguments by which it is
supported, it is not enough to say, _peradventure_ it will be of no
permanence: but we can pronounce _with certainty_ that it will be of no
permanence: and under such circumstances an attempt to execute it would
unquestionably be a great political immorality.’ According to the
_present_ arguments against it, this has not appeared to be the case.

‘The permission of infanticide is bad enough, and cannot but have a bad
effect on the moral sensibility of a nation; but I cannot conceive any
thing much more detestable, or shocking to the feelings, than any direct
regulation of this kind, although sanctioned by the names of Plato and
Aristotle.’ Mr. Malthus in this passage very properly gives way to his
feelings, which are, in my opinion, a much better test of morality than
a calculation of consequences. At the same time, he would himself make a
law to starve the children of the poor, because their parents are not
able to maintain them. Mr. Malthus’s humanity is of the _intermittent_
sort. The mention of the Chinese, of Plato or Aristotle, has a great
effect in bringing the fit on: at the mention of population or the
poor-laws it vanishes in an instant, and ‘he is himself again.’—I hope I
shall sometimes be allowed to appeal to my feelings against Mr.
Malthus’s authority, as he dissents from that of Plato and Aristotle on
the same _unphilosophical_ plea, and to look upon those arguments as
narrow and superficial, which pay no regard to ‘the moral sensibility of
a nation’; the more so as the system of morality prevailing at present
is built upon the natural affections and common feelings and habitual
prejudices of mankind, not, as Mr. Malthus pretends, on pure reason, or
a dry calculation of consequences. Our author’s plan is addressed
neither to the _head_, nor _heart_. It retains the common sympathies of
our nature only to shock and insult them, and engrafts the vices of a
bad heart on a perverted understanding.

Mr. Malthus defies Mr. Godwin to point out a method, by which it is
possible ‘to limit the number of children to each prolific marriage.’
According to his theory, there seems no way but by having a constable in
the room, and converting bed-chambers into a kind of lock-up
houses.—Speaking of the possibility of delaying the gratification of the
passion between the sexes, he says,

‘If the whole effect were to depend merely on a sense of duty,
considering the powerful antagonist that is to be contended with, in the
present case, I confess that I should absolutely despair. At the same
time, I am strongly of opinion that a sense of duty, superadded to a
sense of interest, would by no means be without its effect. There are
many noble and disinterested spirits, who, though aware of the
inconveniences which they may bring upon themselves by the indulgence of
an early and virtuous passion, feel a kind of repugnance to listen to
the dictates of mere worldly prudence, and a pride in rejecting these
low considerations. There is a kind of romantic gallantry in sacrificing
all for love, naturally fascinating to a young mind; and, to say the
truth, if all is to be sacrificed, I do not know, in what better cause
it can be done. But if a strong sense of duty could, in these instances,
be added to prudential suggestions, the whole question might wear a
different colour. In delaying the gratification of passion, from a sense
of duty, the most disinterested spirit, the most delicate honour, might
be satisfied. The romantic pride might take a different direction, and
the dictates of worldly prudence might be followed with the cheerful
consciousness of making a virtuous sacrifice.’

I am happy to learn that Mr. Malthus has been able to reconcile the
sense of duty and interest with the gratification of his favourite
passion. By preaching the virtue of celibacy with such success to
others, he found it no longer necessary to practise it himself. He is
not the first philosopher who extracted the flames of love out of ice.
We read of such a one in Hudibras. I should be sorry to scandalize the
modest reader; but really whenever I think of our author’s escape from
the consequences of his own doctrine in a wife, it puts me in mind of
St. Francis’s triumph over his desires,

                  ‘Which after in enjoyment quenching,
                  He hung a garland on his engine.’

This St. Francis was as great an adept as our author in the cold-sweat
of the passions.

There is no end of Mr. Malthus’s paradoxes. I come now to his attempts
to prove that in proportion as you raise the wages of the poor, you take
away their livelihood.

‘Suppose, that by a subscription of the rich, the eighteen-pence, or two
shillings, which men earn now, were made up five shillings, it might be
imagined, perhaps, that they would then be able to live comfortably, and
have a piece of meat every day for their dinner. But this would be a
very false conclusion. The transfer of three additional shillings a day
to each labourer would not increase the quantity of meat in the country.
There is not at present enough for all to have a moderate share. What
would then be the consequence? The competition among the buyers in the
market of meat, would rapidly raise the price from eight pence or nine
pence, to two or three shillings in the pound, and the commodity would
not be divided among many more than it is at present. When an article is
scarce, and cannot be distributed to all, he that can shew the most
valid patent, that is, he that offers the most money, becomes the
possessor. When subsistence is scarce in proportion to the number of
people, it is of little consequence, whether the lowest members of the
society possess two shillings or five. They must, at all events, be
reduced to live upon the hardest fare, and in the smallest quantity.’

Again, some pages after he says, ‘The question is, how far wealth has a
tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor. It is a
self-evident proposition that any general advance in the price of
labour, the stock of provisions remaining the same, can only be a
nominal advance, as it must shortly be followed by a _proportional_ rise
in provisions. The increase in the price of labour which we have
supposed, would have no permanent effect therefore in giving to the
labouring poor a greater command over the necessaries of life.’

On these two passages which explain the drift of our author’s reasonings
pretty clearly, I shall remark, first, that wealth is nothing but the
power of securing to yourself the fruits of the earth, or commanding the
labour of others. The more equal distribution of wealth, or the throwing
a greater quantity of money (_bona fide_) into the hands of the poor
must therefore enable them to procure either a greater share of
provisions or of the labour of others, or both. This I hold to be an
axiom, as far as I can comprehend the subject. But Mr. Malthus says that
if the wages of the poor were raised to double or treble what they are
at present, this in the first place would not increase the quantity of
meat in the market, nor the share which the labourer would have of it,
because any advance in the price of labour must be followed by a
_proportional_ rise in provisions. This word is equivocal. To make out
the argument, the rise ought to be not only proportional but equal to
the rise of wages, which it evidently would not be. But Mr. Malthus is
willing to exclude the possibility of bettering the condition of the
poor, even in theory, by an _equivoque_, or any thing else. But to put
an end to this miserable quackery, I would ask, whether if the rich were
to divide their incomes with the poor, the latter would be any the
richer for it. To say in this case, that the good things of the world
would not be shared more equally among them, is flat nonsense. But any
approach to a more equal division of wealth must lessen the difference
between the rich and the poor _proportionally_. It is true that the
lowest members of the community will still live upon the hardest fare,
and in the smallest quantity: but their fare will be less hard and in
larger quantities than it used to be, _in proportion_ to the advance in
the price of labour.

‘It may at first appear strange, but I believe it is true, that I cannot
by means of money, raise the condition of a poor man, and enable him to
live much better than he did before, without proportionably depressing
others in the same class. If I retrench the quantity of food consumed in
my house, and give him what I have cut off, I then benefit him without
depressing any but myself and family, who perhaps may be well able to
bear it. If I turn up a piece of uncultivated land, and give him the
produce, I then benefit both him and all the members of society, because
what he before consumed is thrown into the common stock, and, probably,
some of the new produce with it. But if I only give him money, supposing
the produce of the country to remain the same, I give him a title to a
larger share of that produce than formerly, which share he cannot
receive without diminishing the shares of others. It is evident, that
this effect in individual instances must be so small as to be totally
imperceptible; but still it must exist, as many other effects do, which,
like some of the insects that people the air, elude our grosser
perceptions.’

It will be sufficient to ask in answer to this passage, whether when I
give away my money to another, I do not necessarily retrench the
quantity of food or other things consumed in my own house, and give him
what I have cut off. I give him a title to a larger share of the common
produce by diminishing _my own_ share. It does not matter to the
community whether he or I spend the money: the only difference that it
makes is between ourselves.—Mr. Malthus seems to have a notion that the
rich are never the worse for their charities.

‘Supposing the quantity of food in any country, to remain the same for
many years together, it is evident, that this food must be divided
according to the value of each man’s patent, or the sum of money which
he can afford to spend in this commodity so universally in request. It
is a demonstrative truth, therefore, that the patents of one set of men
could not be increased in value, without diminishing the value of the
patents of some other set of men.’

At any rate, then, the poor would be enabled to contend with the rich.
The increased value of the patents of the poor would necessarily
diminish the value of the patents of the rich. In order to out-bid them,
they must make some other sacrifices, which they will not always be
willing to do. Food to the rich is in a great measure an article of
luxury: to the poor it is a necessary; and the one, about which they are
chiefly concerned. Many a _petit-maître_, and ape of fashion goes
without his dinner to pay for his coat, or go to the play, ‘where he
picks clean teeth,’ &c.

‘No person, I believe, will venture to doubt, that, if we were to give
three additional shillings a day to every labouring man in the kingdom,
as I before supposed, in order that he might have meat for his dinner,
the price of meat would rise in the most rapid and unexampled manner.’

Mr. Malthus here creeps on. He first spoke of a number of individuals as
having a certain sum given them. He now includes every labouring man in
the kingdom. Because if we were to give five shillings a day to five
hundred thousand men, the remaining five hundred thousand might be the
worse for it, therefore he would have us suppose that the same or
greater mischiefs would follow from giving the same sum to the whole
number, or in fact from doing away that very inequality, which was the
only source of the mischief. To suppose that we can allow five shillings
a-day to five hundred, or ten hundred thousand people without
retrenching from our own superfluities, or that we can distribute our
own patents among others without diminishing our own number, is one of
those perversities which I shall not attempt to answer. If the labourer
with his three shillings extra is only able to purchase an ounce of
meat, this will be an advantage to him. Let the rise be what it will,
the rich man will evidently be less able to out-bid him than he is at
present, and the rise can only be in proportion to his capacity to
out-bid him. Besides, it is not to be supposed that his additional gains
would all be laid out in meat, but in articles of trade, &c. which would
be rendered cheaper by the neglect of the rich, or in proportion to the
run upon provisions. To assert generally that increasing the wages of
the poor does not give them a greater command over the necessaries of
life, is as much as to say that if they were forced to work for nothing,
and could get nothing to eat, this would lower the markets, and they
would be much better off than they were before. It would be looked upon
as an insult, rather than a consolation, to tell them that they ought to
be contented with the cheapness of provisions, and to consider that
allowing them any thing for their labour, would only raise the price of
meat by enabling them to buy some of it to satisfy their hunger.

How things being cheap or dear, or how there being much or little to
spare, proves that that much, or little will not be divided according to
the ability of different people to pay for it, is beyond my
comprehension. It is ridiculous. It is saying that the money of a poor
man will not _pass_, even when he has it. If the poor in consequence of
having more money, or being richer could not draw to themselves a
greater portion of food, there could be no room for competition, nor for
an increase in the price or the demand.

‘The poor who were assisted by their parishes had no reason whatever to
complain of the high price of grain; because it was the excessiveness of
this price, and this alone, which, by enforcing such a saving, left a
greater quantity of corn, for the consumption of the lowest classes,
which corn, the parish allowances enabled them to command.’ [Yet Mr.
Malthus has just tried to persuade us, that the increased price of
provisions, occasioned by the competition of the poor, does not enforce
any retrenchment of the superfluities of the higher classes, or leave a
greater quantity of corn, for the consumption of the lower classes.]
‘The greatest sufferers in the scarcity were undoubtedly the classes
immediately above the poor; and these were in the most marked manner
depressed by the excessive bounties given to those below them.’ [It is
better that these classes should be depressed than those below them,
because they can bear it better. Is it an argument that because the
pressure of a scarcity does not fall directly upon those who can bear it
best, viz. the very rich, that it should therefore fall upon those, who
can bear it least, viz. on the very poor? Unless Mr. Malthus can
contrive to starve some one, he thinks he does nothing.] ‘This
distribution by giving to the poorer classes a command of food, so much
greater than their degree of skill and industry entitled them to, in the
actual circumstances of the country, diminished, exactly in the same
proportion, that command over the necessaries of life, which the classes
above them, by their superior skill and industry, would naturally
possess.’ [Is a man then to starve on account of his want of skill? To
tack industry to skill as if the lowest classes did not work the hardest
is impudence indeed.] ‘And it may be a question, whether the degree of
assistance which the poor received, and which prevented them from
resorting to the use of those substitutes, which, in every other
country, on such occasions, the great law of necessity teaches, was not
more than overbalanced by the severity of the pressure on so large a
body of people from the extreme high prices, and the permanent evil
which must result from forcing so many persons on the parish, who before
thought themselves almost out of the reach of want.’

It is a contradiction to say, that the poor were forced on the parish by
the assistance they received from it. If they were to be denied this
assistance from a tender regard for their morals and independence, it is
a pity that the same disinterested motives, joined to the ‘severe
pressure’ of the high prices on the classes above the poor, did not
induce some of _them_ to condescend to the use of those cheap and
wholesome substitutes recommended by Mr. Malthus, by which means they
would have saved their own pockets, and not have ‘forced so many persons
on the parish.’

‘If we were to double the fortunes of all those who possess above a
hundred a year, the effect on the price of grain would be slow and
inconsiderable; but if we were to double the price of labour throughout
the kingdom, the effect, in raising the price of grain, would be rapid
and great.’

I do not see the harm of this rise. It would be in consequence of, and
would denote the number of bellies that were filled that had not been
filled before. Mr. Malthus in this passage seems to prefer a little evil
to a great good.

‘The parish rates and the prodigious sum expended in voluntary charity,
must have had a most powerful effect in raising the price of the
necessaries of life, if any reliance can be placed on the clearest
general principles, confirmed as much as possible by appearances. A man
with a family, has received, _to my knowledge_, fourteen shillings a
week from the parish.’ [Shocking to be sure.] ‘His common earnings were
ten shillings a week, and his weekly _revenue_, therefore, twenty-four.
Before the scarcity, he had been in the habit of purchasing a bushel of
flour a week with eight shillings perhaps, and consequently had two
shillings out of his ten, to spare for other necessaries. During the
scarcity, he was enabled to purchase the same quantity at nearly three
times the price. He paid twenty-two shillings for his bushel of flour,
and had, as before, two shillings remaining for other wants.’ [Good: but
does Mr. Malthus deny that the scarcity would of itself have raised the
price of wheat? And in that case if the labourer had had no addition to
his ‘weekly revenue,’ instead of having the large sum of two shillings
at the end of the week to lay out in other necessaries, he would have
had nothing. Perhaps Mr. Malthus is ready to prove, that half a bushel
of corn will go farther with a poor family in a time of scarcity than a
whole one, because they would husband it more carefully.] ‘Such
instances could not possibly have been universal, without raising the
price of wheat much higher than it really was during any part of the
dearth. But similar instances were by no means infrequent, and _the
system itself, of measuring the relief given by the price of grain, was
general_.’

I cannot conceive of any better rule. But the gentleman is alarmed at
the _voluntary_ contributions extorted from the rich. After all, I do
not see how the rich would suffer by their great charity, if, as our
author says, the poor got nothing by it. I would ask, were the rich ever
in danger of starving in the late scarcity, and were not the poor in
danger of it, and would they not have starved, but for the assistance
given to them? Is it better that the poor should starve than that the
rich should be at the expence of relieving them? Or if the pressure in
scarce times falls on the middle classes, have they to complain, that
they, in whom ‘life and death may always be said to contend for
victory,’ are still just kept alive, or that the sleek and pampered
continue to fatten on the distresses of others? The false feeling which
runs through all Mr. Malthus’s reasonings on this subject is, that the
upper classes cannot be expected to retrench any of their superfluities,
to lie at the mercy of the seasons, or to contribute any thing to the
general necessity, but that the whole burthen of a scarcity ought to
fall on those whom Mr. Malthus calls ‘the least fortunate members of the
community,’ on those who are most used to distress, and in whom the
transition is easy and natural from poverty to famine! ‘They lay heavy
burthens on the poor and needy, which they will not touch with one of
their fingers.’ Would it not be worth our author’s while to comment on
this text, and shew how little it has been understood?—I remember to
have heard of but one instance of a real, effectual, and judicious
determination in the rich to retrench idle and superfluous waste and
expence, some years ago at a time when the poor were _in want of bread_.
It originated in a great and noble family, where seventy or eighty
servants were kept, and where twenty or thirty guests of the first
distinction ‘fared sumptuously every day.’ These humane and enlightened
persons, struck with the difference between their own good fortune, and
the necessities of others, came to a resolution that the pieces of bread
which they left at dinner should neither be thrown nor given away, but
that the bread-baskets should be divided into little compartments with
each person’s name affixed to them, where he could conveniently put the
piece of bread which he left, and have it _saved_ till the next day.
This humane example was much talked of in the neighbourhood, and soon
after followed by several of the gentry, who got their bread-baskets
divided into little compartments with the different names affixed, and
eat the pieces of bread which they left one day, the day after—so that
the poor were thus placed completely out of the reach of want!

Mr. Malthus next talks about the embarrassments of commerce, returning
cheapness, &c. Now I do not see, according to his doctrine, what
cheapness has to do with the question. He says, every thing depends on
the quantity of provisions in the country, and that this being given,
all the rest follows as a matter of course. What then does it signify
whether you call a piece of paper one pound or two if you can get a
proportionable quantity of food for your money?

‘If instead of giving the temporary assistance of parish allowances,
which might be withdrawn on the first fall of price, we had raised
universally the wages of labour, it is evident, that the obstacles to a
diminution of the circulation, and to returning cheapness, would have
been still further increased; and the high price of labour would have
become permanent, without any advantage whatever to the labourer,’—or
disadvantage to the proprietor.

‘There is no one that more ardently desires to see a real advance in the
price of labour than myself; but the attempt to effect this object by
forcibly raising the nominal price, which was practised to a certain
degree, and recommended almost universally during the late scarcities,
every thinking man must reprobate as puerile and ineffectual.’

‘The price of labour, when left to find its natural level, is a most
important political barometer, expressing the relation between the
supply of provisions, and the demand for them; between the quantity to
be consumed, and the number of consumers; and taken on the average,
independently of accidental circumstances, it further expresses,
clearly, the wants of the society respecting population; that is,
whatever may be the number of children to a marriage necessary to
maintain exactly the present population, the price of labour will be
just sufficient to support this number, or be above it, or below it,
according to the state of the real funds for the maintainance of labour,
whether stationary, progressive, or retrograde. Instead, however, of
considering it in this light, we consider it as something which we may
raise or depress at pleasure, something which depends principally upon
his majesty’s justices of the peace. When an advance in the price of
provisions already expresses that the demand is too great for the
supply, in order to put the labourer in the same condition as before, we
raise the price of labour, that is, we increase the demand, and are then
much surprised that the price of provisions continues rising. In this,
we act much in the same manner, as if, when the quicksilver in the
common weather-glass stood at _stormy_, we were to raise it by some
forcible pressure to _settled fair_, and then be greatly astonished that
it continued raining.’

This is certainly a most excellent illustration. As to the argument
itself, it is all false and hollow. With respect to the rise in the
price of provisions consequent on the rise of wages, I am not I confess
at all concerned about it, so that the labourer is still enabled to
purchase the same _necessary_ quantity as before. All that is wanted is
that the one should keep pace with the other. What the natural level of
the price of labour is, otherwise than as it is regulated by the
positive institutions of society, or as I have before stated, by the
power of one set of men, and the wants of another is—like many other
things in this book of Mr. Malthus’s—what I do not understand. If we are
to believe him, the whole is a trick. There is a pretence of sacrificing
something for the relief of the poor in hard times, and then the next
thing is to render that relief ineffectual, by out-bidding them, by
lowering the value of money, by creating artificial wealth, and other
methods. If then the rich are so entirely masters of the price of labour
that they can render it real or nominal as they please, and take good
care never to lose by it in the end, I should like to know how this most
important political barometer has any relation to real plenty or want:
how it expresses any thing more than the will of the rich and great; or
the miserable pittance they are willing to allow out of the support of
their own extravagant and ostentatious establishments to the
maintainance of the mass of the people. It does indeed express the
relation between the supply of provisions, and the demand for them, &c.
supposing that a certain number of people are to consume four or five
times as much (either in quantity or quality) as the others: and that
this proportion is unalterable and one of the laws of nature. It further
expresses the wants of the society respecting population, while this
division continues, or that degree of poverty beyond which it is
impossible for people to subsist at all. The object in a scarcity is not
however to stop the ordinary process of population, but to alleviate the
distresses of those already in existence, by a more equal distribution
of the real funds for the maintainance of labour. By these funds Mr.
Malthus means any arbitrary division of the produce of the ground, which
the rich find it convenient to make, and which the poor are forced to
take up with as better than nothing. But the real funds for the
maintenance of labour are the produce of labour. According to Mr.
Malthus, they are not the produce itself, but what happens to be left of
it, as the husks only and not the corn are given to the swine.

‘The number of servants out of place, and of manufacturers wanting
employment during the late scarcities, were melancholy proofs of the
truth of these reasonings. If a general rise in the wages of labour had
taken place proportioned to the price of provisions, none but farmers
and a few gentlemen could have afforded to employ the same number of
workmen as before. Additional crowds of servants and manufacturers would
have been turned off; and those who were thus thrown out of employment,
would, of course, have no other refuge than the parish. In the natural
order of things, a scarcity must tend to lower, instead of to raise, the
price of labour.’

This natural order has been already explained to mean a very artificial
order. Our ingenious author is a great admirer of moral analogies. He
sticks to the old proverb, those that have little shall have less. ‘The
most laborious and deserving part of the community’ are to bear the
brunt of all distress, _ordinary and extraordinary_. He will not suffer
the positive regulations of society, which carry inequality of
conditions as far almost as it can go in common cases, to relax a little
in their favour in extreme cases, so as not to push them quite out of
existence. I know no reason why in the natural order of things a
scarcity should tend to lower, instead of raising the price of labour;
but upon that common principle that the weakest are to go to the wall.
The rich forsooth are a privileged class, out of the reach of fortune,
‘whose solid virtue the shot of accident or dart of change can neither
graze nor pierce.’ In the rest of this passage, Mr. Malthus quarrels
with his own favourite system, with those capricious and arbitrary
institutions, in consequence of which those who ministered only to the
vanity and artificial wants of the rich will in times of difficulty be
turned adrift and reduced to want, or else saddled as an additional
weight on the common labourer, who had enough to do to support them and
their employers under the most favourable circumstances.

GENERAL ANSWER.—I wish Mr. Malthus to state explicitly whether he means
that the rise in the price of labour should be nominal or real. He has
shifted his ground four or five times on the subject in the course of
the chapter, now supposing it to be a mere non-entity, and now fraught
with the most terrible consequences, famine, and God knows what. But it
seems to me, that if nominal, it must be nugatory, and therefore
innocent; and that if real, it must be proportionably beneficial. For if
real, it must throw a greater quantity of the necessaries or comforts of
life into the hands of those who most want them, and take them from
those who are oppressed with their superfluities. For suppose the
quantity of food and the quantity of money to be fixed, given quantities
(unless we suppose both, there is no reasoning about the matter) and
that an additional price is given for labour: let us suppose farther
that this raises the price of provisions. It is evident in this case,
that the rich having less money to give, and being obliged to give more
for their former luxuries, will be obliged to retrench somewhere. This
must be either in provisions, or other things. First, they may retrench
in the article of provisions. This will evidently leave a greater plenty
for others, who stand very much in need of them; and their additional
wages will be laid out in supplying themselves with what they could not
otherwise have obtained. Secondly, they may retrench in articles of
furniture, dress, houses, &c. and there will consequently be less demand
for these things. Well then, in the first place, with regard to
provisions, the poor will be no worse off in this respect than if there
had been no advance in the price, for it is not to be supposed that if
the rich are so attached to the luxuries of the belly as notwithstanding
the increased price to buy the same quantity as ever, that they would
have bought less, if the price had continued lower. They would have
engrossed the markets at all events. On the other hand, they must
retrench their expences in other things, in superfluities of different
kinds, which will thus fall into the hands of the poor, who having been
excluded from the meat-market can only lay out their additional wages in
providing themselves with household conveniences, good clothes, tables,
chairs, &c. What should they do with their money? It is supposed that
they cannot get a morsel of meat with it: and it is not be expected that
they should throw it away. Sooner than do this, they might spend it in
buying smart buckles for their shoes, or garters and ribbons for their
sweethearts. The labour of the mechanic, inasmuch as it is not wanted by
the great, will go to enrich the lower classes. The less they are
employed by the rich, in consequence of ‘a more equal distribution of
the money of the society,’ the better able they will be to employ one
another. The farmer’s servant will employ the mechanic with the same
money with which the farmer or his landlord would have employed him: if
he has the same wages as before, he will have as much to do, or if his
wages are doubled, and he has only half as much to do, this will be a
proportionable relief to him on the score of labour, and would be no
prejudice to his earnings as he would get the same wages for doing half
as much work. But there is no occasion to suppose any such slackness in
the demand for labour. The proportion between the money, the productive
and mechanical labour in the community, would remain the same: and the
rise in the wages of the labouring manufacturer and mechanic to be real
and effectual ought to be paid out of the profits of the master and
proprietor. In this case, the demand would be the same: and it would
evidently be his interest to employ the same number of men that he did
before, as though he would get less by each of them, he must get more,
the more hands he employs, as long as the demand continues.[30] If
however our rich men and manufacturers should grow sulky upon the
occasion, and take it into their heads to hoard their money in order to
spite the poor, thus driving them altogether out of employ, I conceive
the best use that can be made of this hoarded wealth would be to
transfer it to the poor’s fund, for the relief of those who are willing
to work, but not to starve. On the whole, and in every view of the
subject it appears to me that any addition to the price of labour must
as far as it goes, be an advantage to the labourer, and that the more
general and permanent it is, the greater will be the benefit to the
labouring class of the community. The rise of wages would certainly take
from the pomp and luxury of the rich, and it would as certainly and in
the same proportion add to the comforts of the poor. I am not here
recommending such a change. I only contend that it would follow the
distribution of wealth; and that it is absurd to say that the poorer a
man is, the richer he will be.

Mr. Malthus’s acuteness amounts to a species of second-sight, whenever
there is a question of famine. Thus he demonstrates that this must be
the necessary consequence of fixing a maximum in a time of scarcity. Now
I do not see this necessary consequence, because if it were fixed at a
certain height above the common price in proportion to the deficiency,
this would check the too rapid consumption. Or even without supposing
this, as it would be necessary to have some kind of law or order of the
police to enforce the observance of a maximum, and make the farmers and
dealers bring their corn to market, the quantities in which it was
brought forward might be regulated in the same way as the price.
Besides, I do not believe that people would starve themselves with their
eyes open, whether the police interfered or not. As to the epithets of
illiberal, unjust, and narrow policy which some people may apply to such
a measure, I would ask them whether fixing the assize of bread in London
is not just the same thing. But corn-factors, forestallers and regraters
are a set of people whose liberal notions place them above the law, who
ought not to be looked upon in the same light with every little scurvy
knavish bread and biscuit baker, nor cramped in their generous exertions
to economize the public resources, and save the poor from famine at the
latter end of the year—by starving them in the beginning. With respect
to the parallel which Mr. Malthus attempts to establish between fixing a
maximum, and raising the price of labour, I am so unfortunate as not to
perceive it. He sometimes argues against raising the price of labour
because it would give the poor no greater command over the provisions
than before; he here talks as if it would enable them to devour every
thing before them. I think neither of these suppositions is true. The
high price of corn in proportion to other things will always make people
unwilling to lay out more in that way than they can help, and will
consequently diminish the consumption. As to famine, people will look
many ways, before they submit to it.

‘Independently of any considerations respecting a year of deficient
crops, it is evident, that an increase of population, without a
proportional increase of food, must lower the value of each man’s
_earnings_. The food must necessarily be distributed in smaller
quantities, and consequently, a day’s labour will purchase a smaller
quantity of provisions.’

Why of earnings more than property? Mr. Malthus would have this
considered as an elementary or philosophical work. Yet he looks only at
the flattering side of his subject. A day’s labour will purchase a less
quantity of provisions, but a day’s idleness will purchase the same. In
this case idleness and industry are plaintiff and defendant; and the
verdict is in favour of idleness, and industry is not only cast, but
pays the costs.—It is all very well.

‘The quantity of provisions consumed in workhouses, upon a part of the
society, that cannot in general be considered as the most valuable
part,’ [or in other houses on footmen, &c. who are not the most
respectable kind of paupers] ‘diminishes the shares that would otherwise
belong to more industrious and more worthy members, and thus in the same
measure, forces more to become dependent.

‘Fortunately for England, a spirit of independence still remains among
the peasantry. The poor laws are strongly calculated to eradicate this
spirit.’ [Is it the man who reduces me to beggary, or he who affords me
relief, that lowers my condition and breaks my spirit?] ‘They have
succeeded in part; but had they succeeded as completely as might have
been expected, their pernicious tendency would not have been so long
concealed.’

It would have been discovered sooner, if Mr. Malthus had read Mr.
Wallace’s book sooner.

‘The parish laws of England _appear_ to have contributed to raise the
price of provisions and to lower the real price of labour.’ [Our
author’s demonstrations are delusive appearances. What must his
_appearances_ be? Shall we take them for demonstrations?] ‘They have
therefore contributed to impoverish that class of people whose only
possession is their labour. It is also difficult to suppose, that they
have not powerfully contributed to generate that carelessness and want
of frugality observable among the poor, so contrary to the disposition
generally to be remarked among petty tradesmen and small farmers. The
labouring poor, to use a vulgar expression, seem always to live from
hand to mouth. Their present wants employ their whole attention; and
they seldom think of the future. Even when they have an opportunity of
saving, they seldom exercise it; but all that they earn beyond their
present necessities, goes, generally speaking, to the alehouse. The poor
laws may, therefore, be said to diminish both the power, and the will,
to save, among the common people, and thus to weaken one of the
strongest incentives to sobriety and industry, and consequently to
happiness.’

This passage is remarkable. It may be asked in the first place, whether
the parish laws are not equally open to petty tradesmen and small
farmers, as to the poor. If so, they cannot account for the difference
observable between them. I shall therefore, as far as this very striking
contrast goes, put the poor laws out of the question; and say that the
difference in their behaviour can arise from nothing but the difference
in their situations, from the greater hardships imposed on the labouring
part of the community, from their different prospects in life, and the
little estimation in which they are held. Mr. Malthus accounts for the
carelessness and laziness of the poor from their casting a sheep’s-eye
at the work-house. No: they are to be accounted for from that poverty
and depression which makes the work-house a temptation to them. We
cannot say of those who are seduced by the prospect of a
work-house—‘Alas from what height fallen!’ Mr. Malthus proposes to
remove this dazzling object out of their way; to make them indulge in
larger views of things by setting before them the prospect of their
wives and children starving, in case of any accident to themselves, and
to stimulate their industry by lowering their wages. The poor live from
hand to mouth, because, in general, they have no hopes of living in any
other way. They seldom think of the future, because they are afraid to
think of it. Their present wants employ their whole attention. This is
their misfortune. Others have better luck. They have no time to think of
wind-falls. Mr. Malthus may take his glass of wine after dinner, and his
afternoon’s nap, when, having got the Essay on Population out of his
head, queen Mab ‘comes to him with a tythe-pig’s tail, tickling the
parson as he lies asleep:—then dreams he of another benefice.’ The poor
cannot indulge in such pleasing speculations. If what they earn beyond
their immediate necessities goes to the alehouse, it is because the
severe labour they undergo requires some relaxation, because they are
willing to forget the _work-house_, their old age, and the prospect of
their wives and children starving, and to drown care in a mug of ale, in
noise, and mirth, and laughter, and old ditties, and coarse jokes, and
hot disputes; and in that sense of short-lived comfort, independence and
good-fellowship, which is necessary to relieve the hurt mind and jaded
body. But all these, when our author’s system is once established,
‘shall no more impart,

            ‘An hour’s importance to the poor man’s heart.’

No human patience can submit to everlasting toil and self-denial. The
prospect of mere physical comfort is not a match for continued physical
suffering: and the lower classes of the people have no other motives to
animate them to bear up against the ills of life, in habits of moral
reflection, in the pursuits and example of the rich, or in the real
respect and credit attached to their own good behaviour. You reduce them
almost to the condition of brutes, and then grudge them their coarse
enjoyments: you make machines of them, and then expect from them
firmness, resolution, the love of independence, the fruits of an erect
and manly spirit. Mr. Malthus, like the Sphinx, destroys his victims by
the help of riddles; and makes a snare of impossibilities. As to the
workmen and mechanics in manufacturing towns (to say nothing of the
closeness and unwholesomeness of their occupations, which would go a
good way in accounting for ‘their drunkenness and dissipation’) the
noise and turbulence in which they live, and their being crowded
together as they are must unfit them for enjoying the quiet and
stillness of domestic life: they are glad to escape from the contempt
which their ‘squalid appearance’ excites in the well-dressed mob who
walk the streets, and hide their greasy clothes and smutched faces in
the nearest pot-house; and to say the truth, with respect to those of
them who are married, the hard features, the disjointed shapes, the
coarse limbs, the carking countenances, and ill-humour of their wives,
occasioned by the fretful wants of a set of squalling children, cannot
be supposed to prove so attractive to them, as ‘the symmetry of person,
the vivacity, the voluptuous softness of temper, the affectionate
kindness of feeling, the imagination, and the wit’ which in Mr.
Malthus’s opinion constitute the charm of the sex. After all, are the
higher classes a bit better than their inferiors? Are drinking and
dissipation confined to the poor? As Mr. Malthus ingenuously observes,
‘Our Doctors Commons and the lives that many married men [of the better
sort] are known to lead sufficiently prove the reverse of this.’ I
believe it will hardly be proposed to make moral merit a rule for the
division of the good things of fortune. The only difference in the vices
of the rich and the poor is, that the rich can _afford_ theirs better.
Nevertheless they set up for censors and reformers of the morals of the
poor. I remember to have seen a red-faced swag-bellied bishop (such
another as Father Paul in the Duenna) who could drink his two bottles of
wine without being affected, belch out a severe reprimand against a poor
labouring man, who was staggering home after drinking a quart of small
beer. As to our author’s plan of _starving_ the poor out of their vices,
I must say (all circumstances considered) that I think it, in the first
place, an impudent proposal, because their executioners are no better
than themselves; in the second place, a silly proposal, because, if not
literally followed up, it must evidently defeat itself; in the third
place, a malignant proposal, because if it were strictly put in
practice, it could only produce despair and sullen insensibility among
the poor, and destroy all traces of justice or humanity among the rich;
in the fourth place, a lying proposal, because it is contrary to Mr.
Malthus’s own reasonings, who in many places has shewn that the only way
to improve the condition of the poor is not by urging them to extremity,
but by raising them above want, by inspiring them with a respect for
themselves, and a taste for the comforts and decencies of life by
sharing in them.

‘That the poor (says Mr. Malthus) employed in manufactures consider
parish assistance as a _reason_ why they may spend all the wages which
they earn, and enjoy themselves while they can, _appears to be evident_,
from the number of families that upon the failure of any great
manufactory, immediately fall upon the parish.’ This is an assumption of
the question. Our author here confounds the fact and the reason
together. It appears evident that the manufacturer often spends his
earnings as he gets them, but not that he does so in the hope that his
family may go to the parish after his death. ‘A man who might not be
deterred from going to the alehouse from the consideration that on his
death or sickness he should leave his wife and family upon the parish,
might yet hesitate in thus dissipating his earnings if he were assured
that in either of these cases _his family must starve_, or be left to
the support of casual bounty.’ Now it has appeared that his conduct is
regulated by motives and circumstances which have nothing to do with
what happens to his wife and children after his death. It may therefore
be questioned whether the catastrophe proposed by Mr. Malthus would have
the desired effect. But certainly it could not have this effect as long
as there was a dependence on casual bounty: and to stop up this resource
it would be absolutely necessary to call in the aid of the magistrate to
prevent the indiscreet and unavailing interference of private charity,
and execute the sentence of the law of nature and the law of God on his
wife and hapless progeny, justly doomed to starve for the neglect of
their parent. What effect this would have on the ‘moral sensibility of
the nation’ I leave to Mr. Malthus to determine with his well-known
penetration and humanity. ‘The suffering a poor family to perish of want
is bad enough: but I cannot conceive of any thing much more detestable
or shocking to the feelings than any direct regulation of this kind, by
whatever name it is sanctioned.’ Mr. Malthus may perhaps object that I
have quoted him unfairly; and applied to the _organizing the starving of
a family_ what he applied to the direct regulation of _infanticide_,—a
very different thing! Unfortunately, I have not sufficient delicacy of
_verbal_ feeling to be able to find out the difference.—Now I recollect,
however, what shocked Mr. Malthus so much in speaking of infanticide was
the supposition that the parents were to be forced to destroy their own
children, when they thought they could not maintain them; according to
our author’s mode of starving a family, the society are only to stand by
and prevent others from affording them assistance. Here we see there is
not that direct violation of the parental affection which, says Mr.
Malthus, is the principal aggravation of the other case. He explains the
grounds of this distinction in another part of his work. ‘If,’ says he,
‘the parents desert their child, _they_ ought to be answerable for the
crime. The infant is, comparatively speaking, of no value to the
society,[31] as others will immediately supply its place. Its principal
value is on account of its being the object of one of the most
delightful passions in human nature—parental affection. But if this
value be disregarded by those who are _alone_ in a capacity to feel it,
the _society_ cannot be called upon to put itself in their place and has
no further business in its protection,’ than just to see that its
parents do not ill-use, or kill or eat it. Nothing can be plainer than
the inference from these premises. The society, which is bound to
prevent or punish the least barbarity in parents towards their children,
because they are to them an object of a very delightful passion, may
exercise any barbarity it pleases on them itself, because it is not in a
capacity to feel this affection towards them. It is not only not called
upon to put itself in their place, but is bound to prevent others from
doing so, and thus reversing the laws of nature, by which ‘the child is
confided exclusively to its parents.’ It is only, says our author, by
extinguishing every spark of humanity in the breasts of the community
towards the children of others, that the ties of parental affection can
ever exist in their full force, or be expected ‘to remain in the state
in which nature has left them.’ Mr. Malthus may therefore in his zeal
for the growth of parental affection, and the entire suppression of
common humanity as subversive of it, very consistently brand every
attempt of the society to make the parents accomplices in starving their
children, as the greatest injustice, though we may very heroically
proceed to starve them ourselves, repeating after this high-priest of
nature, Their blood be upon us and upon _our_ children! This is the best
account I can give of the fundamental distinction which Mr. Malthus
makes between the impropriety and inhumanity of _destroying children_ by
law, and the propriety and humanity of _starving_ a family by law. But I
shall recur to the same subject presently, when I come to the detail of
his plan.

Mr. Malthus devotes the first and second chapters of his fourth book to
an inquiry into our obligations to regulate the sexual passion by
considerations of prudence, &c. into the general capacity of human
nature to act from rational motives, and the good effects which would
result from such a conduct. He begins his third chapter in the following
manner.

‘He who publishes a moral code, or system of duties, however firmly he
may be convinced of the strong obligation on each individual strictly to
conform to it, has never the folly to imagine that it will be
universally or even generally practised. But this is no valid objection
against the publication of the code. If it were, the same objection
would always have applied; we should be totally without general rules;
and to the vices of mankind arising from temptation, would be added a
much longer list, than we have at present, of vices from ignorance.’
[This is well said, and ’tis a kind of good deed to say well.] ‘Judging
merely from the light of nature, if we feel convinced of the misery
arising from a redundant population, on the one hand, and of the evils
and unhappiness, particularly to the female sex, arising from
promiscuous intercourse, on the other, I do not see how it is possible
for any person, who acknowledges the principle of utility as the great
foundation of morals, to escape the conclusion that moral restraint,
till we are in a condition to support a family, is the strict line of
duty; and when revelation is taken into the question, this duty
undoubtedly receives very powerful confirmation. At the same time, I
believe that few of my readers can be less sanguine in their
expectations of any great change in the general conduct of men on this
subject than I am; and the chief reason, why, in the last chapter, I
allowed myself to suppose the universal prevalence of this virtue, was,
that I might endeavour to remove any imputation on the goodness of the
Deity, by shewing that the evils arising from the principle of
population were exactly of the same nature as the generality of other
evils which excite fewer complaints, that they were increased by human
ignorance and indolence, and diminished by human knowledge and virtue;
and on the supposition, that each individual strictly fulfilled his
duty, would be almost totally removed; and this, without any general
diminution of those sources of pleasure, arising from the regulated
indulgence of the passions, which have been justly considered as the
principal ingredients of human happiness.’

Mr. Malthus here appears in the double character of a politician and
divine. Sir Hugh Evans says, ‘I like not when a ’omans has a great
peard.’ I must say, I do not like to see a philosopher in a cassock. He
has you at an unfair advantage, and it is a hundred to one but he will
make use of it. When he is pressed hard, or sees his arguments in danger
of being cut off, he puts them into the false belly of theology. It is
like hunting an otter: you do not know where to have him.—What our
author says of moral systems is certainly true: neither the preaching of
St. Paul, nor probably his own has been able to put an end to that
pious, courtly race of men, who strive equally to serve God and mammon.
Mr. Malthus in the last chapter took an opportunity of paying his court
to the former: the leaf is no sooner turned, than he begins to insinuate
himself into the good graces of the latter, by disclaiming the sincerity
of his late professions. In the passage just quoted, Mr. Malthus not
only tells you that he had endeavoured to give a more favourable account
of the expectations of mankind and their capacity for virtue and
happiness than he believes has any foundation in human nature; but he at
the same time lets you into his motive for so doing, viz. his wish to
remove any imputation on the divine goodness, which purpose, it seems,
would not have been so well answered by the real statement of the fact.
Having thus decently paid his compliments to his profession, and
justified the goodness of God from _the ideal capacity of man for
virtue_ he next proceeds to prove the wisdom of human institutions by
his _real incapacity_ for it. He was yesterday engaged to whitewash
Providence: to day he is retained on the other side of the question,
which he assures his clients shall not suffer through any anxiety of his
about consistency. This seems to be playing at fast and loose both with
religion and morality. Mr. Malthus has indeed set apart the preceding
chapter to shew that ‘the evils arising from the principle of population
are exactly of the same nature as the generality of other evils which
excite fewer complaints, that they were increased by human ignorance and
indolence, and diminished by human knowledge and virtue.’ But I do not
know what right he had to do this, seeing that it is the express object
of his work to shew that the evils of population are unlike all other
evils, neither generated by human folly, nor to be removed or palliated
by human wisdom, but by vice and misery alone: that they are _sui
generis_, and not to be reasoned upon, like any thing else. Neither do I
understand how the evils of population can be said to excite more
complaints than other evils, when Mr. Malthus tells us that till his
time nobody had thought of tracing them to their true source, but
erroneously ascribed them to human institutions, vice, folly, &c. Mr.
Malthus himself was the first who proved them to be irremediable and
inherent in the constitution of nature, and thus brought an imputation
upon Providence. To remove this imputation he supposes them to admit of
a remedy: then again lest any one should take him at his word and be for
applying this remedy, he says they admit of no such remedy; and that it
was all an idle supposition of his own without any foundation, a
harmless picture drawn to illustrate the _imaginary_ goodness of
Providence.

‘If it will answer any purpose of illustration, I see no harm in drawing
the picture of a society in which each individual is supposed strictly
to fulfil his duties: nor does a writer appear to be justly liable to
the imputation of being visionary, unless he makes such universal or
general obedience necessary to the practical utility of his system, and
to that degree of moderate and partial improvement, which is all that
can rationally be expected from the most complete knowledge of our
duties.

‘But in this respect, there is an essential difference between that
improved state of society which I have supposed in the last chapter, and
most of the other speculations on this subject. The improvement there
supposed, if we ever should make approaches towards it, is to be
effected in the way in which we have been in the habit of seeing all the
greatest improvements effected, by a direct application to the interest
and happiness of each individual. It is not required of us to act from
motives, to which we are unaccustomed; to pursue a general good, which
we may not distinctly comprehend, or the effect of which may be weakened
by distance or diffusion.’

Is there not such a virtue as patriotism? To what class of motives would
our author refer this feeling? The way in which Mr. Malthus wishes to
effect his improvement in the virtue and happiness of mankind, is one in
which no such improvement has hitherto been effected. But I see Mr.
Malthus’s object. He is only anxious, lest any one should attempt to
rear the fabric of human excellence on any other basis than that of vice
and misery. So that we begin with this solid and necessary foundation,
he does not care to what height the building is carried. So that we set
out on our journey of reform through the gate at which Mr. Malthus is
sitting at the receipt of custom, (whether it faces the road or not) it
gives him little concern what direction we take, or how far we go
afterwards, or whether we ever reach our promised destination.

‘The duty of each individual is express and intelligible to the humblest
capacity. It is merely that he is not to bring beings into the world for
whom he cannot find the means of support. When once this subject is
cleared from the obscurity thrown over it by parochial laws and _private
benevolence_, every man must feel the strongest conviction of such an
obligation. If he cannot support his children, they must _starve_; and
if he marry in the face of a fair probability that he shall not be able
to support his children, he is guilty of all the evils which he thus
brings upon himself, his wife, and his offspring. It is clearly his
interest, and will tend greatly to promote his happiness to defer
marrying, till, by industry and economy, he is in a capacity to support
the children, that he may reasonably expect from his marriage and as he
cannot in the mean time, gratify his passions, without violating _an
express command of God_, and running a great risk of injuring himself,
or some of his fellow creatures, considerations of his own interest and
happiness will dictate to him the strongest obligation to moral
restraint.

‘However powerful may be the impulses of passion _they are generally in
some degree modified by reason_. And it does not seem entirely visionary
to suppose, that if the true and permanent cause of poverty were clearly
explained,’ [This I take to be that the rich have more than the poor]
‘and forcibly brought home to each man’s bosom, it would have some, and
perhaps not an inconsiderable, influence on his conduct; at least, the
experiment has never yet been fairly tried.’

It is astonishing, what a propensity Mr. Malthus has to try experiments,
if there is any mischief to be done by them. He has a perfect horror of
experiments that are to be tried on the higher qualities of our nature,
from which any great, unmixed, and general good is to be expected. But
in proportion as the end is low, and the means base, he acquires
confidence, his tremours forsake him, and he approaches boldly to the
task with nerves of iron. His humanity is of a singular cast. What is
grand and elevated, seems to be his aversion. Pure benefits are of too
cloying a quality to please his taste. He is willing to improve the
morals of the people by extirpating the common feelings of mankind, and
will submit to the introduction of a greater degree of plenty and
comfort, provided it is prefaced by famine.

His ardour is kindled not so much in proportion to the difficulty, as to
the disgusting nature of the task. He is a kind of sentimental nightman,
an amateur chimney-sweeper, a patriotic Jack-ketch. The spirit of
adventure is roused in him only by the prospect of dirty roads, and
narrow, crooked paths. He never flinches where there is any evil to be
done, that good may come of it! His present plan is an admirable one of
the kind—_Omne tulit punctum_—it comprises both extremes of vice and
misery. The poor are to make a formal surrender of their right to
private charity or parish assistance, that the rich may be able to lay
out all their money on their vices.

‘Till these erroneous ideas have been corrected, and the language of
_nature_ and reason has been generally heard on the subject of
population, instead of the language of error and prejudice, it cannot be
said that any fair experiment has been made with the understandings of
the common people; and we cannot justly accuse them of improvidence and
want of industry, till they act as they do now, after it has been
brought home to their comprehensions, that they are themselves the cause
of their own poverty; that the means of redress are in their own hands,
and _in the hands of no other persons whatever; that the society in
which they live, and the government which presides over it, are totally
without power in this respect_; and however ardently they may desire to
relieve them, and whatever attempts they may make to do so, they are
really and truly unable to execute what they benevolently wish, but
unjustly promise; that when the wages of labour will not maintain a
family, it is an incontrovertible sign that _their king and country do
not want more subjects_, or at least that _they cannot support them_;
that if they marry in this case, so far from fulfilling a duty to
society, they are throwing a useless burden on it, at the same time that
they are plunging themselves into distress; and that they are acting
directly contrary to the will of God, and bringing down upon themselves
various diseases, which might all, or in a great part, have been
avoided, if they had attended to the repeated admonitions which he
gives, by the general laws of nature, to every being capable of
reason.’[32]

The erroneous ideas of which Mr. Malthus here complains as prevailing in
the minds of the common people, to the prejudice of the language of
reason and nature, are, as he states just before, that their poverty and
distress are _in part_ owing to their not getting more for their labour,
to the slowness with which the parish assist them, to the avarice of the
rich, and to the institutions of society, or to fortune which has
assigned them a place so beset with difficulties and dependence! No,
poverty is owing to none of these causes, but it is owing entirely to
_itself_. Mr. Burke has said, that people will not be argued into
slavery. Our author attempts more than this. He tries to persuade them
out of their senses, and to argue them into slavery and famine besides.
There is a distinction which it is sometimes dangerous to insist on in
common life; but which it is necessary to attend to in matters of
reasoning, and that is the distinction between truth and falsehood. For
instance, Mr. Malthus asserts, that the means of remedying their
complaints are in the hands of the poor, and in the hands of no other
persons whatever. Now this is not true. It is not true that the society
in which they live and the government which presides over it are
_totally_ without power in this respect. It is not true that however
ardently they may wish to relieve them, they are utterly unable to
execute their benevolent intentions. It is not an incontrovertible sign
that their king and country do not want more subjects, and that they
cannot support them, when the common wages of labour will not maintain a
family. As Mr. Malthus’s positions exist no where but in the Essay of
Population, they will hardly support those weighty practical conclusions
which he wishes to build upon them. Some persons may perhaps be at a
loss to understand what Mr. Malthus can mean by his assertions. The
following may be some clue to what in itself has very much the
appearance of irony.

‘Among the other prejudices which have prevailed on the subject of
population, it has been generally thought, that while there is either
waste among the rich, or land remaining uncultivated in any country, the
complaint for want of food cannot be justly founded, or, at least, that
the pressure of distress upon the poor is to be attributed to the
ill-conduct of the higher classes of society, and the bad management of
the land. The real effect, however, of these two circumstances, is
merely to narrow the limit of the actual population; but they have
little or no influence on what may be called the average pressure of
distress on the poorer members of society. If our ancestors had been so
frugal and industrious, and had transmitted such habits to their
posterity, that nothing superfluous was now consumed by the higher
classes, no horses were used for pleasure, and no land was left
uncultivated, a striking difference would appear in the state of the
actual population; but probably none whatever, in the state of the lower
classes of people, with respect to the price of labour, and the facility
of supporting a family. The waste among the rich and the horses kept for
pleasure, have indeed a little the effect of the consumption of grain in
distilleries, noticed before with regard to China. On the supposition
that the food consumed in this manner may be withdrawn on the occasion
of a scarcity, and be applied to the relief of the poor, they operate,
certainly, as far as they go, like granaries which are only opened at
the time that they are most wanted, and must therefore tend rather to
benefit than injure the lower classes of society.

‘With regard to uncultivated land, it is evident that its effect upon
the poor is neither to injure, nor to benefit them. The sudden
cultivation of it, will indeed tend to improve their condition for a
time, and the neglect of lands before cultivated, will certainly make
their situation worse for a certain period; but when no changes of this
kind are going forward, the effect of uncultivated land on the lower
classes, operates merely like the possession of a smaller territory.’

After what has been said in various parts of these observations, I might
leave these passages to the contempt of the reader. But Mr. Malthus
shall not complain of my remissness. I will give him heaped measure. I
say then that the argument here employed leads to a direct absurdity:
for it would justify any degree of neglect, or waste, or wanton abuse
that can be imagined. If thirty-nine out of the forty counties in
England were laid waste to-morrow, this would be no evil, according to
Mr. Malthus, because it would not increase the average pressure of
distress in the remaining one. If half the corn that is grown every
year, besides what is already employed in supplying the waste of the
rich, were regularly sent off by waggon-loads, and thrown into the sea,
there would be still no harm done. A _striking_ difference would
undoubtedly appear in the number of poor people, but probably none
whatever in the state of those who had not been starved. If double the
number of horses were kept for pleasure, and only half the number of
poor were kept alive, these latter would have no reason to complain,
because they would be as well, or better off than ever; and if a limited
number are tolerably well provided for, this is all that can ever be
expected, because by the laws of nature it is impossible to provide for
an unlimited number. To say nothing of those immense granaries and
boundless resources which are thus formed in the uncultivated parts of
the earth, or which might be created at any time of extraordinary
distress by employing in the service of man what had hitherto been
providently reserved for the beasts.

While there is waste among the rich, or neglect of lands, or while the
breed of horses is encouraged so as to put a stop to the breed of men, I
deny that the distresses of the poor, or the restraints on population
are the necessary effects of the laws of nature, or of the unavoidable
disproportion between the increase of mankind and the capacity of the
earth to produce food for a greater number. But Mr. Malthus has his
usual resource. Though the distresses of the poor were actually relieved
as they might be, and though the unnecessary checks to population were
taken off, yet the time would come when these wants could no longer be
supplied, and when the restraints on population would become necessary,
from the inability of the earth to yield any more, and from the whole
produce being applied to the best advantage. This is undoubtedly true:
but I do not think it a reason that we are not to put off the evil as
long as we can, or that we are not to attempt any improvement, because
we cannot go on for ever improving. Death is certain, and ‘will come
when it will come.’ Is that a reason why I should take poison? There is
in all Mr. Malthus’s arguments on this subject the same _twist_ that
there was in the Irish servant, who was told to call his master early,
and waked him two hours before the time to tell him how much longer he
had to sleep. Mr. Malthus would have insisted on his getting up and
dressing himself in the middle of the night.

Mr. Malthus allows, that ‘the object of those who really wish to better
the condition of the poor must be to raise the relative proportion
between the price of labour, and the price of provisions.’ Almost in the
next paragraph, however, he adds, that if we are really serious in this
object, ‘we must explain to them the true nature of their situation, and
shew them that _the withholding the supplies of labour is the only
possible way of raising its real price_.’ I cannot help thinking, to use
his own words, that our author’s ‘benevolence to the poor must be either
childish play, or hypocrisy: that it must be either to amuse himself, or
to pacify the minds of the common people with a mere shew of attention
to their wants.’ He proceeds to instruct the poor in their true
situation in a chapter which requires a few comments.

‘The pressure of distress on the lower classes of people, with the habit
of attributing this distress to their rulers, appears to me to be the
rock of defence, the castle, the guardian spirit, of despotism. It
affords to the tyrant the fatal and unanswerable plea of _necessity_.’
[That is Mr. Malthus’s plea.] ‘While any dissatisfied man of talents has
power to persuade the lower classes of people, that all their poverty
and distress arise solely from the iniquity of the government, though
perhaps the greatest part of what they suffer is totally unconnected
with this cause, it is evident that the seeds of fresh discontents, and
fresh revolutions, are continually sowing.’

That is, the way to prevent revolutions, and at the same time to produce
lasting reforms is to persuade the people that all the evils which they
suffer, or which the government may chuse to inflict upon them are their
own fault. The way to put governments upon their good behaviour is to
give them a licence to do as much mischief as they please, without being
answerable for it.

‘Of the tendency of mobs to produce tyranny, we may not be long without
an example in this country. _As a friend to freedom, and an enemy to
large standing armies_, it is with extreme reluctance that I am
compelled to acknowledge, that, had it not been for the organized force
in the country, the distresses of the people during the late scarcities,
encouraged by the extreme ignorance and folly of many among the higher
classes, might have driven them to commit the most dreadful outrages,
and ultimately to involve the country in all the horrors of famine.’

Does Mr. Malthus think that this hint will dispose the government to
keep up their large standing armies, or to mitigate the distresses of
the people? I wonder, if Blifil had happened to be an author, whether he
might not have written such a book as this.

‘Should such periods often recur, a recurrence which we have too much
reason to apprehend from the present state of the country, the prospect
which opens to our view is melancholy in the extreme. The English
constitution will be seen hastening with rapid strides to the
_Euthanasia_ foretold by Hume; unless its progress be interrupted by
some popular commotion; and this alternative presents a picture still
more appalling to the imagination. If political discontents were blended
with the cries of hunger, and a revolution were to take place by the
instrumentality of a mob, clamouring for want of food, the consequences
would be unceasing change and unceasing carnage, the bloody career of
which, nothing but the establishment of some complete despotism could
arrest.’

The gentleman seems greatly alarmed at his own predictions. He points
out to government the dangers arising from mobs; and shews that these
again arise from discontent, and repining against the good order of
society. The way proposed to cure them of this discontent, and these
false notions of society is to break asunder at once the link of
humanity which binds the poor to the rich, to reduce them to extremity,
to cut off all hope, all over-weening expectation, all mutual kindness
and good offices, by exploding the very idea of the rights of the poor,
or the duties of the rich, and thus to tame them so effectually and
systematically, that we shall be in no danger from mobs, revolutions, or
military despotism, but shall conclude with a happy Euthanasia!

‘To say that our conduct is not to be regulated by circumstances, is to
betray an ignorance of the most _solid_ and incontrovertible principles
of morality.’ [An odd phrase. Solid seems to imply something fixed. We
should hardly talk of a _solid_ bridge of boats, though they might
afford tolerably safe footing.] ‘Though the admission of this principle
may sometimes afford a cloke to changes of opinion that do not result
from the purest motives; yet the admission of a contrary principle would
be productive of infinitely worse consequences. The phrase of existing
circumstances has, I believe, not unfrequently created a smile in the
English House of Commons; but the smile should have been reserved for
the application of the phrase and not have been excited by the phrase
itself.’ [He teaches us to smile by the book.] ‘A very frequent
repetition of it, has indeed, of itself, rather a suspicious air; and
its application should always be watched with the most jealous and
anxious attention; but no man ought to be judged _in limine_ for saying,
that existing circumstances had obliged him to alter his opinions and
conduct. The country gentlemen were perhaps too easily convinced that
existing circumstances called upon them to give up some of the most
valuable privileges of Englishmen; but, as far as they were really
convinced of this obligation, they acted consistently with the _clearest
rule_ of morality.’ [Begging the learned writer’s pardon, it is rather
the exception than the rule. Did Junius Brutus, when he killed his son,
act in conformity to the _clearest rule of morality_? Mr. Malthus has
not quite got rid of the leaven of his old philosophy.]

‘The degree of power to be given to the civil government, and the
measure of our submission to it, must be determined by general
expediency.’

This is saying a good deal. The rule which Mr. Malthus then lays down
for ‘a rising of the people,’ seems to be that when they are enlightened
and well off, that is, when the government is a good one, they may rebel
against it: but when they are kept in a state of ignorance and want,
then they are to blame, if they are at all refractory: they are to be
considered as the causes of that very oppression which they are
endeavouring to resist, and as giving a farther handle to that tyranny,
which their superiors are thus forced to exercise in self-defence, not
from any innate love of power, or predilection for violent measures.

‘All improvements in government must necessarily originate with persons
of some education, and these will of course be found among the people of
property. Whatever may be said of a few, it is impossible that the great
mass of the people of property should be really interested in the abuses
of government. They merely submit to them, from the fear, that an
endeavour to remove them, might be productive of greater evils. Could we
but take away this fear, reform and improvement would proceed with as
much facility, as the removal of nuisances, or the paving and lighting
the streets. Remove all apprehension from the tyranny or folly of the
people, and the tyranny of government could not stand a moment. It would
then appear in its proper deformity, without palliation, without
pretext, without protector. Naturally feeble in itself, when it was once
stripped naked, and deprived of the support of public opinion, and of
the great _plea of necessity_, it would fall without a struggle.’

This is a new view of the subject. What then, mankind are governed by
the pure love of justice! The people of property and education have no
vices or follies of their own, which blind their understandings, no
prejudices about royalty, or aristocracy, or church or state, no
attachment to party, no dependence on great men, no hopes of preferment,
no connections, no privileges, no interest in the abuses of government,
no pride, none of the _esprit de corps_, to hinder them from pronouncing
sentence on the laws, institutions, uses, and abuses of society with the
same calmness, disinterestedness, and wisdom, as they would upon
cleaning a sewer, or paving a street.

‘The most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those
general declaimers, who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost
all the evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the
iniquity of governments.’

This is like those highwaymen, who attribute their ill treatment of
their victims to the resistance they make.

‘Whatever therefore may be the intention of those indiscriminate and
wholesale accusations against governments, their real effect undoubtedly
is, to add a weight of talents and principles to the prevailing power
which it never would have received otherwise.’

This is possible: but the effect of Mr. Malthus’s method would be that
they would not want the additional weight either of talents or
principle, but would laugh in your face.

‘The inference, therefore, which Mr. Paine and others have drawn against
governments from the unhappiness of the people, is palpably unfair; and
before we give a sanction to such accusations, it is a debt we owe to
truth and justice, to ascertain how much of this unhappiness arises from
the principle of population, and how much is fairly to be attributed to
government. When this distinction has been properly made, and all the
vague, indefinite, and false accusations removed, government would
remain, as it ought to be, clearly responsible for the rest. A tenfold
weight would be immediately given to the cause of the people, and every
man of principle would join in asserting and enforcing, if necessary,
their rights.’

_Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes._ Our author here wishes to delay the
question in order to give additional weight to the cause of the people.
This is something as if upon a stranger coming into a house almost
fainting with hunger and cold, we should advise him not to go near the
fire, nor take any thing to eat, for that there is a great apothecary in
the neighbourhood who sometimes calls in about that time of the day, who
will be able to tell him exactly how much of his illness proceeds from
cold, and how much from hunger, whether he should eat, or warm himself
first, and how the one would assist the other. The man might naturally
answer, I know that I am very cold and hungry: I will therefore first
sit down by the fire, and if, in the mean time, you can let me have any
thing to eat, I shall be heartily glad of it. Otherwise the advice of
the apothecary will come too late.

‘I cannot help thinking, therefore, that a knowledge generally
circulated, that the principal cause of want and unhappiness is
unconnected with government, and totally beyond its power to remove
would, instead of giving any advantage to governments, give a great
additional weight to the popular side of the question, by removing the
dangers with which, from ignorance, it is at present accompanied: and
thus tend, in a very powerful manner, to promote the cause of rational
freedom.’

The mode in which Mr. Malthus strengthens the popular side is by
disarming it of all power or pretence for resistance. Undoubtedly that
must be a strange sort of strength which is founded on impotence. The
people are only secure against the encroachments of power from their
inability to resist it. This is like clapping a man into a dungeon to
save him from the pursuit of his creditors. Mr. Malthus promotes the
cause of rational freedom, as the husband secured the virtue of his wife
in the sign of the Good Woman.

Mr. Malthus’s plan for the abolition of the poor laws is as follows:

‘I should propose a regulation to be made, declaring, that no child born
from any marriage, taking place after the expiration of a year from the
date of the law; and no illegitimate child born two years from the same
date, should ever be entitled to parish assistance. And to give a more
general knowledge of this law, and to enforce it more strongly on the
minds of the lower classes of people, the clergyman of each parish
should after the publication of banns, read a short address, stating the
strong obligation on every man to support his own children; the
impropriety, and even immorality, of marrying without a fair prospect of
being able to do this; the evils which had resulted to the poor
themselves, from the attempt which had been made to assist by public
institutions in a duty which ought to be exclusively appropriated to
parents; and the absolute necessity which had at length appeared, of
abandoning all such institutions, on account of their producing effects
totally opposite to those which were intended.

‘This would operate as a fair, distinct, and precise notice, which no
man could well mistake; and without pressing hard on any particular
individuals, would at once throw off the rising generation from that
miserable and helpless dependence upon the government and the rich, the
moral as well as physical consequences of which are almost incalculable.

‘After the public notice which I have proposed had been given, and the
system of poor laws had ceased with regard to the rising generation, if
any man chose to marry, without a prospect of being able to support a
family, he should have the most perfect liberty so to do. Though to
marry, in this case, is in my opinion clearly an immoral act, yet it is
not one which society can justly take upon itself to prevent or punish;
because the punishment provided for it by the laws of nature, falls
directly, and most severely upon the individual who commits the act, and
through him, only more remotely and feebly on the society. When nature
will govern and punish for us, it is a very miserable ambition to wish
to snatch the rod from her hands, and draw upon ourselves the odium of
executioner. To the punishment therefore of nature he should be left,
the punishment of severe want. He has erred in the face of a most clear
and precise warning, and can have no just reason to complain of any
person but himself, when he feels the consequences of his error. All
parish assistance should be most rigidly denied him: and if the hand of
private charity be stretched forth in his relief, the interests of
humanity imperiously require that it should be administered very
sparingly. He should be taught to know that the laws of nature, which
are the laws of God, had doomed him and his family to starve for
disobeying their repeated admonitions;’ [nay his family had no hand in
disobeying these admonitions] ‘that he had no claim of _right_ on
society for the smallest portion of food, beyond that which his labour
would fairly purchase; and that if he and his family were saved from
suffering the extremities of hunger, he would owe it to the pity of some
kind benefactor, to whom, therefore, he ought to be bound by the
strongest ties of gratitude.

‘If this system were pursued, we need be under no apprehensions that the
number of persons in extreme want would be beyond the power and the will
of the benevolent to supply. The sphere for the exercise of private
charity would, I am confident, be less than it is at present; and the
only difficulty would be, to restrain the hand of benevolence from
assisting those in distress in so indiscriminate a manner as to
encourage indolence and want of foresight in others.’

I am not sorry that I am at length come to this passage. It will I hope
decide the reader’s opinion of the benevolence, wisdom, piety, candour,
and disinterested simplicity of Mr. Malthus’s mind. Any comments that I
might make upon it to strengthen this impression must be faint and
feeble. I give up the task of doing justice to the moral beauties that
pervade every line of it, in despair. There are some instances of an
heroical contempt for the narrow prejudices of the world, of a perfect
refinement from the vulgar feelings of human nature, that must only
suffer by a comparison with any thing else.

Mr. Malthus prefaces his plan by saying,

‘I have reflected much on the subject of the poor laws, and hope
therefore that I shall be excused in venturing to suggest a mode of
their gradual abolition, to which I confess that at present I can see no
material objection. Of this indeed I feel nearly convinced, that should
we ever become sufficiently sensible of the wide-spreading tyranny,
dependence, indolence, and unhappiness, which they create, as seriously
to make an effort to abolish them, we shall be compelled by a sense of
justice to adopt the principle, if not the plan, which I shall mention.
It seems impossible to get rid of so extensive a system of support,
consistently with humanity, without applying ourselves directly to its
vital principle, and endeavouring to counteract that deeply-seated
cause, which occasions the rapid growth of all such establishments, and
invariably renders them inadequate to their object. As a previous step
even to any considerable alteration in the present system, which would
contract, or stop the increase of the relief to be given, it appears to
me that we are bound in justice and honour formally to disclaim the
_right_ of the poor to support.’

Now I shall not myself be so uncandid as not to confess, that I think
the poor laws bad things; and that it would be well, if they could be
got rid of, consistently with humanity and justice. This I do not think
they could in the present state of things and other circumstances
remaining as they are. The reason why I object to Mr. Malthus’s plan is
that it does not go to the root of the evil, or attack it in its
principle, but its effects. He confounds the cause with the effect. The
wide spreading tyranny, dependence, indolence, and unhappiness of which
Mr. Malthus is so sensible, are not occasioned by the increase of the
poor-rates, but these are the natural consequence of that increasing
tyranny, dependence, indolence, and unhappiness occasioned by other
causes.

Mr. Malthus desires his readers to look at the enormous proportion in
which the poor-rates have increased within the last ten years. But have
they increased in any greater proportion than the other taxes, which
rendered them necessary, and which I think were employed for much more
mischievous purposes? I would ask, what have the poor got by their
encroachments for the last ten years? Do they work less hard? Are they
better fed? Do they marry oftener, and with better prospects? Are they
grown pampered and insolent? Have they changed places with the rich?
Have they been cunning enough, by means of the poor-laws, to draw off
all their wealth and superfluities from the men of property? Have they
got so much as a quarter of an hour’s leisure, a farthing candle, or a
cheese-paring more than they had? Has not the price of provisions risen
enormously? Has not the price of labour almost stood still? Have not the
government and the rich had their way in every thing? Have they not
gratified their ambition, their pride, their obstinacy, their ruinous
extravagance? Have they not squandered the resources of the country as
they pleased? Have they not heaped up wealth on themselves, and their
dependents? Have they not multiplied sinecures, places, and pensions?
Have they not doubled the salaries of those that existed before? Has
there been any want of new creations of peers, who would thus be
impelled to beget heirs to their titles and estates, and saddle the
younger branches of their rising families, by means of their new
influence, on the country at large? Has there been any want of
contracts, of loans, of monopolies of corn, of good understanding
between the rich and the powerful to assist one another, and to fleece
the poor? Have the poor prospered? Have the rich declined? What then
have they to complain of? What ground is there for the apprehension,
that wealth is secretly changing hands, and that the whole property of
the country will shortly be absorbed in the poor’s fund? Do not the poor
create their own fund? Is not the necessity for such a fund first
occasioned by the unequal weight with which the rich press upon the
poor, and has not the increase of that fund in the last ten years been
occasioned by the additional exorbitant demands, which have been made
upon the poor and industrious, which without some assistance from the
public they could not possibly have answered? Whatever is the increase
in the nominal amount of the poor’s fund, will not the rich always be
able ultimately to throw the burthen of it on the poor themselves? But
Mr. Malthus is a man of general principles. He cares little about these
circumstantial details, and petty objections. He takes higher ground. He
deduces all his conclusions, by an infallible logic, from the laws of
God and nature. When our Essayist shall prove to me, that by these paper
bullets of the brain, by his ratios of the increase of food and the
increase of mankind, he has prevented one additional tax, or taken off
one oppressive duty, that he has made a single rich man retrench one
article at his table, that he has made him keep a dog or a horse the
less, or part with a single vice, arguing from a mathematical
admeasurement of the size of the earth, and the number of inhabitants it
can contain, he shall have my perfect leave to disclaim the right of the
poor to subsistence, and to tie them down by severe penalties to their
good behaviour on the same profound principles. But why does Mr. Malthus
practise his demonstrations on the poor only? Why are they to have a
perfect system of rights and duties prescribed to them? I do not see why
they alone should be put to live on these _metaphysical_ board-wages,
why they should be forced to submit to a course of _abstraction_; or why
it should be meat and drink to them, more than to others, to do the will
of God. Mr. Malthus’s gospel is preached only to the poor!—Even if I
approved of our author’s plan, I should object to the principle on which
it is founded. The parson of the parish, when a poor man comes to be
married—No, not so fast. The author does not say, whether the lecture he
proposes is to be read to the poor only, or to all ranks of people.
Would it not sound oddly, if when the squire, who is himself worth a
hundred thousand pounds, is going to be married to the rector’s
daughter, who is to have fifty, the curate should read them a formal
lecture on their obligation to maintain their own children, and not turn
them on the parish? Would it be necessary to go through the form of the
address, when an amorous couple of eighty presented themselves at the
altar? If the admonition were left to the parson’s own discretion, what
affronts would he not subject himself to, from his neglect of old maids,
and superannuated widows, and from his applying himself familiarly to
the little shop-keeper, or thriving mechanic? Well then let us suppose
that a very poor hard-working man comes to be married, and that the
clergyman can take the liberty with him: he is to warn him first against
fornication, and in the next place against matrimony. These are the two
greatest sins which a poor man can commit, who can neither be supposed
to keep his wife, nor his girl. Mr. Malthus, however, does not think
them equal: for he objects strongly to a country fellow’s marrying a
girl whom he has debauched, or, as the phrase is, making an honest woman
of her, as aggravating the crime, because by this means the parish will
probably have three or four children to maintain instead of one.
However, as it seems rather too late to recommend fornication or any
thing else to a man who is actually come to be married (he must be a
strange sawney who could turn back at the church-door after bringing a
pretty rosy girl to hear a lecture on the principle of population) it is
most natural to suppose that he would marry the young woman in spite of
this principle. Here then he errs in the face of a precise warning, and
should be left to the punishment of _nature_, the punishment of severe
want. When he begins to feel the consequences of his error, all parish
assistance is to be rigidly denied him, and the interests of humanity
imperiously require that all other assistance should be withheld from
him, or most sparingly administered. In the mean time to reconcile him
to this treatment, and let him see that he has nobody to complain of but
himself, the parson of the parish comes to him with the certificate of
his marriage, and a copy of the warning he had given him at the time, by
which he is taught to know that the laws of nature, which are the laws
of God, had doomed him and his family to starve for disobeying their
repeated admonitions; that he had no claim of right to the smallest
portion of food beyond what his labour would actually purchase; and that
he ought to kiss the feet and lick the dust off the shoes of him, who
gave him a reprieve from the just sentence which the laws of God and
nature had passed upon him. To make this clear to him, it would be
necessary to put the Essay on Population into his hands, to instruct him
in the nature of a geometrical and arithmetical series, in the necessary
limits to population from the size of the earth, and here would come in
Mr. Malthus’s plan of education for the poor, writing, arithmetic, the
use of the globes, &c. for the purpose of proving to them the necessity
of their being starved. It cannot be supposed that the poor man (what
with his poverty and what with being priest-ridden) should be able to
resist this body of evidence, he would open his eyes to his error, and
‘would submit to the sufferings that were absolutely irremediable with
the fortitude of a man, and the resignation of a Christian.’ He and his
family might then be sent round the parish in a starving condition,
accompanied by the constables and _quondam_ overseers of the poor, to
see that no person, blind to ‘the interests of humanity,’ practised upon
them the abominable deception of attempting to relieve their remediless
sufferings, and by the parson of the parish to point out to the
spectators the inevitable consequences of sinning against the laws of
God and man. By celebrating a number of these _Auto da fes_ yearly in
every parish, the greatest publicity would be given to the principle of
population, ‘the strict line of duty would be pointed out to every man,’
enforced by the most powerful sanctions, justice and humanity would
flourish, they would be understood to signify that the poor have no
right to live by their labour, and that the feelings of compassion and
benevolence are best shewn by denying them charity, the poor would no
longer be dependent on the rich, the rich could no longer wish to reduce
the poor into a more complete subjection to their will, all causes of
contention, of jealousy, and of irritation would have ceased between
them, the struggle would be over, each class would fulfil the task
assigned by heaven, the rich would oppress the poor without remorse, the
poor would submit to oppression with a pious gratitude and resignation,
the greatest harmony would prevail between the government and the
people, there would be no longer any seditions, tumults, complaints,
petitions, partisans of liberty, or tools of power, no grumbling, no
repining, no discontented men of talents proposing reforms, and
frivolous remedies, but we should all have the same gaiety and lightness
of heart, and the same happy spirit of resignation that a man feels when
he is seized with the plague, who thinks no more of the physician, but
knows that his disorder is without cure. The best laid schemes are
subject, however, to unlucky reverses. Some such seem to lie in the way
of that pleasing Euthanasia, and contented submission to the grinding
law of necessity, projected by Mr. Malthus. We might never reach the
philosophic temper of the inhabitants of modern Greece and Turkey in
this respect. Many little things might happen to interrupt our progress,
if we were put into ever so fair a train. For instance, the men might
perhaps be talked over by the parson, and their understandings being
convinced by the geometrical and arithmetical ratios, or at least so far
puzzled, that they would have nothing to say for themselves, they might
prepare to submit to their fate with a tolerable grace. But I am afraid
that the women might prove refractory. They never will hearken to
reason, and are much more governed by their feelings than by
calculations. While the husband was instructing his wife in the
principles of population, she might probably answer that she did not see
why her children should starve when the squire’s lady, or the parson’s
lady kept half a dozen lap-dogs, and that it was but the other day that
being at the hall, or the parsonage house, she heard Miss declare that
not one of the brood that were just littered should be drowned—It was
_so inhuman_ to kill the poor little things—Surely the children of the
poor are as good as puppy-dogs! Was it not a week ago that the rector
had a new pack of terriers sent down, and did I not hear the squire
swear a tremendous oath, that he would have Mr. Such-a-one’s fine
hunter, if it cost him a hundred guineas? Half that sum would save us
from ruin.—After this curtain-lecture, I conceive that the husband might
begin to doubt the force of the demonstrations he had read and heard,
and the next time his clerical monitor came, might pluck up courage to
question the matter with him; and as we of the male sex, though dull of
apprehension, are not slow at taking a hint, and can draw tough
inferences from it, it is not impossible but the parson might be
_gravelled_. In consequence of these accidents happening more than once,
it would be buzzed about that the laws of God and nature, on which so
many families had been doomed to starve, were not so clear as had been
pretended. This would soon get wind among the mob: and at the next grand
procession of the Penitents of famine, headed by Mr. Malthus in person,
some discontented man of talents, who could not bear the distresses of
_others_ with the fortitude of a man and the resignation of a Christian,
might undertake to question Mr. Malthus, whether the laws of nature or
of God, to which he had piously sacrificed so many victims, signified
any thing more than the limited extent of the earth, and the natural
impossibility of providing for more than a limited number of human
beings; and whether those laws could be justly put in force, to the very
letter, while the actual produce of the earth, by being better
husbanded, or more equally distributed, or given to men and not to
beasts, might maintain in comfort double the number that actually
existed, and who, not daring to demand a _fair_ proportion of the
produce of their labour, humbly crave charity, and are refused out of
regard to the interests of justice and humanity. Our philosopher, at
this critical juncture not being able to bring into the compass of a few
words all the history, metaphysics, morality and divinity, or all the
intricacies, subtleties, and callous equivocations contained in his
quarto volume, might hesitate and be confounded—his own feelings and
prejudices might add to his perplexity—his interrogator might persist in
his question—the mob might become impatient for an answer, and not
finding one to their minds, might proceed to extremities. Our
unfortunate Essayist (who by that time would have become a bishop) might
be ordered to the lamp-post, and his book committed to the flames.—I
tremble to think of what would follow:—the poor laws would be again
renewed, and the poor no longer doomed to starve by the laws of God and
nature! Some such, I apprehend, might be the consequence of attempting
to enforce the abolition of the poor-laws, the extinction of private
charity, and of instructing the poor in their metaphysical rights. In a
few years time it is probable, however, that no such consequences would
follow. In that time, if Mr. Malthus’s systematic ardour will let him
wait so long, they may be gradually crushed low enough in the scale of
existence to be ripe for the ironical benefits, and sarcastic
instruction prepared for them. Mr. Malthus says,

‘The scanty relief granted to persons in distress, the capricious and
insulting manner in which it is sometimes distributed by the overseers,
and the natural and becoming pride not yet quite extinct among the
peasantry of England, have deterred the more thinking and virtuous part
of them, from venturing on marriage, without some better prospect of
maintaining their families, than mere parish assistance. The desire of
bettering our condition and the fear of making it worse, like the _vis
medicatrix naturæ_ in physics, is the _vis medicatrix reipublicæ_ in
politics, and is continually counteracting the disorders arising from
narrow human institutions. In spite of the prejudices in favour of
population, and the direct encouragements to marriage from the poor
laws, it operates as a preventive check to increase; and happy for this
country is it that it does so.’

If then this natural repugnance in the poor to subject themselves to the
necessity of parish relief has ceased to operate, must it not be owing
to extreme distress, or to the degradation of character, consequent upon
it? How does Mr. Malthus propose to remedy this? By subjecting them to
severe distress, and _teaching them patience under their sufferings_.
But the rational desire of bettering our condition and the fear of
making it worse is not increased by its being made worse. The standard
of our notions of decency and comfort is not raised by a familiarity
with unmitigated wretchedness, nor is the love of independence
heightened by insults, and contempt, and by a formal mockery of the
principles of justice and humanity. On the previous habits and character
of the people, it is, however, that the degree of misery incurred always
depends, as far as relates to themselves. The consequence of an
effectual abolition of the poor laws would be all the immediate misery
that would be produced, aggravated by the additional depression, and
proneness to misery in the lower classes, and a beautiful putrefaction
of all the common feelings of human nature in the higher ones. Finally,
I agree with Mr. Malthus, that, ‘if, as in Ireland and in Spain, and
many of the southern countries, the people be in so degraded a state, as
to propagate their species like brutes, it matters little, whether they
have poor laws or not. Misery in all its various forms must be the
predominant check to their increase: and with, or without poor laws, no
stretch of human ingenuity and exertion could rescue the people from the
most extreme poverty and wretchedness.’

As to the metaphysical subtleties, by which Mr. Malthus endeavours to
prove that we ought systematically to visit the sins of the father on
the children, and keep up the stock of vice and misery in the family
(from which it would follow, that the children of thieves and robbers
ought either to be hanged outright, or at least brought up in such a
manner as to ensure their following the fate of their parents) I feel
and know my own superiority on that ground so well, that it would be
ungenerous to push it farther. Mr. Malthus has a curious chapter on old
maids. He might have written one on suicides, and another on
prostitutes. As far as the question of population is concerned, they are
certainly of more service to the community, because they tempt others to
follow their example, whereas an old maid is a beacon to frighten others
into matrimony. But this, says our author, is owing to unjust prejudice.
I shall give the reader some of his arguments, as otherwise he might not
guess at them.

‘It is not enough to abolish all the positive institutions which
encourage population; but we must endeavour, at the same time, to
correct the prevailing opinions, which have the same, or perhaps even a
more powerful, effect. The matron who has reared a family of ten or
twelve children, and whose sons, perhaps, may be fighting the battles of
their country, is apt to think that society owes her much; and this
imaginary debt, society is, in general, fully inclined to acknowledge.
But if the subject be fairly considered, and the respected matron
weighed in the scales of justice against the neglected old maid, it is
possible that the matron might kick the beam. She will appear rather in
the character of a monopolist, than of a great benefactor to the state.
If she had not married and had so many children, other members of the
society might have enjoyed this satisfaction; and there is no particular
reason for supposing that her sons would fight better for their country
than the sons of other women. She has therefore rather subtracted from,
than added to, the happiness of the other part of society. The old maid,
on the contrary, has exalted others by depressing herself. Her
self-denial has made room for another marriage, without any additional
distress; and she has not, like the generality of men, in avoiding one
error, fallen into its opposite. She has really and truly contributed
more to the happiness of the rest of the society arising from the
pleasures of marriage, than if she had entered into this union herself,
and had besides portioned twenty maidens with a hundred pounds each;
whose particular happiness would have been balanced, either by an
increase in the general difficulties of rearing children and getting
employment, or by the necessity of celibacy in twenty other maidens
somewhere else. Like the truly benevolent man in an irremediable
scarcity, she has diminished her own consumption, instead of raising up
a few particular people, by pressing down the rest. On a fair
comparison, therefore, she seems to have a better founded claim to the
gratitude of society than the matron. Whether we could always completely
sympathize with the motives of her conduct, has not much to do with the
question. The particular motive which influenced the matron to marry,
was certainly not the good of her country. To refuse a proper tribute of
respect to the old maid, because she was not directly influenced in her
conduct by the desire of conferring on society a certain benefit, which,
though it must undoubtedly exist, must necessarily be so diffused as to
be invisible to her, is in the highest degree impolitic and unjust. It
is expecting a strain of virtue beyond humanity. If we never reward any
persons with our approbation, but those who are exclusively influenced
by motives of general benevolence, this powerful encouragement to do
good actions will not be very often called into exercise.’

Mr. Malthus would make an excellent superior of a convent of nuns of the
Order of Population.—The better to remove what he considers as an unjust
stigma on old maids; he has endeavoured to set one on married women. He
would persuade every one to look upon his mother as a person of bad
character. He would pass an act of bastardy on every mother’s son of us;
and prove that we come into the world without a proper license (from
him) merely to gratify the coarse, selfish, immoral propensities of our
parents. Till however he can do away the filial relation, or the respect
attached to it, or so contrive it that all men should be ‘born of a
virgin’ contrary to all our experience, it will I believe be impossible
to get rid of the unjust prejudice against old maids, or to place them
on a level with married women. Mr. Malthus has gone the wrong way to
ingratiate himself with the mothers of families: but he has not taken
his measures ill. He knows that the partiality and favours of such
persons are generally confined to run in their own low, narrow, domestic
channels. But this is not the case with those reverend persons, to whom
he pays his court. He knows that their bounty is not confined by any
such selfish limits, it flows liberally to all, and they have the best
chance of sharing in it, who endeavour to indemnify them for their
personal sacrifices, or the ridicule of the world by a succession of
little agreeable attentions, or by offering theoretical incense to their
virtue and merit.

‘It is perfectly absurd as well as unjust, that a giddy girl of sixteen
should, because she is married be considered by the forms of society as
the protector of women of thirty, should come first into the room,
should be assigned the highest place at table, and be the prominent
figure to whom the attentions of the company are more particularly
addressed.’—Not more absurd than that a child or an ideot should be a
king, or that a grave man of fifty should call a young coxcomb, My lord.
Our sophist would overturn all the established order of society with his
out-of-the-way principles.—Mr. Malthus has huddled into the same chapter
his attack on the monopoly made by the married women of the men, and his
defence of the monopoly of corn by farmers and others. It is the last
passage I shall quote, though there are many others worthy of rebuke.

‘In some conversations with labouring men during the late scarcities, I
confess that I was to the last degree disheartened, at observing their
inveterate prejudices on the subject of grain: and I felt very strongly
the almost absolute incompatibility of a government really free, with
such a degree of ignorance. The delusions are of such a nature, that, if
acted upon, they must, at all events, be repressed by force: and it is
extremely difficult to give such a power to the government as will be
sufficient at all times for this purpose, without the risk of its being
employed improperly, and endangering the liberty of the subject. And
this reflection cannot but be disheartening to every friend to freedom.

‘It is of the very utmost importance, that the gentlemen of the country,
and particularly the clergy, should not, from ignorance, aggravate the
evils of scarcity every time that it unfortunately occurs. During the
late dearths, half of the gentlemen and clergymen in the kingdom richly
deserved to have been prosecuted for sedition. After inflaming the minds
of the common people against the farmers and corn-dealers, by the manner
in which they talked of them, or preached about them, it was but a
feeble antidote to the poison which they had infused, coldly to observe,
that however the poor might be oppressed or cheated, it was their duty
to keep the peace. It was little better than Antony’s repeated
declaration, that the conspirators were all honourable men; which did
not save either their houses or their persons from the attacks of the
mob. Political economy is perhaps the only science of which it might be
said, that the ignorance of it is not merely a deprivation of good, but
produces great positive evil.’

I shall accompany this passage with an extract from the Author’s first
edition and leave it to the reader to apply the hint of Antony’s speech
to whom he thinks fit.

‘It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labour universally
falls; but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the
nominal price of provisions has been gradually increasing. This is, in
effect, a real fall in the price of labour; and during this period, the
condition of the lower orders of the community must gradually grow worse
and worse. But the farmers and the capitalists are growing rich from the
real cheapness of labour. Their increased capitals enable them to employ
a greater number of men. Work therefore may be plentiful; and the price
of labour would consequently rise. But the want of freedom in the market
of labour, which occurs more or less in all communities, either from
parish laws, or the more general cause of the facility of combination
among the rich, and its difficulty among the poor, operates to prevent
the price of labour from rising at the natural period, and keeps it down
some time longer; perhaps, till a year of scarcity, when the clamour is
too loud, and the necessity too apparent to be resisted.

‘The true cause of the advance in the price of labour is thus concealed;
and the rich affect to grant it as an act of compassion and favour to
the poor, in consideration of a year of scarcity; and when plenty
returns, indulge themselves in the most unreasonable of all complaints,
that the price does not again fall; when a little reflection would shew
them, that it must have risen long before, but from an unjust conspiracy
of their own.’


                                THE END




                         THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE




                          BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE


Published anonymously in one volume (8vo, 424 pages) in 1825, with the
following title-page:—‘The Spirit of the Age: or Contemporary Portraits.
“To know another well were to know one’s self.” London: Printed for
Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street. 1825.’ The imprint was ‘London:
Printed by S. and R. Bentley, Dorset Street.’ A second edition (here
reproduced), with the same title-page (except that the quotation ran:
‘“To know a man well, were to know himself.” Hamlet’) and imprint, was
produced in smaller type (8vo, 408 pages) in the same year. In this
edition the essays were arranged in a different order, an addition was
made to the essay on Coleridge, and an essay on Cobbett from _Table
Talk_ (vol. i., 1821) was included. In the same year, 1825, an edition
was published in Paris (A. and W. Galignani) which included the essay on
Cobbett and an essay on Canning. The third edition, edited by the
author’s son, was published in 1858 (one volume, 8vo, 396 pages, C.
Templeman, Great Portland Street). In this edition the essays on Cobbett
and Canning were included, and the essays were arranged in an order
different from that of either the first or the second edition. The
fourth edition, edited by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt for Bohn’s _Standard
Library_ (1886) restored the order of the second edition, but included
the essay on Canning. In this edition Mr. Hazlitt made some alterations
in the text based upon (1) portions of the original MSS. then in his
possession, and (2) autograph notes of the author’s in a copy of the
second edition belonging to Mr. C. W. Reynell. A volume of _Essays
selected from The Spirit of the Age_, with an introduction by R. B.
Johnson, was published in 1893 (the Knickerbocker Press, G. P. Putnam’s
Sons). Five of the essays, viz.: those on Bentham, Irving, Horne Tooke,
Scott, and Eldon were originally published in Colburn’s _New Monthly
Magazine and Literary Journal_ (1824, vols. x. and xi.) in a series
entitled ‘The Spirits of the Age.’




                                CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE
 Jeremy Bentham                                                      189

 William Godwin                                                      200

 Mr. Coleridge                                                       212

 Rev. Mr. Irving                                                     222

 The late Mr. Horne Tooke                                            231

 Sir Walter Scott                                                    241

 Lord Byron                                                          253

 Mr. Southey                                                         262

 Mr. Wordsworth                                                      270

 Sir James Mackintosh                                                279

 Mr. Malthus                                                         287

 Mr. Gifford                                                         298

 Mr. Jeffrey                                                         310

 Mr. Brougham—Sir F. Burdett                                         318

 Lord Eldon—Mr. Wilberforce                                          325

 Mr. Cobbett                                                         334

 Mr. Campbell—Mr. Crabbe                                             343

 Mr. T. Moore—Mr. Leigh Hunt                                         353

 Elia—Geoffrey Crayon                                                362




                         THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE




                             JEREMY BENTHAM


Mr. Bentham is one of those persons who verify the old adage, that ‘A
prophet has most honour out of his own country.’ His reputation lies at
the circumference; and the lights of his understanding are reflected,
with increasing lustre, on the other side of the globe. His name is
little known in England, better in Europe, best of all in the plains of
Chili and the mines of Mexico. He has offered constitutions for the New
World, and legislated for future times. The people of Westminster, where
he lives, hardly dream of such a person; but the Siberian savage has
received cold comfort from his lunar aspect, and may say to him with
Caliban—‘I know thee, and thy dog and thy bush!’ The tawny Indian may
hold out the hand of fellowship to him across the GREAT PACIFIC. We
believe that the Empress Catherine corresponded with him; and we know
that the Emperor Alexander called upon him, and presented him with his
miniature in a gold snuff-box, which the philosopher, to his eternal
honour, returned. Mr. Hobhouse is a greater man at the hustings, Lord
Rolle at Plymouth Dock; but Mr. Bentham would carry it hollow, on the
score of popularity, at Paris or Pegu. The reason is, that our author’s
influence is purely intellectual. He has devoted his life to the pursuit
of abstract and general truths, and to those studies—

            ‘That waft a _thought_ from Indus to the Pole’—

and has never mixed himself up with personal intrigues or party
politics. He once, indeed, stuck up a hand-bill to say that he (Jeremy
Bentham) being of sound mind, was of opinion that Sir Samuel Romilly was
the most proper person to represent Westminster; but this was the whim
of the moment. Otherwise, his reasonings, if true at all, are true
everywhere alike: his speculations concern humanity at large, and are
not confined to the hundred or the bills of mortality. It is in moral as
in physical magnitude. The little is seen best near: the great appears
in its proper dimensions, only from a more commanding point of view, and
gains strength with time, and elevation from distance!

Mr. Bentham is very much among philosophers what La Fontaine was among
poets:—in general habits and in all but his professional pursuits, he is
a mere child. He has lived for the last forty years in a house in
Westminster, overlooking the Park, like an anchoret in his cell,
reducing law to a system, and the mind of man to a machine. He scarcely
ever goes out, and sees very little company. The favoured few, who have
the privilege of the _entrée_, are always admitted one by one. He does
not like to have witnesses to his conversation. He talks a great deal,
and listens to nothing but facts. When any one calls upon him, he
invites them to take a turn round his garden with him (Mr. Bentham is an
economist of his time, and sets apart this portion of it to air and
exercise)—and there you may see the lively old man, his mind still
buoyant with thought and with the prospect of futurity, in eager
conversation with some Opposition Member, some expatriated Patriot, or
Transatlantic Adventurer, urging the extinction of Close Boroughs, or
planning a code of laws for some ‘lone island in the watery waste,’ his
walk almost amounting to a run, his tongue keeping pace with it in
shrill, cluttering accents, negligent of his person, his dress, and his
manner, intent only on his grand theme of UTILITY—or pausing, perhaps,
for want of breath and with lack-lustre eye to point out to the stranger
a stone in the wall at the end of his garden (overarched by two
beautiful cotton-trees) _Inscribed to the Prince of Poets_, which marks
the house where Milton formerly lived. To show how little the
refinements of taste or fancy enter into our author’s system, he
proposed at one time to cut down these beautiful trees, to convert the
garden where he had breathed the air of Truth and Heaven for near half a
century into a paltry _Chrestomathic School_, and to make Milton’s house
(the cradle of Paradise Lost) a thoroughfare, like a three-stalled
stable, for the idle rabble of Westminster to pass backwards and
forwards to it with their cloven hoofs. Let us not, however, be getting
on too fast—Milton himself taught school! There is something not
altogether dissimilar between Mr. Bentham’s appearance, and the
portraits of Milton, the same silvery tone, a few dishevelled hairs, a
peevish, yet puritanical expression, an irritable temperament corrected
by habit and discipline. Or in modern times, he is something between
Franklin and Charles Fox, with the comfortable double-chin and sleek
thriving look of the one, and the quivering lip, the restless eye, and
animated acuteness of the other. His eye is quick and lively; but it
glances not from object to object, but from thought to thought. He is
evidently a man occupied with some train of fine and inward association.
He regards the people about him no more than the flies of a summer. He
meditates the coming age. He hears and sees only what suits his purpose,
or some ‘foregone conclusion’; and looks out for facts and passing
occurrences in order to put them into his logical machinery and grind
them into the dust and powder of some subtle theory, as the miller looks
out for grist to his mill! Add to this physiognomical sketch the minor
points of costume, the open shirt-collar, the single-breasted coat, the
old fashioned half-boots and ribbed stockings; and you will find in Mr.
Bentham’s general appearance a singular mixture of boyish simplicity and
of the venerableness of age. In a word, our celebrated jurist presents a
striking illustration of the difference between the _philosophical_ and
the _regal_ look; that is, between the merely abstracted and the merely
personal. There is a lack-adaisical _bonhommie_ about his whole aspect,
none of the fierceness of pride or power; an unconscious neglect of his
own person, instead of a stately assumption of superiority; a
good-humoured, placid intelligence, instead of a lynx-eyed watchfulness,
as if it wished to make others its prey, or was afraid they might turn
and rend him; he is a beneficent spirit, prying into the universe, not
lording it over it; a thoughtful spectator of the scenes of life, or
ruminator on the fate of mankind, not a painted pageant, a stupid idol
set up on its pedestal of pride for men to fall down and worship with
idiot fear and wonder at the thing themselves have made, and which,
without that fear and wonder, would in itself be nothing!

Mr. Bentham, perhaps, over-rates the importance of his own theories. He
has been heard to say (without any appearance of pride or affectation)
that ‘he should like to live the remaining years of his life, a year at
a time at the end of the next six or eight centuries, to see the effect
which his writings would by that time have had upon the world.’ Alas!
his name will hardly live so long! Nor do we think, in point of fact,
that Mr. Bentham has given any new or decided impulse to the human mind.
He cannot be looked upon in the light of a discoverer in legislation or
morals. He has not struck out any great leading principle or
parent-truth, from which a number of others might be deduced; nor has he
enriched the common and established stock of intelligence with original
observations, like pearls thrown into wine. One truth discovered is
immortal, and entitles its author to be so: for, like a new substance in
nature, it cannot be destroyed. But Mr. Bentham’s _forte_ is
arrangement; and the form of truth, though not its essence, varies with
time and circumstance. He has methodised, collated, and condensed all
the materials prepared to his hand on the subjects of which he treats,
in a masterly and scientific manner; but we should find a difficulty in
adducing from his different works (however elaborate or closely
reasoned) any new element of thought, or even a new fact or
illustration. His writings are, therefore, chiefly valuable as _books of
reference_, as bringing down the account of intellectual inquiry to the
present period, and disposing the results in a compendious, connected,
and tangible shape; but books of reference are chiefly serviceable for
facilitating the acquisition of knowledge, and are constantly liable to
be superseded and to grow out of fashion with its progress, as the
scaffolding is thrown down as soon as the building is completed. Mr.
Bentham is not the first writer (by a great many) who has assumed the
principle of UTILITY as the foundation of just laws, and of all moral
and political reasoning:—his merit is, that he has applied this
principle more closely and literally; that he has brought all the
objections and arguments, more distinctly labelled and ticketed, under
this one head, and made a more constant and explicit reference to it at
every step of his progress, than any other writer. Perhaps the weak side
of his conclusions also is, that he has carried this single view of his
subject too far, and not made sufficient allowance for the varieties of
human nature, and the caprices and irregularities of the human will. ‘He
has not allowed for the _wind_.’ It is not that you can be said to see
his favourite doctrine of Utility glittering everywhere through his
system, like a vein of rich, shining ore (that is not the nature of the
material)—but it might be plausibly objected that he had struck the
whole mass of fancy, prejudice, passion, sense, whim, with his petrific,
leaden mace, that he had ‘bound volatile Hermes,’ and reduced the theory
and practice of human life to a _caput mortuum_ of reason, and dull,
plodding, technical calculation. The gentleman is himself a capital
logician; and he has been led by this circumstance to consider man as a
logical animal. We fear this view of the matter will hardly hold water.
If we attend to the _moral_ man, the constitution of his mind will
scarcely be found to be built up of pure reason and a regard to
consequences: if we consider the _criminal_ man (with whom the
legislator has chiefly to do) it will be found to be still less so.

Every pleasure, says Mr. Bentham, is equally a good, and is to be taken
into the account as such in a moral estimate, whether it be the pleasure
of sense or of conscience, whether it arise from the exercise of virtue
or the perpetration of crime. We are afraid the human mind does not
readily come into this doctrine, this _ultima ratio philosophorum_,
interpreted according to the letter. Our moral sentiments are made up of
sympathies and antipathies, of sense and imagination, of understanding
and prejudice. The soul, by reason of its weakness, is an aggregating
and an exclusive principle; it clings obstinately to some things, and
violently rejects others. And it must do so, in a great measure, or it
would act contrary to its own nature. It needs helps and stages in its
progress, and ‘all appliances and means to boot,’ which can raise it to
a partial conformity to truth and good (the utmost it is capable of) and
bring it into a tolerable harmony with the universe. By aiming at too
much, by dismissing collateral aids, by extending itself to the farthest
verge of the conceivable and possible, it loses its elasticity and
vigour, its impulse and its direction. The moralist can no more do
without the intermediate use of rules and principles, without the
‘vantage ground of habit, without the levers of the understanding, than
the mechanist can discard the use of wheels and pulleys, and perform
every thing by simple motion. If the mind of man were competent to
comprehend the whole of truth and good, and act upon it at once, and
independently of all other considerations, Mr. Bentham’s plan would be a
feasible one, and _the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth_, would be the best possible ground to place morality upon. But it
is not so. In ascertaining the rules of moral conduct, we must have
regard not merely to the nature of the object, but to the capacity of
the agent, and to his fitness for apprehending or attaining it. Pleasure
is that which is so in itself: good is that which approves itself as
such on reflection, or the idea of which is a source of satisfaction.
All pleasure is not, therefore (morally speaking) equally a good; for
all pleasure does not equally bear reflecting on. There are some tastes
that are sweet in the mouth and bitter in the belly; and there is a
similar contradiction and anomaly in the mind and heart of man.

Again, what would become of the _Posthæc meminisse juvabit_ of the poet,
if a principle of fluctuation and reaction is not inherent in the very
constitution of our nature, or if all moral truth is a mere literal
truism? We are not, then, so much to inquire what certain things are
abstractedly or in themselves, as how they affect the mind, and to
approve or condemn them accordingly. The same object seen near strikes
us more powerfully than at a distance: things thrown into masses give a
greater blow to the imagination than when scattered and divided into
their component parts. A number of mole-hills do not make a mountain,
though a mountain is actually made up of atoms: so moral truth must
present itself under a certain aspect and from a certain point of view,
in order to produce its full and proper effect upon the mind. The laws
of the affections are as necessary as those of optics. A calculation of
consequences is no more equivalent to a sentiment, than a _seriatim_
enumeration of square yards or feet touches the fancy like the sight of
the Alps or Andes.

To give an instance or two of what we mean. Those who on pure
cosmopolite principles, or on the ground of abstract humanity, affect an
extraordinary regard for the Turks and Tartars, have been accused of
neglecting their duties to their friends and next-door neighbours. Well,
then, what is the state of the question here? One human being is, no
doubt, as much worth in himself, independently of the circumstances of
time or place, as another; but he is not of so much value to us and our
affections. Could our imagination take wing (with our speculative
faculties) to the other side of the globe or to the ends of the
universe, could our eyes behold whatever our reason teaches us to be
possible, could our hands reach as far as our thoughts and wishes, we
might then busy ourselves to advantage with the Hottentots, or hold
intimate converse with the inhabitants of the Moon; but being as we are,
our feelings evaporate in so large a space—we must draw the circle of
our affections and duties somewhat closer—the heart hovers and fixes
nearer home. It is true, the bands of private, or of local and natural
affection, are often, nay in general, too tightly strained, so as
frequently to do harm instead of good: but the present question is
whether we can, with safety and effect, be wholly emancipated from them?
Whether we should shake them off at pleasure and without mercy, as the
only bar to the triumph of truth and justice? Or whether benevolence,
constructed upon a logical scale, would not be merely _nominal_, whether
duty, raised to too lofty a pitch of refinement, might not sink into
callous indifference or hollow selfishness? Again, is it not to exact
too high a strain from humanity, to ask us to qualify the degree of
abhorrence we feel against a murderer by taking into our cool
consideration the pleasure he may have in committing the deed, and in
the prospect of gratifying his avarice or his revenge? We are hardly so
formed as to sympathise at the same moment with the assassin and his
victim. The degree of pleasure the former may feel, instead of
extenuating, aggravates his guilt, and shows the depth of his malignity.
Now the mind revolts against this by mere natural antipathy, if it is
itself well-disposed; or the slow process of reason would afford but a
feeble resistance to violence and wrong. The will, which is necessary to
give consistency and promptness to our good intentions, cannot extend so
much candour and courtesy to the antagonist principle of evil: virtue,
to be sincere and practical, cannot be divested entirely of the
blindness and impetuosity of passion! It has been made a plea (half
jest, half earnest) for the horrors of war, that they promote trade and
manufactures. It has been said, as a set-off for the atrocities
practised upon the negro slaves in the West Indies, that without their
blood and sweat, so many millions of people could not have sugar to
sweeten their tea. Fires and murders have been argued to be beneficial,
as they serve to fill the newspapers, and for a subject to talk of—this
is a sort of sophistry that it might be difficult to disprove on the
bare scheme of contingent utility; but on the ground that we have
stated, it must pass for mere irony. What the proportion between the
good and the evil will really be found in any of the supposed cases, may
be a question to the understanding; but to the imagination and the
heart, that is, to the natural feelings of mankind, it admits of none!

Mr. Bentham, in adjusting the provisions of a penal code, lays too
little stress on the co-operation of the natural prejudices of mankind,
and the habitual feelings of that class of persons for whom they are
more particularly designed. Legislators (we mean writers on legislation)
are philosophers, and governed by their reason: criminals, for whose
controul laws are made, are a set of desperadoes, governed only by their
passions. What wonder that so little progress has been made towards a
mutual understanding between the two parties! They are quite a different
species, and speak a different language, and are sadly at a loss for a
common interpreter between them. Perhaps the Ordinary of Newgate bids as
fair for this office as any one. What should Mr. Bentham, sitting at
ease in his arm-chair, composing his mind before he begins to write by a
prelude on the organ, and looking out at a beautiful prospect when he is
at a loss for an idea, know of the principles of action of rogues,
outlaws, and vagabonds? No more than Montaigne of the motions of his
cat! If sanguine and tender-hearted philanthropists have set on foot an
inquiry into the barbarity and the defects of penal laws, the practical
improvements have been mostly suggested by reformed cut-throats,
turnkeys, and thief-takers. What even can the Honourable House, who when
the Speaker has pronounced the well-known, wished-for sounds, ‘That this
house do now adjourn,’ retire, after voting a royal crusade or a loan of
millions, to lie on down, and feed on plate in spacious palaces, know of
what passes in the hearts of wretches in garrets and night-cellars,
petty pilferers and marauders, who cut throats and pick pockets with
their own hands? The thing is impossible. The laws of the country are,
therefore, ineffectual and abortive, because they are made by the rich
for the poor, by the wise for the ignorant, by the respectable and
exalted in station for the very scum and refuse of the community. If
Newgate would resolve itself into a committee of the whole Press-yard,
with Jack Ketch at its head, aided by confidential persons from the
county prisons or the Hulks, and would make a clear breast, some _data_
might be found out to proceed upon; but as it is, the _criminal mind_ of
the country is a book sealed, no one has been able to penetrate to the
inside! Mr. Bentham, in his attempts to revise and amend our criminal
jurisprudence, proceeds entirely on his favourite principle of Utility.
Convince highwaymen and housebreakers that it will be for their interest
to reform, and they will reform and lead honest lives; according to Mr.
Bentham. He says, ‘All men act from calculation, even madmen reason.’
And, in our opinion, he might as well carry this maxim to Bedlam or St.
Luke’s, and apply it to the inhabitants, as think to coerce or overawe
the inmates of a gaol, or those whose practices make them candidates for
that distinction, by the mere dry, detailed convictions of the
understanding. Criminals are not to be influenced by reason; for it is
of the very essence of crime to disregard consequences both to ourselves
and others. You may as well preach philosophy to a drunken man, or to
the dead, as to those who are under the instigation of any mischievous
passion. A man is a drunkard, and you tell him he ought to be sober; he
is debauched, and you ask him to reform; he is idle, and you recommend
industry to him as his wisest course; he gambles, and you remind him
that he may be ruined by this foible; he has lost his character, and you
advise him to get into some reputable service or lucrative situation;
vice becomes a habit with him, and you request him to rouse himself and
shake it off; he is starving, and you warn him if he breaks the law, he
will be hanged. None of this reasoning reaches the mark it aims at. The
culprit, who violates and suffers the vengeance of the laws, is not the
dupe of ignorance, but the slave of passion, the victim of habit or
necessity. To argue with strong passion, with inveterate habit, with
desperate circumstances, is to talk to the winds. Clownish ignorance may
indeed be dispelled, and taught better; but it is seldom that a criminal
is not aware of the consequences of his act, or has not made up his mind
to the alternative. They are, in general, _too knowing by half_. You
tell a person of this stamp what is his interest; he says he does not
care about his interest, or the world and he differ on that particular.
But there is one point on which he must agree with them, namely, what
_they_ think of his conduct, and that is the only hold you have of him.
A man may be callous and indifferent to what happens to himself; but he
is never indifferent to public opinion, or proof against open scorn and
infamy. Shame, then, not fear, is the sheet-anchor of the law. He who is
not afraid of being pointed at as a _thief_, will not mind a month’s
hard labour. He who is prepared to take the life of another, is already
reckless of his own. But every one makes a sorry figure in the pillory;
and the being launched from the New Drop lowers a man in his own
opinion. The lawless and violent spirit, who is hurried by headstrong
self-will to break the laws, does not like to have the ground of pride
and obstinacy struck from under his feet. This is what gives the
_swells_ of the metropolis such a dread of the _tread-mill_—it makes
them ridiculous. It must be confessed, that this very circumstance
renders the reform of criminals nearly hopeless. It is the apprehension
of being stigmatized by public opinion, the fear of what will be thought
and said of them, that deters men from the violation of the laws, while
their character remains unimpeached; but honour once lost, all is lost.
The man can never be himself again! A citizen is like a soldier, a part
of a machine, who submits to certain hardships, privations, and dangers,
not for his own ease, pleasure, profit, or even conscience, but—_for
shame_. What is it that keeps the machine together in either case? Not
punishment or discipline, but sympathy. The soldier mounts the breach or
stands in the trenches, the peasant hedges and ditches, or the mechanic
plies his ceaseless task, because the one will not be called a _coward_,
the other a _rogue_: but let the one turn deserter and the other
vagabond, and there is an end of him. The grinding law of necessity,
which is no other than a name, a breath, loses its force; he is no
longer sustained by the good opinion of others, and he drops out of his
place in society, a useless clog! Mr. Bentham takes a culprit, and puts
him into what he calls a _Panopticon_, that is, a sort of circular
prison, with open cells, like a glass bee-hive. He sits in the middle,
and sees all the other does. He gives him work to do, and lectures him
if he does not do it. He takes liquor from him, and society and liberty;
but he feeds and clothes him, and keeps him out of mischief; and when he
has convinced him, by force and reason together, that this life is for
his good, he turns him out upon the world a reformed man, and as
confident of the success of his handy-work, as the shoemaker of that
which he has just taken off the last, or the Parisian barber in Sterne,
of the buckle of his wig. ‘Dip it in the ocean,’ said the perruquier,
‘and it will stand!’ But we doubt the durability of our projector’s
patchwork. Will our convert to the great principle of Utility work when
he is from under Mr. Bentham’s eye, because he was forced to work when
under it? Will he keep sober, because he has been kept from liquor so
long? Will he not return to loose company, because he has had the
pleasure of sitting vis-à-vis with a philosopher of late? Will he not
steal, now that his hands are untied? Will he not take the road, now
that it is free to him? Will he not call his benefactor all the names he
can set his tongue to, the moment his back is turned? All this is more
than to be feared. The charm of criminal life, like that of savage life,
consists in liberty, in hardship, in danger, and in the contempt of
death, in one word, in extraordinary excitement; and he who has tasted
of it, will no more return to regular habits of life, than a man will
take to water after drinking brandy, or than a wild beast will give over
hunting its prey. Miracles never cease, to be sure; but they are not to
be had wholesale, or _to order_. Mr. Owen, who is another of those
proprietors and patentees of reform, has lately got an American savage
with him, whom he carries about in great triumph and complacency, as an
antithesis to his _New View of Society_, and as winding up his reasoning
to what it mainly wanted, an epigrammatic point. Does the benevolent
visionary of the Lanark cotton-mills really think this _natural man_
will act as a foil to his _artificial man_? Does he for a moment imagine
that his _Address to the higher and middle classes_, with all its
advantages of fiction, makes any thing like so interesting a romance as
_Hunter’s Captivity among the North American Indians_? Has he any thing
to show, in all the apparatus of New Lanark and its desolate monotony,
to excite the thrill of imagination like the blankets made of wreaths of
snow under which the wild wood-rovers bury themselves for weeks in
winter? Or the skin of a leopard, which our hardy adventurer slew, and
which served him for great-coat and bedding? Or the rattle-snake that he
found by his side as a bedfellow? Or his rolling himself into a ball to
escape from him? Or his suddenly placing himself against a tree to avoid
being trampled to death by the herd of wild buffaloes, that came rushing
on like the sound of thunder? Or his account of the huge spiders that
prey on blue-bottles and gilded flies in green pathless forests; or of
the great Pacific Ocean, that the natives look upon as the gulf that
parts time from eternity, and that is to waft them to the spirits of
their fathers? After all this, Mr. Hunter must find Mr. Owen and his
parallelograms trite and flat, and will, we suspect, take an opportunity
to escape from them!

Mr. Bentham’s method of reasoning, though comprehensive and exact,
labours under the defect of most systems—it is too _topical_. It
includes every thing; but it includes every thing alike. It is rather
like an inventory, than a valuation of different arguments. Every
possible suggestion finds a place, so that the mind is distracted as
much as enlightened by this perplexing accuracy. The exceptions seem as
important as the rule. By attending to the minute, we overlook the
great; and in summing up an account, it will not do merely to insist on
the number of items without considering their amount. Our author’s page
presents a very nicely dove-tailed mosaic pavement of legal
common-places. We slip and slide over its even surface without being
arrested any where. Or his view of the human mind resembles a map,
rather than a picture: the outline, the disposition is correct, but it
wants colouring and relief. There is a technicality of manner, which
renders his writings of more value to the professional inquirer than to
the general reader. Again, his style is unpopular, not to say
unintelligible. He writes a language of his own, that _darkens
knowledge_. His works have been translated into French—they ought to be
translated into English. People wonder that Mr. Bentham has not been
prosecuted for the boldness and severity of some of his invectives. He
might wrap up high treason in one of his inextricable periods, and it
would never find its way into Westminster-Hall. He is a kind of
Manuscript author—he writes a cypher-hand, which the vulgar have no key
to. The construction of his sentences is a curious frame-work with pegs
and hooks to hang his thoughts upon, for his own use and guidance, but
almost out of the reach of every body else. It is a barbarous
philosophical jargon, with all the repetitions, parentheses,
formalities, uncouth nomenclature and verbiage of law-Latin; and what
makes it worse, it is not mere verbiage, but has a great deal of
acuteness and meaning in it, which you would be glad to pick out if you
could. In short, Mr. Bentham writes as if he was allowed but a single
sentence to express his whole view of a subject in, and as if, should he
omit a single circumstance or step of the argument, it would be lost to
the world for ever, like an estate by a flaw in the title-deeds. This is
over-rating the importance of our own discoveries, and mistaking the
nature and object of language altogether. Mr. Bentham has _acquired_
this disability—it is not natural to him. His admirable little work _On
Usury_, published forty years ago, is clear, easy, and vigorous. But Mr.
Bentham has shut himself up since then ‘in nook monastic,’ conversing
only with followers of his own, or with ‘men of Ind,’ and has
endeavoured to overlay his natural humour, sense, spirit, and style,
with the dust and cobwebs of an obscure solitude. The best of it is, he
thinks his present mode of expressing himself perfect, and that whatever
may be objected to his law or logic, no one can find the least fault
with the purity, simplicity, and perspicuity of his style.

Mr. Bentham, in private life, is an amiable and exemplary character. He
is a little romantic, or so; and has dissipated part of a handsome
fortune in practical speculations. He lends an ear to plausible
projectors, and, if he cannot prove them to be wrong in their premises
or their conclusions, thinks himself bound _in reason_ to stake his
money on the venture. Strict logicians are licenced visionaries. Mr.
Bentham is half-brother to the late Mr. Speaker Abbott[33]—_Proh pudor!_
He was educated at Eton, and still takes our novices to task about a
passage in Homer, or a metre in Virgil. He was afterwards at the
University, and he has described the scruples of an ingenuous youthful
mind about subscribing the articles, in a passage in his
_Church-of-Englandism_, which smacks of truth and honour both, and does
one good to read it in an age, when ‘to be honest’ (or not to laugh at
the very idea of honesty) ‘is to be one man picked out of ten thousand!’
Mr. Bentham relieves his mind sometimes, after the fatigue of study, by
playing on a fine old organ, and has a relish for Hogarth’s prints. He
turns wooden utensils in a lathe for exercise, and fancies he can turn
men in the same manner. He has no great fondness for poetry, and can
hardly extract a moral out of Shakespeare. His house is warmed and
lighted by steam. He is one of those who prefer the artificial to the
natural in most things, and think the mind of man omnipotent. He has a
great contempt for out-of-door prospects, for green fields and trees,
and is for referring every thing to Utility. There is a little
narrowness in this; for if all the sources of satisfaction are taken
away, what is to become of utility itself? It is, indeed, the great
fault of this able and extraordinary man, that he has concentrated his
faculties and feelings too entirely on one subject and pursuit, and has
not ‘looked enough abroad into universality.’[34]




                             WILLIAM GODWIN


The Spirit of the Age was never more fully shown than in its treatment
of this writer—its love of paradox and change, its dastard submission to
prejudice and to the fashion of the day. Five-and-twenty years ago he
was in the very zenith of a sultry and unwholesome popularity; he blazed
as a sun in the firmament of reputation; no one was more talked of, more
looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, justice
was the theme, his name was not far off:—now he has sunk below the
horizon, and enjoys the serene twilight of a doubtful immortality. Mr.
Godwin, during his life-time, has secured to himself the triumphs and
the mortifications of an extreme notoriety and of a sort of posthumous
fame. His bark, after being tossed in the revolutionary tempest, now
raised to heaven by all the fury of popular breath, now almost dashed in
pieces, and buried in the quicksands of ignorance, or scorched with the
lightning of momentary indignation, at length floats on the calm wave
that is to bear it down the stream of time. Mr. Godwin’s person is not
known, he is not pointed out in the street, his conversation is not
courted, his opinions are not asked, he is at the head of no cabal, he
belongs to no party in the State, he has no train of admirers, no one
thinks it worth his while even to traduce and vilify him, he has
scarcely friend or foe, the world make a point (as Goldsmith used to
say) of taking no more notice of him than if such an individual had
never existed; he is to all ordinary intents and purposes dead and
buried; but the author of _Political Justice_ and of _Caleb Williams_
can never die, his name is an abstraction in letters, his works are
standard in the history of intellect. He is thought of now like any
eminent writer a hundred-and-fifty years ago, or just as he will be a
hundred-and-fifty years hence. He knows this, and smiles in silent
mockery of himself, reposing on the monument of his fame—

            ‘Sedet, in eternumque sedebit infelix Theseus.’

No work in our time gave such a blow to the philosophical mind of the
country as the celebrated _Enquiry concerning Political Justice_. Tom
Paine was considered for the time as a Tom Fool to him; Paley an old
woman; Edmund Burke a flashy sophist. Truth, moral truth, it was
supposed, had here taken up its abode; and these were the oracles of
thought. ‘Throw aside your books of chemistry,’ said Wordsworth to a
young man, a student in the Temple, ‘and read Godwin on Necessity.’ Sad
necessity! Fatal reverse! Is truth then so variable? Is it one thing at
twenty, and another at forty? Is it at a burning heat in 1793, and below
_zero_ in 1814? Not so, in the name of manhood and of common sense! Let
us pause here a little.—Mr. Godwin indulged in extreme opinions, and
carried with him all the most sanguine and fearless understandings of
the time. What then? Because those opinions were overcharged, were they
therefore altogether groundless? Is the very God of our idolatry all of
a sudden to become an abomination and an anathema? Could so many young
men of talent, of education, and of principle have been hurried away by
what had neither truth, nor nature, not one particle of honest feeling
nor the least show of reason in it? Is the _Modern Philosophy_ (as it
has been called) at one moment a youthful bride, and the next a withered
beldame, like the false Duessa in Spenser? Or is the vaunted edifice of
Reason, like his House of Pride, gorgeous in front, and dazzling to
approach, while ‘its hinder parts are ruinous, decayed, and old?’ Has
the main prop, which supported the mighty fabric, been shaken and given
way under the strong grasp of some Samson; or has it not rather been
undermined by rats and vermin? At one time, it almost seemed, that ‘if
this failed,

                 The pillar’d firmament was rottenness,
                 And earth’s base built of stubble:’

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

The fault, then, of Mr. Godwin’s philosophy, in one word, was too much
ambition—‘by that sin fell the angels!’ He conceived too nobly of his
fellows (the most unpardonable crime against them, for there is nothing
that annoys our self-love so much as being complimented on imaginary
achievements, to which we are wholly unequal)—he raised the standard of
morality above the reach of humanity, and by directing virtue to the
most airy and romantic heights, made her path dangerous, solitary, and
impracticable. The author of the _Political Justice_ took abstract
reason for the rule of conduct, and abstract good for its end. He places
the human mind on an elevation, from which it commands a view of the
whole line of moral consequences; and requires it to conform its acts to
the larger and more enlightened conscience which it has thus acquired.
He absolves man from the gross and narrow ties of sense, custom,
authority, private and local attachment, in order that he may devote
himself to the boundless pursuit of universal benevolence. Mr. Godwin
gives no quarter to the amiable weaknesses of our nature, nor does he
stoop to avail himself of the supplementary aids of an imperfect virtue.
Gratitude, promises, friendship, family affection give way, not that
they may be merged in the opposite vices or in want of principle; but
that the void may be filled up by the disinterested love of good, and
the dictates of inflexible justice, which is ‘the law of laws, and
sovereign of sovereigns.’ All minor considerations yield, in his system,
to the stern sense of duty, as they do, in the ordinary and established
ones, to the voice of necessity. Mr. Godwin’s theory, and that of more
approved reasoners, differ only in this, that what are with them the
exceptions, the extreme cases, he makes the every-day rule. No one
denies that on great occasions, in moments of fearful excitement, or
when a mighty object is at stake, the lesser and merely instrumental
points of duty are to be sacrificed without remorse at the shrine of
patriotism, of honour, and of conscience. But the disciple of the _New
School_ (no wonder it found so many impugners, even in its own bosom!)
is to be always the hero of duty; the law to which he has bound himself
never swerves nor relaxes; his feeling of what is right is to be at all
times wrought up to a pitch of enthusiastic self-devotion; he must
become the unshrinking martyr and confessor of the public good. If it be
said that this scheme is chimerical and impracticable on ordinary
occasions, and to the generality of mankind, well and good; but those
who accuse the author of having trampled on the common feelings and
prejudices of mankind in wantonness or insult, or without wishing to
substitute something better (and only unattainable, because it is
better) in their stead, accuse him wrongfully. We may not be able to
launch the bark of our affections on the ocean-tide of humanity, we may
be forced to paddle along its shores, or shelter in its creeks and
rivulets: but we have no right to reproach the bold and adventurous
pilot, who dared us to tempt the uncertain abyss, with our own want of
courage or of skill, or with the jealousies and impatience, which deter
us from undertaking, or might prevent us from accomplishing the voyage!

The _Enquiry concerning Political Justice_ (it was urged by its
favourers and defenders at the time, and may still be so, without either
profaneness or levity) is a metaphysical and logical commentary on some
of the most beautiful and striking texts of Scripture. Mr. Godwin is a
mixture of the Stoic and of the Christian philosopher. To break the
force of the vulgar objections and outcry that have been raised against
the Modern Philosophy, as if it were a new and monstrous birth in
morals, it may be worth noticing, that volumes of sermons have been
written to excuse the founder of Christianity for not including
friendship and private affection among its golden rules, but rather
excluding them.[35] Moreover, the answer to the question, ‘Who is thy
neighbour?’ added to the divine precept, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself,’ is the same as in the exploded pages of our author,—‘He to
whom we can do most good.’ In determining this point, we were not to be
influenced by any extrinsic or collateral considerations, by our own
predilections, or the expectations of others, by our obligations to them
or any services they might be able to render us, by the climate they
were born in, by the house they lived in, by rank or religion, or party,
or personal ties, but by the abstract merits, the pure and unbiassed
justice of the case. The artificial helps and checks to moral conduct
were set aside as spurious and unnecessary, and we came at once to the
grand and simple question—‘In what manner we could best contribute to
the greatest possible good?’ This was the paramount obligation in all
cases whatever, from which we had no right to free ourselves upon any
idle or formal pretext, and of which each person was to judge for
himself, under the infallible authority of his own opinion and the
inviolable sanction of his self-approbation. ‘There was the rub that
made _philosophy_ of so short life!’ Mr. Godwin’s definition of morals
was the same as the admired one of law, _reason without passion_; but
with the unlimited scope of private opinion, and in a boundless field of
speculation (for nothing less would satisfy the pretensions of the New
School), there was danger that the unseasoned novice might substitute
some pragmatical conceit of his own for the rule of right reason, and
mistake a heartless indifference for a superiority to more natural and
generous feelings. Our ardent and dauntless reformer followed out the
moral of the parable of the Good Samaritan into its most rigid and
repulsive consequences with a pen of steel, and let fall his
‘trenchant-blade’ on every vulnerable point of human infirmity; but
there is a want in his system of the mild and persuasive tone of the
Gospel, where ‘all is conscience and tender heart.’ Man was indeed
screwed up, by mood and figure, into a logical machine, that was to
forward the public good with the utmost punctuality and effect, and it
might go very well on smooth ground and under favourable circumstances;
but would it work up-hill or _against the grain_? It was to be feared
that the proud Temple of Reason, which at a distance and in stately
supposition shone like the palaces of the New Jerusalem, might (when
placed on actual ground) be broken up into the sordid styes of
sensuality, and the petty huckster’s shops of self-interest! Every man
(it was proposed—‘so ran the tenour of the bond’) was to be a Regulus, a
Codrus, a Cato, or a Brutus—every woman a Mother of the Gracchi.

                   ‘——It was well said,
               And ’tis a kind of good deed to say well.’

But heroes on paper might degenerate into vagabonds in practice,
Corinnas into courtezans. Thus a refined and permanent individual
attachment is intended to supply the place and avoid the inconveniences
of marriage; but vows of eternal constancy, without church security, are
found to be fragile. A member of the _ideal_ and perfect commonwealth of
letters lends another a hundred pounds for immediate and pressing use;
and when he applies for it again, the borrower has still more need of it
than he, and retains it for his own especial, which is tantamount to the
public good. The Exchequer of pure reason, like that of the State, never
refunds. The political as well as the religious fanatic appeals from the
over-weening opinion and claims of others to the highest and most
impartial tribunal, namely, his own breast. Two persons agree to live
together in Chambers on principles of pure equality and mutual
assistance—but when it comes to the push, one of them finds that the
other always insists on his fetching water from the pump in Hare-court,
and cleaning his shoes for him. A modest assurance was not the least
indispensable virtue in the new perfectibility code; and it was hence
discovered to be a scheme, like other schemes where there are all prizes
and no blanks, for the accommodation of the enterprizing and cunning, at
the expence of the credulous and honest. This broke up the system, and
left no good odour behind it! Reason has become a sort of bye-word, and
philosophy has, ‘fallen first into a fasting, then into a sadness, then
into a decline, and last, into the dissolution of which we all
complain!’ This is a worse error than the former: we may be said to have
‘lost the immortal part of ourselves, and what remains is beastly!’

The point of view from which this matter may be fairly considered, is
two-fold, and may be stated thus:—In the first place, it by no means
follows, because reason is found not to be the only infallible or safe
rule of conduct, that it is no rule at all; or that we are to discard it
altogether with derision and ignominy. On the contrary, if not the sole,
it is the principal ground of action; it is, ‘the guide, the stay and
anchor of our purest thoughts, and soul of all our moral being.’ In
proportion as we strengthen and expand this principle, and bring our
affections and subordinate, but perhaps more powerful motives of action
into harmony with it, it will not admit of a doubt that we advance to
the goal of perfection, and answer the ends of our creation, those ends
which not only morality enjoins, but which religion sanctions. If with
the utmost stretch of reason, man cannot (as some seemed inclined to
suppose) soar up to the God, and quit the ground of human frailty, yet,
stripped wholly of it, he sinks at once into the brute. If it cannot
stand alone, in its naked simplicity, but requires other props to
buttress it up, or ornaments to set it off; yet without it the moral
structure would fall flat and dishonoured to the ground. Private reason
is that which raises the individual above his mere animal instincts,
appetites, and passions: public reason in its gradual progress separates
the savage from the civilized state. Without the one, men would resemble
wild beasts in their dens; without the other, they would be speedily
converted into hordes of barbarians or banditti. Sir Walter Scott, in
his zeal to restore the spirit of loyalty, of passive obedience and
non-resistance as an acknowledgment for his having been created a
Baronet by a Prince of the House of Brunswick, may think it a fine thing
to return in imagination to the good old times, ‘when in Auvergne alone,
there were three hundred nobles whose most ordinary actions were
robbery, rape, and murder,’ when the castle of each Norman baron was a
strong hold from which the lordly proprietor issued to oppress and
plunder the neighbouring districts, and when the Saxon peasantry were
treated by their gay and gallant tyrants as a herd of loathsome
swine—but for our own parts, we beg to be excused; we had rather live in
the same age with the author of Waverley and Blackwood’s Magazine.
Reason is the meter and alnager in civil intercourse, by which each
person’s upstart and contradictory pretensions are weighed and approved
or found wanting, and without which it could not subsist, any more than
traffic or the exchange of commodities could be carried on without
weights and measures. It is the medium of knowledge, and the polisher of
manners, by creating common interests and ideas. Or in the words of a
contemporary writer, ‘Reason is the queen of the moral world, the soul
of the universe, the lamp of human life, the pillar of society, the
foundation of law, the beacon of nations, the golden chain let down from
heaven, which links all accountable and all intelligent natures in one
common system—and in the vain strife between fanatic innovation and
fanatic prejudice, we are exhorted to dethrone this queen of the world,
to blot out this light of the mind, to deface this fair column, to break
in pieces this golden chain! We are to discard and throw from us with
loud taunts and bitter execrations that reason, which has been the lofty
theme of the philosopher, the poet, the moralist, and the divine, whose
name was not first named to be abused by the enthusiasts of the French
Revolution, or to be blasphemed by the madder enthusiasts, the advocates
of Divine Right, but which is coeval with, and inseparable from the
nature and faculties of man—is the image of his Maker stamped upon him
at his birth, the understanding breathed into him with the breath of
life, and in the participation and improvement of which alone he is
raised above the brute creation and his own physical nature!’—The
overstrained and ridiculous pretensions of monks and ascetics were never
thought to justify a return to unbridled licence of manners, or the
throwing aside of all decency. The hypocrisy, cruelty, and fanaticism,
often attendant on peculiar professions of sanctity, have not banished
the name of religion from the world. Neither can ‘the unreasonableness
of the reason’ of some modern sciolists so ‘unreason our reason,’ as to
debar us of the benefit of this principle in future, or to disfranchise
us of the highest privilege of our nature. In the second place, if it is
admitted that Reason alone is not the sole and self-sufficient ground of
morals, it is to Mr. Godwin that we are indebted for having settled the
point. No one denied or distrusted this principle (before his time) as
the absolute judge and interpreter in all questions of difficulty; and
if this is no longer the case, it is because he has taken this
principle, and followed it into its remotest consequences with more
keenness of eye and steadiness of hand than any other expounder of
ethics. His grand work is (at least) an _experimentum crucis_ to show
the weak sides and imperfections of human reason as the sole law of
human action. By overshooting the mark, or by ‘flying an eagle flight,
forth and right on,’ he has pointed out the limit or line of separation,
between what is practicable and what is barely conceivable—by imposing
impossible tasks on the naked strength of the will, he has discovered
how far it is or is not in our power to dispense with the illusions of
sense, to resist the calls of affection, to emancipate ourselves from
the force of habit; and thus, though he has not said it himself, has
enabled others to say to the towering aspirations after good, and to the
over-bearing pride of human intellect—‘Thus far shalt thou come, and no
farther!’ Captain Parry would be thought to have rendered a service to
navigation and his country, no less by proving that there is no
North-West Passage, than if he had ascertained that there is one: so Mr.
Godwin has rendered an essential service to moral science, by attempting
(in vain) to pass the Arctic Circle and Frozen Regions, where the
understanding is no longer warmed by the affections, nor fanned by the
breeze of fancy! This is the effect of all bold, original, and powerful
thinking, that it either discovers the truth, or detects where error
lies; and the only crime with which Mr. Godwin can be charged as a
political and moral reasoner is, that he has displayed a more ardent
spirit, and a more independent activity of thought than others, in
establishing the fallacy (if fallacy it be) of an old popular prejudice
that _the Just and True were one_, by ‘championing it to the Outrance,’
and in the final result placing the Gothic structure of human virtue on
an humbler, but a wider and safer foundation than it had hitherto
occupied in the volumes and systems of the learned.

Mr. Godwin is an inventor in the regions of romance, as well as a
skilful and hardy explorer of those of moral truth. _Caleb Williams_ and
_St. Leon_ are two of the most splendid and impressive works of the
imagination that have appeared in our times. It is not merely that these
novels are very well for a philosopher to have produced—they are
admirable and complete in themselves, and would not lead you to suppose
that the author, who is so entirely at home in human character and
dramatic situation, had ever dabbled in logic or metaphysics. The first
of these, particularly, is a masterpiece, both as to invention and
execution. The romantic and chivalrous principle of the love of personal
fame is embodied in the finest possible manner in the character of
Falkland[36]; as in Caleb Williams (who is not the first, but the second
character in the piece) we see the very demon of curiosity personified.
Perhaps the art with which these two characters are contrived to relieve
and set off each other, has never been surpassed in any work of fiction,
with the exception of the immortal satire of Cervantes. The restless and
inquisitive spirit of Caleb Williams, in search and in possession of his
patron’s fatal secret, haunts the latter like a second conscience,
plants stings in his tortured mind, fans the flames of his jealous
ambition, struggling with agonized remorse; and the hapless but
noble-minded Falkland at length falls a martyr to the persecution of
that morbid and overpowering interest, of which his mingled virtues and
vices have rendered him the object. We conceive no one ever began Caleb
Williams that did not read it through: no one that ever read it could
possibly forget it, or speak of it after any length of time but with an
impression as if the events and feelings had been personal to himself.
This is the case also with the story of St. Leon, which, with less
dramatic interest and intensity of purpose, is set off by a more
gorgeous and flowing eloquence, and by a crown of preternatural imagery,
that waves over it like a palm-tree! It is the beauty and the charm of
Mr. Godwin’s descriptions that the reader identifies himself with the
author; and the secret of this is, that the author has identified
himself with his personages. Indeed, he has created them. They are the
proper issue of his brain, lawfully begot, not foundlings, nor the
‘bastards of his art.’ He is not an indifferent, callous spectator of
the scenes which he himself pourtrays, but without seeming to feel them.
There is no look of patchwork and plagiarism, the beggarly copiousness
of borrowed wealth; no tracery-work from worm-eaten manuscripts, from
forgotten chronicles, nor piecing out of vague traditions with fragments
and snatches of old ballads, so that the result resembles a gaudy,
staring transparency, in which you cannot distinguish the daubing of the
painter from the light that shines through the flimsy colours and gives
them brilliancy. Here all is clearly made out with strokes of the
pencil, by fair, not by factitious means. Our author takes a given
subject from nature or from books, and then fills it up with the ardent
workings of his own mind, with the teeming and audible pulses of his own
heart. The effect is entire and satisfactory in proportion. The work (so
to speak) and the author are one. We are not puzzled to decide upon
their respective pretensions. In reading Mr. Godwin’s novels, we know
what share of merit the author has in them. In reading the _Scotch
Novels_, we are perpetually embarrassed in asking ourselves this
question; and perhaps it is not altogether a false modesty that prevents
the editor from putting his name in the title-page—he is (for any thing
we know to the contrary) only a more voluminous sort of Allen-a-Dale. At
least, we may claim this advantage for the English author, that the
chains with which he rivets our attention are forged out of his own
thoughts, link by link, blow for blow, with glowing enthusiasm: we see
the genuine ore melted in the furnace of fervid feeling, and moulded
into stately and _ideal_ forms; and this is so far better than peeping
into an old iron shop, or pilfering from a dealer in marine stores!
There is one drawback, however, attending this mode of proceeding, which
attaches generally, indeed, to all originality of composition; namely,
that it has a tendency to a certain degree of monotony. He who draws
upon his own resources, easily comes to an end of his wealth. Mr.
Godwin, in all his writings, dwells upon one idea or exclusive view of a
subject, aggrandises a sentiment, exaggerates a character, or pushes an
argument to extremes, and makes up by the force of style and continuity
of feeling for what he wants in variety of incident or ease of manner.
This necessary defect is observable in his best works, and is still more
so in Fleetwood and Mandeville; the one of which, compared with his more
admired performances, is mawkish, and the other morbid. Mr. Godwin is
also an essayist, an historian—in short, what is he not, that belongs to
the character of an indefatigable and accomplished author? His _Life of
Chaucer_ would have given celebrity to any man of letters possessed of
three thousand a year, with leisure to write quartos: as the legal
acuteness displayed in his _Remarks on Judge Eyre’s Charge to the Jury_
would have raised any briefless barrister to the height of his
profession. This temporary effusion did more—it gave a turn to the
trials for high treason in the year 1794, and possibly saved the lives
of twelve innocent individuals, marked out as political victims to the
Moloch of Legitimacy, which then skulked behind a British throne, and
had not yet dared to stalk forth (as it has done since) from its
lurking-place, in the face of day, to brave the opinion of the world. If
it had then glutted its maw with its intended prey (the sharpness of Mr.
Godwin’s pen cut the legal cords with which it was attempted to bind
them), it might have done so sooner, and with more lasting effect. The
world do not know (and we are not sure but the intelligence may startle
Mr. Godwin himself), that he is the author of a volume of Sermons, and
of a life of Chatham.[37]

Mr. Fawcett (an old friend and fellow-student of our author, and who
always spoke of his writings with admiration, tinctured with wonder)
used to mention a circumstance with respect to the last-mentioned work,
which may throw some light on the history and progress of Mr. Godwin’s
mind. He was anxious to make his biographical account as complete as he
could, and applied for this purpose to many of his acquaintance to
furnish him with anecdotes or to suggest criticisms. Amongst others Mr.
Fawcett repeated to him what he thought a striking passage in a speech
on _General Warrants_ delivered by Lord Chatham, at which he (Mr.
Fawcett) had been present. ‘Every man’s house’ (said this emphatic
thinker and speaker) ‘has been called his castle. And why is it called
his castle? Is it because it is defended by a wall, because it is
surrounded with a moat? No, it may be nothing more than a straw-built
shed. It may be open to all the elements: the wind may enter in, the
rain may enter in—but the king _cannot_ enter in!’ His friend thought
that the point was here palpable enough: but when he came to read the
printed volume, he found it thus _transposed_: ‘Every man’s house is his
castle. And why is it called so? Is it because it is defended by a wall,
because it is surrounded with a moat? No, it may be nothing more than a
straw-built shed. It may be exposed to all the elements: the rain may
enter into it, _all the winds of Heaven may whistle round it_, but the
king cannot, &c.’ This was what Fawcett called a defect of _natural
imagination_. He at the same time admitted that Mr. Godwin had improved
his native sterility in this respect; or atoned for it by incessant
activity of mind and by accumulated stores of thought and powers of
language. In fact, his _forte_ is not the spontaneous, but the voluntary
exercise of talent. He fixes his ambition on a high point of excellence,
and spares no pains or time in attaining it. He has less of the
appearance of a man of genius, than any one who has given such decided
and ample proofs of it. He is ready only on reflection: dangerous only
at the rebound. He gathers himself up, and strains every nerve and
faculty with deliberate aim to some heroic and dazzling achievement of
intellect: but he must make a career before he flings himself, armed,
upon the enemy, or he is sure to be unhorsed. Or he resembles an
eight-day clock that must be wound up long before it can strike.
Therefore, his powers of conversation are but limited. He has neither
acuteness of remark, nor a flow of language, both which might be
expected from his writings, as these are no less distinguished by a
sustained and impassioned tone of declamation than by novelty of opinion
or brilliant tracks of invention. In company, Horne Tooke used to make a
mere child of him—or of any man! Mr. Godwin liked this treatment,[38]
and indeed it is his foible to fawn on those who use him _cavalierly_,
and to be cavalier to those who express an undue or unqualified
admiration of him. He looks up with unfeigned respect to acknowledged
reputation (but then it must be very well ascertained before he admits
it)—and has a favourite hypothesis that Understanding and Virtue are the
same thing. Mr. Godwin possesses a high degree of philosophical candour,
and studiously paid the homage of his pen and person to Mr. Malthus, Sir
James Mackintosh, and Dr. Parr, for their unsparing attacks on him; but
woe to any poor devil who had the hardihood to defend him against them!
In private, the author of _Political Justice_ at one time reminded those
who knew him of the metaphysician engrafted on the Dissenting Minister.
There was a dictatorial, captious, quibbling pettiness of manner. He
lost this with the first blush and awkwardness of popularity, which
surprised him in the retirement of his study; and he has since, with the
wear and tear of society, from being too pragmatical, become somewhat
too careless. He is, at present, as easy as an old glove. Perhaps there
is a little attention to effect in this, and he wishes to appear a foil
to himself. His best moments are with an intimate acquaintance or two,
when he gossips in a fine vein about old authors, Clarendon’s _History
of the Rebellion_, or Burnet’s _History of his own Time_; and you
perceive by your host’s talk, as by the taste of seasoned wine, that he
has a _cellarage_ in his understanding! Mr. Godwin also has a correct
_acquired_ taste in poetry and the drama. He relishes Donne and Ben
Jonson, and recites a passage from either with an agreeable mixture of
pedantry and _bonhommie_. He is not one of those who do not grow wiser
with opportunity and reflection: he changes his opinions, and changes
them for the better. The alteration of his taste in poetry, from an
exclusive admiration of the age of Queen Anne to an almost equally
exclusive one of that of Elizabeth, is, we suspect, owing to Mr.
Coleridge, who some twenty years ago, threw a great stone into the
standing pool of criticism, which splashed some persons with the mud,
but which gave a motion to the surface and a reverberation to the
neighbouring echoes, which has not since subsided. In common company,
Mr. Godwin either goes to sleep himself, or sets others to sleep. He is
at present engaged in a History of the Commonwealth of England.—_Esto
perpetua!_ In size Mr. Godwin is below the common stature, nor is his
deportment graceful or animated. His face is, however, fine, with an
expression of placid temper and recondite thought. He is not unlike the
common portraits of Locke. There is a very admirable likeness of him by
Mr. Northcote, which with a more heroic and dignified air, only does
justice to the profound sagacity and benevolent aspirations of our
author’s mind. Mr. Godwin has kept the best company of his time, but he
has survived most of the celebrated persons with whom he lived in habits
of intimacy. He speaks of them with enthusiasm and with discrimination;
and sometimes dwells with peculiar delight on a day passed at John
Kemble’s in company with Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Curran, Mrs. Wollstonecraft
and Mrs. Inchbald, when the conversation took a most animated turn, and
the subject was of Love. Of all these our author is the only one
remaining. Frail tenure, on which human life and genius are lent us for
a while to improve or to enjoy!




                             MR. COLERIDGE


The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is,
that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and
Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and doat on past achievements. The
accumulation of knowledge has been so great, that we are lost in wonder
at the height it has reached, instead of attempting to climb or add to
it; while the variety of objects distracts and dazzles the looker-on.
What _niche_ remains unoccupied? What path untried? What is the use of
doing anything, unless we could do better than all those who have gone
before us? What hope is there of this? We are like those who have been
to see some noble monument of art, who are content to admire without
thinking of rivalling it; or like guests after a feast, who praise the
hospitality of the donor ‘and thank the bounteous Pan’—perhaps carrying
away some trifling fragments; or like the spectators of a mighty battle,
who still hear its sound afar off, and the clashing of armour and the
neighing of the war-horse and the shout of victory is in their ears,
like the rushing of innumerable waters!

Mr. Coleridge has ‘a mind reflecting ages past’; his voice is like the
echo of the congregated roar of the ‘dark rearward and abyss’ of
thought. He who has seen a mouldering tower by the side of a chrystal
lake, hid by the mist, but glittering in the wave below, may conceive
the dim, gleaming, uncertain intelligence of his eye: he who has marked
the evening clouds uprolled (a world of vapours), has seen the picture
of his mind, unearthly, unsubstantial, with gorgeous tints and
ever-varying forms—

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

Our author’s mind is (as he himself might express it) _tangential_.
There is no subject on which he has not touched, none on which he has
rested. With an understanding fertile, subtle, expansive, ‘quick,
forgetive, apprehensive,’ beyond all living precedent, few traces of it
will perhaps remain. He lends himself to all impressions alike; he gives
up his mind and liberty of thought to none. He is a general lover of art
and science, and wedded to no one in particular. He pursues knowledge as
a mistress, with outstretched hands and winged speed; but as he is about
to embrace her, his Daphne turns—alas! not to a laurel! Hardly a
speculation has been left on record from the earliest time, but it is
loosely folded up in Mr. Coleridge’s memory, like a rich, but somewhat
tattered piece of tapestry: we might add (with more seeming than real
extravagance), that scarce a thought can pass through the mind of man,
but its sound has at some time or other passed over his head with
rustling pinions. On whatever question or author you speak, he is
prepared to take up the theme with advantage—from Peter Abelard down to
Thomas Moore, from the subtlest metaphysics to the politics of the
_Courier_. There is no man of genius, in whose praise he descants, but
the critic seems to stand above the author, and ‘what in him is weak, to
strengthen, what is low, to raise and support’: nor is there any work of
genius that does not come out of his hands like an illuminated Missal,
sparkling even in its defects. If Mr. Coleridge had not been the most
impressive talker of his age, he would probably have been the finest
writer; but he lays down his pen to make sure of an auditor, and
mortgages the admiration of posterity for the stare of an idler. If he
had not been a poet, he would have been a powerful logician; if he had
not dipped his wing in the Unitarian controversy, he might have soared
to the very summit of fancy. But in writing verse, he is trying to
subject the Muse to _transcendental_ theories: in his abstract
reasoning, he misses his way by strewing it with flowers. All that he
has done of moment, he had done twenty years ago: since then, he may be
said to have lived on the sound of his own voice. Mr. Coleridge is too
rich in intellectual wealth, to need to task himself to any drudgery: he
has only to draw the sliders of his imagination, and a thousand subjects
expand before him, startling him with their brilliancy, or losing
themselves in endless obscurity—

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

What is the little he could add to the stock, compared with the
countless stores that lie about him, that he should stoop to pick up a
name, or to polish an idle fancy? He walks abroad in the majesty of an
universal understanding, eyeing the ‘rich strond,’ or golden sky above
him, and ‘goes sounding on his way,’ in eloquent accents, uncompelled
and free!

Persons of the greatest capacity are often those, who for this reason do
the least; for surveying themselves from the highest point of view,
amidst the infinite variety of the universe, their own share in it seems
trifling, and scarce worth a thought, and they prefer the contemplation
of all that is, or has been, or can be, to the making a coil about doing
what, when done, is no better than vanity. It is hard to concentrate all
our attention and efforts on one pursuit, except from ignorance of
others; and without this concentration of our faculties, no great
progress can be made in any one thing. It is not merely that the mind is
not capable of the effort; it does not think the effort worth making.
Action is one; but thought is manifold. He whose restless eye glances
through the wide compass of nature and art, will not consent to have
‘his own nothings monstered’: but he must do this, before he can give
his whole soul to them. The mind, after ‘letting contemplation have its
fill,’ or

                    ‘Sailing with supreme dominion
                    Through the azure deep of air,’

sinks down on the ground, breathless, exhausted, powerless, inactive; or
if it must have some vent to its feelings, seeks the most easy and
obvious; is soothed by friendly flattery, lulled by the murmur of
immediate applause, thinks as it were aloud, and babbles in its dreams!
A scholar (so to speak) is a more disinterested and abstracted character
than a mere author. The first looks at the numberless volumes of a
library, and says, ‘All these are mine’: the other points to a single
volume (perhaps it may be an immortal one) and says, ‘My name is written
on the back of it.’ This is a puny and groveling ambition, beneath the
lofty amplitude of Mr. Coleridge’s mind. No, he revolves in his wayward
soul, or utters to the passing wind, or discourses to his own shadow,
things mightier and more various!—Let us draw the curtain, and unlock
the shrine.

Learning rocked him in his cradle, and while yet a child,

             ‘He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.’

At sixteen he wrote his _Ode on Chatterton_, and he still reverts to
that period with delight, not so much as it relates to himself (for that
string of his own early promise of fame rather jars than otherwise) but
as exemplifying the youth of a poet. Mr. Coleridge talks of himself,
without being an egotist, for in him the individual is always merged in
the abstract and general. He distinguished himself at school and at the
University by his knowledge of the classics, and gained several prizes
for Greek epigrams. How many men are there (great scholars, celebrated
names in literature) who having done the same thing in their youth, have
no other idea all the rest of their lives but of this achievement, of a
fellowship and dinner, and who, installed in academic honours, would
look down on our author as a mere strolling bard! At Christ’s Hospital,
where he was brought up, he was the idol of those among his
schoolfellows, who mingled with their bookish studies the music of
thought and of humanity; and he was usually attended round the cloisters
by a group of these (inspiring and inspired) whose hearts, even then,
burnt within them as he talked, and where the sounds yet linger to mock
ELIA on his way, still turning pensive to the past! One of the finest
and rarest parts of Mr. Coleridge’s conversation, is when he expatiates
on the Greek tragedians (not that he is not well acquainted, when he
pleases, with the epic poets, or the philosophers, or orators, or
historians of antiquity)—on the subtle reasonings and melting pathos of
Euripides, on the harmonious gracefulness of Sophocles, tuning his
love-laboured song, like sweetest warblings from a sacred grove; on the
high-wrought trumpet-tongued eloquence of Æschylus, whose Prometheus,
above all, is like an Ode to Fate, and a pleading with Providence, his
thoughts being let loose as his body is chained on his solitary rock,
and his afflicted will (the emblem of mortality)

              ‘Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny.’

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

Next, he was engaged with Hartley’s tribes of mind, ‘etherial braid,
thought-woven,’—and he busied himself for a year or two with vibrations
and vibratiuncles and the great law of association that binds all things
in its mystic chain, and the doctrine of Necessity (the mild teacher of
Charity) and the Millennium, anticipative of a life to come—and he
plunged deep into the controversy on Matter and Spirit, and, as an
escape from Dr. Priestley’s Materialism, where he felt himself
imprisoned by the logician’s spell, like Ariel in the cloven pine-tree,
he became suddenly enamoured of Bishop Berkeley’s fairy-world,[39] and
used in all companies to build the universe, like a brave poetical
fiction, of fine words—and he was deep-read in Malebranche, and in
Cudworth’s Intellectual System (a huge pile of learning, unwieldy,
enormous) and in Lord Brook’s hieroglyphic theories, and in Bishop
Butler’s Sermons, and in the Duchess of Newcastle’s fantastic folios,
and in Clarke and South and Tillotson, and all the fine thinkers and
masculine reasoners of that age—and Leibnitz’s _Pre-Established Harmony_
reared its arch above his head, like the rainbow in the cloud,
covenanting with the hopes of man—and then he fell plump, ten thousand
fathoms down (but his wings saved him harmless) into the _hortus siccus_
of Dissent, where he pared religion down to the standard of reason, and
stripped faith of mystery, and preached Christ crucified and the Unity
of the Godhead, and so dwelt for a while in the spirit with John Huss
and Jerome of Prague and Socinus and old John Zisca, and ran through
Neal’s History of the Puritans, and Calamy’s Non-Conformists’ Memorial,
having like thoughts and passions with them—but then Spinoza became his
God, and he took up the vast chain of being in his hand, and the round
world became the centre and the soul of all things in some shadowy
sense, forlorn of meaning, and around him he beheld the living traces
and the sky-pointing proportions of the mighty Pan—but poetry redeemed
him from this spectral philosophy, and he bathed his heart in beauty,
and gazed at the golden light of heaven, and drank of the spirit of the
universe, and wandered at eve by fairy-stream or fountain,

               ‘——When he saw nought but beauty,
           When he heard the voice of that Almighty One
           In every breeze that blew, or wave that murmured’—

and wedded with truth in Plato’s shade, and in the writings of Proclus
and Plotinus saw the ideas of things in the eternal mind, and unfolded
all mysteries with the Schoolmen and fathomed the depths of Duns Scotus
and Thomas Aquinas, and entered the third heaven with Jacob Behmen, and
walked hand in hand with Swedenborg through the pavilions of the New
Jerusalem, and sung his faith in the promise and in the word in his
_Religious Musings_—and lowering himself from that dizzy height, poised
himself on Milton’s wings, and spread out his thoughts in charity with
the glad prose of Jeremy Taylor, and wept over Bowles’s Sonnets, and
studied Cowper’s blank verse, and betook himself to Thomson’s Castle of
Indolence, and sported with the wits of Charles the Second’s days and of
Queen Anne, and relished Swift’s style and that of the John Bull
(Arbuthnot’s we mean, not Mr. Croker’s), and dallied with the British
Essayists and Novelists, and knew all qualities of more modern writers
with a learned spirit, Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Junius, and Burke,
and Godwin, and the Sorrows of Werter, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, and
Voltaire, and Marivaux, and Crebillon, and thousands more—now ‘laughed
with Rabelais in his easy chair’ or pointed to Hogarth, or afterwards
dwelt on Claude’s classic scenes, or spoke with rapture of Raphael, and
compared the women at Rome to figures that had walked out of his
pictures, or visited the Oratory of Pisa, and described the works of
Giotto and Ghirlandaio and Massaccio, and gave the moral of the picture
of the Triumph of Death, where the beggars and the wretched invoke his
dreadful dart, but the rich and mighty of the earth quail and shrink
before it; and in that land of siren sights and sounds, saw a dance of
peasant girls, and was charmed with lutes and gondolas,—or wandered into
Germany and lost himself in the labyrinths of the Hartz Forest and of
the Kantean philosophy, and amongst the cabalistic names of Fichté and
Schelling and Lessing, and God knows who—this was long after, but all
the former while, he had nerved his heart and filled his eyes with
tears, as he hailed the rising orb of liberty, since quenched in
darkness and in blood, and had kindled his affections at the blaze of
the French Revolution, and sang for joy when the towers of the Bastile
and the proud places of the insolent and the oppressor fell, and would
have floated his bark, freighted with fondest fancies, across the
Atlantic wave with Southey and others to seek for peace and freedom—

                   ‘In Philarmonia’s undivided dale!’

Alas! ‘Frailty, thy name is _Genius_!’—What is become of all this mighty
heap of hope, of thought, of learning, and humanity? It has ended in
swallowing doses of oblivion and in writing paragraphs in the
_Courier_.—Such and so little is the mind of man!

It was not to be supposed that Mr. Coleridge could keep on at the rate
he set off; he could not realize all he knew or thought, and less could
not fix his desultory ambition; other stimulants supplied the place, and
kept up the intoxicating dream, the fever and the madness of his early
impressions. Liberty (the philosopher’s and the poet’s bride) had fallen
a victim, meanwhile, to the murderous practices of the hag, Legitimacy.
Proscribed by court-hirelings, too romantic for the herd of vulgar
politicians, our enthusiast stood at bay, and at last turned on the
pivot of a subtle casuistry to the _unclean side_: but his discursive
reason would not let him trammel himself into a poet-laureate or
stamp-distributor, and he stopped, ere he had quite passed that
well-known ‘bourne from whence no traveller returns’—and so has sunk
into torpid, uneasy repose, tantalized by useless resources, haunted by
vain imaginings, his lips idly moving, but his heart for ever still, or,
as the shattered chords vibrate of themselves, making melancholy music
to the ear of memory! Such is the fate of genius in an age, when in the
unequal contest with sovereign wrong, every man is ground to powder who
is not either a born slave, or who does not willingly and at once offer
up the yearnings of humanity and the dictates of reason as a welcome
sacrifice to besotted prejudice and loathsome power.

Of all Mr. Coleridge’s productions, the _Ancient Mariner_ is the only
one that we could with confidence put into any person’s hands, on whom
we wished to impress a favourable idea of his extraordinary powers. Let
whatever other objections be made to it, it is unquestionably a work of
genius—of wild, irregular, overwhelming imagination, and has that rich,
varied movement in the verse, which gives a distant idea of the lofty or
changeful tones of Mr. Coleridge’s voice. In the _Christabel_, there is
one splendid passage on divided friendship. The _Translation of
Schiller’s Wallenstein_ is also a masterly production in its kind,
faithful and spirited. Among his smaller pieces there are occasional
bursts of pathos and fancy, equal to what we might expect from him; but
these form the exception, and not the rule. Such, for instance, is his
affecting Sonnet to the author of the Robbers.

            ‘Schiller! that hour I would have wish’d to die,
              If through the shudd’ring midnight I had sent
              From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent,
            That fearful voice, a famish’d father’s cry—
            That in no after-moment aught less vast
              Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout
              Black horror scream’d, and all her goblin rout
            From the more with’ring scene diminish’d pass’d.
            Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity!
              Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood,
            Wand’ring at eve, with finely frenzied eye,
              Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood!
              Awhile, with mute awe gazing, I would brood,
            Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy.’

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

If our author’s poetry is inferior to his conversation, his prose is
utterly abortive. Hardly a gleam is to be found in it of the brilliancy
and richness of those stores of thought and language that he pours out
incessantly, when they are lost like drops of water in the ground. The
principal work, in which he has attempted to embody his general views of
things, is the FRIEND, of which, though it contains some noble passages
and fine trains of thought, prolixity and obscurity are the most
frequent characteristics.

No two persons can be conceived more opposite in character or genius
than the subject of the present and of the preceding sketch. Mr. Godwin,
with less natural capacity, and with fewer acquired advantages, by
concentrating his mind on some given object, and doing what he had to do
with all his might, has accomplished much, and will leave more than one
monument of a powerful intellect behind him; Mr. Coleridge, by
dissipating his, and dallying with every subject by turns, has done
little or nothing to justify to the world or to posterity, the high
opinion which all who have ever heard him converse, or known him
intimately, with one accord entertain of him. Mr. Godwin’s faculties
have kept at home, and plied their task in the workshop of the brain,
diligently and effectually: Mr. Coleridge’s have gossiped away their
time, and gadded about from house to house, as if life’s business were
to melt the hours in listless talk. Mr. Godwin is intent on a subject,
only as it concerns himself and his reputation; he works it out as a
matter of duty, and discards from his mind whatever does not forward his
main object as impertinent and vain. Mr. Coleridge, on the other hand,
delights in nothing but episodes and digressions, neglects whatever he
undertakes to perform, and can act only on spontaneous impulses, without
object or method. ‘He cannot be constrained by mastery.’ While he should
be occupied with a given pursuit, he is thinking of a thousand other
things; a thousand tastes, a thousand objects tempt him, and distract
his mind, which keeps open house, and entertains all comers; and after
being fatigued and amused with morning calls from idle visitors, finds
the day consumed and its business unconcluded. Mr. Godwin, on the
contrary, is somewhat exclusive and unsocial in his habits of mind,
entertains no company but what he gives his whole time and attention to,
and wisely writes over the doors of his understanding, his fancy, and
his senses—‘No admittance except on business.’ He has none of that
fastidious refinement and false delicacy, which might lead him to
balance between the endless variety of modern attainments. He does not
throw away his life (nor a single half-hour of it) in adjusting the
claims of different accomplishments, and in choosing between them or
making himself master of them all. He sets about his task, (whatever it
may be) and goes through it with spirit and fortitude. He has the
happiness to think an author the greatest character in the world, and
himself the greatest author in it. Mr. Coleridge, in writing an
harmonious stanza, would stop to consider whether there was not more
grace and beauty in a _Pas de trois_, and would not proceed till he had
resolved this question by a chain of metaphysical reasoning without end.
Not so Mr. Godwin. That is best to him, which he can do best. He does
not waste himself in vain aspirations and effeminate sympathies. He is
blind, deaf, insensible to all but the trump of Fame. Plays, operas,
painting, music, ball-rooms, wealth, fashion, titles, lords, ladies,
touch him not—all these are no more to him than to the magician in his
cell, and he writes on to the end of the chapter, through good report
and evil report. _Pingo in eternitatem_—is his motto. He neither envies
nor admires what others are, but is contented to be what he is, and
strives to do the utmost he can. Mr. Coleridge has flirted with the
Muses as with a set of mistresses: Mr. Godwin has been married twice, to
Reason and to Fancy, and has to boast no short-lived progeny by each. So
to speak, he has _valves_ belonging to his mind, to regulate the
quantity of gas admitted into it, so that like the bare, unsightly, but
well-compacted steam-vessel, it cuts its liquid way, and arrives at its
promised end: while Mr. Coleridge’s bark, ‘taught with the little
nautilus to sail,’ the sport of every breath, dancing to every wave,

             ‘Youth at its prow, and Pleasure at its helm,’

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

It was a misfortune to any man of talent to be born in the latter end of
the last century. Genius stopped the way of Legitimacy, and therefore it
was to be abated, crushed, or set aside as a nuisance. The spirit of the
monarchy was at variance with the spirit of the age. The flame of
liberty, the light of intellect, was to be extinguished with the
sword—or with slander, whose edge is sharper than the sword. The war
between power and reason was carried on by the first of these abroad—by
the last at home. No quarter was given (then or now) by the
Government-critics, the authorised censors of the press, to those who
followed the dictates of independence, who listened to the voice of the
tempter, Fancy. Instead of gathering fruits and flowers, immortal fruits
and amaranthine flowers, they soon found themselves beset not only by a
host of prejudices, but assailed with all the engines of power, by
nicknames, by lies, by all the arts of malice, interest and hypocrisy,
without the possibility of their defending themselves ‘from the pelting
of the pitiless storm,’ that poured down upon them from the strong-holds
of corruption and authority. The philosophers, the dry abstract
reasoners, submitted to this reverse pretty well, and armed themselves
with patience ‘as with triple steel,’ to bear discomfiture, persecution,
and disgrace. But the poets, the creatures of sympathy, could not stand
the frowns both of king and people. They did not like to be shut out
when places and pensions, when the critic’s praises, and the
laurel-wreath were about to be distributed. They did not stomach being
_sent to Coventry_, and Mr. Coleridge sounded a retreat for them by the
help of casuistry, and a musical voice.—‘His words were hollow, but they
pleased the ear’ of his friends of the Lake School, who turned back
disgusted and panic-struck from the dry desert of unpopularity, like
Hassan the camel-driver,

          ‘And curs’d the hour, and curs’d the luckless day,
          When first from Shiraz’ walls they bent their way.’

They are safely inclosed there, but Mr. Coleridge did not enter with
them; pitching his tent upon the barren waste without, and having no
abiding place nor city of refuge!




                            REV. MR. IRVING


This gentleman has gained an almost unprecedented, and not an altogether
unmerited popularity as a preacher. As he is, perhaps, though a burning
and a shining light, not ‘one of the fixed,’ we shall take this
opportunity of discussing his merits, while he is at his meridian
height; and in doing so, shall ‘nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in
malice.’

Few circumstances show the prevailing and preposterous rage for novelty
in a more striking point of view, than the success of Mr. Irving’s
oratory. People go to hear him in crowds, and come away with a mixture
of delight and astonishment—they go again to see if the effect will
continue, and send others to try to find out the mystery—and in the
noisy conflict between extravagant encomiums and splenetic objections,
the true secret escapes observation, which is, that the whole thing is,
nearly from beginning to end, a _transposition of ideas_. If the subject
of these remarks had come out as a player, with all his advantages of
figure, voice, and action, we think he would have failed; if, as a
preacher, he had kept within the strict bounds of pulpit-oratory, he
would scarcely have been much distinguished among his Calvinistic
brethren: as a mere author, he would have excited attention rather by
his quaintness and affectation of an obsolete style and mode of
thinking, than by any thing else. But he has contrived to jumble these
several characters together in an unheard-of and unwarranted manner, and
the fascination is altogether irresistible. Our Caledonian divine is
equally an anomaly in religion, in literature, in personal appearance,
and in public speaking. To hear a person spout Shakspeare on the stage
is nothing—the charm is nearly worn out—but to hear any one spout
Shakspeare (and that not in a sneaking under-tone, but at the top of his
voice, and with the full breadth of his chest) from a Calvinistic
pulpit, is new and wonderful. The _Fancy_ have lately lost something of
their gloss in public estimation, and after the last fight, few would go
far to see a Neat or a Spring set-to;—but to see a man who is able to
enter the ring with either of them, or brandish a quarter-staff with
Friar Tuck, or a broad-sword with Shaw the Life-guard’s man, stand up in
a strait-laced old-fashioned pulpit, and bandy dialectics with modern
philosophers, or give a _cross-buttock_ to a cabinet minister, there is
something in a sight like this also, that is a cure for sore eyes. It is
as if Crib or Molyneux had turned Methodist parson, or as if a
Patagonian savage were to come forward as the patron-saint of
Evangelical religion. Again, the doctrine of eternal punishment was one
of the staple arguments with which, everlastingly drawled out, the old
school of Presbyterian divines used to keep their audiences awake, or
lull them to sleep; but to which people of taste and fashion paid little
attention, as inelegant and barbarous, till Mr. Irving, with his
cast-iron features and sledge-hammer blows, puffing like a grim Vulcan,
set to work to forge more classic thunderbolts, and kindle the expiring
flames anew with the very sweepings of sceptical and infidel libraries,
so as to excite a pleasing horror in the female part of his
congregation. In short, our popular declaimer has, contrary to the
Scripture-caution, put new wine into old bottles, or new cloth on old
garments. He has, with an unlimited and daring licence, mixed the sacred
and the profane together, the carnal and the spiritual man, the
petulance of the bar with the dogmatism of the pulpit, the theatrical
and theological, the modern and the obsolete;—what wonder that this
splendid piece of patchwork, splendid by contradiction and contrast, has
delighted some and confounded others? The more serious part of his
congregation indeed complain, though not bitterly, that their pastor has
converted their meeting-house into a play-house: but when a lady of
quality, introducing herself and her three daughters to the preacher,
assures him that they have been to all the most fashionable places of
resort, the opera, the theatre, assemblies, Miss Macauley’s readings,
and Exeter-Change, and have been equally entertained no where else, we
apprehend that no remonstrances of a committee of ruling-elders will be
able to bring him to his senses again, or make him forego such sweet,
but ill-assorted praise. What we mean to insist upon is, that Mr. Irving
owes his triumphant success, not to any one quality for which he has
been extolled, but to a combination of qualities, the more striking in
their immediate effect, in proportion as they are unlooked-for and
heterogeneous, like the violent opposition of light and shade in a
picture. We shall endeavour to explain this view of the subject more at
large.

Mr. Irving, then, is no common or mean man. He has four or five
qualities, possessed in a moderate or in a paramount degree, which,
added or multiplied together, fill up the important space he occupies in
the public eye. Mr. Irving’s intellect itself is of a superior order; he
has undoubtedly both talents and acquirements beyond the ordinary run of
every-day preachers. These alone, however, we hold, would not account
for a twentieth part of the effect he has produced: they would have
lifted him perhaps out of the mire and slough of sordid obscurity, but
would never have launched him into the ocean-stream of popularity, in
which he ‘lies floating many a rood’;—but to these he adds uncommon
height, a graceful figure and action, a clear and powerful voice, a
striking, if not a fine face, a bold and fiery spirit, and a most
portentous obliquity of vision, which throw him to an immeasurable
distance beyond all competition, and effectually relieve whatever there
might be of common-place or bombast in his style of composition. Put the
case that Mr. Irving had been five feet high—Would he ever have been
heard of, or, as he does now, have ‘bestrode the world like a Colossus?’
No, the thing speaks for itself. He would in vain have lifted his
Lilliputian arm to Heaven, people would have laughed at his
monkey-tricks. Again, had he been as tall as he is, but had wanted other
recommendations, he would have been nothing.

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

Conceive a rough, ugly, shock-headed Scotchman, standing up in the
Caledonian Chapel, and dealing ‘damnation round the land’ in a broad
northern dialect, and with a harsh, screaking voice, what ear polite,
what smile serene would have hailed the barbarous prodigy, or not
consigned him to utter neglect and derision? But the Rev. Edward Irving,
with all his native wildness, ‘hath a smooth aspect framed to make
women’ saints; his very unusual size and height are carried off and
moulded into elegance by the most admirable symmetry of form and ease of
gesture; his sable locks, his clear iron-grey complexion, and firm-set
features, turn the raw, uncouth Scotchman into the likeness of a noble
Italian picture; and even his distortion of sight only redeems the
otherwise ‘faultless monster’ within the bounds of humanity, and, when
admiration is exhausted and curiosity ceases, excites a new interest by
leading to the idle question whether it is an advantage to the preacher
or not. Farther, give him all his actual and remarkable advantages of
body and mind, let him be as tall, as strait, as dark and clear of skin,
as much at his ease, as silver-tongued, as eloquent and as argumentative
as he is, yet with all these, and without a little charlatanry to set
them off he had been nothing. He might, keeping within the rigid line of
his duty and professed calling, have preached on for ever; he might have
divided the old-fashioned doctrines of election, grace, reprobation,
predestination, into his sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth heads,
and his _lastly_ have been looked for as a ‘consummation devoutly to be
wished’; he might have defied the devil and all his works, and by the
help of a loud voice and strong-set person—

                  ‘A lusty man to ben an Abbot able;’—

have increased his own congregation, and been quoted among the godly as
a powerful preacher of the word; but in addition to this, he went out of
his way to attack Jeremy Bentham, and the town was up in arms. The thing
was new. He thus wiped the stain of musty ignorance and formal bigotry
out of his style. Mr. Irving must have something superior in him, to
look over the shining close-packed heads of his congregation to have a
hit at the _Great Jurisconsult_ in his study. He next, ere the report of
the former blow had subsided, made a lunge at Mr. Brougham, and glanced
an eye at Mr. Canning; _mystified_ Mr. Coleridge, and _stultified_ Lord
Liverpool in his place—in the Gallery. It was rare sport to see him,
‘like an eagle in a dovecote, flutter the Volscians in Corioli.’ He has
found out the secret of attracting by repelling. Those whom he is likely
to attack are curious to hear what he says of them: they go again, to
show that they do not mind it. It is no less interesting to the
bystanders, who like to witness this sort of _onslaught_—like a charge
of cavalry, the shock, and the resistance. Mr. Irving has, in fact,
without leave asked or a licence granted, converted the Caledonian
Chapel into a Westminster Forum or Debating Society, with the sanctity
of religion added to it. Our spirited polemic is not contented to defend
the citadel of orthodoxy against all impugners, and shut himself up in
texts of Scripture and huge volumes of the Commentators as an
impregnable fortress;—he merely makes use of the stronghold of religion
as a resting-place, from which he sallies forth, armed with modern
topics and with penal fire, like Achilles of old rushing from the
Grecian tents, against the adversaries of God and man. Peter Aretine is
said to have laid the Princes of Europe under contribution by penning
satires against them: so Mr. Irving keeps the public in awe by insulting
all their favourite idols. He does not spare their politicians, their
rulers, their moralists, their poets, their players, their critics,
their reviewers, their magazine-writers; he levels their resorts of
business, their places of amusement, at a blow—their cities, churches,
palaces, ranks and professions, refinements, and elegances—and leaves
nothing standing but himself, a mighty landmark in a degenerate age,
overlooking the wide havoc he has made! He makes war upon all arts and
sciences, upon the faculties and nature of man, on his vices and his
virtues, on all existing institutions, and all possible improvements,
that nothing may be left but the Kirk of Scotland, and that he may be
the head of it. He literally sends a challenge to all London in the name
of the KING of HEAVEN, to evacuate its streets, to disperse its
population, to lay aside its employments, to burn its wealth, to
renounce its vanities and pomp; and for what?—that he may enter in as
the _King of Glory_; or after enforcing his threat with the
battering-ram of logic, the grape-shot of rhetoric, and the cross-fire
of his double vision, reduce the British metropolis to a Scottish heath,
with a few miserable hovels upon it, where they may worship God
according to _the root of the matter_, and where an old man with a blue
bonnet, a fair-haired girl, and a little child would form the flower of
his flock! Such is the pretension and the boast of this new Peter the
Hermit, who would get rid of all we have done in the way of improvement
on a state of barbarous ignorance, or still more barbarous prejudice, in
order to begin again on a _tabula rasa_ of Calvinism, and have a world
of his own making. It is not very surprising that when nearly the whole
mass and texture of civil society is indicted as a nuisance, and
threatened to be pulled down as a rotten building ready to fall on the
heads of the inhabitants, that all classes of people run to hear the
crash, and to see the engines and levers at work which are to effect
this laudable purpose. What else can be the meaning of our preacher’s
taking upon himself to denounce the sentiments of the most serious
professors in great cities, as vitiated and stark-naught, of relegating
religion to his native glens, and pretending that the hymn of praise or
the sigh of contrition cannot ascend acceptably to the throne of grace
from the crowded street as well as from the barren rock or silent
valley? Why put this affront upon his hearers? Why belie his own
aspirations?

             ‘God made the country, and man made the town.’

So says the poet; does Mr. Irving say so? If he does, and finds the air
of the city death to his piety, why does he not return home again? But
if he can breathe it with impunity, and still retain the fervour of his
early enthusiasm, and the simplicity and purity of the faith that was
once delivered to the saints, why not extend the benefit of his own
experience to others, instead of taunting them with a vapid pastoral
theory? Or, if our popular and eloquent divine finds a change in
himself, that flattery prevents the growth of grace, that he is becoming
the God of his own idolatry by being that of others, that the glittering
of coronet-coaches rolling down Holborn-Hill to Hatton Garden, that
titled beauty, that the parliamentary complexion of his audience, the
compliments of poets, and the stare of peers discompose his wandering
thoughts a little; and yet that he cannot give up these strong
temptations tugging at his heart; why not extend more charity to others,
and show more candour in speaking of himself? There is either a good
deal of bigoted intolerance with a deplorable want of self-knowledge in
all this; or at least an equal degree of cant and quackery.

To which ever cause we are to attribute this hyperbolical tone, we hold
it certain he could not have adopted it, if he had been _a little man_.
But his imposing figure and dignified manner enable him to hazard
sentiments or assertions that would be fatal to others. His
controversial daring is _backed_ by his bodily prowess; and by bringing
his intellectual pretensions boldly into a line with his physical
accomplishments, he, indeed, presents a very formidable front to the
sceptic or the scoffer. Take a cubit from his stature, and his whole
manner resolves itself into an impertinence. But with that addition, he
_overcrows_ the town, browbeats their prejudices, and bullies them out
of their senses, and is not afraid of being contradicted by any one
_less than himself_. It may be said, that individuals with great
personal defects have made a considerable figure as public speakers; and
Mr. Wilberforce, among others, may be held out as an instance. Nothing
can be more insignificant as to mere outward appearance, and yet he is
listened to in the House of Commons. But he does not wield it, he does
not insult or bully it. He leads by following opinion, he trims, he
shifts, he glides on the silvery sounds of his undulating, flexible,
cautiously modulated voice, winding his way betwixt heaven and earth,
now courting popularity, now calling servility to his aid, and with a
large estate, the ‘saints,’ and the population of Yorkshire to swell his
influence, never venturing on the forlorn hope, or doing any thing more
than ‘hitting the house between wind and water.’ Yet he is probably a
cleverer man than Mr. Irving.

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

              ‘Miraturque novos fructus, et non sua poma.’

He has taken the thorns and briars of scholastic divinity, and garlanded
them with the flowers of modern literature. He has done all this,
relying on the strength of a remarkably fine person and manner, and
through that he has succeeded—otherwise he would have perished
miserably.

Dr. Chalmers is not by any means so good a looking man, nor so
accomplished a speaker as Mr. Irving; yet he at one time almost equalled
his oratorical celebrity, and certainly paved the way for him. He has
therefore more merit than his admired pupil, as he has done as much with
fewer means. He has more scope of intellect and more intensity of
purpose. Both his matter and his manner, setting aside his face and
figure, are more impressive. Take the volume of ‘Sermons on Astronomy,’
by Dr. Chalmers, and the ‘Four Orations for the Oracles of God’ which
Mr. Irving lately published, and we apprehend there can be no comparison
as to their success. The first ran like wild-fire through the country,
were the darlings of watering-places, were laid in the windows of
inns,[40] and were to be met with in all places of public resort; while
the ‘Orations’ get on but slowly, on Milton’s stilts, and are pompously
announced as in a Third Edition. We believe the fairest and fondest of
his admirers would rather see and hear Mr. Irving than read him. The
reason is, that the ground work of his compositions is trashy and
hackneyed, though set off by extravagant metaphors and an affected
phraseology; that without the turn of his head and wave of his hand, his
periods have nothing in them; and that he himself is the only _idea_
with which he has yet enriched the public mind! He must play off his
person, as Orator Henley used to dazzle his hearers with his
diamond-ring. The small frontispiece prefixed to the ‘Orations’ does not
serve to convey an adequate idea of the magnitude of the man, nor of the
ease and freedom of his motions in the pulpit. How different is Dr.
Chalmers! He is like ‘a monkey-preacher’ to the other. He cannot boast
of personal appearance to set him off. But then he is like the very
genius or demon of theological controversy personified. He has neither
airs nor graces at command; he thinks nothing of himself: he has nothing
theatrical about him (which cannot be said of his successor and rival);
but you see a man in mortal throes and agony with doubts and
difficulties, seizing stubborn knotty points with his teeth, tearing
them with his hands, and straining his eyeballs till they almost start
out of their sockets, in pursuit of a train of visionary reasoning, like
a Highland-seer with his second sight. The description of Balfour of
Burley in his cave, with his Bible in one hand and his sword in the
other, contending with the imaginary enemy of mankind, gasping for
breath, and with the cold moisture running down his face, gives a lively
idea of Dr. Chalmers’s prophetic fury in the pulpit. If we could have
looked in to have seen Burley hard-beset ‘by the coinage of his
heat-oppressed brain,’ who would have asked whether he was a handsome
man or not? It would be enough to see a man haunted by a spirit, under
the strong and entire dominion of a wilful hallucination. So the
integrity and vehemence of Dr. Chalmers’s manner, the determined way in
which he gives himself up to his subject, or lays about him and buffets
sceptics and gain-sayers, arrests attention in spite of every other
circumstance, and fixes it on that, and that alone, which excites such
interest and such eagerness in his own breast! Besides, he is a
logician, has a theory in support of whatever he chooses to advance, and
weaves the tissue of his sophistry so close and intricate, that it is
difficult not to be entangled in it, or to escape from it. ‘There’s
magic in the web.’ Whatever appeals to the pride of the human
understanding, has a subtle charm in it. The mind is naturally
pugnacious, cannot refuse a challenge of strength or skill, sturdily
enters the lists and resolves to conquer, or to yield itself vanquished
in the forms. This is the chief hold Dr. Chalmers had upon his hearers,
and upon the readers of his ‘Astronomical Discourses.’ No one was
satisfied with his arguments, no one could answer them, but every one
wanted to try what he could make of them, as we try to find out a
riddle. ‘By his so potent art,’ the art of laying down problematical
premises, and drawing from them still more doubtful, but not impossible,
conclusions, ‘he could bedim the noonday sun, betwixt the green sea and
the azure vault set roaring war,’ and almost compel the stars in their
courses to testify to his opinions. The mode in which he undertook to
make the circuit of the universe, and demand categorical information
‘now of the planetary and now of the fixed,’ might put one in mind of
Hecate’s mode of ascending in a machine from the stage, ‘midst troops of
spirits,’ in which you now admire the skill of the artist, and next
tremble for the fate of the performer, fearing that the audacity of the
attempt will turn his head or break his neck. The style of these
‘Discourses’ also, though not elegant or poetical, was, like the
subject, intricate and endless. It was that of a man pushing his way
through a labyrinth of difficulties, and determined not to flinch. The
impression on the reader was proportionate; for, whatever were the
merits of the style or matter, both were new and striking; and the train
of thought that was unfolded at such length and with such strenuousness,
was bold, well-sustained, and consistent with itself.

Mr. Irving wants the continuity of thought and manner which
distinguishes his rival—and shines by patches and in bursts. He does not
warm or acquire increasing force or rapidity with his progress. He is
never hurried away by a deep or lofty enthusiasm, nor touches the
highest point of genius or fanaticism, but ‘in the very storm and
whirlwind of his passion, he acquires and begets a temperance that may
give it smoothness.’ He has the self-possession and masterly execution
of an experienced player or fencer, and does not seem to express his
natural convictions, or to be engaged in a mortal struggle. This greater
ease and indifference is the result of vast superiority of personal
appearance, which ‘to be admired needs but to be seen,’ and does not
require the possessor to work himself up into a passion, or to use any
violent contortions to gain attention or to keep it. These two
celebrated preachers are in almost all respects an antithesis to each
other. If Mr. Irving is an example of what can be done by the help of
external advantages, Dr. Chalmers is a proof of what can be done without
them. The one is most indebted to his mind, the other to his body. If
Mr. Irving inclines one to suspect fashionable or popular religion of a
little _anthropomorphitism_, Dr. Chalmers effectually redeems it from
that scandal.


                        THE LATE MR. HORNE TOOKE

Mr. Horne Tooke was one of those who may be considered as connecting
links between a former period and the existing generation. His education
and accomplishments, nay, his political opinions, were of the last age;
his mind, and the tone of his feelings were _modern_. There was a hard,
dry materialism in the very texture of his understanding, varnished over
by the external refinements of the old school. Mr. Tooke had great scope
of attainment, and great versatility of pursuit; but the same
shrewdness, quickness, cool self-possession, the same _literalness_ of
perception, and absence of passion and enthusiasm, characterised nearly
all he did, said, or wrote. He was without a rival (almost) in private
conversation, an expert public speaker, a keen politician, a first-rate
grammarian, and the finest gentleman (to say the least) of his own
party. He had no imagination (or he would not have scorned it!)—no
delicacy of taste, no rooted prejudices or strong attachments: his
intellect was like a bow of polished steel, from which he shot
sharp-pointed poisoned arrows at his friends in private, at his enemies
in public. His mind (so to speak) had no _religion_ in it, and very
little even of the moral qualities of genius; but he was a man of the
world, a scholar bred, and a most acute and powerful logician. He was
also a wit, and a formidable one: yet it may be questioned whether his
wit was any thing more than an excess of his logical faculty: it did not
consist in the play of fancy, but in close and cutting combinations of
the understanding. ‘The law is open to every one: _so_,’ said Mr. Tooke,
‘_is the London Tavern_!’ It is the previous deduction formed in the
mind, and the splenetic contempt felt for a practical sophism, that
_beats about the bush for_, and at last finds the apt illustration; not
the casual, glancing coincidence of two objects, that points out an
absurdity to the understanding. So, on another occasion, when Sir Allan
Gardiner (who was a candidate for Westminster) had objected to Mr. Fox,
that ‘he was always against the minister, _whether right or wrong_,’ and
Mr. Fox, in his reply, had overlooked this slip of the tongue, Mr. Tooke
immediately seized on it, and said, ‘he thought it at least an equal
objection to Sir Allan, that he was always _with_ the minister, whether
right or wrong.’ This retort had all the effect, and produced the same
surprise as the most brilliant display of wit or fancy: yet it was only
the detecting a flaw in an argument, like a flaw in an indictment, by a
kind of legal pertinacity, or rather by a rigid and constant habit of
attending to the exact import of every word and clause in a sentence.
Mr. Tooke had the mind of a lawyer; but it was applied to a vast variety
of topics and general trains of speculation.

Mr. Horne Tooke was in private company, and among his friends, the
finished gentleman of the last age. His manners were as fascinating as
his conversation was spirited and delightful. He put one in mind of the
burden of the song of ‘_The King’s Old Courtier, and an Old Courtier of
the King’s_.’ He was, however, of the opposite party. It was curious to
hear our modern sciolist advancing opinions of the most radical kind
without any mixture of radical heat or violence, in a tone of
fashionable _nonchalance_, with elegance of gesture and attitude, and
with the most perfect good-humour. In the spirit of opposition, or in
the pride of logical superiority, he too often shocked the prejudices or
wounded the self-love of those about him, while he himself displayed the
same unmoved indifference or equanimity. He said the most provoking
things with a laughing gaiety, and a polite attention, that there was no
withstanding. He threw others off their guard by thwarting their
favourite theories, and then availed himself of the temperance of his
own pulse to chafe them into madness. He had not one particle of
deference for the opinion of others, nor of sympathy with their
feelings; nor had he any obstinate convictions of his own to defend—

             ‘Lord of himself, uncumbered with a _creed_!’

He took up any topic by chance, and played with it at will, like a
juggler with his cups and balls. He generally ranged himself on the
losing side; and had rather an ill-natured delight in contradiction, and
in perplexing the understandings of others, without leaving them any
clue to guide them out of the labyrinth into which he had led them. He
understood, in its perfection, the great art of throwing the _onus
probandi_ on his adversary; and so could maintain almost any opinion,
however absurd or fantastical, with fearless impunity. I have heard a
sensible and well-informed man say, that he never was in company with
Mr. Tooke without being delighted and surprised, or without feeling the
conversation of every other person to be flat in the comparison; but
that he did not recollect having ever heard him make a remark that
struck him as a sound and true one, or that he himself appeared to think
so. He used to plague Fuseli by asking him after the origin of the
Teutonic dialects, and Dr. Parr, by wishing to know the meaning of the
common copulative, _Is_. Once at G——‘s, he defended Pitt from a charge
of verbiage, and endeavoured to prove him superior to Fox. Some one
imitated Pitt’s manner, to show that it was monotonous, and he imitated
him also, to show that it was not. He maintained (what would he not
maintain?) that young Betty’s acting was finer than John Kemble’s, and
recited a passage from Douglas in the manner of each, to justify the
preference he gave to the former. The mentioning of this will please the
living; it cannot hurt the dead. He argued on the same occasion and in
the same breath, that Addison’s style was without modulation, and that
it was physically impossible for any one to write well, who was
habitually silent in company. He sat like a king at his own table, and
gave law to his guests—and to the world! No man knew better how to
manage his immediate circle, to foil or bring them out. A professed
orator, beginning to address some observations to Mr. Tooke with a
voluminous apology for his youth and inexperience, he said, ‘Speak up,
young man!’—and by taking him at his word, cut short the flower of
orations. Porson was the only person of whom he stood in some degree of
awe, on account of his prodigious memory and knowledge of his favourite
subject, Languages. Sheridan, it has been remarked, said more good
things, but had not an equal flow of pleasantry. As an instance of Mr.
Horne Tooke’s extreme coolness and command of nerve, it has been
mentioned that once at a public dinner when he had got on the table to
return thanks for his health being drank with a glass of wine in his
hand, and when there was a great clamour and opposition for some time,
after it had subsided, he pointed to the glass to show that it was still
full. Mr. Holcroft (the author of the _Road to Ruin_) was one of the
most violent and fiery-spirited of all that motley crew of persons, who
attended the Sunday meetings at Wimbledon. One day he was so enraged by
some paradox or raillery of his host, that he indignantly rose from his
chair, and said, ‘Mr. Tooke, you are a scoundrel!’ His opponent without
manifesting the least emotion, replied, ‘Mr. Holcroft, when is it that I
am to dine with you? shall it be next Thursday?’—‘If you please, Mr.
Tooke!’ answered the angry philosopher, and sat down again.—It was
delightful to see him sometimes turn from these waspish or ludicrous
altercations with over-weening antagonists to some old friend and
veteran politician seated at his elbow; to hear him recal the time of
Wilkes and Liberty, the conversation mellowing like the wine with the
smack of age; assenting to all the old man said, bringing out his
pleasant _traits_, and pampering him into childish self-importance, and
sending him away thirty years younger than he came!

As a public or at least as a parliamentary speaker, Mr. Tooke did not
answer the expectations that had been conceived of him, or probably that
he had conceived of himself. It is natural for men who have felt a
superiority over all those whom they happen to have encountered, to
fancy that this superiority will continue, and that it will extend from
individuals to public bodies. There is no rule in the case; or rather,
the probability lies the contrary way. That which constitutes the
excellence of conversation is of little use in addressing large
assemblies of people; while other qualities are required that are hardly
to be looked for in one and the same capacity. The way to move great
masses of men is to show that you yourself are moved. In a private
circle, a ready repartee, a shrewd cross-question, ridicule and banter,
a caustic remark or an amusing anecdote, whatever sets off the
individual to advantage, or gratifies the curiosity or piques the
self-love of the hearers, keeps attention alive, and secures the triumph
of the speaker—it is a personal contest, and depends on personal and
momentary advantages. But in appealing to the public, no one triumphs
but in the triumph of some public cause, or by showing a sympathy with
the general and predominant feelings of mankind. In a private room, a
satirist, a sophist may provoke admiration by expressing his contempt
for each of his adversaries in turn, and by setting their opinion at
defiance—but when men are congregated together on a great public
question and for a weighty object, they must be treated with more
respect; they are touched with what affects themselves or the general
weal, not with what flatters the vanity of the speaker; they must be
moved altogether, if they are moved at all; they are impressed with
gratitude for a luminous exposition of their claims or for zeal in their
cause; and the lightning of generous indignation at bad men and bad
measures is followed by thunders of applause—even in the House of
Commons. But a man may sneer and cavil and puzzle and fly-blow every
question that comes before him—be despised and feared by others, and
admired by no one but himself. He who thinks first of himself, either in
the world or in a popular assembly, will be sure to turn attention away
from his claims, instead of fixing it there. He must make common cause
with his hearers. To lead, he must follow the general bias. Mr. Tooke
did not therefore succeed as a speaker in parliament. He stood aloof, he
played antics, he exhibited his peculiar talent—while he was on his
legs, the question before the House stood still; the only point at issue
respected Mr. Tooke himself, his personal address and adroitness of
intellect. Were there to be no more places and pensions, because Mr.
Tooke’s style was terse and epigrammatic? Were the Opposition benches to
be inflamed to an unusual pitch of ‘sacred vehemence,’ because he gave
them plainly to understand there was not a pin to choose between
Ministers and Opposition? Would the House let him remain among them,
because, if they turned him out on account of his _black coat_, Lord
Camelford had threatened to send his _black servant_ in his place? This
was a good joke, but not a practical one. Would he gain the affections
of the people out of doors, by scouting the question of reform? Would
the King ever relish the old associate of Wilkes? What interest, then,
what party did he represent? He represented nobody but himself. He was
an example of an ingenious man, a clever talker, but he was out of his
place in the House of Commons; where people did not come (as in his own
house) to admire or break a lance with him, but to get through the
business of the day, and so adjourn! He wanted effect and _momentum_.
Each of his sentences told very well in itself, but they did not
altogether make a speech. He left off where he began. His eloquence was
a succession of drops, not a stream. His arguments, though subtle and
new, did not affect the main body of the question. The coldness and
pettiness of his manner did not warm the hearts or expand the
understandings of his hearers. Instead of encouraging, he checked the
ardour of his friends; and teazed, instead of overpowering his
antagonists. The only palpable hit he ever made, while he remained
there, was the comparing his own situation in being rejected by the
House, on account of the supposed purity of his clerical character, to
the story of the girl at the Magdalen, who was told ‘she must turn out
and qualify.’[41] This met with laughter and loud applause. It was a
_home_ thrust, and the House (to do them justice) are obliged to any one
who, by a smart blow, relieves them of the load of grave responsibility,
which sits heavy on their shoulders.—At the hustings, or as an
election-candidate, Mr. Tooke did better. There was no great question to
move or carry—it was an affair of political _sparring_ between himself
and the other candidates. He took it in a very cool and leisurely
manner—watched his competitors with a wary, sarcastic eye; picked up the
mistakes or absurdities that fell from them, and retorted them on their
heads; told a story to the mob; and smiled and took snuff with a
gentlemanly and becoming air, as if he was already seated in the House.
But a Court of Law was the place where Mr. Tooke made the best figure in
public. He might assuredly be said to be ‘native and endued unto that
element.’ He had here to stand merely on the defensive—not to advance
himself, but to block up the way—not to impress others, but to be
himself impenetrable. All he wanted was _negative success_; and to this
no one was better qualified to aspire. Cross purposes, _moot-points_,
pleas, demurrers, flaws in the indictment, double meanings, cases,
inconsequentialities, these were the playthings, the darlings of Mr.
Tooke’s mind; and with these he baffled the Judge, dumb-founded the
Counsel, and outwitted the Jury. The report of his trial before Lord
Kenyon is a masterpiece of acuteness, dexterity, modest assurance, and
legal effect. It is much like his examination before the Commissioners
of the Income-Tax—nothing could be got out of him in either case!

Mr. Tooke, as a political leader, belonged to the class of _trimmers_;
or at most, it was his delight to make mischief and spoil sport. He
would rather be _against_ himself than _for_ any body else. He was
neither a bold nor a safe leader. He enticed others into scrapes, and
kept out of them himself. Provided he could say a clever or a spiteful
thing, he did not care whether it served or injured the cause. Spleen or
the exercise of intellectual power was the motive of his patriotism,
rather than principle. He would talk treason with a saving clause; and
instil sedition into the public mind, through the medium of a third (who
was to be the responsible) party. He made Sir Francis Burdett his
spokesman in the House and to the country, often venting his chagrin or
singularity of sentiment at the expense of his friend; but what in the
first was trick or reckless vanity, was in the last plain downright
English honesty and singleness of heart. In the case of the State
Trials, in 1794, Mr. Tooke rather compromised his friends to screen
himself. He kept repeating that ‘others might have gone on to Windsor,
but he had stopped at Hounslow,’ as if to go farther might have been
dangerous and unwarrantable. It was not the question how far he or
others had actually gone, but how far they had a right to go, according
to the law. His conduct was not the limit of the law, nor did
treasonable excess begin where prudence or principle taught him to stop
short, though this was the oblique inference liable to be drawn from his
line of defence. Mr. Tooke was uneasy and apprehensive for the issue of
the Government-prosecution while in confinement, and said, in speaking
of it to a friend, with a morbid feeling and an emphasis quite unusual
with him—‘They want our blood—blood—blood!’ It was somewhat ridiculous
to implicate Mr. Tooke in a charge of High Treason (and indeed the whole
charge was built on the mistaken purport of an intercepted letter
relating to an engagement for a private dinner-party)—his politics were
not at all revolutionary. In this respect he was a mere pettifogger,
full of chicane, and captious objections, and unmeaning discontent; but
he had none of the grand whirling movements of the French Revolution,
nor of the tumultuous glow of rebellion in his head or in his heart. His
politics were cast in a different mould, or confined to the party
distinctions and court intrigues and pittances of popular right, that
made a noise in the time of Junius and Wilkes—and even if his
understanding had gone along with more modern and unqualified
principles, his cautious temper would have prevented his risking them in
practice. Horne Tooke (though not of the same side in politics) had much
of the tone of mind and more of the spirit of moral feeling of the
celebrated philosopher of Malmesbury. The narrow scale and fine-drawn
distinctions of his political creed made his conversation on such
subjects infinitely amusing, particularly when contrasted with that of
persons who dealt in the sounding _common-places_ and sweeping clauses
of abstract politics. He knew all the cabals and jealousies and
heart-burnings in the beginning of the late reign, the changes of
administration and the springs of secret influence, the characters of
the leading men, Wilkes, Barre, Dunning, Chatham, Burke, the Marquis of
Rockingham, North, Shelburne, Fox, Pitt, and all the vacillating events
of the American war:—these formed a curious back-ground to the more
prominent figures that occupied the present time, and Mr. Tooke worked
out the minute details and touched in the evanescent _traits_ with the
pencil of a master. His conversation resembled a political _camera
obscura_—as quaint as it was magical. To some pompous pretenders he
might seem to narrate _fabellas aniles_ (old wives’ fables)—but not to
those who study human nature, and wish to know the materials of which it
is composed. Mr. Tooke’s faculties might appear to have ripened and
acquired a finer flavour with age. In a former period of his life he was
hardly the man he was latterly; or else he had greater abilities to
contend against. He no where makes so poor a figure as in his
controversy with Junius. He has evidently the best of the argument, yet
he makes nothing out of it. He tells a long story about himself, without
wit or point in it; and whines and whimpers like a school-boy under the
rod of his master. Junius, after bringing a hasty charge against him,
has not a single fact to adduce in support of it; but keeps his ground
and fairly beats his adversary out of the field by the mere force of
style. One would think that ‘Parson Horne’ knew who Junius was, and was
afraid of him. ‘Under him his genius is’ quite ‘rebuked.’ With the best
cause to defend, he comes off more shabbily from the contest than any
other person in the LETTERS, except Sir William Draper, who is the very
hero of defeat.

The great thing which Mr. Horne Tooke has done, and which he has left
behind him to posterity, is his work on Grammar, oddly enough entitled
THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. Many people have taken it up as a description
of a game—others supposing it to be a novel. It is, in truth, one of the
few philosophical works on Grammar that were ever written. The essence
of it (and, indeed, almost all that is really valuable in it) is
contained in his _Letter to Dunning_, published about the year 1775. Mr.
Tooke’s work is truly elementary. Dr. Lowth described Mr. Harris’s
_Hermes_ as ‘the finest specimen of analysis since the days of
Aristotle’—a work in which there is no analysis at all, for analysis
consists in reducing things to their principles, and not in endless
details and subdivisions. Mr. Harris multiplies distinctions, and
confounds his readers. Mr. Tooke clears away the rubbish of school-boy
technicalities, and strikes at the root of his subject. In accomplishing
his arduous task, he was, perhaps, aided not more by the strength and
resources of his mind than by its limits and defects. There is a web of
old associations wound round language, that is a kind of veil over its
natural features; and custom puts on the mask of ignorance. But this
veil, this mask the author of _The Diversions of Purley_ threw aside and
penetrated to the naked truth of things, by the literal, matter-of-fact,
unimaginative nature of his understanding, and because he was not
subject to prejudices or illusions of any kind. Words may be said to
‘bear a charmed life, that must not yield to one of woman born’—with
womanish weaknesses and confused apprehensions. But this charm was
broken in the case of Mr. Tooke, whose mind was the reverse of
effeminate—hard, unbending, concrete, physical, half-savage—and who saw
language stripped of the clothing of habit or sentiment, or the
disguises of doting pedantry, naked in its cradle, and in its primitive
state. Our author tells us that he found his discovery on Grammar among
a number of papers on other subjects, which he had thrown aside and
forgotten. Is this an idle boast? Or had he made other discoveries of
equal importance, which he did not think it worth his while to
communicate to the world, but chose to die the churl of knowledge? The
whole of his reasoning turns upon showing that the Conjunction _That_ is
the pronoun _That_, which is itself the participle of a verb, and in
like manner that all the other mystical and hitherto unintelligible
parts of speech are derived from the only two intelligible ones, the
Verb and Noun. ‘I affirm _that_ gold is yellow,’ that is, ‘I affirm
_that_ fact, or that proposition, viz. gold is yellow.’ The secret of
the Conjunction on which so many fine heads had split, on which so many
learned definitions were thrown away, as if it was its peculiar province
and inborn virtue to announce oracles and formal propositions, and
nothing else, like a Doctor of Laws, is here at once accounted for,
inasmuch as it is clearly nothing but another part of speech, the
pronoun, _that_, with a third part of speech, the noun, _thing_,
understood. This is getting at a solution of words into their component
parts, not glossing over one difficulty by bringing another to parallel
it, nor like saying with Mr. Harris, when it is asked, ‘what a
Conjunction is?’ that there are conjunctions copulative, conjunctions
disjunctive, and as many other frivolous varieties of the species as any
one chooses to hunt out ‘with laborious foolery.’ Our author hit upon
his parent-discovery in the course of a lawsuit, while he was examining,
with jealous watchfulness, the meaning of words to prevent being
entrapped by them; or rather, this circumstance might itself be traced
to the habit of satisfying his own mind as to the precise sense in which
he himself made use of words. Mr. Tooke, though he had no objection to
puzzle others, was mightily averse to being puzzled or _mystified_
himself. All was, to his determined mind, either complete light or
complete darkness. There was no hazy, doubtful _chiaro-scuro_ in his
understanding. He wanted something ‘palpable to feeling as to sight.’
‘What,’ he would say to himself, ‘do I mean when I use the conjunction
_that_? Is it an anomaly, a class by itself, a word sealed against all
inquisitive attempts? Is it enough to call it a _copula_, a bridge, a
link, a word connecting sentences? That is undoubtedly its use, but what
is its origin?’ Mr. Tooke thought he had answered this question
satisfactorily, and loosened the Gordian knot of grammarians, ‘familiar
as his garter,’ when he said, ‘It is the common pronoun, adjective, or
participle, _that_, with the noun, _thing or proposition_, implied, and
the particular example following it.’ So he thought, and so every reader
has thought since, with the exception of teachers and writers upon
Grammar. Mr. Windham, indeed, who was a sophist, but not a logician,
charged him with having found ‘a mare’s-nest’; but it is not to be
doubted that Mr. Tooke’s etymologies will stand the test, and last
longer than Mr. Windham’s ingenious derivation of the practice of
bull-baiting from the principles of humanity!

Having thus laid the corner-stone, he proceeded to apply the same method
of reasoning to other undecyphered and impracticable terms. Thus the
word, _And_, he explained clearly enough to be the verb _add_, or a
corruption of the old Saxon, _anandad_. ‘Two _and_ two make four,’ that
is, ‘two _add_ two make four.’ Mr. Tooke, in fact, treated words as the
chemists do substances; he separated those which are compounded of
others from those which are not decompoundable. He did not explain the
obscure by the more obscure, but the difficult by the plain, the complex
by the simple. This alone is proceeding upon the true principles of
science: the rest is pedantry and _petit-maîtreship_. Our philosophical
writer distinguished all words into _names of things_, and directions
added for joining them together, or originally into _nouns_ and _verbs_.
It is a pity that he has left this matter short, by omitting to define
the Verb. After enumerating sixteen different definitions (all of which
he dismisses with scorn and contumely) at the end of two quarto volumes,
he refers the reader for the true solution to a third volume, which he
did not live to finish. This extraordinary man was in the habit of
tantalizing his guests on a Sunday afternoon with sundry abstruse
speculations, and putting them off to the following week for a
satisfaction of their doubts; but why should he treat posterity in the
same scurvy manner, or leave the world without quitting scores with it?
I question whether Mr. Tooke was himself in possession of his pretended
_nostrum_, and whether, after trying hard at a definition of the verb as
a distinct part of speech, as a terrier-dog mumbles a hedge-hog, he did
not find it too much for him, and leave it to its fate. It is also a
pity that Mr. Tooke spun out his great work with prolix and dogmatical
dissertations on irrelevant matters; and after denying the old
metaphysical theories of language, should attempt to found a
metaphysical theory of his own on the nature and mechanism of language.
The nature of words, he contended (it was the basis of his whole system)
had no connection with the nature of things or the objects of thought;
yet he afterwards strove to limit the nature of things and of the human
mind by the technical structure of language. Thus he endeavours to show
that there are no abstract ideas, by enumerating two thousand instances
of words, expressing abstract ideas, that are the past participles of
certain verbs. It is difficult to know what he means by this. On the
other hand, he maintains that ‘a complex idea is as great an absurdity
as a complex star,’ and that words only are complex. He also makes out a
triumphant list of metaphysical and moral non-entities, proved to be so
on the pure principle that the names of these non-entities are
participles, not nouns, or names of things. That is strange in so close
a reasoner, and in one who maintained that all language was a masquerade
of words, and that the class to which they grammatically belonged had
nothing to do with the class of ideas they represented.

It is now above twenty years since the two quarto volumes of the
_Diversions of Purley_ were published, and fifty since the same theory
was promulgated in the celebrated _Letter to Dunning_. Yet it is a
curious example of the _Spirit of the Age_ that Mr. Lindley Murray’s
Grammar (a work out of which Mr. C*** helps himself to English, and Mr.
M*** to style[42]) has proceeded to the thirtieth edition in complete
defiance of all the facts and arguments there laid down. He defines a
noun to be the name of a thing. Is quackery a thing, _i.e._ a substance?
He defines a verb to be a word signifying _to be, to do, or to suffer_.
Are being, action, suffering, verbs? He defines an adjective to be the
name of a quality. Are not _wooden_, _golden_, _substantial_ adjectives?
He maintains that there are six cases in English nouns, that is, six
various terminations without any change of termination at all,[43] and
that English verbs have all the moods, tenses, and persons that the
Latin ones have. This is an extraordinary stretch of blindness and
obstinacy. He very formally translates the Latin Grammar into English,
(as so many had done before him) and fancies he has written an English
Grammar; and divines applaud, and schoolmasters usher him into the
polite world, and English scholars carry on the jest, while Horne
Tooke’s genuine anatomy of our native tongue is laid on the shelf. Can
it be that our politicians smell a rat in the Member for Old Sarum? That
our clergy do not relish Parson Horne? That the world at large are
alarmed at acuteness and originality greater than their own? What has
all this to do with the formation of the English language or with the
first conditions and necessary foundation of speech itself? Is there
nothing beyond the reach of prejudice and party-spirit? It seems in
this, as in so many other instances, as if there was a patent for
absurdity in the natural bias of the human mind, and that folly should
be _stereotyped_!




                            SIR WALTER SCOTT


Sir Walter Scott is undoubtedly the most popular writer of the age—the
‘lord of the ascendant’ for the time being. He is just half what the
human intellect is capable of being: if you take the universe, and
divide it into two parts, he knows all that it _has been_; all that it
_is to be_ is nothing to him. His is a mind brooding over
antiquity—scorning ‘the present ignorant time.’ He is ‘laudator temporis
acti’—a ‘_prophesier_ of things past.’ The old world is to him a crowded
map; the new one a dull, hateful blank. He dotes on all
well-authenticated superstitions; he shudders at the shadow of
innovation. His retentiveness of memory, his accumulated weight of
interested prejudice or romantic association have overlaid his other
faculties. The cells of his memory are vast, various, full even to
bursting with life and motion; his speculative understanding is empty,
flaccid, poor, and dead. His mind receives and treasures up every thing
brought to it by tradition or custom—it does not project itself beyond
this into the world unknown, but mechanically shrinks back as from the
edge of a precipice. The land of pure reason is to his apprehension like
_Van Dieman’s Land_;—barren, miserable, distant, a place of exile, the
dreary abode of savages, convicts, and adventurers. Sir Walter would
make a bad hand of a description of the _Millennium_, unless he could
lay the scene in Scotland five hundred years ago, and then he would want
facts and worm-eaten parchments to support his drooping style. Our
historical novelist firmly thinks that nothing _is_ but what _has
been_—that the moral world stands still, as the material one was
supposed to do of old—and that we can never get beyond the point where
we actually are without utter destruction, though every thing changes
and will change from what it was three hundred years ago to what it is
now,—from what it is now to all that the bigoted admirer of the good old
times most dreads and hates!

It is long since we read, and long since we thought of our author’s
poetry. It would probably have gone out of date with the immediate
occasion, even if he himself had not contrived to banish it from our
recollection. It is not to be denied that it had great merit, both of an
obvious and intrinsic kind. It abounded in vivid descriptions, in
spirited action, in smooth and flowing versification. But it wanted
_character_. It was ‘poetry of no mark or likelihood.’ It slid out of
the mind as soon as read, like a river; and would have been forgotten,
but that the public curiosity was fed with ever new supplies from the
same teeming liquid source. It is not every man that can write six
quarto volumes in verse, that are caught up with avidity, even by
fastidious judges. But what a difference between _their_ popularity and
that of the Scotch Novels! It is true, the public read and admired the
_Lay of the last Minstrel_, _Marmion_, and so on, and each individual
was contented to read and admire because the public did so: but with
regard to the prose-works of the same (supposed) author, it is quite
_another-guess_ sort of thing. Here every one stands forward to applaud
on his own ground, would be thought to go before the public opinion, is
eager to extol his favourite characters louder, to understand them
better than every body else, and has his own scale of comparative
excellence for each work, supported by nothing but his own enthusiastic
and fearless convictions. It must be amusing to the _Author of Waverley_
to hear his readers and admirers (and are not these the same thing?[44])
quarrelling which of his novels is the best, opposing character to
character, quoting passage against passage, striving to surpass each
other in the extravagance of their encomiums, and yet unable to settle
the precedence, or to do the author’s writings justice—so various, so
equal, so transcendant are their merits! His volumes of poetry were
received as fashionable and well-dressed acquaintances: we are ready to
tear the others in pieces as old friends. There was something
meretricious in Sir Walter’s ballad-rhymes; and like those who keep
opera _figurantes_, we were willing to have our admiration shared, and
our taste confirmed by the town: but the Novels are like the betrothed
of our hearts, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and we are
jealous that any one should be as much delighted or as thoroughly
acquainted with their beauties as ourselves. For which of his poetical
heroines would the reader break a lance so soon as for Jeanie Deans?
What _Lady of the Lake_ can compare with the beautiful Rebecca? We
believe the late Mr. John Scott went to his death-bed (though a painful
and premature one) with some degree of satisfaction, inasmuch as he had
penned the most elaborate panegyric on the _Scotch Novels_ that had as
yet appeared!—The _Epics_ are not poems, so much as metrical romances.
There is a glittering veil of verse thrown over the features of nature
and of old romance. The deep incisions into character are ‘skinned and
filmed over’—the details are lost or shaped into flimsy and insipid
decorum; and the truth of feeling and of circumstance is translated into
a tinkling sound, a tinsel _common-place_. It must be owned, there is a
power in true poetry that lifts the mind from the ground of reality to a
higher sphere, that penetrates the inert, scattered, incoherent
materials presented to it, and by a force and inspiration of its own,
melts and moulds them into sublimity and beauty. But Sir Walter (we
contend, under correction) has not this creative impulse, this plastic
power, this capacity of reacting on his first impressions. He is a
learned, a literal, a _matter-of-fact_ expounder of truth or fable:[45]
he does not soar above and look down upon his subject, imparting his own
lofty views and feelings to his descriptions of nature—he relies upon
it, is raised by it, is one with it, or he is nothing. A poet is
essentially a _maker_; that is, he must atone for what he loses in
individuality and local resemblance by the energies and resources of his
own mind. The writer of whom we speak is deficient in these last. He has
either not the faculty or not the will to impregnate his subject by an
effort of pure invention. The execution also is much upon a par with the
more ephemeral effusions of the press. It is light, agreeable,
effeminate, diffuse. Sir Walter’s Muse is a _Modern Antique_. The
smooth, glossy texture of his verse contrasts happily with the quaint,
uncouth, rugged materials of which it is composed; and takes away any
appearance of heaviness or harshness from the body of local traditions
and obsolete costume. We see grim knights and iron armour; but then they
are woven in silk with a careless, delicate hand, and have the softness
of flowers. The poet’s figures might be compared to old tapestries
copied on the finest velvet:—they are not like Raphael’s _Cartoons_, but
they are very like Mr. Westall’s drawings, which accompany, and are
intended to illustrate them. This facility and grace of execution is the
more remarkable, as a story goes that not long before the appearance of
the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ Sir Walter (then Mr.) Scott, having, in
the company of a friend, to cross the Frith of Forth in a ferry-boat,
they proposed to beguile the time by writing a number of verses on a
given subject, and that at the end of an hour’s hard study, they found
they had produced only six lines between them. ‘It is plain,’ said the
unconscious author to his fellow-labourer, ‘that you and I need never
think of getting our living by writing poetry!’ In a year or so after
this, he set to work, and poured out quarto upon quarto, as if they had
been drops of water. As to the rest, and compared with true and great
poets, our Scottish Minstrel is but ‘a metre ballad-monger.’ We would
rather have written one song of Burns, or a single passage in Lord
Byron’s _Heaven and Earth_, or one of Wordsworth’s ‘fancies and
good-nights,’ than all his epics. What is he to Spenser, over whose
immortal, ever-amiable verse beauty hovers and trembles, and who has
shed the purple light of Fancy, from his ambrosial wings, over all
nature? What is there of the might of Milton, whose head is canopied in
the blue serene, and who takes us to sit with him there? What is there
(in his ambling rhymes) of the deep pathos of Chaucer? Or of the
o’er-informing power of Shakespear, whose eye, watching alike the
minutest traces of characters and the strongest movements of passion,
‘glances from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,’ and with the
lambent flame of genius, playing round each object, lights up the
universe in a robe of its own radiance? Sir Walter has no voluntary
power of combination: all his associations (as we said before) are those
of habit or of tradition. He is a mere narrative and descriptive poet,
garrulous of the old time. The definition of his poetry is a pleasing
superficiality.

Not so of his NOVELS AND ROMANCES. There we turn over a new
leaf—another and the same—the same in matter, but in form, in power
how different! The author of Waverley has got rid of the tagging of
rhymes, the eking out of syllables, the supplying of epithets, the
colours of style, the grouping of his characters, and the regular
march of events, and comes to the point at once, and strikes at the
heart of his subject, without dismay and without disguise. His
poetry was a lady’s waiting-maid, dressed out in cast-off finery:
his prose is a beautiful, rustic nymph, that, like Dorothea in Don
Quixote, when she is surprised with dishevelled tresses bathing her
naked feet in the brook, looks round her, abashed at the admiration
her charms have excited! The grand secret of the author’s success in
these latter productions is that he has completely got rid of the
trammels of authorship; and torn off at one rent (as Lord Peter got
rid of so many yards of lace in the _Tale of a Tub_) all the
ornaments of fine writing and worn-out sentimentality. All is fresh,
as from the hand of nature: by going a century or two back and
laying the scene in a remote and uncultivated district, all becomes
new and startling in the present advanced period.—Highland manners,
characters, scenery, superstitions, Northern dialect and costume,
the wars, the religion, and politics of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, give a charming and wholesome relief to the
fastidious refinement and ‘over-laboured lassitude’ of modern
readers, like the effect of plunging a nervous valetudinarian into a
cold-bath. The _Scotch Novels_, for this reason, are not so much
admired in Scotland as in England. The contrast, the transition is
less striking. From the top of the Calton Hill, the inhabitants of
‘Auld Reekie’ can descry, or fancy they descry the peaks of Ben
Lomond and the waving outline of Rob Roy’s country: we who live at
the southern extremity of the island can only catch a glimpse of the
billowy scene in the descriptions of the Author of Waverley. The
mountain air is most bracing to our languid nerves, and it is
brought us in ship-loads from the neighbourhood of Abbot’s Ford.
There is another circumstance to be taken into the account. In
Edinburgh there is a little opposition and something of the spirit
of cabal between the partisans of works proceeding from Mr.
Constable’s and Mr. Blackwood’s shops. Mr. Constable gives the
highest prices; but being the Whig bookseller, it is grudged that he
should do so. An attempt is therefore made to transfer a certain
share of popularity to the second-rate Scotch novels, ‘the embryo
fry, the little airy of _ricketty_ children,’ issuing through Mr.
Blackwood’s shop-door. This operates a diversion, which does not
affect us here. The Author of Waverley wears the palm of legendary
lore alone. Sir Walter may, indeed, surfeit us: his imitators make
us sick! It may be asked, it has been asked, ‘Have we no materials
for romance in England? Must we look to Scotland for a supply of
whatever is original and striking in this kind?’ And we
answer—‘Yes!’ Every foot of soil is with us worked up: nearly every
movement of the social machine is calculable. We have no room left
for violent catastrophes; for grotesque quaintnesses; for wizard
spells. The last skirts of ignorance and barbarism are seen hovering
(in Sir Walter’s pages) over the Border. We have, it is true,
gipsies in this country as well as at the Cairn of Derncleugh: but
they live under clipped hedges, and repose in camp-beds, and do not
perch on crags, like eagles, or take shelter, like sea-mews, in
basaltic subterranean caverns. We have heaths with rude heaps of
stones upon them: but no existing superstition converts them into
the Geese of Micklestane-Moor, or sees a Black Dwarf groping among
them. We have sects in religion: but the only thing sublime or
ridiculous in that way is Mr. Irving, the Caledonian preacher, who
‘comes like a satyr staring from the woods, and yet speaks like an
orator!’ We had a Parson Adams not quite a hundred years ago—a Sir
Roger de Coverley rather more than a hundred! Even Sir Walter is
ordinarily obliged to pitch his angle (strong as the hook is) a
hundred miles to the North of the ‘Modern Athens’ or a century back.
His last work,[46] indeed, is mystical, is romantic in nothing but
the title-page. Instead of ‘a holy-water sprinkle dipped in dew,’ he
has given us a fashionable watering-place—and we see what he has
made of it. He must not come down from his fastnesses in traditional
barbarism and native rusticity; the level, the littleness, the
frippery of modern civilization will undo him as it has undone us!

Sir Walter has found out (oh, rare discovery) that facts are better than
fiction; that there is no romance like the romance of real life; and
that if we can but arrive at what men feel, do, and say in striking and
singular situations, the result will be ‘more lively, audible, and full
of vent,’ than the fine-spun cobwebs of the brain. With reverence be it
spoken, he is like the man who having to imitate the squeaking of a pig
upon the stage, brought the animal under his coat with him. Our author
has conjured up the actual people he has to deal with, or as much as he
could get of them, in ‘their habits as they lived.’ He has ransacked old
chronicles, and poured the contents upon his page; he has squeezed out
musty records; he has consulted wayfaring pilgrims, bed-rid sibyls; he
has invoked the spirits of the air; he has conversed with the living and
the dead, and let them tell their story their own way; and by borrowing
of others, has enriched his own genius with everlasting variety, truth,
and freedom. He has taken his materials from the original, authentic
sources, in large concrete masses, and not tampered with or too much
frittered them away. He is only the amanuensis of truth and history. It
is impossible to say how fine his writings in consequence are, unless we
could describe how fine nature is. All that portion of the history of
his country that he has touched upon (wide as the scope is) the manners,
the personages, the events, the scenery, lives over again in his
volumes. Nothing is wanting—the illusion is complete. There is a
hurtling in the air, a trampling of feet upon the ground, as these
perfect representations of human character or fanciful belief come
thronging back upon our imaginations. We will merely recall a few of the
subjects of his pencil to the reader’s recollection; for nothing we
could add, by way of note or commendation, could make the impression
more vivid.

There is (first and foremost, because the earliest of our acquaintance)
the Baron of Bradwardine, stately, kind-hearted, whimsical, pedantic;
and Flora MacIvor (whom even _we_ forgive for her Jacobitism), the
fierce Vich Ian Vohr, and Evan Dhu, constant in death, and Davie
Gellatly roasting his eggs or turning his rhymes with restless
volubility, and the two stag-hounds that met Waverley, as fine as ever
Titian painted, or Paul Veronese:—then there is old Balfour of Burley,
brandishing his sword and his Bible with fire-eyed fury, trying a fall
with the insolent, gigantic Bothwell at the ‘Changehouse, and
vanquishing him at the noble battle of Loudon-hill; there is Bothwell
himself, drawn to the life, proud, cruel, selfish, profligate, but with
the love-letters of the gentle Alice (written thirty years before), and
his verses to her memory, found in his pocket after his death: in the
same volume of _Old Mortality_ is that lone figure, like a figure in
Scripture, of the woman sitting on the stone at the turning to the
mountain, to warn Burley that there is a lion in his path; and the
fawning Claverhouse, beautiful as a panther, smooth-looking,
blood-spotted; and the fanatics, Macbriar and Mucklewrath, crazed with
zeal and sufferings; and the inflexible Morton, and the faithful Edith,
who refused to ‘give her hand to another while her heart was with her
lover in the deep and dead sea.’ And in _The Heart of Mid Lothian_ we
have Effie Deans (that sweet, faded flower) and Jeanie, her more than
sister, and old David Deans, the patriarch of St. Leonard’s Crags, and
Butler, and Dumbiedikes, eloquent in his silence, and Mr. Bartoline
Saddle-tree and his prudent helpmate, and Porteous swinging in the wind,
and Madge Wildfire, full of finery and madness, and her ghastly
mother.—Again, there is Meg Merrilies, standing on her rock, stretched
on her bier with ‘her head to the east,’ and Dirk Hatterick (equal to
Shakespear’s Master Barnardine), and Glossin, the soul of an attorney,
and Dandy Dinmont, with his terrier-pack and his pony Dumple, and the
fiery Colonel Mannering, and the modish old counsellor Pleydell, and
Dominie Sampson,[47] and Rob Roy (like the eagle in his eyry), and
Baillie Nicol Jarvie, and the inimitable Major Galbraith, and Rashleigh
Osbaldistone, and Die Vernon, the best of secret-keepers; and in the
_Antiquary_, the ingenious and abstruse Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, and the
old beadsman Edie Ochiltree, and that preternatural figure of old Edith
Elspeith, a living shadow, in whom the lamp of life had been long
extinguished, had it not been fed by remorse and ‘thick-coming’
recollections; and that striking picture of the effects of feudal
tyranny and fiendish pride, the unhappy Earl of Glenallan; and the Black
Dwarf, and his friend Habby of the Heughfoot (the cheerful hunter), and
his cousin Grace Armstrong, fresh and laughing like the morning; and the
_Children of the Mist_, and the baying of the blood-hound that tracks
their steps at a distance (the hollow echoes are in our ears now), and
Amy and her hapless love, and the villain Varney, and the deep voice of
George of Douglas—and the immoveable Balafre, and Master Oliver the
Barber in Quentin Durward—and the quaint humour of the Fortunes of
Nigel, and the comic spirit of Peveril of the Peak—and the fine old
English romance of Ivanhoe. What a list of names! What a host of
associations! What a thing is human life! What a power is that of
genius! What a world of thought and feeling is thus rescued from
oblivion! How many hours of heartfelt satisfaction has our author given
to the gay and thoughtless! How many sad hearts has he soothed in pain
and solitude! It is no wonder that the public repay with lengthened
applause and gratitude the pleasure they receive. He writes as fast as
they can read, and he does not write himself down. He is always in the
public eye, and we do not tire of him. His worst is better than any
other person’s best. His _back-grounds_ (and his later works are little
else but back-grounds capitally made out) are more attractive than the
principal figures and most complicated actions of other writers. His
works (taken together) are almost like a new edition of human nature.
This is indeed to be an author!

The political bearing of the _Scotch Novels_ has been a considerable
recommendation to them. They are a relief to the mind, rarefied as it
has been with modern philosophy, and heated with ultra-radicalism. At a
time also, when we bid fair to revive the principles of the Stuarts, it
is interesting to bring us acquainted with their persons and
misfortunes. The candour of Sir Walter’s historic pen levels our
bristling prejudices on this score, and sees fair play between
Roundheads and Cavaliers, between Protestant and Papist. He is a writer
reconciling all the diversities of human nature to the reader. He does
not enter into the distinctions of hostile sects or parties, but treats
of the strength or the infirmity of the human mind, of the virtues or
vices of the human breast, as they are to be found blended in the whole
race of mankind. Nothing can show more handsomely or be more gallantly
executed. There was a talk at one time that our author was about to take
Guy Faux for the subject of one of his novels, in order to put a more
liberal and humane construction on the Gunpowder Plot than our ‘No
Popery’ prejudices have hitherto permitted. Sir Walter is a professed
_clarifier_ of the age from the vulgar and still lurking old-English
antipathy to Popery and Slavery. Through some odd process of _servile_
logic, it should seem, that in restoring the claims of the Stuarts by
the courtesy of romance, the House of Brunswick are more firmly seated
in point of fact, and the Bourbons, by collateral reasoning, become
legitimate! In any other point of view, we cannot possibly conceive how
Sir Walter imagines ‘he has done something to revive the declining
spirit of loyalty’ by these novels. His loyalty is founded on _would-be_
treason: he props the actual throne by the shadow of rebellion. Does he
really think of making us enamoured of the ‘good old times’ by the
faithful and harrowing portraits he has drawn of them? Would he carry us
back to the early stages of barbarism, of clanship, of the feudal system
as ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished?’ Is he infatuated enough, or
does he so dote and drivel over his own slothful and self-willed
prejudices, as to believe that he will make a single convert to the
beauty of Legitimacy, that is, of lawless power and savage bigotry, when
he himself is obliged to apologise for the horrors he describes, and
even render his descriptions credible to the modern reader by referring
to the authentic history of these delectable times?[48] He is indeed so
besotted as to the moral of his own story, that he has even the
blindness to go out of his way to have a fling at _flints_ and _dungs_
(the contemptible ingredients, as he would have us believe, of a modern
rabble) at the very time when he is describing a mob of the twelfth
century—a mob (one should think) after the writer’s own heart, without
one particle of modern philosophy or revolutionary politics in their
composition, who were to a man, to a hair, just what priests, and kings,
and nobles _let_ them be, and who were collected to witness (a spectacle
proper to the times) the burning of the lovely Rebecca at a stake for a
sorceress, because she was a Jewess, beautiful and innocent, and the
consequent victim of insane bigotry and unbridled profligacy. And it is
at this moment (when the heart is kindled and bursting with indignation
at the revolting abuses of self-constituted power) that Sir Walter
_stops the press_ to have a sneer at the people, and to put a spoke (as
he thinks) in the wheel of upstart innovation! This is what he ‘calls
backing his friends’—it is thus he administers charms and philtres to
our love of Legitimacy, makes us conceive a horror of all reform, civil,
political, or religious, and would fain put down the _Spirit of the
Age_. The author of Waverley might just as well get up and make a speech
at a dinner at Edinburgh, abusing Mr. Mac-Adam for his improvements in
the roads, on the ground that they were nearly _impassable_ in many
places ‘sixty years since’; or object to Mr. Peel’s _Police-Bill_, by
insisting that Hounslow-Heath was formerly a scene of greater interest
and terror to highwaymen and travellers, and cut a greater figure in the
Newgate Calendar than it does at present.—Oh! Wickliff, Luther, Hampden,
Sidney, Somers, mistaken Whigs, and thoughtless Reformers in religion
and politics, and all ye, whether poets or philosophers, heroes or
sages, inventors of arts or sciences, patriots, benefactors of the human
race, enlighteners and civilisers of the world, who have (so far)
reduced opinion to reason, and power to law, who are the cause that we
no longer burn witches and heretics at slow fires, that the thumb-screws
are no longer applied by ghastly, smiling judges, to extort confession
of imputed crimes from sufferers for conscience sake; that men are no
longer strung up like acorns on trees without judge or jury, or hunted
like wild beasts through thickets and glens, who have abated the cruelty
of priests, the pride of nobles, the divinity of kings in former times;
to whom we owe it, that we no longer wear round our necks the collar of
Gurth the swineherd, and of Wamba the jester; that the castles of great
lords are no longer the dens of banditti, from whence they issue with
fire and sword, to lay waste the land; that we no longer expire in
loathsome dungeons without knowing the cause, or have our right hands
struck off for raising them in self-defence against wanton insult; that
we can sleep without fear of being burnt in our beds, or travel without
making our wills; that no Amy Robsarts are thrown down trap-doors by
Richard Varneys with impunity; that no Red Reiver of Westburn-Flat sets
fire to peaceful cottages; that no Claverhouse signs cold-blooded
death-warrants in sport; that we have no Tristan the Hermit, or
Petit-André, crawling near us, like spiders, and making our flesh creep,
and our hearts sicken within us at every moment of our lives—ye who have
produced this change in the face of nature and society, return to earth
once more, and beg pardon of Sir Walter and his patrons, who sigh at not
being able to undo all that you have done! Leaving this question, there
are two other remarks which we wished to make on the Novels. The one
was, to express our admiration of the good-nature of the mottos, in
which the author has taken occasion to remember and quote almost every
living author (whether illustrious or obscure) but himself—an indirect
argument in favour of the general opinion as to the source from which
they spring—and the other was, to hint our astonishment at the
innumerable and incessant instances of bad and slovenly English in them,
more, we believe, than in any other works now printed. We should think
the writer could not possibly read the manuscript after he has once
written it, or overlook the press.

If there were a writer, who ‘born for the universe’—

                               ‘——Narrow’d his mind,
           And to party gave up what was meant for mankind—’

who, from the height of his genius looking abroad into nature, and
scanning the recesses of the human heart, ‘winked and shut his
apprehension up’ to every thought or purpose that tended to the future
good of mankind—who, raised by affluence, the reward of successful
industry, and by the voice of fame above the want of any but the most
honourable patronage, stooped to the unworthy arts of adulation, and
abetted the views of the great with the pettifogging feelings of the
meanest dependant on office—who, having secured the admiration of the
public (with the probable reversion of immortality), showed no respect
for himself, for that genius that had raised him to distinction, for
that nature which he trampled under foot—who, amiable, frank, friendly,
manly in private life, was seized with the dotage of age and the fury of
a woman, the instant politics were concerned—who reserved all his
candour and comprehensiveness of view for history, and vented his
littleness, pique, resentment, bigotry, and intolerance on his
contemporaries—who took the wrong side, and defended it by unfair
means—who, the moment his own interest or the prejudices of others
interfered, seemed to forget all that was due to the pride of intellect,
to the sense of manhood—who, praised, admired by men of all parties
alike, repaid the public liberality by striking a secret and envenomed
blow at the reputation of every one who was not the ready tool of
power—who strewed the slime of rankling malice and mercenary scorn over
the bud and promise of genius, because it was not fostered in the
hot-bed of corruption, or warped by the trammels of servility—who
supported the worst abuses of authority in the worst spirit—who joined a
gang of desperadoes to spread calumny, contempt, infamy, wherever they
were merited by honesty or talent on a different side—who officiously
undertook to decide public questions by private insinuations, to prop
the throne by nicknames, and the altar by lies—who being (by common
consent), the finest, the most humane and accomplished writer of his
age, associated himself with and encouraged the lowest panders of a
venal press; deluging, nauseating the public mind with the offal and
garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar _slang_; showing no remorse, no
relenting or compassion towards the victims of this nefarious and
organized system of party-proscription, carried on under the mask of
literary criticism and fair discussion, insulting the misfortunes of
some, and trampling on the early grave of others—

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

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




                               LORD BYRON


Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott are among writers now living[49] the
two, who would carry away a majority of suffrages as the greatest
geniuses of the age. The former would, perhaps, obtain the preference
with the fine gentlemen and ladies (squeamishness apart)—the latter with
the critics and the vulgar. We shall treat of them in the same
connection, partly on account of their distinguished pre-eminence, and
partly because they afford a complete contrast to each other. In their
poetry, in their prose, in their politics, and in their tempers, no two
men can be more unlike.

If Sir Walter Scott may be thought by some to have been

                 ‘Born universal heir to all humanity,’

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

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

He is like a solitary peak, all access to which is cut off not more by
elevation than distance. He is seated on a lofty eminence, ‘cloud-capt,’
or reflecting the last rays of setting suns; and in his poetical moods,
reminds us of the fabled Titans, retired to a ridgy steep, playing on
their Pan’s-pipes, and taking up ordinary men and things in their hands
with haughty indifference. He raises his subject to himself, or tramples
on it; he neither stoops to, nor loses himself in it. He exists not by
sympathy, but by antipathy. He scorns all things, even himself. Nature
must come to him to sit for her picture—he does not go to her. She must
consult his time, his convenience, and his humour; and wear a _sombre_
or a fantastic garb, or his Lordship turns his back upon her. There is
no ease, no unaffected simplicity of manner, no ‘golden mean.’ All is
strained, or petulant in the extreme. His thoughts are sphered and
crystalline; his style ‘prouder than when blue Iris bends’; his spirit
fiery, impatient, wayward, indefatigable. Instead of taking his
impressions from without, in entire and almost unimpaired masses, he
moulds them according to his own temperament, and heats the materials of
his imagination in the furnace of his passions.—Lord Byron’s verse glows
like a flame, consuming every thing in its way; Sir Walter Scott’s
glides like a river, clear, gentle, harmless. The poetry of the first
scorches, that of the last scarcely warms. The light of the one proceeds
from an internal source, ensanguined, sullen, fixed; the others reflects
the hues of Heaven, or the face of nature, glancing vivid and various.
The productions of the Northern Bard have the rust and the freshness of
antiquity about them; those of the Noble Poet cease to startle from
their extreme ambition of novelty, both in style and matter. Sir
Walter’s rhymes are ‘silly sooth’—

               ‘And dally with the innocence of thought,
               Like the old age’—

his Lordship’s Muse spurns _the olden time_, and affects all the
supercilious airs of a modern fine lady and an upstart. The object of
the one writer is to restore us to truth and nature: the other chiefly
thinks how he shall display his own power, or vent his spleen, or
astonish the reader either by starting new subjects and trains of
speculation, or by expressing old ones in a more striking and emphatic
manner than they have been expressed before. He cares little what it is
he says, so that he can say it differently from others. This may account
for the charges of plagiarism which have been repeatedly brought against
the Noble Poet—if he can borrow an image or sentiment from another, and
heighten it by an epithet or an allusion of greater force and beauty
than is to be found in the original passage, he thinks he shows his
superiority of execution in this in a more marked manner than if the
first suggestion had been his own. It is not the value of the
observation itself he is solicitous about; but he wishes to shine by
contrast—even nature only serves as a foil to set off his style. He
therefore takes the thoughts of others (whether contemporaries or not)
out of their mouths, and is content to make them his own, to set his
stamp upon them, by imparting to them a more meretricious gloss, a
higher relief, a greater loftiness of tone, and a characteristic
inveteracy of purpose. Even in those collateral ornaments of modern
style, slovenliness, abruptness, and eccentricity (as well as in
terseness and significance), Lord Byron, when he pleases, defies
competition and surpasses all his contemporaries. Whatever he does, he
must do in a more decided and daring manner than any one else—he lounges
with extravagance, and yawns so as to alarm the reader! Self-will,
passion, the love of singularity, a disdain of himself and of others
(with a conscious sense that this is among the ways and means of
procuring admiration) are the proper categories of his mind: he is a
lordly writer, is above his own reputation, and condescends to the Muses
with a scornful grace!

Lord Byron, who in his politics is a _liberal_, in his genius is haughty
and aristocratic: Walter Scott, who is an aristocrat in principle, is
popular in his writings, and is (as it were) equally _servile_ to nature
and to opinion. The genius of Sir Walter is essentially imitative, or
‘denotes a foregone conclusion’: that of Lord Byron is self-dependent;
or at least requires no aid, is governed by no law, but the impulses of
its own will. We confess, however much we may admire independence of
feeling and erectness of spirit in general or practical questions, yet
in works of genius we prefer him who bows to the authority of nature,
who appeals to actual objects, to mouldering superstitions, to history,
observation, and tradition, before him who only consults the pragmatical
and restless workings of his own breast, and gives them out as oracles
to the world. We like a writer (whether poet or prose-writer) who takes
in (or is willing to take in) the range of half the universe in feeling,
character, description, much better than we do one who obstinately and
invariably shuts himself up in the Bastile of his own ruling passions.
In short, we had rather be Sir Walter Scott (meaning thereby the Author
of Waverley) than Lord Byron, a hundred times over. And for the reason
just given, namely, that he casts his descriptions in the mould of
nature, ever-varying, never tiresome, always interesting and always
instructive, instead of casting them constantly in the mould of his own
individual impressions. He gives us man as he is, or as he was, in
almost every variety of situation, action, and feeling. Lord Byron makes
man after his own image, woman after his own heart; the one is a
capricious tyrant, the other a yielding slave; he gives us the
misanthrope and the voluptuary by turns; and with these two characters,
burning or melting in their own fires, he makes out everlasting centos
of himself. He hangs the cloud, the film of his existence over all
outward things—sits in the centre of his thoughts, and enjoys dark
night, bright day, the glitter and the gloom ‘in cell monastic’—we see
the mournful pall, the crucifix, the death’s heads, the faded chaplet of
flowers, the gleaming tapers, the agonized brow of genius, the wasted
form of beauty—but we are still imprisoned in a dungeon, a curtain
intercepts our view, we do not breathe freely the air of nature or of
our own thoughts—the other admired author draws aside the curtain, and
the veil of egotism is rent, and he shows us the crowd of living men and
women, the endless groups, the landscape back-ground, the cloud and the
rainbow, and enriches our imaginations and relieves one passion by
another, and expands and lightens reflection, and takes away that
tightness at the breast which arises from thinking or wishing to think
that there is nothing in the world out of a man’s self!—In this point of
view, the Author of Waverley is one of the greatest teachers of morality
that ever lived, by emancipating the mind from petty, narrow, and
bigotted prejudices: Lord Byron is the greatest pamperer of those
prejudices, by seeming to think there is nothing else worth encouraging
but the seeds or the full luxuriant growth of dogmatism and
self-conceit. In reading the _Scotch Novels_, we never think about the
author, except from a feeling of curiosity respecting our unknown
benefactor: in reading Lord Byron’s works, he himself is never absent
from our minds. The colouring of Lord Byron’s style, however rich and
dipped in Tyrian dyes, is nevertheless opaque, is in itself an object of
delight and wonder: Sir Walter Scott’s is perfectly transparent. In
studying the one, you seem to gaze at the figures cut in stained glass,
which exclude the view beyond, and where the pure light of Heaven is
only a means of setting off the gorgeousness of art: in reading the
other, you look through a noble window at the clear and varied landscape
without. Or to sum up the distinction in one word, Sir Walter Scott is
the most _dramatic_ writer now living; and Lord Byron is the least so.
It would be difficult to imagine that the Author of Waverley is in the
smallest degree a pedant; as it would be hard to persuade ourselves that
the author of Childe Harold and Don Juan is not a coxcomb, though a
provoking and sublime one. In this decided preference given to Sir
Walter Scott over Lord Byron, we distinctly include the prose-works of
the former; for we do not think his poetry alone, by any means entitles
him to that precedence. Sir Walter in his poetry, though pleasing and
natural, is a comparative trifler: it is in his anonymous productions
that he has shown himself for what he is!—

_Intensity_ is the great and prominent distinction of Lord Byron’s
writings. He seldom gets beyond force of style, nor has he produced any
regular work or masterly whole. He does not prepare any plan beforehand,
nor revise and retouch what he has written with polished accuracy. His
only object seems to be to stimulate himself and his readers for the
moment—to keep both alive, to drive away _ennui_, to substitute a
feverish and irritable state of excitement for listless indolence or
even calm enjoyment. For this purpose he pitches on any subject at
random without much thought or delicacy—he is only impatient to
begin—and takes care to adorn and enrich it as he proceeds with
‘thoughts that breathe and words that burn.’ He composes (as he himself
has said) whether he is in the bath, in his study, or on horseback—he
writes as habitually as others talk or think—and whether we have the
inspiration of the Muse or not, we always find the spirit of the man of
genius breathing from his verse. He grapples with his subject, and
moves, penetrates, and animates it by the electric force of his own
feelings. He is often monotonous, extravagant, offensive; but he is
never dull, or tedious, but when he writes prose. Lord Byron does not
exhibit a new view of nature, or raise insignificant objects into
importance by the romantic associations with which he surrounds them;
but generally (at least) takes common-place thoughts and events, and
endeavours to express them in stronger and statelier language than
others. His poetry stands like a Martello tower by the side of his
subject. He does not, like Mr. Wordsworth, lift poetry from the ground,
or create a sentiment out of nothing. He does not describe a daisy or a
periwinkle, but the cedar or the cypress: not ‘poor men’s cottages, but
princes’ palaces.’ His _Childe Harold_ contains a lofty and impassioned
review of the great events of history, of the mighty objects left as
wrecks of time, but he dwells chiefly on what is familiar to the mind of
every school-boy; has brought out few new traits of feeling or thought;
and has done no more than justice to the reader’s preconceptions by the
sustained force and brilliancy of his style and imagery.

Lord Byron’s earlier productions, _Lara_, the _Corsair_, &c. were wild
and gloomy romances, put into rapid and shining verse. They discover the
madness of poetry, together with the inspiration: sullen, moody,
capricious, fierce, inexorable, gloating on beauty, thirsting for
revenge, hurrying from the extremes of pleasure to pain, but with
nothing permanent, nothing healthy or natural. The gaudy decorations and
the morbid sentiments remind one of flowers strewed over the face of
death! In his _Childe Harold_ (as has been just observed) he assumes a
lofty and philosophic tone, and ‘reasons high of providence,
fore-knowledge, will, and fate.’ He takes the highest points in the
history of the world, and comments on them from a more commanding
eminence: he shows us the crumbling monuments of time, he invokes the
great names, the mighty spirit of antiquity. The universe is changed
into a stately mausoleum:—in solemn measures he chaunts a hymn to fame.
Lord Byron has strength and elevation enough to fill up the moulds of
our classical and time-hallowed recollections, and to rekindle the
earliest aspirations of the mind after greatness and true glory with a
pen of fire. The names of Tasso, of Ariosto, of Dante, of Cincinnatus,
of Cæsar, of Scipio, lose nothing of their pomp or their lustre in his
hands, and when he begins and continues a strain of panegyric on such
subjects, we indeed sit down with him to a banquet of rich praise,
brooding over imperishable glories,

                   ‘Till Contemplation has her fill.’

Lord Byron seems to cast himself indignantly from ‘this bank and shoal
of time,’ or the frail tottering bark that bears up modern reputation,
into the huge sea of ancient renown, and to revel there with untired,
outspread plume. Even this in him is spleen—his contempt of his
contemporaries makes him turn back to the lustrous past, or project
himself forward to the dim future!—Lord Byron’s tragedies, Faliero,[50]
Sardanapalus, &c. are not equal to his other works. They want the
essence of the drama. They abound in speeches and descriptions, such as
he himself might make either to himself or others, lolling on his couch
of a morning, but do not carry the reader out of the poet’s mind to the
scenes and events recorded. They have neither action, character, nor
interest, but are a sort of _gossamer_ tragedies, spun out, and
glittering, and spreading a flimsy veil over the face of nature. Yet he
spins them on. Of all that he has done in this way the _Heaven and
Earth_ (the same subject as Mr. Moore’s _Loves of the Angels_) is the
best. We prefer it even to _Manfred_. _Manfred_ is merely himself, with
a fancy-drapery on: but in the dramatic fragment published in the
_Liberal_, the space between Heaven and Earth, the stage on which his
characters have to pass to and fro, seems to fill his Lordship’s
imagination; and the Deluge, which he has so finely described, may be
said to have drowned all his own idle humours.

We must say we think little of our author’s turn for satire. His
‘English Bards and Scotch Reviewers’ is dogmatical and insolent, but
without refinement or point. He calls people names, and tries to
transfix a character with an epithet, which does not stick, because it
has no other foundation than his own petulance and spite; or he
endeavours to degrade by alluding to some circumstance of external
situation. He says of Mr. Wordsworth’s poetry, that ‘it is his
aversion.’ That may be: but whose fault is it? This is the satire of a
lord, who is accustomed to have all his whims or dislikes taken for
gospel, and who cannot be at the pains to do more than signify his
contempt or displeasure. If a great man meets with a rebuff which he
does not like, he turns on his heel, and this passes for a repartee. The
Noble Author says of a celebrated barrister and critic, that he was
‘born in a garret sixteen stories high.’ The insinuation is not true; or
if it were, it is low. The allusion degrades the person who makes, not
him to whom it is applied. This is also the satire of a person of birth
and quality, who measures all merit by external rank, that is, by his
own standard. So his Lordship, in a ‘Letter to the Editor of My
Grandmother’s Review,’ addresses him fifty times as ‘_my dear Robarts_‘;
nor is there any other wit in the article. This is surely a mere
assumption of superiority from his Lordship’s rank, and is the sort of
_quizzing_ he might use to a person who came to hire himself as a valet
to him at _Long’s_—the waiters might laugh, the public will not. In like
manner, in the controversy about Pope, he claps Mr. Bowles on the back
with a coarse facetious familiarity, as if he were his chaplain whom he
had invited to dine with him, or was about to present to a benefice. The
reverend divine might submit to the obligation, but he has no occasion
to subscribe to the jest. If it is a jest that Mr. Bowles should be a
parson, and Lord Byron a peer, the world knew this before; there was no
need to write a pamphlet to prove it.

The _Don Juan_ indeed has great power; but its power is owing to the
force of the serious writing, and to the oddity of the contrast between
that and the flashy passages with which it is interlarded. From the
sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step. You laugh and are
surprised that any one should turn round and _travestie_ himself: the
drollery is in the utter discontinuity of ideas and feelings. He makes
virtue serve as a foil to vice; _dandyism_ is (for want of any other) a
variety of genius. A classical intoxication is followed by the splashing
of soda-water, by frothy effusions of ordinary bile. After the lightning
and the hurricane, we are introduced to the interior of the cabin and
the contents of wash-hand basins. The solemn hero of tragedy plays
_Scrub_ in the farce. This is ‘very tolerable and not to be endured.’
The Noble Lord is almost the only writer who has prostituted his talents
in this way. He hallows in order to desecrate; takes a pleasure in
defacing the images of beauty his hands have wrought; and raises our
hopes and our belief in goodness to Heaven only to dash them to the
earth again, and break them in pieces the more effectually from the very
height they have fallen. Our enthusiasm for genius or virtue is thus
turned into a jest by the very person who has kindled it, and who thus
fatally quenches the sparks of both. It is not that Lord Byron is
sometimes serious and sometimes trifling, sometimes profligate, and
sometimes moral—but when he is most serious and most moral, he is only
preparing to mortify the unsuspecting reader by putting a pitiful _hoax_
upon him. This is a most unaccountable anomaly. It is as if the eagle
were to build its eyry in a common sewer, or the owl were seen soaring
to the mid-day sun. Such a sight might make one laugh, but one would not
wish or expect it to occur more than once.[51]

In fact, Lord Byron is the spoiled child of fame as well as fortune. He
has taken a surfeit of popularity, and is not contented to delight,
unless he can shock the public. He would force them to admire in spite
of decency and common sense—he would have them read what they would read
in no one but himself, or he would not give a rush for their applause.
He is to be ‘a chartered libertine,’ from whom insults are favours,
whose contempt is to be a new incentive to admiration. His Lordship is
hard to please: he is equally averse to notice or neglect, enraged at
censure and scorning praise. He tries the patience of the town to the
very utmost, and when they show signs of weariness or disgust, threatens
to _discard_ them. He says he will write on, whether he is read or not.
He would never write another page, if it were not to court popular
applause, or to affect a superiority over it. In this respect also, Lord
Byron presents a striking contrast to Sir Walter Scott. The latter takes
what part of the public favour falls to his share, without grumbling (to
be sure he has no reason to complain); the former is always quarrelling
with the world about his _modicum_ of applause, the _spolia opima_ of
vanity, and ungraciously throwing the offerings of incense heaped on his
shrine back in the faces of his admirers. Again, there is no taint in
the writings of the Author of Waverley, all is fair and natural and
_above-board_: he never outrages the public mind. He introduces no
anomalous character: broaches no staggering opinion. If he goes back to
old prejudices and superstitions as a relief to the modern reader, while
Lord Byron floats on swelling paradoxes—

                      ‘Like proud seas under him’;

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

                ‘None but itself could be its parallel.’

Perhaps the chief cause of most of Lord Byron’s errors is, that he is
that anomaly in letters and in society, a Noble Poet. It is a double
privilege, almost too much for humanity. He has all the pride of birth
and genius. The strength of his imagination leads him to indulge in
fantastic opinions; the elevation of his rank sets censure at defiance.
He becomes a pampered egotist. He has a seat in the House of Lords, a
niche in the Temple of Fame. Every-day mortals, opinions, things are not
good enough for him to touch or think of. A mere nobleman is, in his
estimation, but ‘the tenth transmitter of a foolish face’: a mere man of
genius is no better than a worm. His Muse is also a lady of quality. The
people are not polite enough for him: the Court not sufficiently
intellectual. He hates the one and despises the other. By hating and
despising others, he does not learn to be satisfied with himself. A
fastidious man soon grows querulous and splenetic. If there is nobody
but ourselves to come up to our idea of fancied perfection, we easily
get tired of our idol. When a man is tired of what he is, by a natural
perversity he sets up for what he is not. If he is a poet, he pretends
to be a metaphysician: if he is a patrician in rank and feeling, he
would fain be one of the people. His ruling motive is not the love of
the people, but of distinction; not of truth, but of singularity. He
patronizes men of letters out of vanity, and deserts them from caprice,
or from the advice of friends. He embarks in an obnoxious publication to
provoke censure, and leaves it to shift for itself for fear of scandal.
We do not like Sir Walter’s gratuitous servility: we like Lord Byron’s
preposterous _liberalism_ little better. He may affect the principles of
equality, but he resumes his privilege of peerage, upon occasion. His
Lordship has made great offers of service to the Greeks—money and
horses. He is at present in Cephalonia, waiting the event!

                  *       *       *       *       *

We had written thus far when news came of the death of Lord Byron, and
put an end at once to a strain of somewhat peevish invective, which was
intended to meet his eye, not to insult his memory. Had we known that we
were writing his epitaph, we must have done it with a different feeling.
As it is, we think it better and more like himself, to let what we had
written stand, than to take up our leaden shafts, and try to melt them
into ‘tears of sensibility,’ or mould them into dull praise, and an
affected show of candour. We were not silent during the author’s
life-time, either for his reproof or encouragement (such as we could
give, and _he_ did not disdain to accept) nor can we now turn
undertakers’ men to fix the glittering plate upon his coffin, or fall
into the procession of popular woe.—Death cancels every thing but truth;
and strips a man of every thing but genius and virtue. It is a sort of
natural canonization. It makes the meanest of us sacred—it installs the
poet in his immortality, and lifts him to the skies. Death is the great
assayer of the sterling ore of talent. At his touch the drossy particles
fall off, the irritable, the personal, the gross, and mingle with the
dust—the finer and more ethereal part mounts with the winged spirit to
watch over our latest memory, and protect our bones from insult. We
consign the least worthy qualities to oblivion, and cherish the nobler
and imperishable nature with double pride and fondness. Nothing could
show the real superiority of genius in a more striking point of view
than the idle contests and the public indifference about the place of
Lord Byron’s interment, whether in Westminster Abbey or his own
family-vault. A king must have a coronation—a nobleman a
funeral-procession.—The man is nothing without the pageant. The poet’s
cemetery is the human mind, in which he sows the seeds of never-ending
thought—his monument is to be found in his works:

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

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




                              MR. SOUTHEY


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

             ‘His generous _ardour_ no cold medium knows:’

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

The reason is, that not truth, but self-opinion is the ruling principle
of Mr. Southey’s mind. The charm of novelty, the applause of the
multitude, the sanction of power, the venerableness of antiquity, pique,
resentment, the spirit of contradiction have a good deal to do with his
preferences. His inquiries are partial and hasty: his conclusions raw
and unconcocted, and with a considerable infusion of whim and humour and
a monkish spleen. His opinions are like certain wines, warm and generous
when new; but they will not keep, and soon turn flat or sour, for want
of a stronger spirit of the understanding to give a body to them. He
wooed Liberty as a youthful lover, but it was perhaps more as a mistress
than a bride; and he has since wedded with an elderly and not very
reputable lady, called Legitimacy. _A wilful man_, according to the
Scotch proverb, _must have his way_. If it were the cause to which he
was sincerely attached, he would adhere to it through good report and
evil report; but it is himself to whom he does homage, and would have
others do so; and he therefore changes sides, rather than submit to
apparent defeat or temporary mortification. Abstract principle has no
rule but the understood distinction between right and wrong; the
indulgence of vanity, of caprice, or prejudice is regulated by the
convenience or bias of the moment. The temperament of our politician’s
mind is poetical, not philosophical. He is more the creature of impulse,
than he is of reflection. He invents the unreal, he embellishes the
false with the glosses of fancy, but pays little attention to ‘the words
of truth and soberness.’ His impressions are accidental, immediate,
personal, instead of being permanent and universal. Of all mortals he is
surely the most impatient of contradiction, even when he has completely
turned the tables on himself. Is not this very inconsistency the reason?
Is he not tenacious of his opinions, in proportion as they are brittle
and hastily formed? Is he not jealous of the grounds of his belief,
because he fears they will not bear inspection, or is conscious he has
shifted them? Does he not confine others to the strict line of
orthodoxy, because he has himself taken every liberty? Is he not afraid
to look to the right or the left, lest he should see the ghosts of his
former extravagances staring him in the face? Does he not refuse to
tolerate the smallest shade of difference in others, because he feels
that he wants the utmost latitude of construction for differing so
widely from himself? Is he not captious, dogmatical, petulant in
delivering his sentiments, according as he has been inconsistent, rash,
and fanciful in adopting them? He maintains that there can be no
possible ground for differing from him, because he looks only at his own
side of the question! He sets up his own favourite notions as the
standard of reason and honesty, because he has changed from one extreme
to another! He treats his opponents with contempt, because he is himself
afraid of meeting with disrespect! He says that ‘a Reformer is a worse
character than a house-breaker,’ in order to stifle the recollection
that he himself once was one!

We must say that ‘we relish Mr. Southey more in the Reformer’ than in
his lately acquired, but by no means natural or becoming character of
poet-laureat and courtier. He may rest assured that a garland of wild
flowers suits him better than the laureat-wreath: that his pastoral odes
and popular inscriptions were far more adapted to his genius than his
presentation-poems. He is nothing akin to birth-day suits and
drawing-room fopperies. ‘He is nothing, if not fantastical.’ In his
figure, in his movements, in his sentiments, he is sharp and angular,
quaint and eccentric. Mr. Southey is not of the court, courtly. Every
thing of him and about him is from the people. He is not classical, he
is not legitimate. He is not a man cast in the mould of other men’s
opinions: he is not shaped on any model: he bows to no authority: he
yields only to his own wayward peculiarities. He is wild, irregular,
singular, extreme. He is no formalist, not he! All is crude and chaotic,
self-opinionated, vain. He wants proportion, keeping, system, standard
rules. He is not _teres et rotundus_. Mr. Southey walks with his chin
erect through the streets of London, and with an umbrella sticking out
under his arm, in the finest weather. He has not sacrificed to the
Graces, nor studied decorum. With him every thing is projecting,
starting from its place, an episode, a digression, a poetic license. He
does not move in any given orbit, but like a falling star, shoots from
his sphere. He is pragmatical, restless, unfixed, full of experiments,
beginning every thing anew, wiser than his betters, judging for himself,
dictating to others. He is decidedly _revolutionary_. He may have given
up the reform of the State: but depend upon it, he has some other
_hobby_ of the same kind. Does he not dedicate to his present Majesty
that extraordinary poem on the death of his father, called _The Vision
of Judgment_, as a specimen of what might be done in English hexameters?
In a court-poem all should be trite and on an approved model. He might
as well have presented himself at the levee in a fancy or masquerade
dress. Mr. Southey was not _to try conclusions_ with Majesty—still less
on such an occasion. The extreme freedoms with departed greatness, the
party-petulance carried to the Throne of Grace, the unchecked indulgence
of private humour, the assumption of infallibility and even of the voice
of Heaven in this poem, are pointed instances of what we have said. They
show the singular state of over-excitement of Mr. Southey’s mind, and
the force of old habits of independent and unbridled thinking, which
cannot be kept down even in addressing his Sovereign! Look at Mr.
Southey’s larger poems, his _Kehama_, his _Thalaba_, his _Madoc_, his
_Roderic_. Who will deny the spirit, the scope, the splendid imagery,
the hurried and startling interest that pervades them? Who will say that
they are not sustained on fictions wilder than his own Glendoveer, that
they are not the daring creations of a mind curbed by no law, tamed by
no fear, that they are not rather like the trances than the waking
dreams of genius, that they are not the very paradoxes of poetry? All
this is very well, very intelligible, and very harmless, if we regard
the rank excrescences of Mr. Southey’s poetry, like the red and blue
flowers in corn, as the unweeded growth of a luxuriant and wandering
fancy; or if we allow the yeasty workings of an ardent spirit to ferment
and boil over—the variety, the boldness, the lively stimulus given to
the mind may then atone for the violation of rules and the offences to
bed-rid authority; but not if our poetic libertine sets up for a
law-giver and judge, or an apprehender of vagrants in the regions either
of taste or opinion. Our motley gentleman deserves the strait-waistcoat,
if he is for setting others in the stocks of servility, or condemning
them to the pillory for a new mode of rhyme or reason. Or if a composer
of sacred Dramas on classic models, or a translator of an old Latin
author (that will hardly bear translation) or a vamper-up of vapid
cantos and Odes set to music, were to turn pander to prescription and
palliator of every dull, incorrigible abuse, it would not be much to be
wondered at or even regretted. But in Mr. Southey it was a lamentable
falling-off. It is indeed to be deplored, it is a stain on genius, a
blow to humanity, that the author of _Joan of Arc_—that work in which
the love of Liberty is exhaled like the breath of spring, mild, balmy,
heavenborn, that is full of tears and virgin-sighs, and yearnings of
affection after truth and good, gushing warm and crimsoned from the
heart—should ever after turn to folly, or become the advocate of a
rotten cause. After giving up his heart to that subject, he ought not
(whatever others might do) ever to have set his foot within the
threshold of a court. He might be sure that he would not gain
forgiveness or favour by it, nor obtain a single cordial smile from
greatness. All that Mr. Southey is or that he does best, is independent,
spontaneous, free as the vital air he draws—when he affects the courtier
or the sophist, he is obliged to put a constraint upon himself, to hold
in his breath, he loses his genius, and offers a violence to his nature.
His characteristic faults are the excess of a lively, unguarded
temperament:—oh! let them not degenerate into cold-blooded, heartless
vices! If we speak or have ever spoken of Mr. Southey with severity, it
is with ‘the malice of old friends,’ for we count ourselves among his
sincerest and heartiest well-wishers. But while he himself is anomalous,
incalculable, eccentric, from youth to age (the _Wat Tyler_ and the
_Vision of Judgment_ are the Alpha and Omega of his disjointed career)
full of sallies of humour, of ebullitions of spleen, making
_jets-a’eaux_, cascades, fountains, and water-works of his idle
opinions, he would shut up the wits of others in leaden cisterns, to
stagnate and corrupt, or bury them under ground—

                  ‘Far from the sun and summer gale!’

He would suppress the freedom of wit and humour, of which he has set the
example, and claim a privilege for playing antics. He would introduce an
uniformity of intellectual weights and measures, of irregular metres and
settled opinions, and enforce it with a high hand. This has been judged
hard by some, and has brought down a severity of recrimination, perhaps
disproportioned to the injury done. ‘Because he is virtuous,’ (it has
been asked,) ‘are there to be no more cakes and ale?’ Because he is
loyal, are we to take all our notions from the _Quarterly Review_?
Because he is orthodox, are we to do nothing but read the _Book of the
Church_? We declare we think his former poetical scepticism was not only
more amiable, but had more of the spirit of religion in it, implied a
more heartfelt trust in nature and providence than his present bigotry.
We are at the same time free to declare that we think his articles in
the _Quarterly Review_, notwithstanding their virulence and the talent
they display, have a tendency to qualify its most pernicious effects.
They have redeeming traits in them. ‘A little leaven leaveneth the whole
lump’; and the spirit of humanity (thanks to Mr. Southey) is not quite
expelled from the _Quarterly Review_. At the corner of his pen, ‘there
hangs a vapourous drop profound’ of independence and liberality, which
falls upon its pages, and oozes out through the pores of the public
mind. There is a fortunate difference between writers whose hearts are
naturally callous to truth, and whose understandings are hermetically
sealed against all impressions but those of self-interest, and a man
like Mr. Southey. _Once a philanthropist and always a philanthropist._
No man can entirely baulk his nature: it breaks out in spite of him. In
all those questions, where the spirit of contradiction does not
interfere, on which he is not sore from old bruises, or sick from the
extravagance of youthful intoxication, as from a last night’s debauch,
our ‘laureate’ is still bold, free, candid, open to conviction, a
reformist without knowing it. He does not advocate the slave-trade, he
does not arm Mr. Malthus’s revolting ratios with his authority, he does
not strain hard to deluge Ireland with blood. On such points, where
humanity has not become obnoxious, where liberty has not passed into a
by-word, Mr. Southey is still liberal and humane. The elasticity of his
spirit is unbroken: the bow recoils to its old position. He still stands
convicted of his early passion for inquiry and improvement. He was not
regularly articled as a Government-tool!—Perhaps the most pleasing and
striking of all Mr. Southey’s poems are not his triumphant taunts hurled
against oppression, are not his glowing effusions to Liberty, but those
in which, with a mild melancholy, he seems conscious of his own
infirmities of temper, and to feel a wish to correct by thought and time
the precocity and sharpness of his disposition. May the quaint but
affecting aspiration expressed in one of these be fulfilled, that as he
mellows into maturer age, all such asperities may wear off, and he
himself become

              ‘Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree!’

Mr. Southey’s prose-style can scarcely be too much praised. It is plain,
clear, pointed, familiar, perfectly modern in its texture, but with a
grave and sparkling admixture of _archaisms_ in its ornaments and
occasional phraseology. He is the best and most natural prose-writer of
any poet of the day; we mean that he is far better than Lord Byron, Mr.
Wordsworth, or Mr. Coleridge, for instance. The manner is perhaps
superior to the matter, that is, in his Essays and Reviews. There is
rather a want of originality and even of _impetus_: but there is no want
of playful or biting satire, of ingenuity, of casuistry, of learning and
of information. He is ‘full of wise saws and modern’ (as well as
ancient) ‘instances.’ Mr. Southey may not always convince his opponents;
but he seldom fails to stagger, never to gall them. In a word, we may
describe his style by saying that it has not the body or thickness of
port wine, but is like clear sherry with kernels of old authors thrown
into it!—He also excels as an historian and prose-translator. His
histories abound in information, and exhibit proofs of the most
indefatigable patience and industry. By no uncommon process of the mind,
Mr. Southey seems willing to steady the extreme levity of his opinions
and feelings by an appeal to facts. His translations of the Spanish and
French romances are also executed _con amore_, and with the literal
fidelity and care of a mere linguist. That of the _Cid_, in particular,
is a masterpiece. Not a word could be altered for the better, in the old
scriptural style which it adopts in conformity to the original. It is no
less interesting in itself, or as a record of high and chivalrous
feelings and manners, than it is worthy of perusal as a literary
curiosity.

Mr. Southey’s conversation has a little resemblance to a common-place
book; his habitual deportment to a piece of clock-work. He is not
remarkable either as a reasoner or an observer: but he is quick,
unaffected, replete with anecdote, various and retentive in his reading,
and exceedingly happy in his play upon words, as most scholars are who
give their minds this sportive turn. We have chiefly seen Mr. Southey in
company where few people appear to advantage, we mean in that of Mr.
Coleridge. He has not certainly the same range of speculation, nor the
same flow of sounding words, but he makes up by the details of
knowledge, and by a scrupulous correctness of statement for what he
wants in originality of thought, or impetuous declamation. The tones of
Mr. Coleridge’s voice are eloquence: those of Mr. Southey are meagre,
shrill, and dry. Mr. Coleridge’s _forte_ is conversation, and he is
conscious of this: Mr. Southey evidently considers writing as his
stronghold, and if gravelled in an argument, or at a loss for an
explanation, refers to something he has written on the subject, or
brings out his port-folio, doubled down in dog-ears, in confirmation of
some fact. He is scholastic and professional in his ideas. He sets more
value on what he writes than on what he says: he is perhaps prouder of
his library than of his own productions—themselves a library! He is more
simple in his manners than his friend Mr. Coleridge; but at the same
time less cordial or conciliating. He is less vain, or has less hope of
pleasing, and therefore lays himself less out to please. There is an air
of condescension in his civility. With a tall, loose figure, a peaked
austerity of countenance, and no inclination to _embonpoint_, you would
say he has something puritanical, something ascetic in his appearance.
He answers to Mandeville’s description of Addison, ‘a parson in a
tye-wig.’ He is not a boon companion, nor does he indulge in the
pleasures of the table, nor in any other vice; nor are we aware that Mr.
Southey is chargeable with any human frailty but—_want of charity_!
Having fewer errors to plead guilty to, he is less lenient to those of
others. He was born an age too late. Had he lived a century or two ago,
he would have been a happy as well as blameless character. But the
distraction of the time has unsettled him, and the multiplicity of his
pretensions have jostled with each other. No man in our day (at least no
man of genius) has led so uniformly and entirely the life of a scholar
from boyhood to the present hour, devoting himself to learning with the
enthusiasm of an early love, with the severity and constancy of a
religious vow—and well would it have been for him if he had confined
himself to this, and not undertaken to pull down or to patch up the
State! However irregular in his opinions, Mr. Southey is constant,
unremitting, mechanical in his studies, and the performance of his
duties. There is nothing Pindaric or Shandean here. In all the relations
and charities of private life, he is correct, exemplary, generous, just.
We never heard a single impropriety laid to his charge; and if he has
many enemies, few men can boast more numerous or stauncher friends.—The
variety and piquancy of his writings form a striking contrast to the
mode in which they are produced. He rises early, and writes or reads
till breakfast-time. He writes or reads after breakfast till dinner,
after dinner till tea, and from tea till bed-time—

                 ‘And follows so the ever-running year
                 With profitable labour to his grave—’

on Derwent’s banks, beneath the foot of Skiddaw. Study serves him for
business, exercise, recreation. He passes from verse to prose, from
history to poetry, from reading to writing, by a stopwatch. He writes a
fair hand, without blots, sitting upright in his chair, leaves off when
he comes to the bottom of the page, and changes the subject for another,
as opposite as the Antipodes. His mind is after all rather the recipient
and transmitter of knowledge, than the originator of it. He has hardly
grasp of thought enough to arrive at any great leading truth. His
passions do not amount to more than irritability. With some gall in his
pen, and coldness in his manner, he has a great deal of kindness in his
heart. Rash in his opinions, he is steady in his attachments—and is a
man, in many particulars admirable, in all respectable—his political
inconsistency alone excepted!




                             MR. WORDSWORTH


Mr. Wordsworth’s genius is a pure emanation of the Spirit of the Age.
Had he lived in any other period of the world, he would never have been
heard of. As it is, he has some difficulty to contend with the hebetude
of his intellect, and the meanness of his subject. With him ‘lowliness
is young ambition’s ladder’: but he finds it a toil to climb in this way
the steep of Fame. His homely Muse can hardly raise her wing from the
ground, nor spread her hidden glories to the sun. He has ‘no figures nor
no fantasies, which busy _passion_ draws in the brains of men:’ neither
the gorgeous machinery of mythologic lore, nor the splendid colours of
poetic diction. His style is vernacular: he delivers household truths.
He sees nothing loftier than human hopes; nothing deeper than the human
heart. This he probes, this he tampers with, this he poises, with all
its incalculable weight of thought and feeling, in his hands; and at the
same time calms the throbbing pulses of his own heart, by keeping his
eye ever fixed on the face of nature. If he can make the lifeblood flow
from the wounded breast, this is the living colouring with which he
paints his verse: if he can assuage the pain or close up the wound with
the balm of solitary musing, or the healing power of plants and herbs
and ‘skyey influences,’ this is the sole triumph of his art. He takes
the simplest elements of nature and of the human mind, the mere abstract
conditions inseparable from our being, and tries to compound a new
system of poetry from them; and has perhaps succeeded as well as any one
could. ‘_Nihil humani a me alienum puto_’—is the motto of his works. He
thinks nothing low or indifferent of which this can be affirmed: every
thing that professes to be more than this, that is not an absolute
essence of truth and feeling, he holds to be vitiated, false, and
spurious. In a word, his poetry is founded on setting up an opposition
(and pushing it to the utmost length) between the natural and the
artificial; between the spirit of humanity, and the spirit of fashion
and of the world!

It is one of the innovations of the time. It partakes of, and is carried
along with, the revolutionary movement of our age: the political changes
of the day were the model on which he formed and conducted his poetical
experiments. His Muse (it cannot be denied, and without this we cannot
explain its character at all) is a levelling one. It proceeds on a
principle of equality, and strives to reduce all things to the same
standard. It is distinguished by a proud humility. It relies upon its
own resources, and disdains external show and relief. It takes the
commonest events and objects, as a test to prove that nature is always
interesting from its inherent truth and beauty, without any of the
ornaments of dress or pomp of circumstances to set it off. Hence the
unaccountable mixture of seeming simplicity and real abstruseness in the
_Lyrical Ballads_. Fools have laughed at, wise men scarcely understand
them. He takes a subject or a story merely as pegs or loops to hang
thought and feeling on; the incidents are trifling, in proportion to his
contempt for imposing appearances; the reflections are profound,
according to the gravity and the aspiring pretensions of his mind.

His popular, inartificial style gets rid (at a blow) of all the
trappings of verse, of all the high places of poetry: ‘the cloud-capt
towers, the solemn temples, the gorgeous palaces,’ are swept to the
ground, and ‘like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck
behind.’ All the traditions of learning, all the superstitions of age,
are obliterated and effaced. We begin _de novo_, on a _tabula rasa_ of
poetry. The purple pall, the nodding plume of tragedy are exploded as
mere pantomime and trick, to return to the simplicity of truth and
nature. Kings, queens, priests, nobles, the altar and the throne, the
distinctions of rank, birth, wealth, power, ‘the judge’s robe, the
marshal’s truncheon, the ceremony that to great ones ‘longs,’ are not to
be found here. The author tramples on the pride of art with greater
pride. The Ode and Epode, the Strophe and the Antistrophe, he laughs to
scorn. The harp of Homer, the trump of Pindar and of Alcæus are still.
The decencies of costume, the decorations of vanity are stripped off
without mercy as barbarous, idle, and Gothic. The jewels in the crisped
hair, the diadem on the polished brow are thought meretricious,
theatrical, vulgar; and nothing contents his fastidious taste beyond a
simple garland of flowers. Neither does he avail himself of the
advantages which nature or accident holds out to him. He chooses to have
his subject a foil to his invention, to owe nothing but to himself. He
gathers manna in the wilderness, he strikes the barren rock for the
gushing moisture. He elevates the mean by the strength of his own
aspirations; he clothes the naked with beauty and grandeur from the
stores of his own recollections. No cypress grove loads his verse with
funeral pomp: but his imagination lends ‘a sense of joy

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

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

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

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

Possibly a good deal of this may be regarded as the effect of
disappointed views and an inverted ambition. Prevented by native pride
and indolence from climbing the ascent of learning or greatness, taught
by political opinions to say to the vain pomp and glory of the world, ‘I
hate ye,’ seeing the path of classical and artificial poetry blocked up
by the cumbrous ornaments of style and turgid _common-places_, so that
nothing more could be achieved in that direction but by the most
ridiculous bombast or the tamest servility; he has turned back partly
from the bias of his mind, partly perhaps from a judicious policy—has
struck into the sequestered vale of humble life, sought out the Muse
among sheep-cotes and hamlets and the peasant’s mountain-haunts, has
discarded all the tinsel pageantry of verse, and endeavoured (not in
vain) to aggrandise the trivial and add the charm of novelty to the
familiar. No one has shown the same imagination in raising trifles into
importance: no one has displayed the same pathos in treating of the
simplest feelings of the heart. Reserved, yet haughty, having no unruly
or violent passions, (or those passions having been early suppressed,)
Mr. Wordsworth has passed his life in solitary musing, or in daily
converse with the face of nature. He exemplifies in an eminent degree
the power of _association_; for his poetry has no other source or
character. He has dwelt among pastoral scenes, till each object has
become connected with a thousand feelings, a link in the chain of
thought, a fibre of his own heart. Every one is by habit and familiarity
strongly attached to the place of his birth, or to objects that recal
the most pleasing and eventful circumstances of his life. But to the
author of the _Lyrical Ballads_, nature is a kind of home; and he may be
said to take a personal interest in the universe. There is no image so
insignificant that it has not in some mood or other found the way into
his heart: no sound that does not awaken the memory of other years.—

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

The daisy looks up to him with sparkling eye as an old acquaintance: the
cuckoo haunts him with sounds of early youth not to be expressed: a
linnet’s nest startles him with boyish delight: an old withered thorn is
weighed down with a heap of recollections: a grey cloak, seen on some
wild moor, torn by the wind, or drenched in the rain, afterwards becomes
an object of imagination to him: even the lichens on the rock have a
life and being in his thoughts. He has described all these objects in a
way and with an intensity of feeling that no one else had done before
him, and has given a new view or aspect of nature. He is in this sense
the most original poet now living, and the one whose writings could the
least be spared: for they have no substitute elsewhere. The vulgar do
not read them, the learned, who see all things through books, do not
understand them, the great despise, the fashionable may ridicule them:
but the author has created himself an interest in the heart of the
retired and lonely student of nature, which can never die. Persons of
this class will still continue to feel what he has felt: he has
expressed what they might in vain wish to express, except with
glistening eye and faultering tongue! There is a lofty philosophic tone,
a thoughtful humanity, infused into his pastoral vein. Remote from the
passions and events of the great world, he has communicated interest and
dignity to the primal movements of the heart of man, and ingrafted his
own conscious reflections on the casual thoughts of hinds and shepherds.
Nursed amidst the grandeur of mountain scenery, he has stooped to have a
nearer view of the daisy under his feet, or plucked a branch of
white-thorn from the spray: but in describing it, his mind seems imbued
with the majesty and solemnity of the objects around him—the tall rock
lifts its head in the erectness of his spirit; the cataract roars in the
sound of his verse; and in its dim and mysterious meaning, the mists
seem to gather in the hollows of Helvellyn, and the forked Skiddaw
hovers in the distance. There is little mention of mountainous scenery
in Mr. Wordsworth’s poetry; but by internal evidence one might be almost
sure that it was written in a mountainous country, from its bareness,
its simplicity, its loftiness and its depth!

His later philosophic productions have a somewhat different character.
They are a departure from, a dereliction of his first principles. They
are classical and courtly. They are polished in style, without being
gaudy; dignified in subject, without affectation. They seem to have been
composed not in a cottage at Grasmere, but among the half-inspired
groves and stately recollections of Cole-Orton. We might allude in
particular, for examples of what we mean, to the lines on a Picture by
Claude Lorraine, and to the exquisite poem, entitled _Laodamia_. The
last of these breathes the pure spirit of the finest fragments of
antiquity—the sweetness, the gravity, the strength, the beauty and the
languor of death—

                ‘Calm contemplation and majestic pains.’

Its glossy brilliancy arises from the perfection of the finishing, like
that of careful sculpture, not from gaudy colouring—the texture of the
thoughts has the smoothness and solidity of marble. It is a poem that
might be read aloud in Elysium, and the spirits of departed heroes and
sages would gather round to listen to it! Mr. Wordsworth’s philosophic
poetry, with a less glowing aspect and less tumult in the veins than
Lord Byron’s on similar occasions, bends a calmer and keener eye on
mortality; the impression, if less vivid, is more pleasing and
permanent; and we confess it (perhaps it is a want of taste and proper
feeling) that there are lines and poems of our author’s, that we think
of ten times for once that we recur to any of Lord Byron’s. Or if there
are any of the latter’s writings, that we can dwell upon in the same
way, that is, as lasting and heartfelt sentiments, it is when laying
aside his usual pomp and pretension, he descends with Mr. Wordsworth to
the common ground of a disinterested humanity. It may be considered as
characteristic of our poet’s writings, that they either make no
impression on the mind at all, seem mere _nonsense-verses_, or that they
leave a mark behind them that never wears out. They either

               ‘Fall blunted from the indurated breast’—

without any perceptible result, or they absorb it like a passion. To one
class of readers he appears sublime, to another (and we fear the
largest) ridiculous. He has probably realised Milton’s wish,—‘and fit
audience found, though few’; but we suspect he is not reconciled to the
alternative. There are delightful passages in the EXCURSION, both of
natural description and of inspired reflection (passages of the latter
kind that in the sound of the thoughts and of the swelling language
resemble heavenly symphonies, mournful _requiems_ over the grave of
human hopes); but we must add, in justice and in sincerity, that we
think it impossible that this work should ever become popular, even in
the same degree as the _Lyrical Ballads_. It affects a system without
having any intelligible clue to one; and instead of unfolding a
principle in various and striking lights, repeats the same conclusions
till they become flat and insipid. Mr. Wordsworth’s mind is obtuse,
except as it is the organ and the receptacle of accumulated feelings: it
is not analytic, but synthetic; it is reflecting, rather than
theoretical. The EXCURSION, we believe, fell still-born from the press.
There was something abortive, and clumsy, and ill-judged in the attempt.
It was long and laboured. The personages, for the most part, were low,
the fare rustic: the plan raised expectations which were not fulfilled,
and the effect was like being ushered into a stately hall and invited to
sit down to a splendid banquet in the company of clowns, and with
nothing but successive courses of apple-dumplings served up. It was not
even _toujours perdrix_!

Mr. Wordsworth, in his person, is above the middle size, with marked
features, and an air somewhat stately and Quixotic. He reminds one of
some of Holbein’s heads, grave, saturnine, with a slight indication of
sly humour, kept under by the manners of the age or by the pretensions
of the person. He has a peculiar sweetness in his smile, and great depth
and manliness and a rugged harmony, in the tones of his voice. His
manner of reading his own poetry is particularly imposing; and in his
favourite passages his eye beams with preternatural lustre, and the
meaning labours slowly up from his swelling breast. No one who has seen
him at these moments could go away with an impression that he was a ‘man
of no mark or likelihood.’ Perhaps the comment of his face and voice is
necessary to convey a full idea of his poetry. His language may not be
intelligible, but his manner is not to be mistaken. It is clear that he
is either mad or inspired. In company, even in a _tête-à-tête_, Mr.
Wordsworth is often silent, indolent, and reserved. If he is become
verbose and oracular of late years, he was not so in his better days. He
threw out a bold or an indifferent remark without either effort or
pretension, and relapsed into musing again. He shone most (because he
seemed most roused and animated) in reciting his own poetry, or in
talking about it. He sometimes gave striking views of his feelings and
trains of association in composing certain passages; or if one did not
always understand his distinctions, still there was no want of
interest—there was a latent meaning worth inquiring into, like a vein of
ore that one cannot exactly hit upon at the moment, but of which there
are sure indications. His standard of poetry is high and severe, almost
to exclusiveness. He admits of nothing below, scarcely of any thing
above himself. It is fine to hear him talk of the way in which certain
subjects should have been treated by eminent poets, according to his
notions of the art. Thus he finds fault with Dryden’s description of
Bacchus in the _Alexander’s Feast_, as if he were a mere good-looking
youth, or boon companion—

                     ‘Flushed with a purple grace,
                     He shows his honest face’—

instead of representing the God returning from the conquest of India,
crowned with vine-leaves, and drawn by panthers, and followed by troops
of satyrs, of wild men and animals that he had tamed. You would think,
in hearing him speak on this subject, that you saw Titian’s picture of
the meeting of _Bacchus and Ariadne_—so classic were his conceptions, so
glowing his style. Milton is his great idol, and he sometimes dares to
compare himself with him. His Sonnets, indeed, have something of the
same high-raised tone and prophetic spirit. Chaucer is another prime
favourite of his, and he has been at the pains to modernize some of the
Canterbury Tales. Those persons who look upon Mr. Wordsworth as a merely
puerile writer, must be rather at a loss to account for his strong
predilection for such geniuses as Dante and Michael Angelo. We do not
think our author has any very cordial sympathy with Shakespear. How
should he? Shakespear was the least of an egotist of any body in the
world. He does not much relish the variety and scope of dramatic
composition. ‘He hates those interlocutions between Lucius and Caius.’
Yet Mr. Wordsworth himself wrote a tragedy when he was young; and we
have heard the following energetic lines quoted from it, as put into the
mouth of a person smit with remorse for some rash crime:

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

Perhaps for want of light and shade, and the unshackled spirit of the
drama, this performance was never brought forward. Our critic has a
great dislike to Gray, and a fondness for Thomson and Collins. It is
mortifying to hear him speak of Pope and Dryden, whom, because they have
been supposed to have all the possible excellences of poetry, he will
allow to have none. Nothing, however, can be fairer, or more amusing,
than the way in which he sometimes exposes the unmeaning verbiage of
modern poetry. Thus, in the beginning of Dr. Johnson’s _Vanity of Human
Wishes_—

                  ‘Let observation with extensive view
                  Survey mankind from China to Peru’—

he says there is a total want of imagination accompanying the words, the
same idea is repeated three times under the disguise of a different
phraseology: it comes to this—‘let _observation_, with extensive
_observation_, _observe_ mankind’; or take away the first line, and the
second,

                  ‘Survey mankind from China to Peru,’

literally conveys the whole. Mr. Wordsworth is, we must say, a perfect
Drawcansir as to prose writers. He complains of the dry reasoners and
matter-of-fact people for their want of _passion_; and he is jealous of
the rhetorical declaimers and rhapsodists as trenching on the province
of poetry. He condemns all French writers (as well of poetry as prose)
in the lump. His list in this way is indeed small. He approves of
Walton’s Angler, Paley, and some other writers of an inoffensive modesty
of pretension. He also likes books of voyages and travels, and Robinson
Crusoe. In art, he greatly esteems Bewick’s woodcuts, and Waterloo’s
sylvan etchings. But he sometimes takes a higher tone, and gives his
mind fair play. We have known him enlarge with a noble intelligence and
enthusiasm on Nicolas Poussin’s fine landscape-compositions, pointing
out the unity of design that pervades them, the superintending mind, the
imaginative principle that brings all to bear on the same end; and
declaring he would not give a rush for any landscape that did not
express the time of day, the climate, the period of the world it was
meant to illustrate, or had not this character of _wholeness_ in it. His
eye also does justice to Rembrandt’s fine and masterly effects. In the
way in which that artist works something out of nothing, and transforms
the stump of a tree, a common figure into an _ideal_ object, by the
gorgeous light and shade thrown upon it, he perceives an analogy to his
own mode of investing the minute details of nature with an atmosphere of
sentiment; and in pronouncing Rembrandt to be a man of genius, feels
that he strengthens his own claim to the title. It has been said of Mr.
Wordsworth, that ‘he hates conchology, that he hates the Venus of
Medicis.’ But these, we hope, are mere epigrams and _jeux-d’esprit_, as
far from truth as they are free from malice; a sort of running satire or
critical clenches—

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

We think, however, that if Mr. Wordsworth had been a more liberal and
candid critic, he would have been a more sterling writer. If a greater
number of sources of pleasure had been open to him, he would have
communicated pleasure to the world more frequently. Had he been less
fastidious in pronouncing sentence on the works of others, his own would
have been received more favourably, and treated more leniently. The
current of his feelings is deep, but narrow; the range of his
understanding is lofty and aspiring rather than discursive. The force,
the originality, the absolute truth and identity with which he feels
some things, makes him indifferent to so many others. The simplicity and
enthusiasm of his feelings, with respect to nature, renders him bigotted
and intolerant in his judgments of men and things. But it happens to
him, as to others, that his strength lies in his weakness; and perhaps
we have no right to complain. We might get rid of the cynic and the
egotist, and find in his stead a common-place man. We should ‘take the
good the Gods provide us’: a fine and original vein of poetry is not one
of their most contemptible gifts, and the rest is scarcely worth
thinking of, except as it may be a mortification to those who expect
perfection from human nature; or who have been idle enough at some
period of their lives, to deify men of genius as possessing claims above
it. But this is a chord that jars, and we shall not dwell upon it.

Lord Byron we have called, according to the old proverb, ‘the spoiled
child of fortune’: Mr. Wordsworth might plead, in mitigation of some
peculiarities, that he is ‘the spoiled child of disappointment.’ We are
convinced, if he had been early a popular poet, he would have borne his
honours meekly, and would have been a person of great _bonhommie_ and
frankness of disposition. But the sense of injustice and of undeserved
ridicule sours the temper and narrows the views. To have produced works
of genius, and to find them neglected or treated with scorn, is one of
the heaviest trials of human patience. We exaggerate our own merits when
they are denied by others, and are apt to grudge and cavil at every
particle of praise bestowed on those to whom we feel a conscious
superiority. In mere self-defence we turn against the world, when it
turns against us; brood over the undeserved slights we receive; and thus
the genial current of the soul is stopped, or vents itself in effusions
of petulance and self-conceit. Mr. Wordsworth has thought too much of
contemporary critics and criticism; and less than he ought of the award
of posterity, and of the opinion, we do not say of private friends, but
of those who were made so by their admiration of his genius. He did not
court popularity by a conformity to established models, and he ought not
to have been surprised that his originality was not understood as a
matter of course. He has _gnawed too much on the bridle_; and has often
thrown out crusts to the critics, in mere defiance or as a point of
honour when he was challenged, which otherwise his own good sense would
have withheld. We suspect that Mr. Wordsworth’s feelings are a little
morbid in this respect, or that he resents censure more than he is
gratified by praise. Otherwise, the tide has turned much in his favour
of late years—he has a large body of determined partisans—and is at
present sufficiently in request with the public to save or relieve him
from the last necessity to which a man of genius can be reduced—that of
becoming the God of his own idolatry!




                          SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH


The subject of the present article is one of the ablest and most
accomplished men of the age, both as a writer, a speaker, and a
converser. He is, in fact, master of almost every known topic, whether
of a passing or of a more recondite nature. He has lived much in
society, and is deeply conversant with books. He is a man of the world
and a scholar; but the scholar gives the tone to all his other
acquirements and pursuits. Sir James is by education and habit, and we
were going to add, by the original turn of his mind, a college-man; and
perhaps he would have passed his time most happily and respectably, had
he devoted himself entirely to that kind of life. The strength of his
faculties would have been best developed, his ambition would have met
its proudest reward, in the accumulation and elaborate display of grave
and useful knowledge. As it is, it may be said, that in company he talks
well, but too much; that in writing he overlays the original subject and
spirit of the composition, by an appeal to authorities and by too formal
a method; that in public speaking the logician takes place of the
orator, and that he fails to give effect to a particular point or to
urge an immediate advantage home upon his adversary from the enlarged
scope of his mind, and the wide career he takes in the field of
argument.

To consider him in the last point of view, first. As a political
partisan, he is rather the lecturer than the advocate. He is able to
instruct and delight an impartial and disinterested audience by the
extent of his information, by his acquaintance with general principles,
by the clearness and aptitude of his illustrations, by vigour and
copiousness of style; but where he has a prejudiced or unfair antagonist
to contend with, he is just as likely to put weapons into his enemy’s
hands, as to wrest them from him, and his object seems to be rather to
deserve than to obtain success. The characteristics of his mind are
retentiveness and comprehension, with facility of production: but he is
not equally remarkable for originality of view, or warmth of feeling, or
liveliness of fancy. His eloquence is a little rhetorical; his reasoning
chiefly logical: he can bring down the account of knowledge on a vast
variety of subjects to the present moment, he can embellish any cause he
undertakes by the most approved and graceful ornaments, he can support
it by a host of facts and examples, but he cannot advance it a step
forward by placing it on a new and triumphant ‘vantage-ground, nor can
he overwhelm and break down the artificial fences and bulwarks of
sophistry by the irresistible tide of manly enthusiasm. Sir James
Mackintosh is an accomplished debater, rather than a powerful orator: he
is distinguished more as a man of wonderful and variable talent than as
a man of commanding intellect. His mode of treating a question is
critical, and not parliamentary. It has been formed in the closet and
the schools, and is hardly fitted for scenes of active life, or the
collisions of party-spirit. Sir James reasons on the square; while the
arguments of his opponents are loaded with iron or gold. He makes,
indeed, a respectable ally, but not a very formidable opponent. He is as
likely, however, to prevail on a neutral, as he is almost certain to be
baffled on a hotly contested ground. On any question of general policy
or legislative improvement, the Member for Nairn is heard with
advantage, and his speeches are attended with effect: and he would have
equal weight and influence at other times, if it were the object of the
House to hear reason, as it is his aim to speak it. But on subjects of
peace or war, of political rights or foreign interference, where the
waves of party run high, and the liberty of nations or the fate of
mankind hangs trembling in the scales, though he probably displays equal
talent, and does full and heaped justice to the question (abstractedly
speaking, or if it were to be tried before an impartial assembly), yet
we confess we have seldom heard him, on such occasions, without pain for
the event. He did not slur his own character and pretensions, but he
compromised the argument. He spoke _the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth_; but the House of Commons (we dare aver it) is
not the place where the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth can be spoken with safety or with advantage. The judgment of the
House is not a balance to weigh scruples and reasons to the turn of a
fraction: another element, besides the love of truth enters into the
composition of their decisions, the reaction of which must be calculated
upon and guarded against. If our philosophical statesman had to open the
case before a class of tyros, or a circle of grey-beards, who wished to
form or to strengthen their judgments upon fair and rational grounds,
nothing could be more satisfactory, more luminous, more able or more
decisive than the view taken of it by Sir James Mackintosh. But the
House of Commons, as a collective body, have not the docility of youth,
the calm wisdom of age; and often only want an excuse to do wrong, or to
adhere to what they have already determined upon; and Sir James, in
detailing the inexhaustible stores of his memory and reading, in
unfolding the wide range of his theory and practice, in laying down the
rules and the exceptions, in insisting upon the advantages and the
objections with equal explicitness, would be sure to let something drop
that a dexterous and watchful adversary would easily pick up and turn
against him, if this were found necessary; or if with so many _pros_ and
_cons_, doubts and difficulties, dilemmas and alternatives thrown into
it, the scale, with its natural bias to interest and power, did not
already fly up and kick the beam. There wanted unity of purpose,
impetuosity of feeling to break through the phalanx of hostile and
inveterate prejudice arrayed against him. He gave a handle to his
enemies; threw stumbling-blocks in the way of his friends. He raised so
many objections for the sake of answering them, proposed so many doubts
for the sake of solving them, and made so many concessions where none
were demanded, that his reasoning had the effect of neutralizing itself;
it became a mere exercise of the understanding without zest or spirit
left in it; and the provident engineer who was to shatter in pieces the
strong-holds of corruption and oppression, by a well-directed and
unsparing discharge of artillery, seemed to have brought not only his
own cannon-balls, but his own wool-packs along with him to ward off the
threatened mischief. This was a good deal the effect of his maiden
speech on the transfer of Genoa, to which Lord Castlereagh did not deign
an answer, and which another Honourable Member called ‘a _finical_
speech.’ It was a most able, candid, closely argued, and philosophical
exposure of that unprincipled transaction; but for this very reason it
was a solecism in the place where it was delivered. Sir James has, since
this period, and with the help of practice, lowered himself to the tone
of the House; and has also applied himself to questions more congenial
to his habits of mind, and where the success would be more likely to be
proportioned to his zeal and his exertions.

There was a greater degree of power, or of dashing and splendid effect
(we wish we could add, an equally humane and liberal spirit) in the
_Lectures on the Law of Nature and Nations_, formerly delivered by Sir
James (then Mr.) Mackintosh, in Lincoln’s-Inn Hall. He showed greater
confidence; was more at home there. The effect was more electrical and
instantaneous, and this elicited a prouder display of intellectual
riches, and a more animated and imposing mode of delivery. He grew
wanton with success. Dazzling others by the brilliancy of his
acquirements, dazzled himself by the admiration they excited, he lost
fear as well as prudence; dared every thing, carried every thing before
him. The Modern Philosophy, counter-scarp, outworks, citadel, and all,
fell without a blow, by ‘the whiff and wind of his fell _doctrine_,’ as
if it had been a pack of cards. The volcano of the French Revolution was
seen expiring in its own flames, like a bonfire made of straw: the
principles of Reform were scattered in all directions, like chaff before
the keen northern blast. He laid about him like one inspired; nothing
could withstand his envenomed tooth. Like some savage beast got into the
garden of the fabled Hesperides, he made clear work of it, root and
branch, with white, foaming tusks—

          ‘Laid waste the borders, and o’erthrew the bowers.’

The havoc was amazing, the desolation was complete. As to our visionary
sceptics and Utopian philosophers, they stood no chance with our
lecturer—he did not ‘carve them as a dish fit for the Gods, but hewed
them as a carcase fit for hounds.’ Poor Godwin, who had come, in the
_bonhommie_ and candour of his nature, to hear what new light had broken
in upon his old friend, was obliged to quit the field, and slunk away
after an exulting taunt thrown out at ‘such fanciful chimeras as a
golden mountain or a perfect man.’ Mr. Mackintosh had something of the
air, much of the dexterity and self-possession, of a political and
philosophical juggler; and an eager and admiring audience gaped and
greedily swallowed the gilded bait of sophistry, prepared for their
credulity and wonder. Those of us who attended day after day, and were
accustomed to have all our previous notions confounded and struck out of
our hands by some metaphysical legerdemain, were at last at some loss to
know _whether two and two made four_, till we had heard the lecturer’s
opinion on that head. He might have some mental reservation on the
subject, some pointed ridicule to pour upon the common supposition, some
learned authority to quote against it. To anticipate the line of
argument he might pursue, was evidently presumptuous and premature. One
thing only appeared certain, that whatever opinion he chose to take up,
he was able to make good either by the foils or the cudgels, by gross
banter or nice distinctions, by a well-timed mixture of paradox and
common-place, by an appeal to vulgar prejudices or startling scepticism.
It seemed to be equally his object, or the tendency of his Discourses,
to unsettle every principle of reason or of common sense, and to leave
his audience at the mercy of the _dictum_ of a lawyer, the nod of a
minister, or the shout of a mob. To effect this purpose, he drew largely
on the learning of antiquity, on modern literature, on history, poetry,
and the belles-lettres, on the Schoolmen and on writers of novels,
French, English, and Italian. In mixing up the sparkling julep, that by
its potent operation was to scour away the dregs and feculence and
peccant humours of the body politic, he seemed to stand with his back to
the drawers in a metaphysical dispensary, and to take out of them
whatever ingredients suited his purpose. In this way he had an antidote
for every error, an answer to every folly. The writings of Burke, Hume,
Berkeley, Paley, Lord Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Grotius, Puffendorf, Cicero,
Aristotle, Tacitus, Livy, Sully, Machiavel, Guicciardini, Thuanus, lay
open beside him, and he could instantly lay his hand upon the passage,
and quote them chapter and verse to the clearing up of all difficulties,
and the silencing of all oppugners. Mr. Mackintosh’s Lectures were after
all but a kind of philosophical centos. They were profound, brilliant,
new to his hearers; but the profundity, the brilliancy, the novelty were
not his own. He was like Dr. Pangloss (not Voltaire’s, but Coleman’s)
who speaks only in quotations; and the pith, the marrow of Sir James’s
reasoning and rhetoric at that memorable period might be put within
inverted commas. It, however, served its purpose and the loud echo died
away. We remember an excellent man and a sound critic[52] going to hear
one of these elaborate effusions; and on his want of enthusiasm being
accounted for from its not being one of the orator’s brilliant days, he
replied, ‘he did not think a man of genius could speak for two hours
without saying something by which he would have been electrified.’ We
are only sorry, at this distance of time, for one thing in these
Lectures—the tone and spirit in which they seemed to have been composed
and to be delivered. If all that body of opinions and principles of
which the orator read his recantation was unfounded, and there was an
end of all those views and hopes that pointed to future improvement, it
was not a matter of triumph or exultation to the lecturer or any body
else, to the young or the old, the wise or the foolish; on the contrary,
it was a subject of regret, of slow, reluctant, painful admission—

          ‘Of lamentation loud heard through the rueful air.’

The immediate occasion of this sudden and violent change in Sir James’s
views and opinions was attributed to a personal interview which he had
had a little before his death with Mr. Burke, at his house at
Beaconsfield. In the latter end of the year 1796, appeared the _Regicide
Peace_, from the pen of the great apostate from liberty and betrayer of
his species into the hands of those who claimed it as their property by
divine right—a work imposing, solid in many respects, abounding in facts
and admirable reasoning, and in which all flashy ornaments were laid
aside for a testamentary gravity, (the eloquence of despair resembling
the throes and heaving and muttered threats of an earthquake, rather
than the loud thunderbolt)—and soon after came out a criticism on it in
_The Monthly Review_, doing justice to the author and the style, and
combating the inferences with force and at much length; but with candour
and with respect, amounting to deference. It was new to Mr. Burke not to
be called names by persons of the opposite party; it was an additional
triumph to him to be spoken well of, to be loaded with well-earned
praise by the author of the _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_. It was a testimony from
an old, a powerful, and an admired antagonist.[53] He sent an invitation
to the writer to come and see him; and in the course of three days’
animated discussion of such subjects, Mr. Mackintosh became a convert
not merely to the graces and gravity of Mr. Burke’s style, but to the
liberality of his views, and the solidity of his opinions.—The
Lincoln’s-Inn Lectures were the fruit of this interview: such is the
influence exercised by men of genius and imaginative power over those
who have nothing to oppose to their unforeseen flashes of thought and
invention, but the dry, cold, formal, deductions of the understanding.
Our politician had time, during a few years of absence from his native
country, and while the din of war and the cries of party-spirit ‘were
lost over a wide and unhearing ocean,’ to recover from his surprise and
from a temporary alienation of mind; and to return in spirit, and in the
mild and mellowed maturity of age, to the principles and attachments of
his early life.

The appointment of Sir James Mackintosh to a Judgeship in India was one,
which, however flattering to his vanity or favourable to his interests,
was entirely foreign to his feelings and habits. It was an honourable
exile. He was out of his element among black slaves and sepoys, and
Nabobs and cadets, and writers to India. He had no one to exchange ideas
with. The ‘unbought grace of life,’ the charm of literary conversation
was gone. It was the habit of his mind, his ruling passion to enter into
the shock and conflict of opinions on philosophical, political, and
critical questions—not to dictate to raw tyros or domineer over persons
in subordinate situations—but to obtain the guerdon and the laurels of
superior sense and information by meeting with men of equal standing, to
have a fair field pitched, to argue, to distinguish, to reply, to hunt
down the game of intellect with eagerness and skill, to push an
advantage, to cover a retreat, to give and take a fall—

             ‘And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.’

It is no wonder that this sort of friendly intellectual gladiatorship is
Sir James’s greatest pleasure, for it is his peculiar _forte_. He has
not many equals, and scarcely any superior in it. He is too indolent for
an author; too unimpassioned for an orator: but in society he is just
vain enough to be pleased with immediate attention, good-humoured enough
to listen with patience to others, with great coolness and
self-possession, fluent, communicative, and with a manner equally free
from violence and insipidity. Few subjects can be started, on which he
is not qualified to appear to advantage as the gentleman and scholar. If
there is some tinge of pedantry, it is carried off by great affability
of address and variety of amusing and interesting topics. There is
scarce an author that he has not read; a period of history that he is
not conversant with; a celebrated name of which he has not a number of
anecdotes to relate; an intricate question that he is not prepared to
enter upon in a popular or scientific manner. If an opinion in an
abstruse metaphysical author is referred to, he is probably able to
repeat the passage by heart, can tell the side of the page on which it
is to be met with, can trace it back through various descents to Locke,
Hobbes, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, to a place in some obscure folio of
the Schoolmen or a note in one of the commentators on Aristotle or
Plato, and thus give you in a few moments’ space, and without any effort
or previous notice, a chronological table of the progress of the human
mind in that particular branch of inquiry. There is something, we think,
perfectly admirable and delightful in an exhibition of this kind, and
which is equally creditable to the speaker and gratifying to the hearer.
But this kind of talent was of no use in India: the intellectual wares,
of which the Chief Judge delighted to make a display, were in no request
there. He languished after the friends and the society he had left
behind; and wrote over incessantly for books from England. One that was
sent him at this time was an _Essay on the Principles of Human Action_;
and the way in which he spoke of that dry, tough, metaphysical
_choke-pear_, showed the dearth of intellectual intercourse in which he
lived, and the craving in his mind after those studies which had once
been his pride, and to which he still turned for consolation in his
remote solitude.—Perhaps to another, the novelty of the scene, the
differences of mind and manners might have atoned for a want of social
and literary _agrémens_: but Sir James is one of those who see nature
through the spectacles of books. He might like to read an account of
India; but India itself with its burning, shining face would be a mere
blank, an endless waste to him. To persons of this class of mind things
must be translated into words, visible images into abstract propositions
to meet their refined apprehensions, and they have no more to say to a
matter-of-fact staring them in the face without a label in its mouth,
than they would to a hippopotamus!—We may add, before we quit this
point, that we cannot conceive of any two persons more different in
colloquial talents, in which they both excel, than Sir James Mackintosh
and Mr. Coleridge. They have nearly an equal range of reading and of
topics of conversation: but in the mind of the one we see nothing but
_fixtures_, in the other every thing is fluid. The ideas of the one are
as formal and tangible, as those of the other are shadowy and
evanescent. Sir James Mackintosh walks over the ground, Mr. Coleridge is
always flying off from it. The first knows all that has been said upon a
subject; the last has something to say that was never said before. If
the one deals too much in learned _common-places_, the other teems with
idle fancies. The one has a good deal of the _caput mortuum_ of genius,
the other is all volatile salt. The conversation of Sir James Mackintosh
has the effect of reading a well-written book, that of his friend is
like hearing a bewildered dream. The one is an Encyclopedia of
knowledge, the other is a succession of _Sybilline Leaves_!

As an author, Sir James Mackintosh may claim the foremost rank among
those who pride themselves on artificial ornaments and acquired
learning, or who write what may be termed a _composite_ style. His
_Vindiciæ Gallicæ_ is a work of great labour, great ingenuity, great
brilliancy, and great vigour. It is a little too antithetical in the
structure of its periods, too dogmatical in the announcement of its
opinions. Sir James has, we believe, rejected something of the _false
brilliant_ of the one, as he has retracted some of the abrupt
extravagance of the other. We apprehend, however, that our author is not
one of those who draw from their own resources and accumulated feelings,
or who improve with age. He belongs to a class (common in Scotland and
elsewhere) who get up school-exercises on any given subject in a
masterly manner at twenty, and who at forty are either where they
were—or retrograde, if they are men of sense and modesty. The reason is,
their vanity is weaned, after the first hey-day and animal spirits of
youth are flown, from making an affected display of knowledge, which,
however useful, is not their own, and may be much more simply stated;
they are tired of repeating the same arguments over and over again,
after having exhausted and rung the changes on their whole stock for a
number of times. Sir James Mackintosh is understood to be a writer in
the Edinburgh Review; and the articles attributed to him there are full
of matter of great pith and moment. But they want the trim, pointed
expression, the ambitious ornaments, the ostentatious display and rapid
volubility of his early productions. We have heard it objected to his
later compositions, that his style is good as far as single words and
phrases are concerned, but that his sentences are clumsy and disjointed,
and that these make up still more awkward and sprawling paragraphs. This
is a nice criticism, and we cannot speak to its truth; but if the fact
be so, we think we can account for it from the texture and obvious
process of the author’s mind. All his ideas may be said to be given
preconceptions. They do not arise, as it were, out of the subject, or
out of one another at the moment, and therefore do not flow naturally
and gracefully from one another. They have been laid down beforehand in
a sort of formal division or frame-work of the understanding; and the
connection between the premises and the conclusion, between one branch
of a subject and another, is made out in a bungling and unsatisfactory
manner. There is no principle of fusion in the work; he strikes after
the iron is cold, and there is a want of malleability in the style. Sir
James is at present said to be engaged in writing a _History of England_
after the downfall of the house of Stuart. May it be worthy of the
talents of the author, and of the principles of the period it is
intended to illustrate!




                              MR. MALTHUS


Mr. Malthus may be considered as one of those rare and fortunate writers
who have attained a _scientific_ reputation in questions of moral and
political philosophy. His name undoubtedly stands very high in the
present age, and will in all probability go down to posterity with more
or less of renown or obloquy. It was said by a person well qualified to
judge both from strength and candour of mind, that ‘it would take a
thousand years at least to answer his work on Population.’ He has
certainly thrown a new light on that question, and changed the aspect of
political economy in a decided and material point of view—whether he has
not also endeavoured to spread a gloom over the hopes and more sanguine
speculations of man, and to cast a slur upon the face of nature, is
another question. There is this to be said for Mr. Malthus, that in
speaking of him, one knows what one is talking about. He is something
beyond a mere name—one has not to _beat the bush_ about his talents, his
attainments, his vast reputation, and leave off without knowing what it
all amounts to—he is not one of those great men, who set themselves off
and strut and fret an hour upon the stage, during a day-dream of
popularity, with the ornaments and jewels borrowed from the common
stock, to which nothing but their vanity and presumption gives them the
least individual claim—he has dug into the mine of truth, and brought up
ore mixed with dross! In weighing his merits we come at once to the
question of what he has done or failed to do. It is a specific claim
that he sets up. When we speak of Mr. Malthus, we mean the _Essay on
Population_; and when we mention the Essay on Population, we mean a
distinct leading proposition, that stands out intelligibly from all
trashy pretence, and is a ground on which to fix the levers that may
move the world, backwards or forwards. He has not left opinion where he
found it; he has advanced or given it a wrong bias, or thrown a
stumbling-block in its way. In a word, his name is not stuck, like so
many others, in the firmament of reputation, nobody knows why, inscribed
in great letters, and with a transparency of TALENTS, GENIUS, LEARNING
blazing round it—it is tantamount to an idea, it is identified with a
principle, it means that _the population cannot go on perpetually
increasing without pressing on the limits of the means of subsistence,
and that a check of some kind or other must, sooner or later, be opposed
to it_. This is the essence of the doctrine which Mr. Malthus has been
the first to bring into general notice, and as we think, to establish
beyond the fear of contradiction. Admitting then as we do the prominence
and the value of his claims to public attention, it yet remains a
question, how far those claims are (as to the talent displayed in them)
strictly original; how far (as to the logical accuracy with which he has
treated the subject) he has introduced foreign and doubtful matter into
it; and how far (as to the spirit in which he has conducted his
inquiries, and applied a general principle to particular objects) he has
only drawn fair and inevitable conclusions from it, or endeavoured to
tamper with and wrest it to sinister and servile purposes. A writer who
shrinks from following up a well-founded principle into its untoward
consequences from timidity or false delicacy, is not worthy of the name
of a philosopher: a writer who assumes the garb of candour and an
inflexible love of truth to garble and pervert it, to crouch to power
and pander to prejudice, deserves a worse title than that of a sophist!

Mr. Malthus’s first octavo volume on this subject (published in the year
1798) was intended as an answer to Mr. Godwin’s _Enquiry concerning
Political Justice_. It was well got up for the purpose, and had an
immediate effect. It was what in the language of the ring is called _a
facer_. It made Mr. Godwin and the other advocates of Modern Philosophy
look about them. It may be almost doubted whether Mr. Malthus was in the
first instance serious in many things that he threw out, or whether he
did not hazard the whole as an amusing and extreme paradox, which might
puzzle the reader as it had done himself in an idle moment, but to which
no practical consequence whatever could attach. This state of mind would
probably continue till the irritation of enemies and the encouragement
of friends convinced him that what he had at first exhibited as an idle
fancy was in fact a very valuable discovery, or ‘like the toad ugly and
venomous, had yet a precious jewel in its head.’ Such a supposition
would at least account for some things in the original Essay, which
scarcely any writer would venture upon, except as professed exercises of
ingenuity, and which have been since in part retracted. But a wrong bias
was thus given, and the author’s theory was thus rendered warped,
disjointed, and sophistical from the very outset.

Nothing could in fact be more illogical (not to say absurd) than the
whole of Mr. Malthus’s reasoning applied as an answer (_par excellence_)
to Mr. Godwin’s book, or to the theories of other Utopian philosophers.
Mr. Godwin was not singular, but was kept in countenance by many
authorities, both ancient and modern, in supposing a state of society
possible in which the passions and wills of individuals would be
conformed to the general good, in which the knowledge of the best means
of promoting human welfare and the desire of contributing to it would
banish vice and misery from the world, and in which, the
stumbling-blocks of ignorance, of selfishness, and the indulgence of
gross appetite being removed, all things would move on by the mere
impulse of wisdom and virtue, to still higher and higher degrees of
perfection and happiness. Compared with the lamentable and gross
deficiencies of existing institutions, such a view of futurity as barely
possible could not fail to allure the gaze and tempt the aspiring
thoughts of the philanthropist and the philosopher: the hopes and the
imaginations of speculative men could not but rush forward into this
ideal world as into a _vacuum_ of good; and from ‘the mighty stream of
tendency’ (as Mr. Wordsworth in the cant of the day calls it,) there was
danger that the proud monuments of time-hallowed institutions, that the
strong-holds of power and corruption, that ‘the Corinthian capitals of
polished society,’ with the base and pediments, might be overthrown and
swept away as by a hurricane. There were not wanting persons whose
ignorance, whose fears, whose pride, or whose prejudices contemplated
such an alternative with horror; and who would naturally feel no small
obligation to the man who should relieve their apprehensions from the
stunning roar of this mighty change of opinion that thundered at a
distance, and should be able, by some logical apparatus or unexpected
turn of the argument, to prevent the vessel of the state from being
hurried forward with the progress of improvement, and dashed in pieces
down the tremendous precipice of human perfectibility. Then comes Mr.
Malthus forward with the geometrical and arithmetical ratios in his
hands, and holds them out to his affrighted contemporaries as the only
means of salvation. ‘For’ (so argued the author of the Essay) ‘let the
principles of Mr. Godwin’s Enquiry and of other similar works be carried
literally and completely into effect; let every corruption and abuse of
power be entirely got rid of; let virtue, knowledge, and civilization be
advanced to the greatest height that these visionary reformers would
suppose; let the passions and appetites be subjected to the utmost
control of reason and influence of public opinion: grant them, in a
word, all that they ask, and the more completely their views are
realized, the sooner will they be overthrown again, and the more
inevitable and fatal will be the catastrophe. For the principle of
population will still prevail, and from the comfort, ease, and plenty
that will abound, will receive an increasing force and _impetus_; the
number of mouths to be fed will have no limit, but the food that is to
supply them cannot keep pace with the demand for it; we must come to a
stop somewhere, even though each square yard, by extreme improvements in
cultivation, could maintain its man: in this state of things there will
be no remedy, the wholesome checks of vice and misery (which have
hitherto kept this principle within bounds) will have been done away;
the voice of reason will be unheard; the passions only will bear sway;
famine, distress, havoc, and dismay will spread around; hatred,
violence, war, and bloodshed will be the infallible consequence, and
from the pinnacle of happiness, peace, refinement, and social advantage,
we shall be hurled once more into a profounder abyss of misery, want,
and barbarism than ever, by the sole operation of the principle of
population!’—Such is a brief abstract of the argument of the Essay. Can
any thing be less conclusive, a more complete fallacy and _petitio
principii_? Mr. Malthus concedes, he assumes a state of perfectibility,
such as his opponents imagined, in which the general good is to obtain
the entire mastery of individual interests, and reason of gross
appetites and passions: and then he argues that such a perfect structure
of society will fall by its own weight, or rather be undermined by the
principle of population, because in the highest possible state of the
subjugation of the passions to reason, they will be absolutely lawless
and unchecked, and because as men become enlightened, quick sighted and
public-spirited, they will show themselves utterly blind to the
consequences of their actions, utterly indifferent to their own
well-being and that of all succeeding generations, whose fate is placed
in their hands. This we conceive to be the boldest paralogism that ever
was offered to the world, or palmed upon willing credulity. Against
whatever other scheme of reform this objection might be valid, the one
it was brought expressly to overturn was impregnable against it,
invulnerable to its slightest graze. Say that the Utopian reasoners are
visionaries, unfounded; that the state of virtue and knowledge they
suppose, in which reason shall have become all-in-all, can never take
place, that it is inconsistent with the nature of man and with all
experience, well and good—but to say that society will have attained
this high and ‘palmy state,’ that reason will have become the master-key
to all our motives, and that when arrived at its greatest power it will
cease to act at all, but will fall down dead, inert, and senseless
before the principle of population, is an opinion which one would think
few people would choose to advance or assent to, without strong
inducements for maintaining or believing it.

The fact, however, is, that Mr. Malthus found this argument entire (the
principle and the application of it) in an obscure and almost forgotten
work published about the middle of the last century, entitled _Various
Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence_, by a Scotch gentleman of
the name of Wallace. The chapter in this work on the Principle of
Population, considered as a bar to all ultimate views of human
improvement, was probably written to amuse an idle hour, or read as a
paper to exercise the wits of some literary society in the Northern
capital, and no farther responsibility or importance annexed to it. Mr.
Malthus, by adopting and setting his name to it, has given it sufficient
currency and effect. It sometimes happens that one writer is the first
to discover a certain principle or lay down a given observation, and
that another makes an application of, or draws a remote or an immediate
inference from it, totally unforeseen by the first, and from which, in
all probability, he might have widely dissented. But this is not so in
the present instance. Mr. Malthus has borrowed (perhaps without
consciousness, at any rate without acknowledgment) both the preliminary
statement, that the increase in the supply of food ‘from a limited earth
and a limited fertility’ must have an end, while the tendency to
increase in the principle of population has none, without some external
and forcible restraint on it, and the subsequent use made of this
statement as an insuperable bar to all schemes of Utopian or progressive
improvement—both these he has borrowed (whole) from Wallace, with all
their imperfections on their heads, and has added more and greater ones
to them out of his own store. In order to produce something of a
startling and dramatic effect, he has strained a point or two. In order
to quell and frighten away the bugbear of Modern Philosophy, he was
obliged to make a sort of monster of the principle of population, which
was brought into the field against it, and which was to swallow it up
quick. No half-measures, no middle course of reasoning would do. With a
view to meet the highest possible power of reason in the new order of
things, Mr. Malthus saw the necessity of giving the greatest possible
physical weight to the antagonist principle, and he accordingly lays it
down that its operation is mechanical and irresistible. He premises
these two propositions as the basis of all his reasoning, 1. _That food
is necessary to man_; 2. _That the desire to propagate the species is an
equally indispensable law of our existence_:—thus making it appear that
these two wants or impulses are equal and coordinate principles of
action. If this double statement had been true, the whole scope and
structure of his reasoning (as hostile to human hopes and sanguine
speculations) would have been irrefragable; but as it is not true, the
whole (in that view) falls to the ground. According to Mr. Malthus’s
octavo edition, the sexual passion is as necessary to be gratified as
the appetite of hunger, and a man can no more exist without propagating
his species than he can live without eating. Were it so, neither of
these passions would admit of any excuses, any delay, any restraint from
reason or foresight; and the only checks to the principle of population
must be vice and misery. The argument would be triumphant and complete.
But there is no analogy, no parity in the two cases, such as our author
here assumes. No man can live for any length of time without food; many
persons live all their lives without gratifying the other sense. The
longer the craving after food is unsatisfied, the more violent,
imperious, and uncontroulable the desire becomes; whereas the longer the
gratification of the sexual passion is resisted, the greater force does
habit and resolution acquire over it; and, generally speaking, it is a
well-known fact, attested by all observation and history, that this
latter passion is subject more or less to controul from personal
feelings and character, from public opinions and the institutions of
society, so as to lead either to a lawful and regulated indulgence, or
to partial or total abstinence, according to the dictates of _moral
restraint_, which latter check to the inordinate excesses and unheard-of
consequences of the principle of population, our author, having no
longer an extreme case to make out, admits and is willing to patronize
in addition to the two former and exclusive ones of _vice_ and _misery_,
in the second and remaining editions of his work. Mr. Malthus has shown
some awkwardness or even reluctance in softening down the harshness of
his first peremptory decision. He sometimes grants his grand exception
cordially, proceeds to argue stoutly, and to try conclusions upon it; at
other times he seems disposed to cavil about or retract it:—‘the
influence of moral restraint is very inconsiderable, or none at all.’ It
is indeed difficult (more particularly for so formal and nice a reasoner
as Mr. Malthus) to piece such contradictions plausibly or gracefully
together. We wonder how _he_ manages it—how _any one_ should attempt it!
The whole question, the _gist_ of the argument of his early volume
turned upon this, ‘Whether vice and misery were the _only_ actual or
possible checks to the principle of population?’ He then said they were,
and farewell to building castles in the air: he now says that _moral
restraint_ is to be coupled with these, and that its influence depends
greatly on the state of laws and manners—and Utopia stands where it did,
a great way off indeed, but not turned _topsy-turvy_ by our magician’s
wand! Should we ever arrive there, that is, attain to a state of
_perfect moral restraint_, we shall not be driven headlong back into
Epicurus’s stye for want of the only possible checks to population,
_vice_ and _misery_; and in proportion as we advance that way, that is,
as the influence of moral restraint is extended, the necessity for vice
and misery will be diminished, instead of being increased according to
the first alarm given by the Essay. Again, the advance of civilization
and of population in consequence with the same degree of moral restraint
(as there exists in England at this present time, for instance) is a
good, and not an evil—but this does not appear from the Essay. The Essay
shows that population is not (as had been sometimes taken for granted)
an abstract and unqualified good; but it led many persons to suppose
that it was an abstract and unqualified evil, to be checked only by vice
and misery; and producing, according to its encouragement a greater
quantity of vice and misery; and this error the author has not been at
sufficient pains to do away. Another thing, in which Mr. Malthus
attempted to _clench_ Wallace’s argument, was in giving to the
disproportionate power of increase in the principle of population and
the supply of food a mathematical form, or reducing it to the
arithmetical and geometrical ratios, in which we believe Mr. Malthus is
now generally admitted, even by his friends and admirers, to have been
wrong. There is evidently no inherent difference in the principle of
increase in food or population; since a grain of corn, for example, will
propagate and multiply itself much faster even than the human species. A
bushel of wheat will sow a field; that field will furnish seed for
twenty others. So that the limit to the means of subsistence is only the
want of room to raise it in, or, as Wallace expresses it, ‘a limited
fertility and a limited earth.’ Up to the point where the earth or any
given country is fully occupied or cultivated, the means of subsistence
naturally increase in a geometrical ratio, and will more than keep pace
with the natural and unrestrained progress of population; and beyond
that point, they do not go on increasing even in Mr. Malthus’s
arithmetical ratio, but are stationary or nearly so. So far, then, is
this proportion from being universally and mathematically true, that in
no part of the world or state of society does it hold good. But our
theorist, by laying down this double ratio as a law of nature, gains
this advantage, that at all times it seems as if, whether in new or
old-peopled countries, in fertile or barren soils, the population was
pressing hard on the means of subsistence; and again, it seems as if the
evil increased with the progress of improvement and civilization; for if
you cast your eye at the scale which is supposed to be calculated upon
true and infallible _data_, you find that when the population is at 8,
the means of subsistence are at 4; so that here there is only a
_deficit_ of one-half; but when it is at 32, they have only got to 6, so
that here there is a difference of 26 in 32, and so on in proportion;
the farther we proceed, the more enormous is the mass of vice and misery
we must undergo, as a consequence of the natural excess of the
population over the means of subsistence and as a salutary check to its
farther desolating progress. The mathematical Table, placed at the front
of the Essay, therefore leads to a secret suspicion or a barefaced
assumption, that we ought in mere kindness and compassion to give every
sort of indirect and under-hand encouragement (to say the least) to the
providential checks of vice and misery; as the sooner we arrest this
formidable and paramount evil in its course, the less opportunity we
leave it of doing incalculable mischief. Accordingly, whenever there is
the least talk of colonizing new countries, of extending the population,
or adding to social comforts and improvements, Mr. Malthus conjures up
his double ratios, and insists on the alarming results of advancing them
a single step forward in the series. By the same rule, it would be
better to return at once to a state of barbarism; and to take the
benefit of acorns and scuttle-fish, as a security against the luxuries
and wants of civilized life. But it is not our ingenious author’s wish
to hint at or recommend any alterations in existing institutions; and he
is therefore silent on that unpalatable part of the subject and natural
inference from his principles.

Mr. Malthus’s ‘gospel is preached to the poor.’ He lectures them on
economy, on morality, the regulation of their passions (which, he says,
at other times, are amenable to no restraint) and on the ungracious
topic, that ‘the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, have doomed
them and their families to starve for want of a right to the smallest
portion of food beyond what their labour will supply, or some charitable
hand may hold out in compassion.’ This is illiberal, and it is not
philosophical. The laws of nature or of God, to which the author
appeals, are no other than a limited fertility and a limited earth.
Within those bounds, the rest is regulated by the laws of man. The
division of the produce of the soil, the price of labour, the relief
afforded to the poor, are matters of human arrangement: while any
charitable hand can extend relief, it is a proof that the means of
subsistence are not exhausted in themselves, that the ‘tables are not
full!’ Mr. Malthus says that the laws of nature, which are the laws of
God, have rendered that relief physically impossible; and yet he would
abrogate the poor-laws by an act of the legislature, in order to take
away that _impossible_ relief, which the laws of God deny, and which the
laws of man _actually_ afford. We cannot think that this view of his
subject, which is prominent and dwelt on at great length and with much
pertinacity, is dictated either by rigid logic or melting charity! A
labouring man is not allowed to knock down a hare or a partridge that
spoils his garden: a country-squire keeps a pack of hounds: a lady of
quality rides out with a footman behind her, on two sleek, well-fed
horses. We have not a word to say against all this as exemplifying the
spirit of the English Constitution, as a part of the law of the land, or
as an artful distribution of light and shade in the social picture; but
if any one insists at the same time that ‘the laws of nature, which are
the laws of God, have doomed the poor and their families to starve,’
because the principle of population has encroached upon and swallowed up
the means of subsistence, so that not a mouthful of food is left _by the
grinding law of necessity_ for the poor, we beg leave to deny both fact
and inference—and we put it to Mr. Malthus whether we are not, in
strictness, justified in doing so?

We have, perhaps, said enough to explain our feeling on the subject of
Mr. Malthus’s merits and defects. We think he had the opportunity and
the means in his hands of producing a great work on the principle of
population; but we believe he has let it slip from his having an eye to
other things besides that broad and unexplored question. He wished not
merely to advance to the discovery of certain great and valuable truths,
but at the same time to overthrow certain unfashionable paradoxes by
exaggerated statements—to curry favour with existing prejudices and
interests by garbled representations. He has, in a word, as it appears
to us on a candid retrospect and without any feelings of controversial
asperity rankling in our minds, sunk the philosopher and the friend of
his species (a character to which he might have aspired) in the sophist
and party-writer. The period at which Mr. Malthus came forward teemed
with answers to Modern Philosophy, with antidotes to liberty and
humanity, with abusive Histories of the Greek and Roman republics, with
fulsome panegyrics on the Roman Emperors (at the very time when we were
reviling Buonaparte for his strides to universal empire) with the slime
and offal of desperate servility—and we cannot but consider the Essay as
one of the poisonous ingredients thrown into the cauldron of Legitimacy
‘to make it thick and slab.’ Our author has, indeed, so far done service
to the cause of truth, that he has counteracted many capital errors
formerly prevailing as to the universal and indiscriminate encouragement
of population under all circumstances; but he has countenanced opposite
errors, which if adopted in theory and practice would be even more
mischievous, and has left it to future philosophers to follow up the
principle, that some check must be provided for the unrestrained
progress of population, into a set of wiser and more humane
consequences. Mr. Godwin has lately attempted an answer to the Essay
(thus giving Mr. Malthus a _Roland for his Oliver_) but we think he has
judged ill in endeavouring to invalidate the principle, instead of
confining himself to point out the misapplication of it. There is one
argument introduced in this Reply, which will, perhaps, amuse the reader
as a sort of metaphysical puzzle.

‘It has sometimes occurred to me whether Mr. Malthus did not catch the
first hint of his geometrical ratio from a curious passage of Judge
Blackstone, on consanguinity, which is as follows:—

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

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

                _Lineal Degrees._ _Number of Ancestors._

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

‘This argument, however,’ (proceeds Mr. Godwin) ‘from Judge Blackstone
of a geometrical progression would much more naturally apply to
Montesquieu’s hypothesis of the depopulation of the world, and prove
that the human species is hastening fast to extinction, than to the
purpose for which Mr. Malthus has employed it. An ingenious sophism
might be raised upon it, to show that the race of mankind will
ultimately terminate in unity. Mr. Malthus, indeed, should have
reflected, that it is much more certain that every man has had ancestors
than that he will have posterity, and that it is still more doubtful,
whether he will have posterity to twenty or to an indefinite number of
generations.’—ENQUIRY CONCERNING POPULATION, p. 100.

Mr. Malthus’s style is correct and elegant; his tone of controversy mild
and gentlemanly; and the care with which he has brought his facts and
documents together, deserves the highest praise. He has lately quitted
his favourite subject of population, and broke a lance with Mr. Ricardo
on the question of rent and value. The partisans of Mr. Ricardo, who are
also the admirers of Mr. Malthus, say that the usual sagacity of the
latter has here failed him, and that he has shown himself to be a very
illogical writer. To have said this of him formerly on another ground,
was accounted a heresy and a piece of presumption not easily to be
forgiven. Indeed Mr. Malthus has always been a sort of ‘darling in the
public eye,’ whom it was unsafe to meddle with. He has contrived to make
himself as many friends by his attacks on the schemes of _Human
Perfectibility_ and on the _Poor-Laws_, as Mandeville formerly procured
enemies by his attacks on _Human Perfections_ and on _Charity-Schools_;
and among other instances that we might mention, _Plug_ Pulteney, the
celebrated miser, of whom Mr. Burke said on his having a large estate
left him, ‘that now it was to be hoped he would _set up a
pocket-handkerchief_,’ was so enamoured with the saving schemes and
humane economy of the Essay, that he desired a friend to find out the
author and offer him a church living! This liberal intention was (by
design or accident) unhappily frustrated.




                              MR. GIFFORD


Mr. Gifford was originally bred to some handicraft: he afterwards
contrived to learn Latin, and was for some time an usher in a school,
till he became a tutor in a nobleman’s family. The low-bred, self-taught
man, the pedant, and the dependant on the great contribute to form the
Editor of the _Quarterly Review_. He is admirably qualified for this
situation, which he has held for some years, by a happy combination of
defects, natural and acquired; and in the event of his death, it will be
difficult to provide him a suitable successor.

Mr. Gifford has no pretensions to be thought a man of genius, of taste,
or even of general knowledge. He merely understands the mechanical and
instrumental part of learning. He is a critic of the last age, when the
different editions of an author, or the dates of his several
performances were all that occupied the inquiries of a profound scholar,
and the spirit of the writer or the beauties of his style were left to
shift for themselves, or exercise the fancy of the light and superficial
reader. In studying an old author, he has no notion of any thing beyond
adjusting a point, proposing a different reading, or correcting, by the
collation of various copies, an error of the press. In appreciating a
modern one, if it is an enemy, the first thing he thinks of is to charge
him with bad grammar—he scans his sentences instead of weighing his
sense; or, if it is a friend, the highest compliment he conceives it
possible to pay him is, that his thoughts and expressions are moulded on
some hackneyed model. His standard of _ideal_ perfection is what he
himself now is, a person of _mediocre_ literary attainments: his utmost
contempt is shown by reducing any one to what he himself once was, a
person without the ordinary advantages of education and learning. It is
accordingly assumed, with much complacency in his critical pages, that
Tory writers are classical and courtly as a matter of course; as it is a
standing jest and evident truism, that Whigs and Reformers must be
persons of low birth and breeding—imputations from one of which he
himself has narrowly escaped, and both of which he holds in suitable
abhorrence. He stands over a contemporary performance with all the
self-conceit and self-importance of a country schoolmaster, tries it by
technical rules, affects not to understand the meaning, examines the
hand-writing, the spelling, shrugs up his shoulders and chuckles over a
slip of the pen, and keeps a sharp look-out for a false concord and—a
flogging. There is nothing liberal, nothing humane in his style of
judging: it is altogether petty, captious, and literal. The Editor’s
political subserviency adds the last finishing to his ridiculous
pedantry and vanity. He has all his life been a follower in the train of
wealth and power—strives to back his pretensions on Parnassus by a place
at court, and to gild his reputation as a man of letters by the smile of
greatness. He thinks his works are stamped with additional value by
having his name in the _Red-Book_. He looks up to the distinctions of
rank and station as he does to those of learning, with the gross and
over-weening adulation of his early origin. All his notions are low,
upstart, servile. He thinks it the highest honour to a poet to be
patronised by a peer or by some dowager of quality. He is prouder of a
court-livery than of a laurel-wreath; and is only sure of having
established his claims to respectability by having sacrificed those of
independence. He is a retainer to the Muses; a door-keeper to learning;
a lacquey in the state. He believes that modern literature should wear
the fetters of classical antiquity; that truth is to be weighed in the
scales of opinion and prejudice; that power is equivalent to right; that
genius is dependent on rules; that taste and refinement of language
consist in _word-catching_. Many persons suppose that Mr. Gifford knows
better than he pretends; and that he is shrewd, artful, and designing.
But perhaps it may be nearer the mark to suppose that his dulness is
guarantee for his sincerity; or that before he is the tool of the
profligacy of others, he is the dupe of his own jaundiced feelings, and
narrow, hood-winked perceptions.

                ‘Destroy his fib or sophistry: in vain—
                The creature’s at his dirty work again!’

But this is less from choice or perversity, than because he cannot help
it and can do nothing else. He damns a beautiful expression less out of
spite than because he really does not understand it: any novelty of
thought or sentiment gives him a shock from which he cannot recover for
some time, and he naturally takes his revenge for the alarm and
uneasiness occasioned him, without referring to venal or party motives.
He garbles an author’s meaning, not so much wilfully, as because it is a
pain to him to enlarge his microscopic view to take in the context, when
a particular sentence or passage has struck him as quaint and out of the
way: he fly-blows an author’s style, and picks out detached words and
phrases for cynical reprobation, simply because he feels himself at
home, or takes a pride and pleasure in this sort of petty warfare. He is
tetchy and impatient of contradiction; sore with wounded pride; angry at
obvious faults, more angry at unforeseen beauties. He has the
_chalk-stones_ in his understanding, and from being used to long
confinement, cannot bear the slightest jostling or irregularity of
motion. He may call out with the fellow in the _Tempest_—‘I am not
Stephano, but a cramp!’ He would go back to the standard of opinions,
style, the faded ornaments, and insipid formalities that came into
fashion about forty years ago. Flashes of thought, flights of fancy,
idiomatic expressions, he sets down among the signs of the times—the
extraordinary occurrences of the age we live in. They are marks of a
restless and revolutionary spirit: they disturb his composure of mind,
and threaten (by implication) the safety of the state. His slow,
snail-paced, bed-rid habits of reasoning, cannot keep up with the
whirling, eccentric motion, the rapid, perhaps extravagant combinations
of modern literature. He has long been stationary himself, and is
determined that others shall remain so. The hazarding a paradox is like
letting off a pistol close to his ear: he is alarmed and offended. The
using an elliptical mode of expression (such as he did not use to find
in Guides to the English Tongue) jars him like coming suddenly to a step
in a flight of stairs that you were not aware of. He _pishes_ and
_pshaws_ at all this, exercises a sort of interjectional criticism on
what excites his spleen, his envy, or his wonder, and hurls his meagre
anathemas _ex cathedrâ_ at all those writers who are indifferent alike
to his precepts and his example!

Mr. Gifford, in short, is possessed of that sort of learning which is
likely to result from an over-anxious desire to supply the want of the
first rudiments of education; that sort of wit, which is the offspring
of ill-humour or bodily pain; that sort of sense, which arises from a
spirit of contradiction and a disposition to cavil at and dispute the
opinions of others; and that sort of reputation, which is the
consequence of bowing to established authority and ministerial
influence. He dedicates to some great man, and receives his compliments
in return. He appeals to some great name, and the Under-graduates of the
two Universities look up to him as an oracle of wisdom. He throws the
weight of his verbal criticism and puny discoveries in _black-letter_
reading into the gap, that is supposed to be making in the Constitution
by Whigs and Radicals, whom he qualifies without mercy as dunces and
miscreants; and so entitles himself to the protection of Church and
State. The character of his mind is an utter want of independence and
magnanimity in all that he attempts. He cannot go alone, he must have
crutches, a go-cart and trammels, or he is timid, fretful, and helpless
as a child. He cannot conceive of any thing different from what he finds
it, and hates those who pretend to a greater reach of intellect or
boldness of spirit than himself. He inclines, by a natural and
deliberate bias, to the traditional in laws and government; to the
orthodox in religion; to the safe in opinion; to the trite in
imagination; to the technical in style; to whatever implies a surrender
of individual judgment into the hands of authority, and a subjection of
individual feeling to mechanic rules. If he finds any one flying in the
face of these, or straggling from the beaten path, he thinks he has them
at a notable disadvantage, and falls foul of them without loss of time,
partly to soothe his own sense of mortified self-consequence, and as an
edifying spectacle to his legitimate friends. He takes none but unfair
advantages. He _twits_ his adversaries (that is, those who are not in
the leading-strings of his school or party) with some personal or
accidental defect. If a writer has been punished for a political libel,
he is sure to hear of it in a literary criticism. If a lady goes on
crutches and is out of favour at court, she is reminded of it in Mr.
Gifford’s manly satire. He sneers at people of low birth or who have not
had a college education, partly to hide his own want of certain
advantages, partly as well-timed flattery to those who possess them. He
has a right to laugh at poor, unfriended, untitled genius from wearing
the livery of rank and letters, as footmen behind a coronet-coach laugh
at the rabble. He keeps good company, and forgets himself. He stands at
the door of Mr. Murray’s shop, and will not let any body pass but the
well-dressed mob, or some followers of the court. To edge into the
_Quarterly_ Temple of Fame the candidate must have a diploma from the
Universities, a passport from the Treasury. Otherwise, it is a breach of
etiquette to let him pass, an insult to the better sort who aspire to
the love of letters—and may chance to drop in to the _Feast of the
Poets_. Or, if he cannot manage it thus, or get rid of the claim on the
bare ground of poverty or want of school-learning, he _trumps_ up an
excuse for the occasion, such as that ‘a man was confined in Newgate a
short time before’—it is not a _lie_ on the part of the critic, it is
only an amiable subserviency to the will of his betters, like that of a
menial who is ordered to deny his master, a sense of propriety, a
knowledge of the world, a poetical and moral license. Such fellows (such
is his cue from his employers) should at any rate be kept out of
privileged places: persons who have been convicted of prose-libels ought
not to be suffered to write poetry—if the fact was not exactly as it was
stated, it was something of the kind, or it _ought_ to have been so, the
assertion was a pious fraud,—the public, the court, the prince himself
might read the work, but for this mark of opprobrium set upon it—it was
not to be endured that an insolent plebeian should aspire to elegance,
taste, fancy—it was throwing down the barriers which ought to separate
the higher and the lower classes, the loyal and the disloyal—the
paraphrase of the story of Dante was therefore to perform quarantine, it
was to seem not yet recovered from the gaol infection, there was to be a
taint upon it, as there was none in it—and all this was performed by a
single slip of Mr. Gifford’s pen! We would willingly believe (if we
could) that in this case there was as much weakness and prejudice as
there was malice and cunning.—Again, we do not think it possible that
under any circumstances the writer of the _Verses to Anna_ could enter
into the spirit or delicacy of Mr. Keats’s poetry. The fate of the
latter somewhat resembled that of

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

Mr. Keats’s ostensible crime was that he had been praised in the
_Examiner Newspaper_: a greater and more unpardonable offence probably
was, that he was a true poet, with all the errors and beauties of
youthful genius to answer for. Mr. Gifford was as insensible to the one
as he was inexorable to the other. Let the reader judge from the two
subjoined specimens how far the one writer could ever, without a
presumption equalled only by a want of self-knowledge, set himself in
judgment on the other.

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

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

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

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

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

With the rich beauties and the dim obscurities of lines like these, let
us contrast the Verses addressed _To a Tuft of early Violets_ by the
fastidious author of the Baviad and Mæviad.—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            ‘O! I should think—_that fragrant bed
              Might I but hope with you to share_—[54]
            Years of anxiety repaid
              By one short hour of transport there.

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

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

We subjoin one more specimen of these ‘wild strains’[55] said to be
‘_Written two years after the preceding_.’ ECCE ITERUM CRISPINUS.

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

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

             ‘But who, when I am turned to clay,
               Shall duly to her grave repair,
             And pluck the ragged moss away,
               And weeds that have “no business there?”

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

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

             ‘I DID IT; and would fate allow,
               Should visit still, should still deplore—
             But health and strength have left me now,
               But I, alas! can weep no more.

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

             ‘And can thy soft persuasive look,
               That voice that might with music vie,
             Thy air that every gazer took,
               Thy matchless eloquence of eye,

             ‘Thy spirits, frolicsome as good,
               Thy courage, by no ills dismay’d,
             Thy patience, by no wrongs subdued,
               Thy gay good-humour—can they “fade?”

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

It may be said in extenuation of the low, mechanic vein of these
impoverished lines, that they were written at an early age—they were the
inspired production of a youthful lover! Mr. Gifford was thirty when he
wrote them, Mr. Keats died when he was scarce twenty! Farther it may be
said, that Mr. Gifford hazarded his first poetical attempts under all
the disadvantages of a neglected education: but the same circumstance,
together with a few unpruned redundancies of fancy and quaintnesses of
expression, was made the plea on which Mr. Keats was hooted out of the
world, and his fine talents and wounded sensibilities consigned to an
early grave. In short, the treatment of this heedless candidate for
poetical fame might serve as a warning, and was intended to serve as a
warning to all unfledged tyros, how they venture upon any such doubtful
experiments, except under the auspices of some lord of the bedchamber or
Government Aristarchus, and how they imprudently associate themselves
with men of mere popular talent or independence of feeling!—It is the
same in prose works. The Editor scorns to enter the lists of argument
with any proscribed writer of the opposite party. He does not refute,
but denounces him. He makes no concessions to an adversary, lest they
should in some way be turned against him. He only feels himself safe in
the fancied insignificance of others: he only feels himself superior to
those whom he stigmatizes as the lowest of mankind. All persons are
without common-sense and honesty who do not believe implicitly (with
him) in the immaculateness of Ministers and the divine origin of Kings.
Thus he informed the world that the author of TABLE-TALK was a person
who could not write a sentence of common English and could hardly spell
his own name, because he was not a friend to the restoration of the
Bourbons, and had the assurance to write _Characters of Shakespear’s
Plays_ in a style of criticism somewhat different from Mr. Gifford’s. He
charged this writer with imposing on the public by a flowery style; and
when the latter ventured to refer to a work of his, called _An Essay on
the Principles of Human Action_, which has not a single ornament in it,
as a specimen of his original studies and the proper bias of his mind,
the learned critic, with a shrug of great self-satisfaction, said, ‘It
was amusing to see this person, sitting like one of Brouwer’s Dutch
boors over his gin and tobacco-pipes, and fancying himself a Leibnitz!’
The question was, whether the subject of Mr. Gifford’s censure had ever
written such a work or not; for if he had, he had amused himself with
something besides gin and tobacco-pipes. But our Editor, by virtue of
the situation he holds, is superior to facts or arguments: he is
accountable neither to the public nor to authors for what he says of
them, but owes it to his employers to prejudice the work and vilify the
writer, if the latter is not avowedly ready to range himself on the
stronger side.—The _Quarterly Review_, besides the political _tirades_
and denunciations of suspected writers, intended for the guidance of the
heads of families, is filled up with accounts of books of Voyages and
Travels for the amusement of the younger branches. The poetical
department is almost a sinecure, consisting of mere summary decisions
and a list of quotations. Mr. Croker is understood to contribute the St.
Helena articles and the liberality, Mr. Canning the practical good
sense, Mr. D’Israeli the good-nature, Mr. Jacob the modesty, Mr. Southey
the consistency, and the Editor himself the chivalrous spirit and the
attacks on Lady Morgan. It is a double crime, and excites a double
portion of spleen in the Editor, when female writers are not advocates
of passive obedience and non-resistance. This Journal, then, is a
depository for every species of political sophistry and personal
calumny. There is no abuse or corruption that does not there find a
jesuitical palliation or a barefaced vindication. There we meet the
slime of hypocrisy, the varnish of courts, the cant of pedantry, the
cobwebs of the law, the iron hand of power. Its object is as mischievous
as the means by which it is pursued are odious. The intention is to
poison the sources of public opinion and of individual fame—to pervert
literature, from being the natural ally of freedom and humanity, into an
engine of priestcraft and despotism, and to undermine the spirit of the
English constitution and the independence of the English character. The
Editor and his friends systematically explode every principle of
liberty, laugh patriotism and public spirit to scorn, resent every
pretence to integrity as a piece of singularity or insolence, and strike
at the root of all free inquiry or discussion, by running down every
writer as a vile scribbler and a bad member of society, who is not a
hireling and a slave. No means are stuck at in accomplishing this
laudable end. Strong in patronage, they trample on truth, justice, and
decency. They claim the privilege of court-favourites. They keep as
little faith with the public, as with their opponents. No statement in
the _Quarterly Review_ is to be trusted: there is no fact that is not
misrepresented in it, no quotation that is not garbled, no character
that is not slandered, if it can answer the purposes of a party to do
so. The weight of power, of wealth, of rank is thrown into the scale,
gives its impulse to the machine; and the whole is under the guidance of
Mr. Gifford’s instinctive genius—of the inborn hatred of servility for
independence, of dulness for talent, of cunning and impudence for truth
and honesty. It costs him no effort to execute his disreputable task—in
being the tool of a crooked policy, he but labours in his natural
vocation. He patches up a rotten system as he would supply the chasms in
a worm-eaten manuscript, from a grovelling incapacity to do any thing
better; thinks that if a single iota in the claims of prerogative and
power were lost, the whole fabric of society would fall upon his head
and crush him; and calculates that his best chance for literary
reputation is by _black-balling_ one half of the competitors as Jacobins
and levellers, and securing the suffrages of the other half in his
favour as a loyal subject and trusty partisan!

Mr. Gifford, as a satirist, is violent and abrupt. He takes obvious or
physical defects, and dwells upon them with much labour and harshness of
invective, but with very little wit or spirit. He expresses a great deal
of anger and contempt, but you cannot tell very well why—except that he
seems to be sore and out of humour. His satire is mere peevishness and
spleen, or something worse—personal antipathy and rancour. We are in
quite as much pain for the writer, as for the object of his resentment.
His address to Peter Pindar is laughable from its outrageousness. He
denounces him as a wretch hateful to God and man, for some of the most
harmless and amusing trifles that ever were written—and the very
good-humour and pleasantry of which, we suspect, constituted their
offence in the eyes of this Drawcansir.—His attacks on Mrs. Robinson
were unmanly, and even those on Mr. Merry and the Della-Cruscan School
_were_ much more ferocious than the occasion warranted. A little
affectation and quaintness of style did not merit such severity of
castigation.[56] As a translator, Mr. Gifford’s version of the Roman
satirist is the baldest, and, in parts, the most offensive of all
others. We do not know why he attempted it, unless he had got it in his
head that he should thus follow in the steps of Dryden, as he had
already done in those of Pope in the Baviad and Mæviad. As an editor of
old authors, Mr. Gifford is entitled to considerable praise for the
pains he has taken in revising the text, and for some improvements he
has introduced into it. He had better have spared the notes, in which,
though he has detected the blunders of previous commentators, he has
exposed his own ill-temper and narrowness of feeling more. As a critic,
he has thrown no light on the character and spirit of his authors. He
has shown no striking power of analysis nor of original illustration,
though he has chosen to exercise his pen on writers most congenial to
his own turn of mind, from their dry and caustic vein; Massinger, and
Ben Jonson. What he will make of Marlowe, it is difficult to guess. He
has none of ‘the fiery quality’ of the poet. Mr. Gifford does not take
for his motto on these occasions—_Spiritus precipitandus est!_—His most
successful efforts in this way are barely respectable. In general, his
observations are petty, ill-concocted, and discover as little _tact_, as
they do a habit of connected reasoning. Thus, for instance, in
attempting to add the name of Massinger to the list of Catholic poets,
our minute critic insists on the profusion of crucifixes, glories,
angelic visions, garlands of roses, and clouds of incense scattered
through the _Virgin-Martyr_, as evidence of the theological sentiments
meant to be inculcated by the play, when the least reflection might have
taught him, that they proved nothing but the author’s poetical
conception of the character and _costume_ of his subject. A writer
might, with the same sinister, short-sighted shrewdness, be accused of
Heathenism for talking of Flora and Ceres in a poem on the Seasons! What
are produced as the exclusive badges and occult proofs of Catholic
bigotry, are nothing but the adventitious ornaments and external
symbols, the gross and sensible language, in a word, the _poetry_ of
Christianity in general. What indeed shows the frivolousness of the
whole inference is that Deckar, who is asserted by our critic to have
contributed some of the most passionate and fantastic of these
devotional scenes, is not even suspected of a leaning to Popery. In like
manner, he excuses Massinger for the grossness of one of his plots (that
of the _Unnatural Combat_) by saying that it was supposed to take place
before the Christian era; by this shallow common-place persuading
himself, or fancying he could persuade others, that the crime in
question (which yet on the very face of the story is made the ground of
a tragic catastrophe) was first made _statutory_ by the Christian
religion.

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




                              MR. JEFFREY


The _Quarterly Review_ arose out of the _Edinburgh_, not as a corollary,
but in contradiction to it. An article had appeared in the latter on Don
Pedro Cevallos, which stung the Tories to the quick by the free way in
which it spoke of men and things, and something must be done to check
these _escapades_ of the _Edinburgh_. It was not to be endured that the
truth should out in this manner, even occasionally and half in jest. A
startling shock was thus given to established prejudices, the mask was
taken off from grave hypocrisy, and the most serious consequences were
to be apprehended. The persons who wrote in this Review seemed ‘to have
their hands full of truths,’ and now and then, in a fit of spleen or
gaiety, let some of them fly; and while this practice continued, it was
impossible to say that the Monarchy or the Hierarchy was safe. Some of
the arrows glanced, others might stick, and in the end prove fatal. It
was not the principles of the _Edinburgh Review_, but the spirit that
was looked at with jealousy and alarm. The principles were by no means
decidedly hostile to existing institutions: but the spirit was that of
fair and free discussion; a field was open to argument and wit; every
question was tried upon its own ostensible merits, and there was no foul
play. The tone was that of a studied impartiality (which many called
_trimming_) or of a sceptical indifference. This tone of impartiality
and indifference, however, did not at all suit those who profited or
existed by abuses, who breathed the very air of corruption. They know
well enough that ‘those who are not _for_ them are _against_ them.’ They
wanted a publication impervious alike to truth and candour; that,
hood-winked itself, should lead public opinion blindfold; that should
stick at nothing to serve the turn of a party; that should be the
exclusive organ of prejudice, the sordid tool of power; that should go
the whole length of want of principle in palliating every dishonest
measure, of want of decency in defaming every honest man; that should
prejudge every question, traduce every opponent; that should give no
quarter to fair inquiry or liberal sentiment; that should be ‘ugly all
over with hypocrisy,’ and present one foul blotch of servility,
intolerance, falsehood, spite, and ill manners. The _Quarterly Review_
was accordingly set up.

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

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

We do not implicitly bow to the political opinions, nor to the critical
decisions of the _Edinburgh Review_; but we must do justice to the
talent with which they are supported, and to the tone of manly
explicitness in which they are delivered.[57] They are eminently
characteristic of the Spirit of the Age; as it is the express object of
the _Quarterly Review_ to discountenance and extinguish that spirit,
both in theory and practice. The _Edinburgh Review_ stands upon the
ground of opinion; it asserts the supremacy of intellect: the
pre-eminence it claims is from an acknowledged superiority of talent and
information and literary attainment, and it does not build one tittle of
its influence on ignorance, or prejudice, or authority, or personal
malevolence. It takes up a question, and argues it _pro_ and _con_ with
great knowledge and boldness and skill; it points out an absurdity, and
runs it down, fairly, and according to the evidence adduced. In the
former case, its conclusions may be wrong, there may be a bias in the
mind of the writer, but he states the arguments and circumstances on
both sides, from which a judgment is to be formed—it is not his cue, he
has neither the effrontery nor the meanness to falsify facts or to
suppress objections. In the latter case, or where a vein of sarcasm or
irony is resorted to, the ridicule is not barbed by some allusion (false
or true) to private history; the object of it has brought the infliction
on himself by some literary folly or political delinquency which is
referred to as the understood and justifiable provocation, instead of
being held up to scorn as a knave for not being a tool, or as a
blockhead for thinking for himself. In the _Edinburgh Review_ the
talents of those on the opposite side are always extolled _pleno ore_—in
the _Quarterly Review_ they are denied altogether, and the justice that
is in this way withheld from them is compensated by a proportionable
supply of personal abuse. A man of genius who is a lord, and who
publishes with Mr. Murray, may now and then stand as good a chance as a
lord who is not a man of genius and who publishes with Messrs. Longman:
but that it the utmost extent of the impartiality of the _Quarterly_.
From its account you would take Lord Byron and Mr. Stuart Rose for two
very pretty poets; but Mr. Moore’s Magdalen Muse is sent to Bridewell
without mercy, to beat hemp in silk-stockings. In the _Quarterly_
nothing is regarded but the political creed or external circumstances of
a writer; in the _Edinburgh_ nothing is ever adverted to but his
literary merits. Or if there is a bias of any kind, it arises from an
affectation of magnanimity and candour in giving heaped measure to those
on the aristocratic side in politics, and in being critically severe on
others. Thus Sir Walter Scott is lauded to the skies for his romantic
powers, without any allusion to his political demerits (as if this would
be compromising the dignity of genius and of criticism by the
introduction of party-spirit)—while Lord Byron is called to a grave
moral reckoning. There is, however, little of the cant of morality in
the _Edinburgh Review_—and it is quite free from that of religion. It
keeps to its province, which is that of criticism—or to the discussion
of debateable topics, and acquits itself in both with force and spirit.
This is the natural consequence of the composition of the two Reviews.
The one appeals with confidence to its own intellectual resources, to
the variety of its topics, to its very character and existence as a
literary journal, which depend on its setting up no pretensions but
those which it can make good by the talent and ingenuity it can bring to
bear upon them—it therefore meets every question, whether of a lighter
or a graver cast, on its own grounds; the other _blinks_ every question,
for it has no confidence but in the _powers that be_—shuts itself up in
the impregnable fastnesses of authority, or makes some paltry cowardly
attack (under cover of anonymous criticism) on individuals, or dispenses
its award of merit entirely according to the rank or party of the
writer. The faults of the _Edinburgh Review_ arise out of the very
consciousness of critical and logical power. In political questions it
relies too little on the broad basis of liberty and humanity, enters too
much into mere dry formalities, deals too often in _moot-points_, and
descends too readily to a sort of special-pleading in defence of _home_
truths and natural feelings: in matters of taste and criticism, its tone
is sometimes apt to be supercilious and _cavalier_ from its habitual
faculty of analysing defects and beauties according to given principles,
from its quickness in deciding, from its facility in illustrating its
views. In this latter department it has been guilty of some capital
oversights. The chief was in its treatment of the _Lyrical Ballads_ at
their first appearance—not in its ridicule of their puerilities, but in
its denial of their beauties, because they were included in no school,
because they were reducible to no previous standard or theory of
poetical excellence. For this, however, considerable reparation has been
made by the prompt and liberal spirit that has been shown in bringing
forward other examples of poetical genius. Its capital sin, in a
doctrinal point of view, has been (we shrewdly suspect) in the uniform
and unqualified encouragement it has bestowed on Mr. Malthus’s system.
We do not mean that the _Edinburgh Review_ was to join in the general
_hue and cry_ that was raised against this writer; but while it asserted
the soundness of many of his arguments, and yielded its assent to the
truths he has divulged, it need not have screened his errors. On this
subject alone we think the _Quarterly_ has the advantage of it. But as
the _Quarterly Review_ is a mere mass and tissue of prejudices on all
subjects, it is the foible of the _Edinburgh Review_ to affect a
somewhat fastidious air of superiority over prejudices of all kinds, and
a determination not to indulge in any of the amiable weaknesses of our
nature, except as it can give a reason for the faith that is in it.
Luckily, it is seldom reduced to this alternative: ‘reasons’ are with it
‘as plenty as blackberries!’

Mr. Jeffrey is the Editor of the _Edinburgh Review_, and is understood
to have contributed nearly a fourth part of the articles from its
commencement. No man is better qualified for this situation; nor indeed
so much so. He is certainly a person in advance of the age, and yet
perfectly fitted both from knowledge and habits of mind to put a curb
upon its rash and headlong spirit. He is thoroughly acquainted with the
progress and pretensions of modern literature and philosophy; and to
this he adds the natural acuteness and discrimination of the logician
with the habitual caution and coolness of his profession. If the
_Edinburgh Review_ may be considered as the organ of or at all pledged
to a party, that party is at least a respectable one, and is placed in
the middle between two extremes. The Editor is bound to lend a patient
hearing to the most paradoxical opinions and extravagant theories which
have resulted in our times from the ‘infinite agitation of wit,’ but he
is disposed to qualify them by a number of practical objections, of
speculative doubts, of checks and drawbacks, arising out of actual
circumstances and prevailing opinions, or the frailties of human nature.
He has a great range of knowledge, an incessant activity of mind; but
the suspension of his judgment, the well-balanced moderation of his
sentiments, is the consequence of the very discursiveness of his reason.
What may be considered as a _common-place_ conclusion is often the
result of a comprehensive view of all the circumstances of a case.
Paradox, violence, nay even originality of conception is not seldom
owing to our dwelling long and pertinaciously on some one part of a
subject, instead of attending to the whole. Mr. Jeffrey is neither a
bigot nor an enthusiast. He is not the dupe of the prejudices of others,
nor of his own. He is not wedded to any dogma, he is not long the sport
of any whim; before he can settle in any fond or fantastic opinion,
another starts up to match it, like beads on sparkling wine. A too
restless display of talent, a too undisguised statement of all that can
be said for and against a question, is perhaps the great fault that is
to be attributed to him. Where there is so much power and prejudice to
contend with in the opposite scale, it may be thought that the balance
of truth can hardly be held with a slack or an even hand; and that the
infusion of a little more visionary speculation, of a little more
popular indignation into the great Whig Review would be an advantage
both to itself and to the cause of freedom. Much of this effect is
chargeable less on an Epicurean levity of feeling or on party-trammels,
than on real sanguineness of disposition, and a certain fineness of
professional tact. Our sprightly Scotchman is not of a desponding and
gloomy turn of mind. He argues well for the future hopes of mankind from
the smallest beginnings, watches the slow, gradual, reluctant growth of
liberal views, and smiling sees the aloe of Reform blossom at the end of
a hundred years; while the habitual subtlety of his mind makes him
perceive decided advantages where vulgar ignorance or passion sees only
doubts and difficulty; and a flaw in an adversary’s argument stands him
instead of the shout of a mob, the votes of a majority, or the fate of a
pitched battle. The Editor is satisfied with his own conclusions, and
does not make himself uneasy about the fate of mankind. The issue, he
thinks, will verify his moderate and well-founded expectations.—We
believe also that late events have given a more decided turn to Mr.
Jeffrey’s mind, and that he feels that as in the struggle between
liberty and slavery, the views of the one party have been laid bare with
their success, so the exertions on the other side should become more
strenuous, and a more positive stand be made against the avowed and
appalling encroachments of priestcraft and arbitrary power.

The characteristics of Mr. Jeffrey’s general style as a writer
correspond, we think, with what we have here stated as the
characteristics of his mind. He is a master of the foils; he makes an
exulting display of the dazzling fence of wit and argument. His strength
consists in great range of knowledge, an equal familiarity with the
principles and the details of a subject, and in a glancing brilliancy
and rapidity of style. Indeed, we doubt whether the brilliancy of his
manner does not resolve itself into the rapidity, the variety and
aptness of his illustrations. His pen is never at a loss, never stands
still; and would dazzle for this reason alone, like an eye that is ever
in motion. Mr. Jeffrey is far from a flowery or affected writer; he has
few tropes or figures, still less any odd startling thoughts or quaint
innovations in expression:—but he has a constant supply of ingenious
solutions and pertinent examples; he never proses, never grows dull,
never wears an argument to tatters; and by the number, the liveliness
and facility of his transitions, keeps up that appearance of vivacity,
of novel and sparkling effect, for which others are too often indebted
to singularity of combination or tinsel ornaments.

It may be discovered, by a nice observer, that Mr. Jeffrey’s style of
composition is that of a person accustomed to public speaking. There is
no pause, no meagreness, no inanimateness, but a flow, a redundance and
volubility like that of a stream or of a rolling-stone. The language is
more copious than select, and sometimes two or three words perform the
office of one. This copiousness and facility is perhaps an advantage in
_extempore_ speaking, where no stop or break is allowed in the
discourse, and where any word or any number of words almost is better
than coming to a dead stand; but in written compositions it gives an air
of either too much carelessness or too much labour. Mr. Jeffrey’s
excellence, as a public speaker, has betrayed him into this peculiarity.
He makes fewer _blots_ in addressing an audience than any one we
remember to have heard. There is not a hair’s-breadth space between any
two of his words, nor is there a single expression either ill-chosen or
out of its place. He speaks without stopping to take breath, with ease,
with point, with elegance, and without ‘spinning the thread of his
verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.’ He may be said to
weave words into any shapes he pleases for use or ornament, as the
glass-blower moulds the vitreous fluid with his breath; and his
sentences shine like glass from their polished smoothness, and are
equally transparent. His style of eloquence, indeed, is remarkable for
neatness, for correctness, and epigrammatic point; and he has applied
this as a standard to his written compositions, where the very same
degree of correctness and precision produces, from the contrast between
writing and speaking, an agreeable diffuseness, freedom and animation.
Whenever the Scotch advocate has appeared at the bar of the English
House of Lords, he has been admired by those who were in the habit of
attending to speeches there, as having the greatest fluency of language
and the greatest subtlety of distinction of any one of the profession.
The law-reporters were as little able to follow him from the extreme
rapidity of his utterance as from the tenuity and evanescent nature of
his reasoning.

Mr. Jeffrey’s conversation is equally lively, various, and instructive.
There is no subject on which he is not _au fait_: no company in which he
is not ready to scatter his pearls for sport. Whether it be politics, or
poetry, or science, or anecdote, or wit, or raillery, he takes up his
cue without effort, without preparation, and appears equally incapable
of tiring himself or his hearers. His only difficulty seems to be, not
to speak, but to be silent. There is a constitutional buoyancy and
elasticity of mind about him that cannot subside into repose, much less
sink into dulness. There may be more original talkers, persons who
occasionally surprise or interest you more; few, if any, with a more
uninterrupted flow of cheerfulness and animal spirits, with a greater
fund of information, and with fewer specimens of the _bathos_ in their
conversation. He is never absurd, nor has he any favourite points which
he is always bringing forward. It cannot be denied that there is
something bordering on petulance of manner, but it is of that least
offensive kind which may be accounted for from merit and from success,
and implies no exclusive pretensions nor the least particle of ill-will
to others. On the contrary, Mr. Jeffrey is profuse of his encomiums and
admiration of others, but still with a certain reservation of a right to
differ or to blame. He cannot rest on one side of a question: he is
obliged by a mercurial habit and disposition to vary his point of view.
If he is ever tedious, it is from an excess of liveliness: he oppresses
from a sense of airy lightness. He is always setting out on a fresh
scent: there are always _relays_ of topics; the harness is put to, and
he rattles away as delightfully and as briskly as ever. New causes are
called; he holds a brief in his hand for every possible question. This
is a fault. Mr. Jeffrey is not obtrusive, is not impatient of
opposition, is not unwilling to be interrupted; but what is said by
another, seems to make no impression on him; he is bound to dispute, to
answer it, as if he was in Court, or as if it were in a paltry Debating
Society, where young beginners were trying their hands. This is not to
maintain a character, or for want of good-nature—it is a thoughtless
habit. He cannot help cross-examining a witness, or stating the adverse
view of the question. He listens not to judge, but to reply. In
consequence of this, you can as little tell the impression your
observations make on him as what weight to assign to his. Mr. Jeffrey
shines in mixed company; he is not good in a _tête-à-tête_. You can only
show your wisdom or your wit in general society: but in private your
follies or your weaknesses are not the least interesting topics; and our
critic has neither any of his own to confess, nor does he take delight
in hearing those of others. Indeed in Scotland generally, the display of
personal character, the indulging your whims and humours in the presence
of a friend, is not much encouraged—every one there is looked upon in
the light of a machine or a collection of topics. They turn you round
like a cylinder to see what use they can make of you, and drag you into
a dispute with as little ceremony as they would drag out an article from
an Encyclopedia. They criticise every thing, analyse every thing, argue
upon every thing, dogmatise upon every thing; and the bundle of your
habits, feelings, humours, follies and pursuits is regarded by them no
more than a bundle of old clothes. They stop you in a sentiment by a
question or a stare, and cut you short in a narrative by the time of
night. The accomplished and ingenious person of whom we speak, has been
a little infected by the tone of his countrymen—he is too didactic, too
pugnacious, too full of electrical shocks, too much like a voltaic
battery, and reposes too little on his own excellent good sense, his own
love of ease, his cordial frankness of temper and unaffected candour. He
ought to have belonged to us!

The severest of critics (as he has been sometimes termed) is the
best-natured of men. Whatever there may be of wavering or indecision in
Mr. Jeffrey’s reasoning, or of harshness in his critical decisions, in
his disposition there is nothing but simplicity and kindness. He is a
person that no one knows without esteeming, and who both in his public
connections and private friendships, shows the same manly uprightness
and unbiassed independence of spirit. At a distance, in his writings, or
even in his manner, there may be something to excite a little uneasiness
and apprehension: in his conduct there is nothing to except against. He
is a person of strict integrity himself, without pretence or
affectation; and knows how to respect this quality in others, without
prudery or intolerance. He can censure a friend or a stranger, and serve
him effectually at the same time. He expresses his disapprobation, but
not as an excuse for closing up the avenues of his liberality. He is a
Scotchman without one particle of hypocrisy, of cant, of servility, or
selfishness in his composition. He has not been spoiled by fortune—has
not been tempted by power—is firm without violence, friendly without
weakness—a critic and even-tempered, a casuist and an honest man—and
amidst the toils of his profession and the distractions of the world,
retains the gaiety, the unpretending carelessness and simplicity of
youth. Mr. Jeffrey in his person is slight, with a countenance of much
expression, and a voice of great flexibility and acuteness of tone.




                      MR. BROUGHAM—SIR F. BURDETT


There is a class of eloquence which has been described and particularly
insisted on, under the style and title of _Irish Eloquence_: there is
another class which it is not absolutely unfair to oppose to this, and
that is the Scotch. The first of these is entirely the offspring of
_impulse_: the last of _mechanism_. The one is as full of fancy as it is
bare of facts: the other excludes all fancy, and is weighed down with
facts. The one is all fire, the other all ice: the one nothing but
enthusiasm, extravagance, eccentricity; the other nothing but logical
deductions, and the most approved postulates. The one without scruple,
nay, with reckless zeal, throws the reins loose on the neck of the
imagination: the other pulls up with a curb-bridle, and starts at every
casual object it meets in the way as a bugbear. The genius of Irish
oratory stands forth in the naked majesty of untutored nature, its eye
glancing wildly round on all objects, its tongue darting forked fire:
the genius of Scottish eloquence is armed in all the panoply of the
schools; its drawling, ambiguous dialect seconds its circumspect
dialectics; from behind the vizor that guards its mouth and shadows its
pent-up brows, it sees no visions but its own set purpose, its own
_data_, and its own dogmas. It ‘has no figures, nor no fantasies,’ but
‘those which busy care draws in the brains of men,’ or which set off its
own superior acquirements and wisdom. It scorns to ‘tread the primrose
path of dalliance’—it shrinks back from it as from a precipice, and
keeps in the iron rail-way of the understanding. Irish oratory, on the
contrary, is a sort of aëronaut: it is always going up in a balloon, and
breaking its neck, or coming down in the parachute. It is filled full
with gaseous matter, with whim and fancy, with alliteration and
antithesis, with heated passion and bloated metaphors, that burst the
slender silken covering of sense; and the airy pageant, that glittered
in empty space and rose in all the bliss of ignorance, flutters and
sinks down to its native bogs! If the Irish orator riots in a studied
neglect of his subject and a natural confusion of ideas, playing with
words, ranging them into all sorts of fantastic combinations, because in
the unlettered void or chaos of his mind there is no obstacle to their
coalescing into any shapes they please, it must be confessed that the
eloquence of the Scotch is encumbered with an excess of knowledge, that
it cannot get on for a crowd of difficulties, that it staggers under a
load of topics, that it is so environed in the forms of logic and
rhetoric as to be equally precluded from originality or absurdity, from
beauty or deformity:—the plea of humanity is lost by going through the
process of law, the firm and manly tone of principle is exchanged for
the wavering and pitiful cant of policy, the living bursts of passion
are reduced to a defunct _common-place_, and all true imagination is
buried under the dust and rubbish of learned models and imposing
authorities. If the one is a bodiless phantom, the other is a lifeless
skeleton: if the one in its feverish and hectic extravagance resembles a
sick man’s dream, the other is akin to the sleep of death—cold, stiff,
unfeeling, monumental! Upon the whole, we despair less of the first than
of the last, for the principle of life and motion is, after all, the
primary condition of all genius. The luxuriant wildness of the one may
be disciplined, and its excesses sobered down into reason; but the dry
and rigid formality of the other can never burst the shell or husk of
oratory. It is true that the one is disfigured by the puerilities and
affectation of a Phillips; but then it is redeemed by the manly sense
and fervour of a Plunket, the impassioned appeals and flashes of wit of
a Curran, and by the golden tide of wisdom, eloquence, and fancy, that
flowed from the lips of a Burke. In the other, we do not sink so low in
the negative series; but we get no higher in the ascending scale than a
Mackintosh or a Brougham.[58] It may be suggested that the late Lord
Erskine enjoyed a higher reputation as an orator than either of these:
but he owed it to a dashing and graceful manner, to presence of mind,
and to great animation in delivering his sentiments. Stripped of these
outward and personal advantages, the matter of his speeches, like that
of his writings, is nothing, or perfectly inert and dead.

Mr. Brougham is from the North of England, but he was educated in
Edinburgh, and represents that school of politics and political economy
in the House. He differs from Sir James Mackintosh in this, that he
deals less in abstract principles, and more in individual details. He
makes less use of general topics, and more of immediate facts. Sir James
is better acquainted with the balance of an argument in old authors; Mr.
Brougham with the balance of power in Europe. If the first is better
versed in the progress of history, no man excels the last in a knowledge
of the course of exchange. He is apprised of the exact state of our
exports and imports, and scarce a ship clears out its cargo at Liverpool
or Hull, but he has notice of the bill of lading. Our colonial policy,
prison-discipline, the state of the Hulks, agricultural distress,
commerce and manufactures, the Bullion question, the Catholic question,
the Bourbons or the Inquisition, ‘domestic treason, foreign levy,’
nothing can come amiss to him—he is at home in the crooked mazes of
rotten boroughs, is not baffled by Scotch law, and can follow the
meaning of one of Mr. Canning’s speeches. With so many resources, with
such variety and solidity of information, Mr. Brougham is rather a
powerful and alarming, than an effectual debater. In so many details
(which he himself goes through with unwearied and unshrinking
resolution) the spirit of the question is lost to others who have not
the same voluntary power of attention or the same interest in hearing
that he has in speaking; the original impulse that urged him forward is
forgotten in so wide a field, in so interminable a career. If he can,
others _cannot_ carry all he knows in their heads at the same time; a
rope of circumstantial evidence does not hold well together, nor drag
the unwilling mind along with it (the willing mind hurries on before it,
and grows impatient and absent)—he moves in an unmanageable procession
of facts and proofs, instead of coming to the point at once—and his
premises (so anxious is he to proceed on sure and ample grounds) overlay
and block up his conclusion, so that you cannot arrive at it, or not
till the first fury and shock of the onset is over. The ball, from the
too great width of the _calibre_ from which it is sent, and from
striking against such a number of hard, projecting points, is almost
spent before it reaches its destination. He keeps a ledger or a
debtor-and-creditor account between the Government and the Country,
posts so much actual crime, corruption, and injustice against so much
contingent advantage or sluggish prejudice, and at the bottom of the
page brings in the balance of indignation and contempt, where it is due.
But people are not to be _calculated into_ contempt or indignation on
abstract grounds; for however they may submit to this process where
their own interests are concerned, in what regards the public good we
believe they must see and feel instinctively, or not at all. There is
(it is to be lamented) a good deal of froth as well as strength in the
popular spirit, which will not admit of being _decanted_ or served out
in formal driblets; nor will spleen (the soul of Opposition) bear to be
corked up in square patent bottles, and kept for future use! In a word,
Mr. Brougham’s is ticketed and labelled eloquence, registered and in
numeros (like the successive parts of a Scotch Encyclopedia)—it is
clever, knowing, imposing, masterly, an extraordinary display of
clearness of head, of quickness and energy of thought, of application
and industry; but it is not the eloquence of the imagination or the
heart, and will never save a nation or an individual from perdition.

Mr. Brougham has one considerable advantage in debate: he is overcome by
no false modesty, no deference to others. But then, by a natural
consequence or parity of reasoning, he has little sympathy with other
people, and is liable to be mistaken in the effect his arguments will
have upon them. He relies too much, among other things, on the patience
of his hearers, and on his ability to turn every thing to his own
advantage. He accordingly goes to the full length of _his tether_ (in
vulgar phrase) and often overshoots the mark. _C’est dommage._ He has no
reserve of discretion, no retentiveness of mind or check upon himself.
He needs, with so much wit,

                     ‘As much again to govern it.’

He cannot keep a good thing or a shrewd piece of information in his
possession, though the letting it out should mar a cause. It is not that
he thinks too much of himself, too little of his cause: but he is
absorbed in the pursuit of truth as an abstract inquiry, he is led away
by the headstrong and overmastering activity of his own mind. He is
borne along, almost involuntarily, and not impossibly against his better
judgment, by the throng and restlessness of his ideas as by a crowd of
people in motion. His perceptions are literal, tenacious,
_epileptic_—his understanding voracious of facts, and equally
communicative of them—and he proceeds to

               ‘——Pour out all as plain
               As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne’—

without either the virulence of the one or the _bonhommie_ of the other.
The repeated, smart, unforeseen discharges of the truth jar those that
are next him. He does not dislike this state of irritation and
collision, indulges his curiosity or his triumph, till by calling for
more facts or hazarding some extreme inference, he urges a question to
the verge of a precipice, his adversaries urge it _over_, and he himself
shrinks back from the consequence—

                ‘Scared at the sound himself has made!’

Mr. Brougham has great fearlessness, but not equal firmness; and after
going too far on the _forlorn hope_, turns short round without due
warning to others or respect for himself. He is adventurous, but easily
panic-struck; and sacrifices the vanity of self-opinion to the necessity
of self-preservation. He is too improvident for a leader, too petulant
for a partisan; and does not sufficiently consult those with whom he is
supposed to act in concert. He sometimes leaves them in the lurch, and
is sometimes left in the lurch by them. He wants the principle of
co-operation. He frequently, in a fit of thoughtless levity, gives an
unexpected turn to the political machine, which alarms older and more
experienced heads: if he was not himself the first to get out of harm’s
way and escape from the danger, it would be well!—We hold, indeed, as a
general rule, that no man born or bred in Scotland can be a great
orator, unless he is a mere quack; or a great statesman, unless he turns
plain knave. The national gravity is against the first: the national
caution is against the last. To a Scotchman if a thing _is_, _it is_;
there is an end of the question with his opinion about it. He is
positive and abrupt, and is not in the habit of conciliating the
feelings or soothing the follies of others. His only way therefore to
produce a popular effect is to sail with the stream of prejudice, and to
vent common dogmas, ‘the total grist, unsifted, husks and all,’ from
some evangelical pulpit. This may answer, and it has answered. On the
other hand, if a Scotchman, born or bred, comes to think at all of the
feelings of others, it is not as they regard them, but as their opinion
reacts on his own interest and safety. He is therefore either
pragmatical and offensive, or if he tries to please, he becomes cowardly
and fawning. His public spirit wants pliancy; his selfish compliances go
all lengths. He is as impracticable as a popular partisan, as he is
mischievous as a tool of Government. We do not wish to press this
argument farther, and must leave it involved in some degree of
obscurity, rather than bring the armed intellect of a whole nation on
our heads.

Mr. Brougham speaks in a loud and unmitigated tone of voice, sometimes
almost approaching to a scream. He is fluent, rapid, vehement, full of
his subject, with evidently a great deal to say, and very regardless of
the manner of saying it. As a lawyer, he has not hitherto been
remarkably successful. He is not profound in cases and reports, nor does
he take much interest in the peculiar features of a particular cause, or
show much adroitness in the management of it. He carries too much weight
of metal for ordinary and petty occasions: he must have a pretty large
question to discuss, and must make _thorough-stitch_ work of it. He,
however, had an encounter with Mr. Phillips the other day, and shook all
his tender blossoms, so that they fell to the ground, and withered in an
hour; but they soon bloomed again! Mr. Brougham writes almost, if not
quite, as well as he speaks. In the midst of an Election contest he
comes out to address the populace, and goes back to his study to finish
an article for the Edinburgh Review; sometimes indeed wedging three or
four articles (in the shape of _refaccimentos_ of his own pamphlets or
speeches in parliament) into a single number. Such indeed is the
activity of his mind that it appears to require neither repose, nor any
other stimulus than a delight in its own exercise. He can turn his hand
to any thing, but he cannot be idle. There are few intellectual
accomplishments which he does not possess, and possess in a very high
degree. He speaks French (and, we believe, several other modern
languages) fluently: is a capital mathematician, and obtained an
introduction to the celebrated Carnot in this latter character, when the
conversation turned on squaring the circle, and not on the propriety of
confining France within the natural boundary of the Rhine. Mr. Brougham
is, in fact, a striking instance of the versatility and strength of the
human mind, and also in one sense of the length of human life, if we
make a good use of our time. There is room enough to crowd almost every
art and science into it. If we pass ‘no day without a line,’ visit no
place without the company of a book, we may with ease fill libraries or
empty them of their contents. Those who complain of the shortness of
life, let it slide by them without wishing to seize and make the most of
its golden minutes. The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we
are, the more leisure we have. If any one possesses any advantage in a
considerable degree, he may make himself master of nearly as many more
as he pleases, by employing his spare time and cultivating the waste
faculties of his mind. While one person is determining on the choice of
a profession or study, another shall have made a fortune or gained a
merited reputation. While one person is dreaming over the meaning of a
word, another will have learnt several languages. It is not incapacity,
but indolence, indecision, want of imagination, and a proneness to a
sort of mental tautology, to repeat the same images and tread the same
circle, that leaves us so poor, so dull, and inert as we are, so naked
of acquirement, so barren of resources! While we are walking backwards
and forwards between Charing-Cross and Temple-Bar, and sitting in the
same coffee-house every day, we might make the grand tour of Europe, and
visit the Vatican and the Louvre. Mr. Brougham, among other means of
strengthening and enlarging his views, has visited, we believe, most of
the courts, and turned his attention to most of the Constitutions of the
continent. He is, no doubt, a very accomplished, active-minded, and
admirable person.

Sir Francis Burdett, in many respects, affords a contrast to the
foregoing character. He is a plain, unaffected, unsophisticated English
gentleman. He is a person of great reading too and considerable
information, but he makes very little display of these, unless it be to
quote Shakespear, which he does often with extreme aptness and felicity.
Sir Francis is one of the most pleasing speakers in the House, and is a
prodigious favourite of the English people. So he ought to be: for he is
one of the few remaining examples of the old English understanding and
old English character. All that he pretends to is common sense and
common honesty; and a greater compliment cannot be paid to these than
the attention with which he is listened to in the House of Commons. We
cannot conceive a higher proof of courage than the saying things which
he has been known to say there; and we have seen him blush and appear
ashamed of the truths he has been obliged to utter, like a bashful
novice. He could not have uttered what he often did there, if, besides
his general respectability, he had not been a very honest, a very
good-tempered, and a very good-looking man. But there was evidently no
wish to shine, nor any desire to offend: it was painful to him to hurt
the feelings of those who heard him, but it was a higher duty in him not
to suppress his sincere and earnest convictions. It is wonderful how
much virtue and plain-dealing a man may be guilty of with impunity, if
he has no vanity, or ill-nature, or duplicity to provoke the contempt or
resentment of others, and to make them impatient of the superiority he
sets up over them. We do not recollect that Sir Francis ever endeavoured
to atone for any occasional indiscretions or intemperance by giving the
Duke of York credit for the battle of Waterloo, or congratulating
Ministers on the confinement of Buonaparte at St. Helena. There is no
honest cause which he dares not avow: no oppressed individual that he is
not forward to succour. He has the firmness of manhood with the
unimpaired enthusiasm of youthful feeling about him. His principles are
mellowed and improved, without having become less sound with time: for
at one period he sometimes appeared to come charged to the House with
the petulance and caustic sententiousness he had imbibed at Wimbledon
Common. He is never violent or in extremes, except when the people or
the parliament happen to be out of their senses; and then he seems to
regret the necessity of plainly telling them he thinks so, instead of
pluming himself upon it or exulting over impending calamities. There is
only one error he seems to labour under (which, we believe, he also
borrowed from Mr. Horne Tooke or Major Cartwright), the wanting to go
back to the early times of our Constitution and history in search of the
principles of law and liberty. He might as well

                ‘Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.’

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




                     LORD ELDON AND MR. WILBERFORCE


Lord Eldon is an exceedingly good-natured man; but this does not prevent
him, like other good-natured people, from consulting his own ease or
interest. The character of _good-nature_, as it is called, has been a
good deal mistaken; and the present Chancellor is not a bad illustration
of the grounds of the prevailing error. When we happen to see an
individual whose countenance is ‘all tranquillity and smiles;’ who is
full of good-humour and pleasantry; whose manners are gentle and
conciliating; who is uniformly temperate in his expressions, and
punctual and just in his every-day dealings; we are apt to conclude from
so fair an outside, that

                  ‘All is conscience and tender heart’

within also, and that such a one would not hurt a fly. And neither would
he without a motive. But mere good-nature (or what passes in the world
for such) is often no better than indolent selfishness. A person
distinguished and praised for this quality will not needlessly offend
others, because they may retaliate; and besides, it ruffles his own
temper. He likes to enjoy a perfect calm, and to live in an interchange
of kind offices. He suffers few things to irritate or annoy him. He has
a fine oiliness in his disposition, which smooths the waves of passion
as they rise. He does not enter into the quarrels or enmities of others;
bears their calamities with patience; he listens to the din and clang of
war, the earthquake and the hurricane of the political and moral world
with the temper and spirit of a philosopher; no act of injustice puts
him beside himself, the follies and absurdities of mankind never give
him a moment’s uneasiness, he has none of the ordinary causes of
fretfulness or chagrin that torment others from the undue interest they
take in the conduct of their neighbours or in the public good. None of
these idle or frivolous sources of discontent, that make such havoc with
the peace of human life, ever discompose his features or alter the
serenity of his pulse. If a nation is robbed of its rights,

              ‘If wretches hang that Ministers may dine,’—

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

An instance of what we mean occurred but the other day. An allusion was
made in the House of Commons to something in the proceedings in the
Court of Chancery, and the Lord Chancellor comes to his place in the
Court, with the statement in his hand, fire in his eyes, and a direct
charge of falsehood in his mouth, without knowing any thing certain of
the matter, without making any inquiry into it, without using any
precaution or putting the least restraint upon himself, and all on no
better authority than a common newspaper report. The thing was (not that
we are imputing any strong blame in this case, we merely bring it as an
illustration) it touched himself, his office, the inviolability of his
jurisdiction, the unexceptionableness of his proceedings, and the wet
blanket of the Chancellor’s temper instantly took fire like tinder! All
the fine balancing was at an end; all the doubts, all the delicacy, all
the candour real or affected, all the chances that there might be a
mistake in the report, all the decencies to be observed towards a Member
of the House, are overlooked by the blindness of passion, and the wary
Judge pounces upon the paragraph without mercy, without a moment’s
delay, or the smallest attention to forms! This was indeed serious
business, there was to be no trifling here; every instant was an age
till the Chancellor had discharged his sense of indignation on the head
of the indiscreet interloper on his authority. Had it been another
person’s case, another person’s dignity that had been compromised,
another person’s conduct that had been called in question, who doubts
but that the matter might have stood over till the next term, that the
Noble Lord would have taken the Newspaper home in his pocket, that he
would have compared it carefully with other newspapers, that he would
have written in the most mild and gentlemanly terms to the Honourable
Member to inquire into the truth of the statement, that he would have
watched a convenient opportunity good-humouredly to ask other Honourable
Members what all this was about, that the greatest caution and fairness
would have been observed, and that to this hour the lawyers’ clerks and
the junior counsel would have been in the greatest admiration of the
Chancellor’s nicety of discrimination, and the utter inefficacy of the
heats, importunities, haste, and passions of others to influence his
judgment? This would have been true; yet his readiness to decide and to
condemn where he himself is concerned, shows that passion is not dead in
him, nor subject to the control of reason; but that self-love is the
mainspring that moves it, though on all beyond that limit he looks with
the most perfect calmness and philosophic indifference.

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

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

The Lord Chancellor’s impartiality and conscientious exactness are
proverbial; and is, we believe, as inflexible as it is delicate in all
cases that occur in the stated routine of legal practice. The
impatience, the irritation, the hopes, the fears, the confident tone of
the applicants move him not a jot from his intended course, he looks at
their claims with the ‘lack lustre eye’ of professional indifference.
Power and influence apart, his next strongest passion is to indulge in
the exercise of professional learning and skill, to amuse himself with
the dry details and intricate windings of the law of equity. He delights
to balance a straw, to see a feather turn the scale, or make it even
again; and divides and subdivides a scruple to the smallest fraction. He
unravels the web of argument and pieces it together again; folds it up
and lays it aside, that he may examine it more at his leisure. He hugs
indecision to his breast, and takes home a modest doubt or a nice point
to solace himself with it in protracted, luxurious dalliance. Delay
seems, in his mind, to be of the very essence of justice. He no more
hurries through a question than if no one was waiting for the result,
and he was merely a _dilettanti_, fanciful judge, who played at my Lord
Chancellor, and busied himself with quibbles and punctilios as an idle
hobby and harmless illusion. The phlegm of the Chancellor’s disposition
gives one almost a surfeit of impartiality and candour: we are sick of
the eternal poise of childish dilatoriness; and would wish law and
justice to be decided at once by a cast of the dice (as they were in
Rabelais) rather than be kept in frivolous and tormenting suspense. But
there is a limit even to this extreme refinement and scrupulousness of
the Chancellor. The understanding acts only in the absence of the
passions. At the approach of the loadstone, the needle trembles, and
points to it. The air of a political question has a wonderful tendency
to brace and quicken the learned Lord’s faculties. The breath of a court
speedily oversets a thousand objections, and scatters the cobwebs of his
brain. The secret wish of power is a thumping _make-weight_, where all
is so nicely balanced beforehand. In the case of a celebrated beauty and
heiress, and the brother of a Noble Lord, the Chancellor hesitated long,
and went through the forms, as usual: but who ever doubted, where all
this indecision would end? No man in his senses, for a single instant!
We shall not press this point, which is rather a ticklish one. Some
persons thought that from entertaining a fellow-feeling on the subject,
the Chancellor would have been ready to favour the Poet-Laureate’s
application to the Court of Chancery for an injunction against Wat
Tyler. His Lordship’s sentiments on such points are not so variable, he
has too much at stake. He recollected the year 1794, though Mr. Southey
had forgotten it!—

The personal always prevails over the intellectual, where the latter is
not backed by strong feeling and principle. Where remote and speculative
objects do not excite a predominant interest and passion, gross and
immediate ones are sure to carry the day, even in ingenuous and
well-disposed minds. The will yields necessarily to some motive or
other; and where the public good or distant consequences excite no
sympathy in the breast, either from shortsightedness or an easiness of
temperament that shrinks from any violent effort or painful emotion,
self-interest, indolence, the opinion of others, a desire to please, the
sense of personal obligation, come in and fill up the void of public
spirit, patriotism, and humanity. The best men in the world in their own
natural dispositions or in private life (for this reason) often become
the most dangerous public characters, from their pliancy to the unruly
passions of others, and from their having no set-off in strong moral
_stamina_ to the temptations that are held out to them, if, as is
frequently the case, they are men of versatile talent or patient
industry.—Lord Eldon has one of the best-natured faces in the world; it
is pleasant to meet him in the street, plodding along with an umbrella
under his arm, without one trace of pride, of spleen, or discontent in
his whole demeanour, void of offence, with almost rustic simplicity and
honesty of appearance—a man that makes friends at first sight, and could
hardly make enemies, if he would; and whose only fault is that he cannot
say _Nay_ to power, or subject himself to an unkind word or look from a
King or a Minister. He is a thorough-bred Tory. Others boggle or are at
fault in their career, or give back at a pinch, they split into
different factions, have various objects to distract them, their private
friendships or antipathies stand in their way; but he has never
flinched, never gone back, never missed his way, he is an
_out-and-outer_ in this respect, his allegiance has been without flaw,
like ‘one entire and perfect chrysolite,’ his implicit understanding is
a kind of taffeta-lining to the Crown, his servility has assumed an air
of the most determined independence, and he has

                ‘Read his history in a Prince’s eyes!’—

There has been no stretch of power attempted in his time that he has not
seconded: no existing abuse, so odious or so absurd, that he has not
sanctioned it. He has gone the whole length of the most unpopular
designs of Ministers. When the heavy artillery of interest, power, and
prejudice is brought into the field, the paper pellets of the brain go
for nothing: his labyrinth of nice, lady-like doubts explodes like a
mine of gunpowder. The Chancellor may weigh and palter—the courtier is
decided, the politician is firm, and rivetted to his place in the
Cabinet! On all the great questions that have divided party opinion or
agitated the public mind, the Chancellor has been found uniformly and
without a single exception on the side of prerogative and power, and
against every proposal for the advancement of freedom. He was a
strenuous supporter of the wars and coalitions against the principles of
liberty abroad; he has been equally zealous in urging or defending every
act and infringement of the Constitution, for abridging it at home: he
at the same time opposes every amelioration of the penal laws, on the
alleged ground of his abhorrence of even the shadow of innovation: he
has studiously set his face against Catholic emancipation; he laboured
hard in his vocation to prevent the abolition of the Slave Trade; he was
Attorney-General in the trials for High Treason in 1794; and the other
day in giving his opinion on the Queen’s Trial, shed tears and protested
his innocence before God! This was natural and to be expected; but on
all occasions he is to be found at his post, true to the call of
prejudice, of power, to the will of others and to his own interest. In
the whole of his public career, and with all the goodness of his
disposition, he has not shown ‘so small a drop of pity as a wren’s eye.’
He seems to be on his guard against every thing liberal and humane as
his weak side. Others relax in their obsequiousness either from satiety
or disgust, or a hankering after popularity, or a wish to be thought
above narrow prejudices. The Lord Chancellor alone is fixed and
immovable. Is it want of understanding or of principle? No—it is want of
imagination, a phlegmatic habit, an excess of false complaisance and
good-nature. He signs a warrant in Council, devoting ten thousand men to
an untimely death, with steady nerves—Is it that he is cruel and
unfeeling? No!—but he thinks neither of their sufferings nor their
cries; he sees only the gracious smile, the ready hand stretched out to
thank him for his compliance with the dictates of rooted hate. He dooms
a Continent to slavery. Is it that he is a tyrant, or an enemy to the
human race? No!—but he cannot find in his heart to resist the commands
or to give pain to a kind and generous benefactor. Common sense and
justice are little better than vague terms to him: he acts upon his
immediate feelings and least irksome impulses. The King’s hand is velvet
to the touch—the Woolsack is a seat of honour and profit! That is all he
knows about the matter. As to abstract metaphysical calculations, the ox
that stands staring at the corner of the street troubles his head as
much about them as he does: yet this last is a very good sort of animal
with no harm or malice in him, unless he is goaded on to mischief, and
then it is necessary to keep out of his way, or warn others against him!

Mr. Wilberforce is a less perfect character in his way. He acts from
mixed motives. He would willingly serve two masters, God and Mammon. He
is a person of many excellent and admirable qualifications, but he has
made a mistake in wishing to reconcile those that are incompatible. He
has a most winning eloquence, specious, persuasive, familiar,
silver-tongued, is amiable, charitable, conscientious, pious, loyal,
humane, tractable to power, accessible to popularity, honouring the
king, and no less charmed with the homage of his fellow-citizens. ‘What
lacks he then?’ Nothing but an economy of good parts. By aiming at too
much, he has spoiled all, and neutralised what might have been an
estimable character, distinguished by signal services to mankind. A man
must take his choice not only between virtue and vice, but between
different virtues. Otherwise, he will not gain his own approbation, or
secure the respect of others. The graces and accomplishments of private
life mar the man of business and the statesman. There is a severity, a
sternness, a self-denial, and a painful sense of duty required in the
one, which ill-befits the softness and sweetness which should
characterise the other. Loyalty, patriotism, friendship, humanity, are
all virtues; but may they not sometimes clash? By being unwilling to
forego the praise due to any, we may forfeit the reputation of all; and,
instead of uniting the suffrages of the whole world in our favour, we
may end in becoming a sort of by-word for affectation, cant, hollow
professions, trimming, fickleness, and effeminate imbecility. It is best
to choose and act up to some one leading character, as it is best to
have some settled profession or regular pursuit in life.

We can readily believe that Mr. Wilberforce’s first object and principle
of action is to do what he thinks right: his next (and that we fear is
of almost equal weight with the first) is to do what will be thought so
by other people. He is always at a game of _hawk and buzzard_ between
these two: his ‘conscience will not budge,’ unless the world goes with
it. He does not seem greatly to dread the denunciation in Scripture, but
rather to court it—‘Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!’
We suspect he is not quite easy in his mind, because West-India planters
and Guinea traders do not join in his praise. His ears are not strongly
enough tuned to drink in the execrations of the spoiler and the
oppressor as the sweetest music. It is not enough that one-half of the
human species (the images of God carved in ebony, as old Fuller calls
them) shout his name as a champion and a saviour through vast burning
zones, and moisten their parched lips with the gush of gratitude for
deliverance from chains—he must have a Prime-Minister drink his health
at a Cabinet-dinner for aiding to rivet on those of his country and of
Europe! He goes hand and heart along with Government in all their
notions of legitimacy and political aggrandizement, in the hope that
they will leave him a sort of _no-man’s ground_ of humanity in the Great
Desert, where his reputation for benevolence and public spirit may
spring up and flourish, till its head touches the clouds, and it
stretches out its branches to the farthest part of the earth. He has no
mercy on those who claim a property in negro-slaves as so much
live-stock on their estates; the country rings with the applause of his
wit, his eloquence, and his indignant appeals to common sense and
humanity on this subject—but not a word has he to say, not a whisper
does he breathe against the claim set up by the Despots of the Earth
over their Continental subjects, but does every thing in his power to
confirm and sanction it! He must give no offence. Mr. Wilberforce’s
humanity will go all lengths that it can with safety and discretion: but
it is not to be supposed that it should lose him his seat for Yorkshire,
the smile of Majesty, or the countenance of the loyal and pious. He is
anxious to do all the good he can without hurting himself or his fair
fame. His conscience and his character compound matters very amicably.
He rather patronises honesty than is a martyr to it. His patriotism, his
philanthropy are not so ill-bred, as to quarrel with his loyalty or to
banish him from the first circles. He preaches vital Christianity to
untutored savages; and tolerates its worst abuses in civilized states.
He thus shows his respect for religion without offending the clergy, or
circumscribing the sphere of his usefulness. There is in all this an
appearance of a good deal of cant and tricking. His patriotism may be
accused of being servile; his humanity ostentatious; his loyalty
conditional; his religion a mixture of fashion and fanaticism. ‘Out upon
such half-faced fellowship!’ Mr. Wilberforce has the pride of being
familiar with the great; the vanity of being popular; the conceit of an
approving conscience. He is coy in his approaches to power: his public
spirit is, in a manner, _under the rose_. He thus reaps the credit of
independence, without the obloquy; and secures the advantages of
servility, without incurring any obligations. He has two strings to his
bow:—he by no means neglects his worldly interests, while he expects a
bright reversion in the skies. Mr. Wilberforce is far from being a
hypocrite; but he is, we think, as fine a specimen of _moral
equivocation_ as can well be conceived. A hypocrite is one who is the
very reverse of, or who despises the character he pretends to be: Mr.
Wilberforce would be all that he pretends to be, and he is it in fact,
as far as words, plausible theories, good inclinations, and easy
services go, but not in heart and soul, or so as to give up the
appearance of any one of his pretensions to preserve the reality of any
other. He carefully chooses his ground to fight the battles of loyalty,
religion, and humanity, and it is such as is always safe and
advantageous to himself! This is perhaps hardly fair, and it is of
dangerous or doubtful tendency. Lord Eldon, for instance, is known to be
a thorough-paced ministerialist: his opinion is only that of his party.
But Mr. Wilberforce is not a party-man. He is the more looked up to on
this account, but not with sufficient reason. By tampering with
different temptations and personal projects, he has all the air of the
most perfect independence, and gains a character for impartiality and
candour, when he is only striking a balance in his mind between the
_éclat_ of differing from a Minister on some ‘vantage ground, and the
risk or odium that may attend it. He carries all the weight of his
artificial popularity over to the Government on vital points and hardrun
questions; while they, in return, lend him a little of the gilding of
court-favour to set off his disinterested philanthropy and tramontane
enthusiasm. As a leader or a follower, he makes an odd jumble of
interests. By virtue of religious sympathy, he has brought the Saints
over to the side of the abolition of Negro slavery. This his adversaries
think hard and stealing a march upon them. What have the SAINTS to do
with freedom or reform of any kind?—Mr. Wilberforce’s style of speaking
is not quite _parliamentary_, it is halfway between that and
_evangelical_. He is altogether a _double-entendre_: the very tone of
his voice is a _double-entendre_. It winds, and undulates, and glides up
and down on texts of Scriptures, and scraps from Paley, and trite
sophistry, and pathetic appeals to his hearers in a faltering,
in-progressive, side-long way, like those birds of weak wing, that are
borne from their strait-forward course

          ‘By every little breath that under heaven is blown.’

Something of this fluctuating, time-serving principle was visible even
in the great question of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. He was, at
one time, half inclined to surrender it into Mr. Pitt’s dilatory hands,
and seemed to think the gloss of novelty was gone from it, and the gaudy
colouring of popularity sunk into the _sable_ ground from which it rose!
It was, however, persisted in and carried to a triumphant conclusion.
Mr. Wilberforce said too little on this occasion of one, compared with
whom he was but the frontispiece to that great chapter in the history of
the world—the mask, the varnishing, and painting—the man that effected
it by Herculean labours of body, and equally gigantic labours of mind,
was Clarkson, the true Apostle of human Redemption on that occasion, and
who, it is remarkable, resembles in his person and lineaments more than
one of the Apostles in the _Cartoons_ of Raphael. He deserves to be
added to the Twelve![59]




                              MR. COBBETT.


People have about as substantial an idea of Cobbett as they have of
Cribb. His blows are as hard, and he himself is as impenetrable. One has
no notion of him as making use of a fine pen, but a great mutton-fist;
his style stuns his readers, and he ‘fillips the ear of the public with
a three-man beetle.’ He is too much for any single newspaper antagonist;
‘lays waste’ a city orator or Member of Parliament, and bears hard upon
the Government itself. He is a kind of _fourth estate_ in the politics
of the country. He is not only unquestionably the most powerful
political writer of the present day, but one of the best writers in the
language. He speaks and thinks plain, broad, downright English. He might
be said to have the clearness of Swift, the naturalness of Defoe, and
the picturesque satirical description of Mandeville; if all such
comparisons were not impertinent. A really great and original writer is
like nobody but himself. In one sense, Sterne was not a wit, nor
Shakespear a poet. It is easy to describe second-rate talents, because
they fall into a class and enlist under a standard: but first-rate
powers defy calculation or comparison, and can be defined only by
themselves. They are _sui generis_, and make the class to which they
belong. I have tried half-a-dozen times to describe Burke’s style
without ever succeeding;—its severe extravagance; its literal boldness;
its matter-of-fact hyperboles; its running away with a subject, and from
it at the same time—but there is no making it out, for there is no
example of the same thing any where else. We have no common measure to
refer to; and his qualities contradict even themselves.

Cobbett is not so difficult. He has been compared to Paine; and so far
it is true there are no two writers who come more into juxtaposition
from the nature of their subjects, from the internal resources on which
they draw, and from the popular effect of their writings and their
adaptation (though that is a bad word in the present case) to the
capacity of every reader. But still if we turn to a volume of Paine’s
(his Common Sense or Rights of Man) we are struck (not to say somewhat
refreshed) by the difference. Paine is a much more sententious writer
than Cobbett. You cannot open a page in any of his best and earlier
works without meeting with some maxim, some antithetical and memorable
saying, which is a sort of starting-place for the argument, and the goal
to which it returns. There is not a single _bon-mot_, a single sentence
in Cobbett that has ever been quoted again. If any thing is ever quoted
from him, it is an epithet of abuse or a nickname. He is an excellent
hand at invention in that way, and has ‘damnable iteration in him.’ What
could be better than his pestering Erskine year after year with his
second title of Baron Clackmannan? He is rather too fond of such phrases
as _the Sons and Daughters of Corruption_. Paine affected to reduce
things to first principles, to announce self-evident truths. Cobbett
troubles himself about little but the details and local circumstances.
The first appeared to have made up his mind beforehand to certain
opinions, and to try to find the most compendious and pointed
expressions for them: his successor appears to have no clue, no fixed or
leading principles, nor ever to have thought on a question till he sits
down to write about it: but then there seems no end of his matters of
fact and raw materials, which are brought out in all their strength and
sharpness from not having been squared or frittered down or vamped up to
suit a theory—he goes on with his descriptions and illustrations as if
he would never come to a stop; they have all the force of novelty with
all the familiarity of old acquaintance; his knowledge grows out of the
subject, and his style is that of a man who has an absolute intuition of
what he is talking about, and never thinks of any thing else. He deals
in premises and speaks to evidence—the coming to a conclusion and
summing up (which was Paine’s _forte_) lies in a smaller compass. The
one could not compose an elementary treatise on politics to become a
manual for the popular reader; nor could the other in all probability
have kept up a weekly journal for the same number of years with the same
spirit, interest, and untired perseverance. Paine’s writings are a sort
of introduction to political arithmetic on a new plan: Cobbett keeps a
day-book, and makes an entry at full of all the occurrences and
troublesome questions that start up throughout the year. Cobbett, with
vast industry, vast information, and the utmost power of making what he
says intelligible, never seems to get at the beginning or come to the
end of any question: Paine in a few short sentences seems by his
peremptory manner ‘to clear it from all controversy, past, present, and
to come.’ Paine takes a bird’s-eye view of things.—Cobbett sticks close
to them, inspects the component parts, and keeps fast hold of the
smallest advantages they afford him. Or if I might here be indulged in a
pastoral allusion, Paine tries to enclose his ideas in a fold for
security and repose; Cobbett lets _his_ pour out upon the plain like a
flock of sheep to feed and batten. Cobbett is a pleasanter writer for
those to read who do not agree with him; for he is less dogmatical, goes
more into the common grounds of fact and argument to which all appeal,
is more desultory and various, and appears less to be driving at a
previous conclusion than urged on by the force of present conviction. He
is therefore tolerated by all parties, though he has made himself by
turns obnoxious to all; and even those he abuses read him. The Reformers
read him when he was a Tory, and the Tories read him now that he is a
Reformer. He must, I think, however, be _caviare_ to the Whigs.[60]

If he is less metaphysical and poetical than his celebrated prototype,
he is more picturesque and dramatic. His episodes, which are numerous as
they are pertinent, are striking, interesting, full of life and
_naïveté_, minute, double measure running over, but never
tedious—_nunquam sufflaminandus erat_. He is one of those writers who
can never tire us—not even of himself; and the reason is, he is always
‘full of matter.’ He never runs to lees, never gives us the vapid
leavings of himself, is never ‘weary, stale, and unprofitable,’ but
always setting out afresh on his journey, clearing away some old
nuisance, and turning up new mould. His egotism is delightful, for there
is no affectation in it. He does not talk of himself for lack of
something to write about, but because some circumstance that has
happened to himself is the best possible illustration of the subject,
and he is not the man to shrink from giving the best possible
illustration of the subject from a squeamish delicacy. He likes both
himself and his subject too well. He does not put himself before it, and
say ‘admire me first’; but places us in the same situation with himself,
and makes us see all that he does. There is no blindman’s buff, no
conscious hints, no awkward ventriloquism, no testimonies of applause,
no abstract, senseless self-complacency, no smuggled admiration of his
own person by proxy; it is all plain and above-board. He writes himself
plain William Cobbett, strips himself quite as naked as any body could
wish—in a word, his egotism is full of individuality, and has room for
very little vanity in it. We feel delighted, rub our hands, and draw our
chair to the fire, when we come to a passage of this sort: we know it
will be something new and good, manly and simple, not the same insipid
story of self over again. We sit down at table with the writer, but it
is of a course of rich viands—flesh, fish, and wild fowl—and not to a
nominal entertainment, like that given to Barmecide in the Arabian
Nights, who put off his visitors with calling for a number of exquisite
things that never appeared, and with the honour of his company. Mr.
Cobbett is not a _make-believe_ writer. His worst enemy cannot say that
of him. Still less is he a vulgar one. He must be a puny common-place
critic indeed, who thinks him so. How fine were the graphical
descriptions he sent us from America: what a transatlantic flavour, what
a native _gusto_, what a fine _sauce piquante_ of contempt they were
seasoned with! If he had sat down to look at himself in the glass,
instead of looking about him like Adam in Paradise, he would not have
got up these articles in so capital a style. What a noble account of his
first breakfast after his arrival in America! It might serve for a
month. There is no scene on the stage more amusing. How well he paints
the gold and scarlet plumage of the American birds, only to lament more
pathetically the want of the wild wood-notes of his native land! The
groves of the Ohio that had just fallen beneath the axe’s stroke, ‘live
in his description,’ and the turnips that he transplanted from Botley
‘look green’ in prose! How well at another time he describes the poor
sheep that had got the tick, and had tumbled down in the agonies of
death! It is a portrait in the manner of Bewick, with the strength, the
simplicity, and feeling of that great naturalist. What havoc he makes,
when he pleases, of the curls of Dr. Parr’s wig and of the Whig
consistency of Mr. ——! His Grammar, too, is as entertaining as a
storybook. He is too hard, however, upon the style of others, and not
enough (sometimes) on his own.

As a political partisan, no one can stand against him. With his
brandished club, like Giant Despair in the Pilgrim’s Progress, he knocks
out their brains: and not only no individual, but no corrupt system,
could hold out against his powerful and repeated attacks; but with the
same weapon, swung round like a flail, with which he levels his
antagonists, he lays his friends low, and puts his own party _hors de
combat_. This is a bad propensity, and a worse principle in political
tactics, though a common one. If his blows were straight forward and
steadily directed to the same object, no unpopular minister could live
before him; instead of which he lays about right and left, impartially
and remorselessly, makes a clear stage, has all the ring to himself, and
then runs out of it, just when he should stand his ground. He throws his
head into his adversary’s stomach, and takes away from him all
inclination for the fight, hits fair or foul, strikes at every thing,
and as you come up to his aid or stand ready to pursue his advantage,
trips up your heels or lays you sprawling, and pummels you when down as
much to his heart’s content as ever the Yanguesian carriers belaboured
Rosinante with their packstaves. ‘_He has the back-trick simply the best
of any man in Illyria._’ He pays off both scores of old friendship and
new-acquired enmity in a breath, in one perpetual volley, one raking
fire of ‘arrowy sleet’ shot from his pen. However his own reputation or
the cause may suffer in consequence, he cares not one pin about that, so
that he disables all who oppose or who pretend to help him. In fact, he
cannot bear success of any kind, not even of his own views or party; and
if any principle were likely to become popular, would turn round against
it, to show his power, in shouldering it on one side. In short, wherever
power is, there is he against it; he naturally butts at all obstacles,
as unicorns are attracted to oak-trees, and feels his own strength only
by resistance to the opinions and wishes of the rest of the world. To
sail with the stream, to agree with the company, is not his humour. If
he could bring about a Reform in Parliament, the odds are that he would
instantly fall foul of and try to mar his own handy-work; and he
quarrels with his own creatures as soon as he has written them into a
little vogue—and a prison. I do not think this is vanity or fickleness
so much as a pugnacious disposition, that must have an antagonist power
to contend with, and only finds itself at ease in systematic opposition.
If it were not for this, the high towers and rotten places of the world
would fall before the battering-ram of his hard-headed reasoning: but if
he once found them tottering, he would apply his strength to prop them
up, and disappoint the expectations of his followers. He cannot agree to
any thing established, nor to set up any thing else in its stead. While
it is established, he presses hard against it, because it presses upon
him, at least in imagination. Let it crumble under his grasp, and the
motive to resistance is gone. He then requires some other grievance to
set his face against. His principle is repulsion, his nature
contradiction: he is made up of mere antipathies; an Ishmaelite indeed,
without a fellow. He is always playing at _hunt-the-slipper_ in
politics. He turns round upon whoever is next to him. The way to wean
him from any opinion, and make him conceive an intolerable hatred
against it, would be to place somebody near him who was perpetually
dinning it in his ears. When he is in England, he does nothing but abuse
the Boroughmongers, and laugh at the whole system: when he is in
America, he grows impatient of freedom and a republic. If he had staid
there a little longer, he would have become a loyal and a loving subject
of his Majesty King George IV. He lampooned the French Revolution when
it was hailed as the dawn of liberty by millions: by the time it was
brought into almost universal ill-odour by some means or other (partly
no doubt by himself) he had turned, with one or two or three others,
staunch Bonapartist. He is always of the militant, not of the triumphant
party: so far he bears a gallant show of magnanimity; but his gallantry
is hardly of the right stamp: it wants principle. For though he is not
servile or mercenary, he is the victim of self-will. He must pull down
and pull in pieces: it is not in his disposition to do otherwise. It is
a pity; for with his great talents he might do great things, if he would
go right forward to any useful object, make thorough-stitch work of any
question, or join hand and heart with any principle. He changes his
opinions as he does his friends, and much on the same account. He has no
comfort in fixed principles: as soon as any thing is settled in his own
mind, he quarrels with it. He has no satisfaction but in the chase after
truth, runs a question down, worries and kills it, then quits it like
vermin, and starts some new game, to lead him a new dance, and give him
a fresh breathing through bog and brake, with the rabble yelping at his
heels and the leaders perpetually at fault. This he calls sport-royal.
He thinks it as good as cudgel-playing or single-stick, or any thing
else that has life in it. He likes the cut and thrust, the falls,
bruises, and dry blows of an argument: as to any good or useful results
that may come of the amicable settling of it, any one is welcome to them
for him. The amusement is over, when the matter is once fairly decided.

There is another point of view in which this may be put. I might say
that Mr. Cobbett is a very honest man, with a total want of principle;
and I might explain this paradox thus, I mean that he is, I think, in
downright earnest in what he says, in the part he takes at the time; but
in taking that part, he is led entirely by headstrong obstinacy,
caprice, novelty, pique or personal motive of some sort, and not by a
steadfast regard for truth or habitual anxiety for what is right
uppermost in his mind. He is not a feed, time-serving, shuffling
advocate (no man could write as he does who did not believe himself
sincere)—but his understanding is the dupe and slave of his momentary,
violent, and irritable humours. He does not adopt an opinion
‘deliberately or for money’; yet his conscience is at the mercy of the
first provocation he receives, of the first whim he takes in his head;
he sees things through the medium of heat and passion, not with
reference to any general principles, and his whole system of thinking is
deranged by the first object that strikes his fancy or sours his
temper.—One cause of this phenomenon is perhaps his want of a regular
education. He is a self-taught man, and has the faults as well as
excellences of that class of persons in their most striking and glaring
excess. It must be acknowledged that the Editor of the Political
Register (the _two-penny trash_, as it was called, till a Bill passed
the House to raise the price to sixpence) is not ‘the gentleman and
scholar:’ though he has qualities that, with a little better management,
would be worth (to the public) both those titles. For want of knowing
what has been discovered before him, he has not certain general
landmarks to refer to, or a general standard of thought to apply to
individual cases. He relies on his own acuteness and the immediate
evidence, without being acquainted with the comparative anatomy or
philosophical structure of opinion. He does not view things on a large
scale or at the horizon (dim and airy enough perhaps); but as they
affect himself,—close, palpable, tangible. Whatever he finds out is his
own, and he only knows what he finds out. He is in the constant hurry
and fever of gestation: his brain teems incessantly with some fresh
project. Every new light is the birth of a new system, the dawn of a new
world to him. He is continually outstripping and overreaching himself.
The last opinion is the only true one. He is wiser to-day than he was
yesterday. Why should he not be wiser to-morrow than he was to-day?—Men
of a learned education are not so sharp-witted as clever men without it;
but they know the balance of the human intellect better: if they are
more stupid, they are more steady; and are less liable to be led astray
by their own sagacity and the over-weening petulance of hard-earned and
late-acquired wisdom. They do not fall in love with every meretricious
extravagance at first sight, or mistake an old battered hypothesis for a
vestal, because they are new to the ways of this old world. They do not
seize upon it as a prize, but are safe from gross imposition by being as
wise and no wiser than those who went before them.

Paine said on some occasion, ‘What I have written, I have written’—as
rendering any farther declaration of his principles unnecessary. Not so
Mr. Cobbett. What he has written is no rule to him what he is to write.
He learns something every day, and every week he takes the field to
maintain the opinions of the last six days against friend or foe. I
doubt whether this outrageous inconsistency, this headstrong fickleness,
this understood want of all rule and method, does not enable him to go
on with the spirit, vigour, and variety that he does. He is not pledged
to repeat himself. Every new Register is a kind of new Prospectus. He
blesses himself from all ties and shackles on his understanding; he has
no mortgages on his brain; his notions are free and unincumbered. If he
was put in trammels, he might become a vile hack like so many more. But
he gives himself ‘ample scope and verge enough.’ He takes both sides of
a question, and maintains one as sturdily as the other. If nobody else
can argue against him, he is a very good match for himself. He writes
better in favour of reform than any body else; he used to write better
against it. Wherever he is, there is the tug of war, the weight of the
argument, the strength of abuse. He is not like a man in danger of being
_bed-rid_ in his faculties—he tosses and tumbles about his unwieldy
bulk, and when he is tired of lying on one side, relieves himself by
turning on the other. His shifting his point of view from time to time
not merely adds variety and greater comforts to his topics (so that the
Political Register is an armoury and magazine for all the materials and
weapons of political warfare), but it gives a greater zest and
liveliness to his manner of treating them. Mr. Cobbett takes nothing for
granted, as what he has proved before; he does not write a book of
reference. We see his ideas in their first concoction, fermenting and
overflowing with the ebullitions of a lively conception. We look on at
the actual process, and are put in immediate possession of the grounds
and materials on which he forms his sanguine, unsettled conclusions. He
does not give us samples of reasoning, but the whole solid mass, refuse
and all.

               ——‘He pours out all as plain
               As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne.’

This is one cause of the clearness and force of his writings. An
argument does not stop to stagnate and muddle in his brain, but passes
at once to his paper. His ideas are served up, like pancakes, hot and
hot. Fresh theories give him fresh courage. He is like a young and lusty
bridegroom, that divorces a favourite speculation every morning, and
marries a new one every night. He is not wedded to his notions, not he.
He has not one Mrs. Cobbett among all his opinions. He makes the most of
the last thought that has come in his way, seizes fast hold of it,
rumples it about in all directions with rough strong hands, has his
wicked will of it, takes a surfeit, and throws it away.—Our author’s
changing his opinions for new ones is not so wonderful; what is more
remarkable is his felicity in forgetting his old ones. He does not
pretend to consistency (like Mr. Coleridge); he frankly disavows all
connexion with himself. He feels no personal responsibility in this way,
and cuts a friend or principle with the same decided indifference that
Antipholis of Ephesus cuts Ægeon of Syracuse. It is a hollow thing. The
only time he ever grew romantic was in bringing over the relics of Mr.
Thomas Paine with him from America, to go a progress with them through
the disaffected districts. Scarce had he landed in Liverpool, when he
left the bones of a great man to shift for themselves; and no sooner did
he arrive in London, than he made a speech to disclaim all participation
in the political and theological sentiments of his late idol, and to
place the whole stock of his admiration and enthusiasm towards him to
the account of his financial speculations, and of his having predicted
the fate of paper-money. If he had erected a little gold statue to him,
it might have proved the sincerity of this assertion: but to make a
martyr and a patron-saint of a man, and to dig up ‘his canonized bones’
in order to expose them as objects of devotion to the rabble’s gaze,
asks something that has more life and spirit in it, more mind and
vivifying soul, than has to do with any calculation of pounds,
shillings, and pence! The fact is, he _ratted_ from his own project. He
found the thing not so ripe as he had expected. His heart failed him:
his enthusiasm fled, and he made his retraction. His admiration is
short-lived: his contempt only is rooted, and his resentment
lasting.—The above was only one instance of his building too much on
practical _data_. He has an ill habit of prophesying, and goes on,
though still deceived. The art of prophesying does not suit Mr.
Cobbett’s style. He has a knack of fixing names and times and places.
According to him, the Reformed Parliament was to meet in March, 1818: it
did not, and we heard no more of the matter. When his predictions fail,
he takes no farther notice of them, but applies himself to new ones—like
the country-people, who turn to see what weather there is in the almanac
for the next week, though it has been out in its reckoning every day of
the last.

Mr. Cobbett is great in attack, not in defence: he cannot fight an
up-hill battle. He will not bear the least punishing. If any one turns
upon him (which few people like to do), he immediately turns tail. Like
an overgrown school-boy, he is so used to have it all his own way, that
he cannot submit to any thing like competition, or a struggle for the
mastery: he must lay on all the blows, and take none. He is bullying and
cowardly; a Big Ben in politics, who will fall upon others and crush
them by his weight, but is not prepared for resistance, and is soon
staggered by a few smart blows. Whenever he has been set upon, he has
slunk out of the controversy. The Edinburgh Review made (what is called)
a dead set at him some years ago, to which he only retorted by an eulogy
on the superior neatness of an English kitchen-garden to a Scotch one. I
remember going one day into a bookseller’s shop in Fleet-street to ask
for the Review; and on my expressing my opinion to a young Scotchman,
who stood behind the counter, that Mr. Cobbett might hit as hard in his
reply, the North Briton said with some alarm—‘But you don’t think, Sir,
Mr. Cobbett will be able to injure the Scottish nation?’ I said I could
not speak to that point, but I thought he was very well able to defend
himself. He however did not, but has born a grudge to the Edinburgh
Review ever since, which he hates worse than the Quarterly. I cannot say
I do.[61]




                      MR. CAMPBELL AND MR. CRABBE.


Mr. Campbell may be said to hold a place (among modern poets) between
Lord Byron and Mr. Rogers. With much of the glossy splendour, the
pointed vigour, and romantic interest of the one, he possesses the
fastidious refinement, the classic elegance of the other. Mr. Rogers, as
a writer, is too effeminate, Lord Byron too extravagant: Mr. Campbell is
neither. The author of the _Pleasures of Memory_ polishes his lines till
they sparkle with the most exquisite finish; he attenuates them into the
utmost degree of trembling softness: but we may complain, in spite of
the delicacy and brilliancy of the execution, of a want of strength and
solidity. The author of the _Pleasures of Hope_, with a richer and
deeper vein of thought and imagination, works it out into figures of
equal grace and dazzling beauty, avoiding on the one hand the tinsel of
flimsy affectation, and on the other the vices of a rude and barbarous
negligence. His Pegasus is not a rough, skittish colt, running wild
among the mountains, covered with bur-docks and thistles, nor a tame,
sleek pad, unable to get out of the same ambling pace; but a beautiful
_manège_ horse, full of life and spirit in itself, and subject to the
complete controul of the rider. Mr. Campbell gives scope to his feelings
and his fancy, and embodies them in a noble and naturally interesting
subject; and he at the same time conceives himself called upon (in these
days of critical nicety) to pay the exact attention to the expression of
each thought, and to modulate each line into the most faultless harmony.
The character of his mind is a lofty and self-scrutinising ambition,
that strives to reconcile the integrity of general design with the
perfect elaboration of each component part, that aims at striking
effect, but is jealous of the means by which this is to be produced. Our
poet is not averse to popularity (nay, he is tremblingly alive to
it)—but self-respect is the primary law, the indispensable condition on
which it must be obtained. We should dread to point out (even if we
could) a false concord, a mixed metaphor, an imperfect rhyme, in any of
Mr. Campbell’s productions; for we think that all his fame would hardly
compensate to him for the discovery. He seeks for perfection, and
nothing evidently short of it can satisfy his mind. He is a _high
finisher_ in poetry, whose every work must bear inspection, whose
slightest touch is precious—not a coarse dauber, who is contented to
impose on public wonder and credulity by some huge, ill-executed design,
or who endeavours to wear out patience and opposition together by a load
of lumbering, feeble, awkward, improgressive lines—on the contrary, Mr.
Campbell labours to lend every grace of execution to his subject, while
he borrows his ardour and inspiration from it, and to deserve the
laurels he has earned, by true genius and by true pains. There is an
apparent consciousness of this in most of his writings. He has attained
to great excellence by aiming at the greatest, by a cautious and yet
daring selection of topics, and by studiously (and with a religious
horror) avoiding all those faults which arise from grossness, vulgarity,
haste, and disregard of public opinion. He seizes on the highest point
of eminence, and strives to keep it to himself—he ‘snatches a grace
beyond the reach of art,’ and will not let it go—he steeps a single
thought or image so deep in the Tyrian dyes of a gorgeous imagination,
that it throws its lustre over a whole page—every where vivid _ideal_
forms hover (in intense conception) over the poet’s verse, which
ascends, like the aloe, to the clouds, with pure flowers at its top. Or,
to take an humbler comparison (the pride of genius must sometimes stoop
to the lowliness of criticism), Mr. Campbell’s poetry often reminds us
of the purple gilliflower, both for its colour and its scent, its
glowing warmth, its rich, languid, sullen hue,

               ‘Yet sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,
               Or Cytherea’s breath!’

There are those who complain of the little that Mr. Campbell has done in
poetry, and who seem to insinuate that he is deterred by his own
reputation from making any farther or higher attempts. But after having
produced two poems that have gone to the heart of a nation, and are
gifts to a world, he may surely linger out the rest of his life in a
dream of immortality. There are moments in our lives so exquisite that
all that remains of them afterwards seems useless and barren; and there
are lines and stanzas in our author’s early writings in which he may be
thought to have exhausted all the sweetness and all the essence of
poetry, so that nothing farther was left to his efforts or his ambition.
Happy is it for those few and fortunate worshippers of the Muse (not a
subject of grudging or envy to others) who already enjoy in their
life-time a foretaste of their future fame, who see their names
accompanying them, like a cloud of glory, from youth to age,

                      ‘And by the vision splendid,
                      Are on their way attended’—

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

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

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

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

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

In the foregoing stanzas we particularly admire the line—

     ‘Till now, in Gertrude’s eyes, their ninth blue summer shone.’

It appears to us like the ecstatic union of natural beauty and poetic
fancy, and in its playful sublimity resembles the azure canopy mirrored
in the smiling waters, bright, liquid, serene, heavenly! A great outcry,
we know, has prevailed for some time past against poetic diction and
affected conceits, and, to a certain degree, we go along with it; but
this must not prevent us from feeling the thrill of pleasure when we see
beauty linked to beauty, like kindred flame to flame, or from applauding
the voluptuous fancy that raises and adorns the fairy fabric of thought,
that nature has begun! Pleasure is ‘scattered in stray-gifts o’er the
earth’—beauty streaks the ‘famous poet’s page’ in occasional lines of
inconceivable brightness; and wherever this is the case, no splenetic
censures or ‘jealous leer malign,’ no idle theories or cold indifference
should hinder us from greeting it with rapture. There are other parts of
this poem equally delightful, in which there is a light startling as the
red-bird’s wing; a perfume like that of the magnolia; a music like the
murmuring of pathless woods or of the everlasting ocean. We conceive,
however, that Mr. Campbell excels chiefly in sentiment and imagery. The
story moves slow, and is mechanically conducted, and rather resembles a
Scotch canal carried over lengthened aqueducts and with a number of
_locks_ in it, than one of those rivers that sweep in their majestic
course, broad and full, over Transatlantic plains and lose themselves in
rolling gulfs, or thunder down lofty precipices. But in the centre, the
inmost recesses of our poet’s heart, the pearly dew of sensibility is
distilled and collects, like the diamond in the mine, and the structure
of his fame rests on the crystal columns of a polished imagination. We
prefer the _Gertrude_ to the _Pleasures of Hope_, because with perhaps
less brilliancy, there is more of tenderness and natural imagery in the
former. In the _Pleasures of Hope_ Mr. Campbell had not completely
emancipated himself from the trammels of the more artificial style of
poetry—from epigram, and antithesis, and hyperbole. The best line in it,
in which earthly joys are said to be—

              ‘Like angels’ visits, few and far between’—

is a borrowed one.[62] But in the Gertrude of Wyoming ‘we perceive a
softness coming over the heart of the author, and the scales and crust
of formality, that fence in his couplets and give them a somewhat
glittering and rigid appearance, fall off,’ and he has succeeded in
engrafting the wild and more expansive interest of the romantic school
of poetry on classic elegance and precision. After the poem we have just
named, Mr. Campbell’s Songs are the happiest efforts of his
Muse:—breathing freshness, blushing like the morn, they seem, like
clustering roses, to weave a chaplet for love and liberty; or their
bleeding words gush out in mournful and hurried succession, like ‘ruddy
drops that visit the sad heart’ of thoughtful Humanity. The _Battle of
Hohenlinden_ is of all modern compositions the most lyrical in spirit
and in sound. To justify this encomium, we need only recall the lines to
the reader’s memory.

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

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

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

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

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

              ‘’Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun
              Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling[63] dun,
              Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
              Shout in their sulph’rous canopy.

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

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

Mr. Campbell’s prose-criticisms on contemporary and other poets (which
have appeared in the New Monthly Magazine) are in a style at once
chaste, temperate, guarded, and just.

Mr. Crabbe presents an entire contrast to Mr. Campbell:—The one is the
most ambitious and aspiring of living poets, the other the most humble
and prosaic. If the poetry of the one is like the arch of the rainbow,
spanning and adorning the earth, that of the other is like a dull,
leaden cloud hanging over it. Mr. Crabbe’s style might be cited as an
answer to Audrey’s question—‘Is poetry a true thing?’ There are here no
ornaments, no flights of fancy, no illusions of sentiment, no tinsel of
words. His song is one sad reality, one unraised, unvaried note of
unavailing woe. Literal fidelity serves him in the place of invention;
he assumes importance by a number of petty details; he rivets attention
by being tedious. He not only deals in incessant matters of fact, but in
matters of fact of the most familiar, the least animating, and the most
unpleasant kind; but he relies for the effect of novelty on the
microscopic minuteness with which he dissects the most trivial
objects—and for the interest he excites, on the unshrinking
determination with which he handles the most painful. His poetry has an
official and professional air. He is called in to cases of difficult
births, of fractured limbs, or breaches of the peace; and makes out a
parochial list of accidents and offences. He takes the most trite, the
most gross and obvious and revolting part of nature, for the subject of
his elaborate descriptions; but it is Nature still, and Nature is a
great and mighty Goddess! It is well for the Reverend Author that it is
so. Individuality is, in his theory, the only definition of poetry.
Whatever _is_, he hitches into rhyme. Whoever makes an exact image of
any thing on the earth, however deformed or insignificant, according to
him, must succeed—and he himself has succeeded. Mr. Crabbe is one of the
most popular and admired of our living authors. That he is so, can be
accounted for on no other principle than the strong ties that bind us to
the world about us, and our involuntary yearnings after whatever in any
manner powerfully and directly reminds us of it. His Muse is not one of
_the Daughters of Memory_, but the old toothless, mumbling, dame
herself, doling out the gossip and scandal of the neighbourhood,
recounting _totidem verbis et literis_, what happens in every place of
the kingdom every hour in the year, and fastening always on the worst as
the most palatable morsels. But she is a circumstantial old lady,
communicative, scrupulous, leaving nothing to the imagination, harping
on the smallest grievances, a village oracle and critic, most veritable,
most identical, bringing us acquainted with persons and things just as
they chanced to exist, and giving us a local interest in all she knows
and tells. Mr. Crabbe’s Helicon is choked up with weeds and corruption;
it reflects no light from heaven, it emits no cheerful sound: no flowers
of love, of hope, or joy spring up near it, or they bloom only to wither
in a moment. Our poet’s verse does not put a spirit of youth in every
thing, but a spirit of fear, despondency, and decay: it is not an
electric spark to kindle or expand, but acts like the torpedo’s touch to
deaden or contract. It lends no dazzling tints to fancy, it aids no
soothing feelings in the heart, it gladdens no prospect, it stirs no
wish; in its view the current of life runs slow, dull, cold, dispirited,
half under ground, muddy, and clogged with all creeping things. The
world is one vast infirmary; the hill of Parnassus is a penitentiary, of
which our author is the overseer: to read him is a penance, yet we read
on! Mr. Crabbe, it must be confessed, is a repulsive writer. He
contrives to ‘turn diseases to commodities,’ and makes a virtue of
necessity. He puts us out of conceit with this world, which perhaps a
severe divine should do; yet does not, as a charitable divine ought,
point to another. His morbid feelings droop and cling to the earth,
grovel where they should soar; and throw a dead weight on every
aspiration of the soul after the good or beautiful. By degrees we
submit, and are reconciled to our fate, like patients to the physician,
or prisoners in the condemned cell. We can only explain this by saying,
as we said before, that Mr. Crabbe gives us one part of nature, the
mean, the little, the disgusting, the distressing; that he does this
thoroughly and like a master, and we forgive all the rest.

Mr. Crabbe’s first poems were published so long ago as the year 1782,
and received the approbation of Dr. Johnson only a little before he
died. This was a testimony from an enemy; for Dr. Johnson was not an
admirer of the simple in style or minute in description. Still he was an
acute, strong-minded man, and could see truth when it was presented to
him, even through the mist of his prejudices and his foibles. There was
something in Mr. Crabbe’s intricate points that did not, after all, so
ill accord with the Doctor’s purblind vision; and he knew quite enough
of the petty ills of life to judge of the merit of our poet’s
descriptions, though he himself chose to slur them over in high-sounding
dogmas or general invectives. Mr. Crabbe’s earliest poem of the
_Village_ was recommended to the notice of Dr. Johnson by Sir Joshua
Reynolds; and we cannot help thinking that a taste for that sort of
poetry, which leans for support on the truth and fidelity of its
imitations of nature, began to display itself much about that time, and,
in a good measure, in consequence of the direction of the public taste
to the subject of painting. Book-learning, the accumulation of wordy
common-places, the gaudy pretensions of poetical fiction, had enfeebled
and perverted our eye for nature. The study of the fine arts, which came
into fashion about forty years ago, and was then first considered as a
polite accomplishment, would tend imperceptibly to restore it. Painting
is essentially an imitative art; it cannot subsist for a moment on empty
generalities: the critic, therefore, who had been used to this sort of
substantial entertainment, would be disposed to read poetry with the eye
of a connoisseur, would be little captivated with smooth, polished,
unmeaning periods, and would turn with double eagerness and relish to
the force and precision of individual details, transferred, as it were,
to the page from the canvas. Thus an admirer of Teniers or Hobbima might
think little of the pastoral sketches of Pope or Goldsmith; even Thomson
describes not so much the naked object as what he sees in his mind’s
eye, surrounded and glowing with the mild, bland, genial vapours of his
brain:—but the adept in Dutch interiors, hovels, and pig-styes must find
in Mr. Crabbe a man after his own heart. He is the very thing itself; he
paints in words, instead of colours: there is no other difference. As
Mr. Crabbe is not a painter, only because he does not use a brush and
colours, so he is for the most part a poet, only because he writes in
lines of ten syllables. All the rest might be found in a newspaper, an
old magazine, or a county-register. Our author is himself a little
jealous of the prudish fidelity of his homely Muse, and tries to justify
himself by precedents. He brings as a parallel instance of merely
literal description, Pope’s lines on the gay Duke of Buckingham,
beginning ‘In the worst inn’s worst room see Villiers lies!’ But surely
nothing can be more dissimilar. Pope describes what is striking, Crabbe
would have described merely what was there. The objects in Pope stand
out to the fancy from the mixture of the mean with the gaudy, from the
contrast of the scene and the character. There is an appeal to the
imagination; you see what is passing in a poetical point of view. In
Crabbe there is no foil, no contrast, no impulse given to the mind. It
is all on a level and of a piece. In fact, there is so little connection
between the subject-matter of Mr. Crabbe’s lines and the ornament of
rhyme which is tacked to them, that many of his verses read like serious
burlesque, and the parodies which have been made upon them are hardly so
quaint as the originals.

Mr. Crabbe’s great fault is certainly that he is a sickly, a querulous,
a uniformly dissatisfied poet. He sings the country; and he sings it in
a pitiful tone. He chooses this subject only to take the charm out of
it, and to dispel the illusion, the glory, and the dream, which had
hovered over it in golden verse from Theocritus to Cowper. He sets out
with professing to overturn the theory which had hallowed a shepherd’s
life, and made the names of grove and valley music to our ears, in order
to give us truth in its stead; but why not lay aside the fool’s cap and
bells at once? Why not insist on the unwelcome reality in plain prose?
If our author is a poet, why trouble himself with statistics? If he is a
statistic writer, why set his ill news to harsh and grating verse? The
philosopher in painting the dark side of human nature may have reason on
his side, and a moral lesson or remedy in view. The tragic poet, who
shows the sad vicissitudes of things and the disappointments of the
passions, at least strengthens our yearnings after imaginary good, and
lends wings to our desires, by which we, ‘at one bound, high overleap
all bound’ of actual suffering. But Mr. Crabbe does neither. He gives us
discoloured paintings of life; helpless, repining, unprofitable,
unedifying distress. He is not a philosopher, but a sophist, a
misanthrope in verse; a _namby-pamby_ Mandeville, a Malthus turned
metrical romancer. He professes historical fidelity; but his vein is not
dramatic; nor does he give us the _pros_ and _cons_ of that versatile
gipsey, Nature. He does not indulge his fancy or sympathise with us, or
tell us how the poor feel; but how he should feel in their situation,
which we do not want to know. He does not weave the web of their lives
of a mingled yarn, good and ill together, but clothes them all in the
same dingy linsey-woolsey, or tinges them with a green and yellow
melancholy. He blocks out all possibility of good, cancels the hope, or
even the wish for it as a weakness; checkmates Tityrus and Virgil at the
game of pastoral cross-purposes, disables all his adversary’s white
pieces, and leaves none but black ones on the board. The situation of a
country clergyman is not necessarily favourable to the cultivation of
the Muse. He is set down, perhaps, as he thinks, in a small curacy for
life, and he takes his revenge by imprisoning the reader’s imagination
in luckless verse. Shut out from social converse, from learned colleges
and halls, where he passed his youth, he has no cordial fellow-feeling
with the unlettered manners of the _Village_ or the _Borough_; and he
describes his neighbours as more uncomfortable and discontented than
himself. All this while he dedicates successive volumes to rising
generations of noble patrons; and while he desolates a line of coast
with sterile, blighting lines, the only leaf of his books where honour,
beauty, worth, or pleasure bloom, is that inscribed to the Rutland
family! We might adduce instances of what we have said from every page
of his works: let one suffice—

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

This is an exact _fac-simile_ of some of the most unlovely parts of the
creation. Indeed the whole of Mr. Crabbe’s _Borough_, from which the
above passage is taken, is done so to the life, that it seems almost
like some sea-monster, crawled out of the neighbouring slime, and
harbouring a breed of strange vermin, with a strong local scent of tar
and bulge-water. Mr. Crabbe’s _Tales_ are more readable than his
_Poems_; but in proportion as the interest increases, they become more
oppressive. They turn, one and all, upon the same sort of teazing,
helpless, mechanical, unimaginative distress;—and though it is not easy
to lay them down, you never wish to take them up again. Still in this
way, they are highly finished, striking, and original portraits, worked
out with an eye to nature, and an intimate knowledge of the small and
intricate folds of the human heart. Some of the best are the
_Confidant_, the story of _Silly Shore_, the _Young Poet_, the
_Painter_. The episode of _Phœbe Dawson_ in the _Village_, is one of the
most tender and pensive; and the character of the methodist parson who
persecutes the sailor’s widow with his godly, selfish love is one of the
most profound. In a word, if Mr. Crabbe’s writings do not add greatly to
the store of entertaining and delightful fiction, yet they will remain,
‘as a thorn in the side of poetry,’ perhaps for a century to come!




                      MR. T. MOORE—MR. LEIGH HUNT

      ‘Or winglet of the fairy humming-bird,
      Like atoms of the rainbow fluttering round.’
                                                        CAMPBELL.


The lines placed at the head of this sketch, from a contemporary writer,
appear to us very descriptive of Mr. Moore’s poetry. His verse is like a
shower of beauty; a dance of images; a stream of music; or like the
spray of the water-fall, tinged by the morning-beam with rosy light. The
characteristic distinction of our author’s style is this continuous and
incessant flow of voluptuous thoughts and shining allusions. He ought to
write with a crystal pen on silver paper. His subject is set off by a
dazzling veil of poetic diction, like a wreath of flowers gemmed with
innumerous dew-drops, that weep, tremble, and glitter in liquid softness
and pearly light, while the song of birds ravishes the ear, and languid
odours breathe around, and Aurora opens Heaven’s smiling portals, Peris
and nymphs peep through the golden glades, and an Angel’s wing glances
over the glossy scene.

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

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

Mr. Campbell’s imagination is fastidious and select; and hence, though
we meet with more exquisite beauties in his writings, we meet with them
more rarely: there is comparatively a dearth of ornament. But Mr.
Moore’s strictest economy is ‘wasteful and superfluous excess’: he is
always liberal, and never at a loss; for sooner than not stimulate and
delight the reader, he is willing to be tawdry, or superficial, or
common-place. His Muse must be fine at any rate, though she should
paint, and wear cast-off decorations. Rather than have any lack of
excitement, he repeats himself; and ‘Eden, and Eblis, and cherub-smiles’
fill up the pauses of the sentiment with a sickly monotony.—It has been
too much our author’s object to pander to the artificial taste of the
age; and his productions, however brilliant and agreeable, are in
consequence somewhat meretricious and effeminate. It was thought
formerly enough to have an occasionally fine passage in the progress of
a story or a poem, and an occasionally striking image or expression in a
fine passage or description. But this style, it seems, was to be
exploded as rude, Gothic, meagre, and dry. Now all must be raised to the
same tantalising and preposterous level. There must be no pause, no
interval, no repose, no gradation. Simplicity and truth yield up the
palm to affectation and grimace. The craving of the public mind after
novelty and effect is a false and uneasy appetite that must be pampered
with fine words at every step—we must be tickled with sound, startled
with show, and relieved by the importunate, uninterrupted display of
fancy and verbal tinsel as much as possible from the fatigue of thought
or shock of feeling. A poem is to resemble an exhibition of fire-works,
with a continual explosion of quaint figures and devices, flash after
flash, that surprise for the moment, and leave no trace of light or
warmth behind them. Or modern poetry in its retrograde progress comes at
last to be constructed on the principles of the modern OPERA, where an
attempt is made to gratify every sense at every instant, and where the
understanding alone is insulted and the heart mocked. It is in this view
only that we can discover that Mr. Moore’s poetry is vitiated or
immoral,—it seduces the taste and enervates the imagination. It creates
a false standard of reference, and inverts or decompounds the natural
order of association, in which objects strike the thoughts and feelings.
His is the poetry of the bath, of the toilette, of the saloon, of the
fashionable world; not the poetry of nature, of the heart, or of human
life. He stunts and enfeebles equally the growth of the imagination and
the affections, by not taking the seed of poetry and sowing it in the
ground of truth, and letting it expand in the dew and rain, and shoot up
to heaven,

                ‘And spread its sweet leaves to the air,
                Or dedicate its beauty to the sun,’

instead of which he anticipates and defeats his own object, by plucking
flowers and blossoms from the stem, and setting them in the ground of
idleness and folly—or in the cap of his own vanity, where they soon
wither and disappear, ‘dying or ere they sicken!’ This is but a sort of
child’s play, a short-sighted ambition. In Milton we meet with many
prosaic lines, either because the subject does not require raising or
because they are necessary to connect the story, or serve as a relief to
other passages—there is not such a thing to be found in all Mr. Moore’s
writings. His volumes present us with ‘a perpetual feast of nectar’d
sweets’—but we cannot add—‘where no crude surfeit reigns.’ He indeed
cloys with sweetness; he obscures with splendour; he fatigues with
gaiety. We are stifled on beds of roses—we literally lie ‘on the rack of
restless ecstacy.’ His flowery fancy ‘looks so fair and smells so sweet,
that the sense aches at it.’ His verse droops and languishes under a
load of beauty, like a bough laden with fruit. His gorgeous style is
like ‘another morn risen on mid-noon.’ There is no passage that is not
made up of blushing lines, no line that is not enriched with a sparkling
metaphor, no image that is left unadorned with a double epithet—all his
verbs, nouns, adjectives, are equally glossy, smooth, and beautiful.
Every stanza is transparent with light, perfumed with odours, floating
in liquid harmony, melting in luxurious, evanescent delights. His Muse
is never contented with an offering from one sense alone, but brings
another rifled charm to match it, and revels in a fairy round of
pleasure. The interest is not dramatic, but melodramatic—it is a mixture
of painting, poetry, and music, of the natural and preternatural, of
obvious sentiment and romantic costume. A rose is a _Gul_, a nightingale
a _Bulbul_. We might fancy ourselves in an eastern harem, amidst
Ottomans, and otto of roses, and veils and spangles, and marble pillars,
and cool fountains, and Arab maids and Genii, and magicians, and Peris,
and cherubs, and what not? Mr. Moore has a little mistaken the art of
poetry for the _cosmetic art_. He does not compose an historic group, or
work out a single figure; but throws a variety of elementary sensations,
of vivid impressions together, and calls it a description. He makes out
an inventory of beauty—the smile on the lips, the dimple on the cheeks,
_item_, golden locks, _item_, a pair of blue wings, _item_, a silver
sound, with breathing fragrance and radiant light, and thinks it a
character or a story. He gets together a number of fine things and fine
names, and thinks that, flung on heaps, they make up a fine poem. This
dissipated, fulsome, painted, patchwork style may succeed in the levity
and languor of the _boudoir_, or might have been adapted to the
Pavilions of royalty, but it is not the style of Parnassus, nor a
passport to Immortality. It is not the taste of the ancients, ‘’tis not
classical lore’—nor the fashion of Tibullus, or Theocritus, or Anacreon,
or Virgil, or Ariosto, or Pope, or Byron, or any great writer among the
living or the dead, but it is the style of our English Anacreon, and it
is (or was) the fashion of the day! Let one example (and that an admired
one), taken from _Lalla Rookh_, suffice to explain the mystery and
soften the harshness of the foregoing criticism.

               ‘Now, upon Syria’s land of roses
               Softly the light of eve reposes,
               And, like a glory, the broad sun
               Hangs over sainted Lebanon;
               Whose head in wintry grandeur towers,
                 And whitens with eternal sleet,
               While summer, in a vale of flowers,
                 Is sleeping rosy at his feet.

               ‘To one who look’d from upper air
               O’er all the enchanted regions there,
               How beauteous must have been the glow,
               The life, the sparkling from below!
               Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
               Of golden melons on their banks,
               More golden where the sun-light falls;—
               Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
               Of ruin’d shrines, busy and bright
               As they were all alive with light;—
               And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
               Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
               With their rich restless wings, that gleam
               Variously in the crimson beam
               Of the warm west,—as if inlaid
               With brilliants from the mine, or made
               Of tearless rainbows, such as span
               The unclouded skies of Peristan!
               And then, the mingling sounds that come,
               Of shepherd’s ancient reed, with hum
               Of the wild bees of Palestine,
                 Banquetting through the flowery vales;—
               And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine,
                 And woods, so full of nightingales!’

The following lines are the very perfection of Della Cruscan sentiment,
and affected orientalism of style. The Peri exclaims on finding that old
talisman and hackneyed poetical machine, ‘a penitent tear’—

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

There is in all this a play of fancy, a glitter of words, a shallowness
of thought, and a want of truth and solidity that is wonderful, and that
nothing but the heedless, rapid glide of the verse could render
tolerable:——it seems that the poet, as well as the lover,

                 ‘May bestride the Gossamer,
                 That wantons in the idle, summer air,
                 And yet not fall, so light is vanity!’

Mr. Moore ought not to contend with serious difficulties or with entire
subjects. He can write verses, not a poem. There is no principle of
massing or of continuity in his productions—neither height nor breadth
nor depth of capacity. There is no truth of representation, no strong
internal feeling—but a continual flutter and display of affected airs
and graces, like a finished coquette, who hides the want of symmetry by
extravagance of dress, and the want of passion by flippant forwardness
and unmeaning sentimentality. All is flimsy, all is florid to excess.
His imagination may dally with insect beauties, with Rosicrucian spells;
may describe a butterfly’s wing, a flower-pot, a fan: but it should not
attempt to span the great outlines of nature, or keep pace with the
sounding march of events, or grapple with the strong fibres of the human
heart. The great becomes turgid in his hands, the pathetic insipid. If
Mr. Moore were to describe the heights of Chimboraco, instead of the
loneliness, the vastness and the shadowy might, he would only think of
adorning it with roseate tints, like a strawberry-ice, and would
transform a magician’s fortress in the Himmalaya (stripped of its
mysterious gloom and frowning horrors) into a jeweller’s toy, to be set
upon a lady’s toilette. In proof of this, see above ‘the diamond turrets
of Shadukiam,’ &c. The description of Mokanna in the fight, though it
has spirit and grandeur of effect, has still a great alloy of the
mock-heroic in it. The route of blood and death, which is otherwise well
marked, is infested with a swarm of ‘fire-fly’ fancies.

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

This simile is fine, and would have been perfect, but that the moon is
not red, and that she seems to hurry by the clouds, not they by her.

The description of the warrior’s youthful adversary,

                       ——‘Whose coming seems
             A light, a glory, such as breaks in dreams——’

is fantastic and enervated—a field of battle has nothing to do with
dreams:—and again, the two lines immediately after,

            ‘And every sword, true as o’er billows dim
            The needle tracks the load-star, following him’—

are a mere piece of enigmatical ingenuity and scientific
_mimminee-pimminee_.

We cannot except the _Irish Melodies_ from the same censure. If these
national airs do indeed express the soul of impassioned feeling in his
countrymen, the case of Ireland is hopeless. If these prettinesses pass
for patriotism, if a country can heave from its heart’s core only these
vapid, varnished sentiments, lip-deep, and let its tears of blood
evaporate in an empty conceit, let it be governed as it has been. There
are here no tones to waken Liberty, to console Humanity. Mr. Moore
converts the wild harp of Erin into a musical snuff-box![64]—We _do_
except from this censure the author’s political squibs, and the
‘Twopenny Post-bag.’ These are essences, are ‘nests of spicery,’ bitter
and sweet, honey and gall together. No one can so well describe the set
speech of a dull formalist,[65] or the flowing locks of a Dowager,

            ‘In the manner of Ackermann’s dresses for May.’

His light, agreeable, polished style pierces through the body of the
court—hits off the faded graces of ‘an Adonis of fifty,’ weighs the
vanity of fashion in tremulous scales, mimics the grimace of affectation
and folly, shows up the littleness of the great, and spears a phalanx of
statesmen with its glittering point as with a diamond broach.

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

Nothing in Pope or Prior ever surpassed the delicate insinuation and
adroit satire of these lines, and hundreds more of our author’s
composition. We wish he would not take pains to make us think of them
with less pleasure than formerly.—The ‘Fudge Family’ is in the same
spirit, but with a little falling-off. There is too great a mixture of
undisguised Jacobinism and fashionable _slang_. The ‘divine Fanny Bias’
and ‘the mountains _à la Russe_’ figure in somewhat quaintly with
Buonaparte and the Bourbons. The poet also launches the lightning of
political indignation; but it rather plays round and illumines his own
pen than reaches the devoted heads at which it is aimed!

Mr. Moore is in private life an amiable and estimable man. The
embellished and voluptuous style of his poetry, his unpretending origin,
and his _mignon_ figure, soon introduced him to the notice of the great,
and his gaiety, his wit, his good-humour, and many agreeable
accomplishments fixed him there, the darling of his friends and the idol
of fashion. If he is no longer familiar with Royalty as with his garter,
the fault is not his—his adherence to his principles caused the
separation—his love of his country was the cloud that intercepted the
sunshine of court-favour. This is so far well. Mr. Moore vindicates his
own dignity; but the sense of intrinsic worth, of wide-spread fame, and
of the intimacy of the great makes him perhaps a little too fastidious
and _exigeant_ as to the pretensions of others. He has been so long
accustomed to the society of Whig Lords, and so enchanted with the smile
of beauty and fashion, that he really fancies himself one of the _set_,
to which he is admitted on sufferance, and tries very unnecessarily to
keep others out of it. He talks familiarly of works that are or are not
read ‘in _our_ circle’; and seated smiling and at his ease in a
coronet-coach, enlivening the owner by his brisk sallies and Attic
conceits, is shocked, as he passes, to see a Peer of the realm shake
hands with a poet. There is a little indulgence of spleen and envy, a
little servility and pandering to aristocratic pride in this proceeding.
Is Mr. Moore bound to advise a Noble Poet to get as fast as possible out
of a certain publication, lest he should not be able to give an account
at Holland or at Lansdown House, how his friend Lord B—— had associated
himself with his friend L. H——? Is he afraid that the ‘Spirit of
Monarchy’ will eclipse the ‘Fables for the Holy Alliance’ in virulence
and plain speaking? Or are the members of the ‘Fudge Family’ to secure a
monopoly for the abuse of the Bourbons and the doctrine of Divine Right?
Because he is genteel and sarcastic, may not others be paradoxical and
argumentative? Or must no one bark at a Minister or General, unless they
have been first dandled, like a little French pug-dog, in the lap of a
lady of quality? Does Mr. Moore insist on the double claim of birth and
genius as a title to respectability in all advocates of the popular
side—but himself? Or is he anxious to keep the pretensions of his
patrician and plebeian friends quite separate, so as to be himself the
only point of union, a sort of _double meaning_, between the two? It is
idle to think of setting bounds to the weakness and illusions of
self-love as long as it is confined to a man’s own breast; but it ought
not to be made a plea for holding back the powerful hand that is
stretched out to save another struggling with the tide of popular
prejudice, who has suffered shipwreck of health, fame, and fortune in a
common cause, and who has deserved the aid and the good wishes of all
who are (on principle) embarked in the same cause by equal zeal and
honesty, if not by equal talents to support and to adorn it!

We shall conclude the present article with a short notice of an
individual who, in the cast of his mind and in political principle,
bears no very remote resemblance to the patriot and wit just spoken of,
and on whose merits we should descant at greater length, but that
personal intimacy might be supposed to render us partial. It is well
when personal intimacy produces this effect; and when the light, that
dazzled us at a distance, does not on a closer inspection turn out an
opaque substance. This is a charge that none of his friends will bring
against Mr. Leigh Hunt. He improves upon acquaintance. The author
translates admirably into the man. Indeed the very faults of his style
are virtues in the individual. His natural gaiety and sprightliness of
manner, his high animal spirits, and the _vinous_ quality of his mind,
produce an immediate fascination and intoxication in those who come in
contact with him, and carry off in society whatever in his writings may
to some seem flat and impertinent. From great sanguineness of temper,
from great quickness and unsuspecting simplicity, he runs on to the
public as he does at his own fireside, and talks about himself,
forgetting that he is not always among friends. His look, his tone are
required to point many things that he says: his frank, cordial manner
reconciles you instantly to a little over-bearing, over-weening
self-complacency. ‘To be admired, he needs but to be seen’: but perhaps
he ought to be seen to be fully appreciated. No one ever sought his
society who did not come away with a more favourable opinion of him: no
one was ever disappointed, except those who had entertained idle
prejudices against him. He sometimes trifles with his readers, or tires
of a subject (from not being urged on by the stimulus of immediate
sympathy)—but in conversation he is all life and animation, combining
the vivacity of the school-boy with the resources of the wit and the
taste of the scholar. The personal character, the spontaneous impulses,
do not appear to excuse the author, unless you are acquainted with his
situation and habits—like some proud beauty who gives herself what we
think strange airs and graces under a mask, but who is instantly
forgiven when she shews her face. We have said that Lord Byron is a
sublime coxcomb: why should we not say that Mr. Hunt is a delightful
one? There is certainly an exuberance of satisfaction in his manner
which is more than the strict logical premises warrant, and which dull
and phlegmatic constitutions know nothing of, and cannot understand till
they see it. He is the only poet or literary man we ever knew who puts
us in mind of Sir John Suckling or Killigrew or Carew; or who united
rare intellectual acquirements with outward grace and natural gentility.
Mr. Hunt ought to have been a gentleman born, and to have patronised men
of letters. He might then have played, and sung, and laughed, and talked
his life away; have written manly prose, elegant verse; and his _Story
of Rimini_ would have been praised by Mr. Blackwood. As it is, there is
no man now living who at the same time writes prose and verse so well,
with the exception of Mr. Southey (an exception, we fear, that will be
little palatable to either of these gentlemen). His prose writings,
however, display more consistency of principle than the laureate’s; his
verses more taste. We will venture to oppose his Third Canto of the
_Story of Rimini_ for classic elegance and natural feeling to any equal
number of lines from Mr. Southey’s Epics or from Mr. Moore’s Lalla
Rookh. In a more gay and conversational style of writing, we think his
_Epistle to Lord Byron_ on his going abroad, is a masterpiece;—and the
_Feast of the Poets_ has run through several editions. A light, familiar
grace, and mild unpretending pathos are the characteristics of his more
sportive or serious writings, whether in poetry or prose. A smile plays
round the sparkling features of the one; a tear is ready to start from
the thoughtful gaze of the other. He perhaps takes too little pains, and
indulges in too much wayward caprice in both. A wit and a poet, Mr. Hunt
is also distinguished by fineness of tact and sterling sense: he has
only been a visionary in humanity, the fool of virtue. What then is the
drawback to so many shining qualities, that has made them useless, or
even hurtful to their owner? His crime is, to have been Editor of the
_Examiner_ ten years ago, when some allusion was made in it to the age
of the present King, and though his Majesty has grown older, our
luckless politician is no wiser than he was then!




                       ELIA, AND GEOFFREY CRAYON


So Mr. Charles Lamb and Mr. Washington Irvine choose to designate
themselves; and as their lucubrations under one or other of these _noms
de guerre_ have gained considerable notice from the public, we shall
here attempt to discriminate their several styles and manner, and to
point out the beauties and defects of each in treating of somewhat
similar subjects.

Mr. Irvine is, we take it, the more popular writer of the two, or a more
general favourite: Mr. Lamb has more devoted, and perhaps more judicious
partisans. Mr. Irvine is by birth an American, and has, as it were,
_skimmed the cream_, and taken off patterns with great skill and
cleverness, from our best known and happiest writers, so that their
thoughts and almost their reputation are indirectly transferred to his
page, and smile upon us from another hemisphere, like ‘the pale reflex
of Cynthia’s brow’: he succeeds to our admiration and our sympathy by a
sort of prescriptive title and traditional privilege. Mr. Lamb, on the
contrary, being ‘native to the manner here,’ though he too has borrowed
from previous sources, instead of availing himself of the most popular
and admired, has groped out his way, and made his most successful
researches among the more obscure and intricate, though certainly not
the least pithy or pleasant of our writers. Mr. Washington Irvine has
culled and transplanted the flowers of modern literature, for the
amusement of the general reader: Mr. Lamb has raked among the dust and
cobwebs of a more remote period, has exhibited specimens of curious
relics, and pored over moth-eaten, decayed manuscripts, for the benefit
of the more inquisitive and discerning part of the public. Antiquity
after time has the grace of novelty, as old fashions revived are
mistaken for new ones; and a certain quaintness and singularity of style
is an agreeable relief to the smooth and insipid monotony of modern
composition. Mr. Lamb has succeeded not by conforming to the _Spirit of
the Age_, but in opposition to it. He does not march boldly along with
the crowd, but steals off the pavement to pick his way in the contrary
direction. He prefers _bye-ways_ to _highways_. When the full tide of
human life pours along to some festive show, to some pageant of a day,
Elia would stand on one side to look over an old book-stall, or stroll
down some deserted pathway in search of a pensive inscription over a
tottering doorway, or some quaint device in architecture, illustrative
of embryo art and ancient manners. Mr. Lamb has the very soul of an
antiquarian, as this implies a reflecting humanity; the film of the past
hovers forever before him. He is shy, sensitive, the reverse of every
thing coarse, vulgar, obtrusive, and _common-place_. He would fain
‘shuffle off this mortal coil,’ and his spirit clothes itself in the
garb of elder time, homelier, but more durable. He is borne along with
no pompous paradoxes, shines in no glittering tinsel of a fashionable
phraseology; is neither fop nor sophist. He has none of the turbulence
or froth of new-fangled opinions. His style runs pure and clear, though
it may often take an underground course, or be conveyed through
old-fashioned conduit-pipes. Mr. Lamb does not court popularity, nor
strut in gaudy plumes, but shrinks from every kind of ostentatious and
obvious pretension into the retirement of his own mind.

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

These lines well describe the modest and delicate beauties of Mr. Lamb’s
writings, contrasted with the lofty and vain-glorious pretensions of
some of his contemporaries. This gentleman is not one of those who pay
all their homage to the prevailing idol: he thinks that

         ‘New-born gauds are made and moulded of things past,’

nor does he

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

His convictions ‘do not in broad rumour lie,’ nor are they ‘set off to
the world in the glistering foil’ of fashion; but ‘live and breathe
aloft in those pure eyes, and perfect judgment of all-seeing _time_.’
Mr. Lamb rather affects and is tenacious of the obscure and remote: of
that which rests on its own intrinsic and silent merit; which scorns all
alliance, or even the suspicion of owing any thing to noisy clamour, to
the glare of circumstances. There is a fine tone of _chiaro-scuro_, a
moral perspective in his writings. He delights to dwell on that which is
fresh to the eye of memory; he yearns after and covets what soothes the
frailty of human nature. That touches him most nearly which is withdrawn
to a certain distance, which verges on the borders of oblivion:—that
piques and provokes his fancy most, which is hid from a superficial
glance. That which, though gone by, is still remembered, is in his view
more genuine, and has given more ‘vital signs that it will live,’ than a
thing of yesterday, that may be forgotten to-morrow. Death has in this
sense the spirit of life in it; and the shadowy has to our author
something substantial in it. Ideas savour most of reality in his mind;
or rather his imagination loiters on the edge of each, and a page of his
writings recals to our fancy the _stranger_ on the grate, fluttering in
its dusky tenuity, with its idle superstition and hospitable welcome!

Mr. Lamb has a distaste to new faces, to new books, to new buildings, to
new customs. He is shy of all imposing appearances, of all assumptions
of self-importance, of all adventitious ornaments, of all mechanical
advantages, even to a nervous excess. It is not merely that he does not
rely upon, or ordinarily avail himself of them; he holds them in
abhorrence, he utterly abjures and discards them, and places a great
gulph between him and them. He disdains all the vulgar artifices of
authorship, all the cant of criticism, and helps to notoriety. He has no
grand swelling theories to attract the visionary and the enthusiast, no
passing topics to allure the thoughtless and the vain. He evades the
present, he mocks the future. His affections revert to, and settle on
the past, but then, even this must have something personal and local in
it to interest him deeply and thoroughly; he pitches his tent in the
suburbs of existing manners; brings down the account of character to the
few straggling remains of the last generation; seldom ventures beyond
the bills of mortality, and occupies that nice point between egotism and
disinterested humanity. No one makes the tour of our southern
metropolis, or describes the manners of the last age, so well as Mr.
Lamb—with so fine, and yet so formal an air—with such vivid obscurity,
with such arch piquancy, such picturesque quaintness, such smiling
pathos. How admirably he has sketched the former inmates of the
South-Sea House; what ‘fine fretwork he makes of their double and single
entries!’ With what a firm, yet subtle pencil he has embodied _Mrs.
Battle’s Opinions on Whist_! How notably he embalms a battered _beau_;
how delightfully an amour, that was cold forty years ago, revives in his
pages! With what well-disguised humour, he introduces us to his
relations, and how freely he serves up his friends! Certainly, some of
his portraits are _fixtures_, and will do to hang up as lasting and
lively emblems of human infirmity. Then there is no one who has so sure
an ear for ‘the chimes at midnight,’ not even excepting Mr. Justice
Shallow; nor could Master Silence himself take his ‘cheese and pippins’
with a more significant and satisfactory air. With what a gusto Mr. Lamb
describes the inns and courts of law, the Temple and Gray’s-Inn, as if
he had been a student there for the last two hundred years, and had been
as well acquainted with the person of Sir Francis Bacon as he is with
his portrait or writings! It is hard to say whether St. John’s Gate is
connected with more intense and authentic associations in his mind, as a
part of old London Wall, or as the frontispiece (time out of mind) of
the Gentleman’s Magazine. He haunts Watling-street like a gentle spirit;
the avenues to the play-houses are thick with panting recollections, and
Christ’s-Hospital still breathes the balmy breath of infancy in his
description of it! Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination for
Mr. Lamb’s historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily forgave a
certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his hands. The
streets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with wonder, with life and
interest to his retrospective glance, as it did to the eager eye of
childhood; he has contrived to weave its tritest traditions into a
bright and endless romance!

Mr. Lamb’s taste in books is also fine, and it is peculiar. It is not
the worse for a little _idiosyncrasy_. He does not go deep into the
Scotch novels, but he is at home in Smollet or Fielding. He is little
read in Junius or Gibbon, but no man can give a better account of
Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, or Sir Thomas Brown’s Urn-Burial, or
Fuller’s Worthies, or John Bunyan’s Holy War. No one is more
unimpressible to a specious declamation; no one relishes a recondite
beauty more. His admiration of Shakespear and Milton does not make him
despise Pope; and he can read Parnell with patience, and Gay with
delight. His taste in French and German literature is somewhat
defective; nor has he made much progress in the science of Political
Economy or other abstruse studies, though he has read vast folios of
controversial divinity, merely for the sake of the intricacy of style,
and to save himself the pain of thinking. Mr. Lamb is a good judge of
prints and pictures. His admiration of Hogarth does credit to both,
particularly when it is considered that Leonardo da Vinci is his next
greatest favourite, and that his love of the _actual_ does not proceed
from a want of taste for the _ideal_. His worst fault is an
over-eagerness of enthusiasm, which occasionally makes him take a
surfeit of his highest favourites.—Mr. Lamb excels in familiar
conversation almost as much as in writing, when his modesty does not
overpower his self-possession. He is as little of a proser as possible;
but he _blurts_ out the finest wit and sense in the world. He keeps a
good deal in the back-ground at first, till some excellent conceit
pushes him forward, and then he abounds in whim and pleasantry. There is
a primitive simplicity and self-denial about his manners; and a
Quakerism in his personal appearance, which is, however, relieved by a
fine Titian head, full of dumb eloquence! Mr. Lamb is a general
favourite with those who know him. His character is equally singular and
amiable. He is endeared to his friends not less by his foibles than his
virtues; he insures their esteem by the one, and does not wound their
self-love by the other. He gains ground in the opinion of others, by
making no advances in his own. We easily admire genius where the
diffidence of the possessor makes our acknowledgment of merit seem like
a sort of patronage, or act of condescension, as we willingly extend our
good offices where they are not exacted as obligations, or repaid with
sullen indifference.—The style of the Essays of Elia is liable to the
charge of a certain _mannerism_. His sentences are cast in the mould of
old authors; his expressions are borrowed from them; but his feelings
and observations are genuine and original, taken from actual life, or
from his own breast; and he may be said (if any one can) ‘to have coined
his heart for _jests_,’ and to have split his brain for fine
distinctions! Mr. Lamb, from the peculiarity of his exterior and address
as an author, would probably never have made his way by detached and
independent efforts; but, fortunately for himself and others, he has
taken advantage of the Periodical Press, where he has been stuck into
notice, and the texture of his compositions is assuredly fine enough to
bear the broadest glare of popularity that has hitherto shone upon them.
Mr. Lamb’s literary efforts have procured him civic honours (a thing
unheard of in our times), and he has been invited, in his character of
ELIA, to dine at a select party with the Lord Mayor. We should prefer
this distinction to that of being poet-laureat. We would recommend to
Mr. Waithman’s perusal (if Mr. Lamb has not anticipated us) the
_Rosamond Gray_ and the _John Woodvil_ of the same author, as an
agreeable relief to the noise of a City feast, and the heat of City
elections. A friend, a short time ago, quoted some lines[66] from the
last-mentioned of these works, which meeting Mr. Godwin’s eye, he was so
struck with the beauty of the passage, and with a consciousness of
having seen it before, that he was uneasy till he could recollect where,
and after hunting in vain for it in Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher,
and other not unlikely places, sent to Mr. Lamb to know if he could help
him to the author!

Mr. Washington Irvine’s acquaintance with English literature begins
almost where Mr. Lamb’s ends,—with the Spectator, Tom Brown’s works and
the wits of Queen Anne. He is not bottomed in our elder writers, nor do
we think that he has tasked his own faculties much, at least on English
ground. Of the merit of his _Knicker-bocker_, and New York stories, we
cannot pretend to judge. But in his _Sketch-book_ and _Bracebridge-Hall_
he gives us very good American copies of our British Essayists and
Novelists, which may be very well on the other side of the water, or as
proofs of the capabilities of the national genius, but which might be
dispensed with here, where we have to boast of the originals. Not only
Mr. Irvine’s language is with great taste and felicity modelled on that
of Addison, Goldsmith, Sterne, or Mackenzie; but the thoughts and
sentiments are taken at the rebound, and as they are brought forward at
the present period, want both freshness and probability. Mr. Irvine’s
writings are literary _anachronisms_. He comes to England for the first
time; and being on the spot, fancies himself in the midst of those
characters and manners which he had read of in the Spectator and other
approved authors, and which were the only idea he had hitherto formed of
the parent country. Instead of looking round to see what _we are_, he
sets to work to describe us as _we were_—at second hand. He has Parson
Adams, or Sir Roger de Coverley in his ‘_mind’s eye_‘; and he makes a
village curate or a country ‘squire in Yorkshire or Hampshire sit to
these admired models for their portraits in the beginning of the
nineteenth century. Whatever the ingenious author has been most
delighted with in the representations of books, he transfers to his
port-folio, and swears that he has found it actually existing in the
course of his observation and travels through Great Britain. Instead of
tracing the changes that have taken place in society since Addison or
Fielding wrote, he transcribes their account in a different
hand-writing, and thus keeps us stationary, at least in our most
attractive and praise-worthy qualities of simplicity, honesty, modesty,
hospitality, and good-nature. This is a very flattering mode of turning
fiction into history, or history into fiction; and we should scarcely
know ourselves again in the softened and altered likeness, but that it
bears the date of 1820, and issues from the press in Albemarle-street.
This is one way of complimenting our national and Tory prejudices; and
coupled with literal or exaggerated portraits of _Yankee_ peculiarities,
could hardly fail to please. The first Essay in the _Sketch-book_, that
on national Antipathies, is the best; but after that, the sterling ore
of wit or feeling is gradually spun thinner and thinner, till it fades
to the shadow of a shade. Mr. Irvine is himself, we believe, a most
agreeable and deserving man, and has been led into the natural and
pardonable error we speak of, by the tempting bait of European
popularity, in which he thought there was no more likely method of
succeeding than by imitating the style of our standard authors, and
giving us credit for the virtues of our forefathers.

                  *       *       *       *       *

We should not feel that we had discharged our obligations to truth or
friendship, if we were to let this volume go without introducing into it
the name of the author of _Virginius_. This is the more proper, inasmuch
as he is a character by himself, and the only poet now living that is a
mere poet. If we were asked what sort of man Mr. Knowles is, we could
only say, ‘he is the writer of Virginius.’ His most intimate friends see
nothing in him, by which they could trace the work to the author. The
seeds of dramatic genius are contained and fostered in the warmth of the
blood that flows in his veins; his heart dictates to his head. The most
unconscious, the most unpretending, the most artless of mortals, he
instinctively obeys the impulses of natural feeling, and produces a
perfect work of art. He has hardly read a poem or a play or seen any
thing of the world, but he hears the anxious beatings of his own heart,
and makes others feel them by the force of sympathy. Ignorant alike of
rules, regardless of models, he follows the steps of truth and
simplicity; and strength, proportion, and delicacy are the infallible
results. By thinking of nothing but his subject, he rivets the attention
of the audience to it. All his dialogue tends to action, all his
situations form classic groups. There is no doubt that Virginius is the
best acting tragedy that has been produced on the modern stage. Mr.
Knowles himself was a player at one time, and this circumstance has
probably enabled him to judge of the picturesque and dramatic effect of
his lines, as we think it might have assisted Shakespear. There is no
impertinent display, no flaunting poetry; the writer immediately
conceives how a thought would tell if he had to speak it himself. Mr.
Knowles is the first tragic writer of the age; in other respects he is a
common man; and divides his time and his affections between his plots
and his fishing-tackle, between the Muses’ spring, and those
mountain-streams which sparkle like his own eye, that gush out like his
own voice at the sight of an old friend. We have known him almost from a
child, and we must say he appears to us the same boy-poet that he ever
was. He has been cradled in song, and rocked in it as in a dream,
forgetful of himself and of the world!


                   The End of THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE.




  PREFACE TO AN ABRIDGMENT OF ABRAHAM TUCKER’S LIGHT OF NATURE PURSUED




                          BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE


Published in 1807 in an 8vo volume (xlvii + 529 pp.) with the following
title-page:—‘An Abridgment of the Light of Nature Pursued, by Abraham
Tucker, Esq. originally published, in seven volumes, under the name of
Edward Search, Esq. London: Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul’s
Churchyard; By T. Bensley, Bolt Court. 1807.’




        PREFACE TO AN ABRIDGMENT OF THE LIGHT OF NATURE PURSUED


There are two considerations which seem necessary to be attended to in
abridging any author; the size of the work, rendering it inaccessible to
the generality of readers, and the merit of the work, rendering it
desirable that it should be within every one’s reach. It is easy to
perceive, that these two conditions are not always united: there are
some works whose only merit seems to be, that they are so large that
nobody can read them; whose ponderous bulk, and formidable appearance,
happily serve as a barrier to keep out the infection of their dulness.

The work, of which the following is an abridgment, notwithstanding its
excellence, has been little read. A philosophical work in seven large
volumes presents no very great attractions to the indolent curiosity of
most readers. Even the seven volumes of Clarissa, and Sir Charles
Grandison, are at present viewed with doubtful looks by the eye of
taste, and reluctantly engaged in: and our modern novelists, that
happily privileged race of authors, whose works ‘not sicklied o’er with
the pale cast of thought,’ are exempt from the charge of dulness or
_ennui_, have been obliged to contract the boundless scenes of their
imagination within four slender volumes, where the diminutive page vies
in vain with the luxuriant margin. As to the studious and recluse
reader, there is generally another obstacle which prevents him from
gratifying his curiosity with respect to works of this extent, however
valuable or important.

Again, there are works of great length, which cannot, however, be
reduced into a less compass, ‘without suffering loss and diminution.’
Though vast, there is nothing useless, nothing superfluous in them; and
nothing can be taken away or displaced, without destroying the symmetry
and connection of the whole. This is certainly not the case with the
writings of Abraham Tucker: they are encumbered and weighed down with a
load of unnecessary matter. Not that there are any great inequalities in
them, nor any parts which, taken separately, are not entertaining and
valuable; but the work is swelled out with endless repetitions of
itself. The same thing is said over and over again; the same subjects
discussed in a different shape, till the reader is tired, and his
attention quite distracted. This radical defect, which is certainly a
drawback on the usefulness of the work, appears evidently to have arisen
from the manner of composing it. The author was a private gentleman, who
wrote at his ease, and for his own amusement: he had nothing to do but
to take his time, and follow the whim of the moment. He wrote without
any regular plan, and without foreseeing or being concerned about the
deviations, the shiftings and windings, and the intricate
cross-movements in which he should be entangled. He had leisure on his
hands; and provided he got out of the labyrinth at last, he was
satisfied—no matter how often he had lost his way in it. When a subject
presented itself to him, he exhausted all he had to say upon it, and
then dismissed it for another. The chapter was thrown aside, and
forgotten. If the same subject recurred again in a different connection,
he turned it over in his thoughts afresh; as his ideas arose in his
mind, he committed them to paper; he repeated the same things over
again, or inserted any new observation or example that suggested itself
to him in confirmation of his argument; and thus by the help of a new
title, and by giving a different application to the whole, a new chapter
was completed. By this means, as he himself remarks, his writings are
rather a tissue of loose essays than a regular work; and indeed the
leaves of the Sybils could not be more loose and unconnected. It is so
far then from being an injury, that it must be rather an advantage to
the original work to expunge its repetitions, and confine its
digressions, if this could be done properly.

This is, in fact, what I have attempted to do: whenever I came to a
passage that was merely a repetition of a former one, I struck it out:
and at the same time, I endeavoured to abridge those detailed parts of
the work which were the longest, and the least interesting, and to
correct the general redundance of the style. I have not, however (that I
know of), omitted any thing essential to the merit of the work. All the
singular observations, all the fine illustrations, I have given nearly
in an entire state to the reader: I was afraid to touch them, lest I
should spoil them. The rule that I went by was, to give every thing that
I thought would strike the attention in reading the work itself, and to
leave out every thing (except what was absolutely necessary to the
understanding of the subject), that would be likely to make no lasting
impression on the mind. A good abridgment ought to contain just as much
as we should wish to recollect of a book; it should give back (only in a
more perfect manner) to a reader well acquainted with the original, ‘the
image of his mind,’ so that he would miss no favourite passage, none of
the prominent parts, or distinguishing features of the work. How far I
have succeeded, must be left to the decision of others: and perhaps in
some respects one is less a judge of the execution of a work like this,
than of an original performance. The same deception takes place here,
as, I have been told by painters, sometimes happens in copying a fine
picture. Your mind is full of the original, and you see the imitation
through this borrowed medium; you transfuse its grace and spirit into
the copy; you connect its glowing tints and delicate touches with a
meagre outline, and a warm fancy sheds its lustre over that which is
little better than a blank: but when the original impression is faded,
and you have nothing left but the copy for the imagination to feed on,
you find the spirit evaporated, the expression gone, and you wonder at
your own mistake. I can only say, that I have done my best to prevent my
copy of the Light of Nature from degenerating into a mere _caput
mortuum_. As to the pains and labour it has cost me, or the time I have
devoted to it, I shall say nothing. However, if any one should be
scrupulous on that head, I might answer, as Sir Joshua Reynolds is said
to have done to some person who cavilled at the price of a picture, and
desired to know how long he had been doing it, ‘All my life.’

Of the work itself, I can speak with more confidence. I do not know of
any work in the shape of a philosophical treatise that contains so much
good sense so agreeably expressed. The character of the work is, in this
respect, altogether singular. Amidst all the abstruseness of the most
subtle disquisitions, it is as familiar as Montaigne, and as wild and
entertaining as John Buncle. To the ingenuity and closeness of the
metaphysician, he unites the principal knowledge of the man of the
world, and the utmost sprightliness, and even levity of imagination. He
is the only philosopher who appears to have had his senses always _about
him_, or to have possessed the enviable faculty of attending at the same
time to what was passing in his own mind, and what was going on without
him. He applied every thing to the purposes of philosophy; he could not
see any thing, the most familiar objects or the commonest events,
without connecting them with the illustration of some difficult problem.
The tricks of a young kitten, or a little child at play, were sure to
suggest to him some useful observation, or nice distinction. To this
habit, he was, no doubt, indebted for what Paley justly calls ‘his
unrivalled power of illustration.’ To be convinced that he possessed
this power in the highest degree, it is only necessary to look into
almost any page of his writings: at least, I think it impossible for any
one not to perceive the beauty, the _naiveté_, the force, the clearness,
and propriety of his illustrations, who has not previously had his
understanding strangely overlaid with logic and criticism.[67]—If he was
surpassed by one or two writers in logical precision and systematic
profundity, there is no metaphysical writer who is equal to him in
clearness of apprehension, and a various insight into human nature.
Though he excelled greatly in both, yet, he excelled more in what is
called the method of induction, than that of analysis: he convinces the
reader oftener by shewing him the thing in dispute, than by defining its
abstract qualities; as the philosopher is said to have proved the
existence of motion by getting up and walking. I do not, for my own
part, look up with all that awe and admiration to the grave professors
of abstract reasoning that it is usual to do. They are so far from being
men of great comprehension of mind, (if by this we are to understand
comprehending the whole of every subject) that the contrary is generally
the case. They are persons of few ideas, of slow perceptions, of narrow
capacities, of dull but retentive feelings, who cannot seize or enter
into the infinite variety and rapid succession of natural objects, and
are only susceptible of those impressions of things, which being common
to all objects, and constantly repeated, come at length to fix those
lasting traces in the mind, which nothing can ever alter or wear out. By
attending only to one aspect of things, and that the same, and by
leaving out always those minute differences and perplexing
irregularities which disturb the sluggish uniformity of our ideas, and
give life and motion to our being, men of formal understandings are
sometimes able to pursue their inquiries with a steadiness and certainty
that are incompatible with a more extensive range of thought.
Abstraction is a trick to supply the defect of comprehension. The moulds
of the understanding may be said not to be large enough to contain the
gross concrete objects of nature, but will still admit of their names,
and descriptions, and general forms, which lie flatter and closer in the
brain, and are more easily managed. The most perfect abstraction is
nothing more than the art of making use of only one half of the
understanding, and never seeing more than one half of a subject, in the
same manner as we find that those persons have the acutest perceptions,
who have lost some one of their senses. A man, therefore, who disdains
the use of common sense, and thinks to arrive at the highest point of
philosophy, by thus denaturalizing his understanding, is like a person
who should deprive himself of the use of his eye-sight, in order that he
might be able to grope his way better in the dark!

A man may set up for a system-maker, upon a single idea: he cannot write
a sensible book without a great many. I do not deny that one idea may
often involve, and be the parent of many others: but I do not see how
knowledge is at all the worse, because it brings us immediately
acquainted with the very form of truth, instead of serving merely as an
index, or clue to direct us in the search of it. If the one method tends
more effectually to sharpen the understanding, the other enriches it
more. The one method puts you upon exerting your own faculties; the
other, meeting you half way, wisely saves you from the necessity of
taking all that pains and trouble in the search after truth, which few
persons are disposed to take, and is therefore more generally useful.
The great merit of our author’s writings is undoubtedly that sound,
practical, comprehensive good sense, which is to be found in every part
of them. What is I believe the truest test of fine sense, is that
affecting simplicity in his observations, which proceeds from their
extreme truth and liveliness. Whatever recalls strongly to our
remembrance the common feelings of human nature, and marks distinctly
the changes that take place in the human breast, must always be
accompanied with some sense of emotion; for our own nature can never be
indifferent to us.

If there is any fault in his practical reasonings, it is that they are
too discursive, and without a determinate object. No difficulty ever
escapes his penetration; every view of his subject, every consequence of
his principles is stated and examined with scrupulous exactness, and the
weak sides and inconveniences of every rule are pointed out, till a sort
of sceptical uncertainty is introduced, and the mind sinks into a
passive indifference. This kind of reasoning is certainly not calculated
to rouse the energy of our active powers; but I believe it is that which
generally accompanies much dispassionate inquiry. I am afraid the most
patient thinkers are those who have the most doubts and the fewest
violent prejudices; and perhaps, after all, we shall be forced to
acknowledge with Sterne, as the truest philosophy, ‘that there is not so
much difference between good and evil as the world are apt to imagine.’
A writer, indeed, who has a system to support, is not likely to fall
into this error; but then, if it is only because he has a system to
support, what is the value of that confidence in his opinions, which is
the result of wilful blindness? A man’s living much in retirement (as
was the case with our author) where his thoughts have a calm and even
course to flow in, may also contribute much to this indecision of mind.
There is many a champion who would soon sink into silent scepticism, if
he was not urged on by the necessity of maintaining opinions which he
has once avowed, and had nobody to dispute against but himself. The
spirit of contradiction is the great source of dogmatism and pertinacity
of opinion. I am aware, that a habit of much disputing also produces the
contrary effect. But even where it renders men sceptical, it does not
render them candid. It is therefore in great cities, in literary clubs,
that you meet with the fewest sincere opinions, and the most extravagant
assertions.

As to his system of belief on the subject of religion, I am unable to
say what it was: and perhaps he did not know himself. I have however no
doubt, that he was sincere in his professions of attachment to the
established doctrines, or that he was habitually accustomed to look upon
them as true. Still there is a distinction, which is not always attended
to, between that kind of assent which is merely habitual, or the effect
of choice, which depends upon a disposition to regard any object in a
certain point of view, and that internal conviction, in which the will
has no concern, which is the result of a free and unbiassed judgment,
and which a man retains in spite of himself. Subtle distinctions are not
always the most palpable; and therefore sometimes require the aid of
violent suppositions to render them intelligible. I can conceive, that a
person may all his life live in the belief of a certain notion, without
once suspecting the contrary; yet, that if the case could be put to him,
to declare his opinion freely to the best of his judgment, for that, if
he were mistaken, his life must answer for it, he would instantly find
by what slender threads his former opinion hung. The sense of
convenience, humour, or vanity, are sufficient to blind the
understanding, and determine our opinions in speculative points, and
matters of indifference. Common compliance, or good-nature, or personal
regard, may lead them to give credit to, and defend the truth of a story
told by a friend, which yet, if I were put to my oath, I could not do.
So that we, in fact, very often believe that to be true, which we _know_
to be false.[68] The atheist is no longer an atheist on a sickbed; and a
violent thunderstorm has been known not only to clear the air, but to
cure the freethinker of his affected scruples with respect to the proofs
of a superintending Providence. But the difference of our conclusions in
such cases does not arise from any new evidence, or farther
investigation of the subject, but from the greater interest we have to
examine carefully into the real state of our opinions, and to throw off
all disguises that conceal them from ourselves. Now this ultimate test
cannot very well be applied to a man’s religious professions, because
the power of denouncing ‘pains and penalties’ is already lodged in other
hands; but I cannot help suspecting, that if this test could have been
applied to some of our author’s notions, his external and internal, or,
to use his own expressions, his exoteric and esoteric creed, would not
have been found to coalesce perfectly together. It is amusing to observe
with what gravity he sets himself to inveigh against freethinkers and
free-thinking; when he himself, as to his mode of reasoning, is one of
the greatest of freethinkers. He seems to have been willing to _keep the
game_ entirely in his own hands; or else to have supposed that the
liberal exercise of reason was only proper for gentlemen of independent
fortune; and that none but those who were in the commission of the
peace, should be allowed to censure vulgar errors. This was certainly a
weakness.

With respect to his metaphysical system, he must be considered as the
founder of his own school; or at least, the opinions of different sects
are so mingled up in him, that he cannot be considered as belonging to
any party. He professes himself indeed, and seems anxious to be thought,
a disciple of Locke, but this is evidently very much _against the
grain_; and he is perpetually put to it to reconcile the differences
between them on the most essential points.—I know but of two sorts of
philosophy; that of those who believe what they feel, and endeavour to
account for it, and that of those who only believe what they understand,
and have already accounted for. The one is the philosophy of
consciousness, the other that of experiment; the one may be called the
intellectual, the other the material philosophy. The one rests chiefly
on the general notions and conscious perceptions of mankind, and
endeavours to discover what the mind is, by looking into the mind
itself; the other denies the existence of every thing in the mind, of
which it cannot find some rubbishly archetype, and visible image in its
crucibles and furnaces, or in the distinct forms of verbal analysis. The
first of these is the only philosophy that is fit for men of sense, the
other should be left to chymists and logicians. Of this last kind is the
philosophy of Locke; though I would be understood to speak of him rather
as having laid the foundation, on which others have built absurd
conclusions, than of what he was in himself. He was a man of much
studious thought and reflection; and if everything by being carried to
extremes, were not converted into abuse, his writings might have been of
lasting service to his country and mankind. He staggered under the
‘petrific mace’ of Hobbes’s philosophy, which he had not strength to
resist, but yet he attempted to make some stand; and was not quite
overpowered by the gripe of that demon of the understanding. He took for
his basis a bad simile, that the mind is like a blank sheet of paper,
equally adapted to receive every kind of external impression. Or at
least, if this illustration was proper for the purpose to which he
applied it (which was to overturn the doctrine of innate ideas), a very
bad use has been made of it since; as if it was meant to prove, that the
mind is nothing in itself, nor the cause of any thing, never acting, but
always acted upon, the mere receiver and passive instrument of whatever
impressions are made upon it; so that being fairly _gutted_ of itself,
and of all positive qualities, it in fact resembles the bare walls and
empty rooms of an unfurnished lodging, into which you bring whatever
furniture you please; and which never contains any thing more than what
is brought into it through the doors of the senses. Hence all those
superadded feelings and ideas, all those operations and modifications
which our impressions undergo from the active powers and independent
nature of the mind itself, are treated as chimerical and visionary
notions by the profound adepts in this clear-sighted philosophy.[69] The
object of the German philosophy, or the system of professor Kant, as far
as I can understand it, is to explode this mechanical ignorance, to take
the subject out of the hands of its present possessors, and to admit our
own immediate perceptions to be some evidence of what passes in the
human mind. It takes for granted the common notions prevalent among
mankind, and then endeavours to explain them; or to shew their
foundation in nature, and the universal relations of things. This, at
least, is a modest proposal, and worthy of a philosopher. The
understanding here pays a proper deference to the other parts of our
being, and knows its own place: whereas our modern sophists, meddling,
noisy, and self-sufficient, think that truth is only made to be disputed
about; that it exists no where but in their experiments, demonstrations,
and syllogisms; and leaving nothing to the silent operations of nature
and common sense, believe that all our opinions, thoughts, and feelings,
are of no value, till the understanding, like a pert commentator, comes
forward to enforce and explain them; as if a book could be nothing
without notes, or as if a picture had no meaning in it till it was
pointed out by the connoisseur! Tucker was certainly an arrant truant
from the system he pretends to adopt, and one of the common sense
school. Thus he believed with professor Kant in the unity of
consciousness, or ‘that the mind alone is formative,’ that fundamental
article of the _transcendental_ creed; in the immateriality of the soul,
etc. His chapter on consciousness is one of the best in the whole work;
and is perhaps as close an example of reasoning as is any where to be
met with. I would recommend it to the serious perusal of all our
professed _reasoners_, but that they are so thoroughly satisfied with
the profession of the thing, so fortified and wrapped up in the mere
name, that it is impossible to make any impression upon them with the
thing itself. On some other questions, which form the great leading
outlines of the two creeds, as that of self-love, for instance, his
opinions seem to have been more unsettled and wavering. I have already
offered what I have to say on this subject in a little work published by
Mr. Johnson; and I shall therefore say the less about it here.[71]
However, as I may not soon have an opportunity of recurring to the same
subject, and as there is a part of that work with which I am not very
well satisfied, the subject of which is also treated of in the following
pages, it may not perhaps be altogether impertinent to add a few
observations for the further clearing of it up.

We are told, that sympathy is only self-love disguised in another form,
that it is a mere mechanical impulse or tendency to our own
gratification. It is asked, Do we not attach ourselves to the idea of
another’s welfare, because it is pleasing to us, and do we not feel an
aversion or dislike to certain objects, whether relating to ourselves or
others, merely because they are disagreeable to us; and is not this
self-love? I answer no. Because, in this logical way of speaking, it is
a misnomer to call my attachment to any particular object or idea by a
name that implies my attachment to a general principle, or to any thing
beyond itself. Numerically and absolutely speaking, the particular idea
or modification which produces any given action, is as much a distinct,
individual, independent thing in nature, and has no more to do with
myself, that is, with other objects, and ideas which have no immediate
concern in producing it, than one individual has to do with another. The
notion that our motives are blind mechanical impulses, if it proves
anything, proves, that instead of being always governed by self-love,
there is in reality no such thing. So that, as far as this argument
goes, it is no less absurd to trace our love of others to self-love,
than it would be to account for a man’s love of reading from his
fondness for bread and butter, or to say that his having an ear for
music arose from his relish for port wine. It is therefore necessary to
suppose, that when we attempt to resolve all our motives into self-love,
we only mean to refer them to a certain class, and to say, that they all
agree in having some circumstance in common which brings them under the
same general denomination. Now, there is one way in which this has been
attempted, by proving that they are all _ours_, that they all belong to
the same being, and are therefore all equally selfish. This is as bad as
Soame Jenyns’s argument, that all men may be said to be born equal,
because they are equally born. So, if it is contended, that sympathy is
a part of our nature, and therefore selfish; that the imagination and
understanding are real efficient causes of action, and therefore operate
mechanically; that our ideas of all external existences, of other
persons, their names, qualities and feelings, are only impressions
existing in our own minds, and are therefore properly selfish, and ought
to be called so; I shall have nothing to object to this kind of
reasoning, but that it is taking a great deal of perverse pains to no
purpose. The question stands just where it did, it is not moved a jot
further. For what difference can be made in the question, by our calling
benevolence selfishness, or sympathy self-love, I cannot discover,
except that we should lose the advantage of having a distinct word to
express those affections and feelings which confessedly have nothing to
do with sympathy. The question therefore is, whether all our affections
are of this latter class, or whether the two words do not express a
distinction which has no real foundation in nature. This is in fact what
must be meant by saying that sympathy is self-love in disguise; for this
must imply that sympathy does not operate as such, that it is only the
ostensible motive, the accidental circumstance, the form or vehicle that
serves to transmit the efficacy of another principle lying hid beneath
it, and that has no power but what it derives from its connection with
something else. But, in order to establish this mechanical theory of
self-love, it appears to me necessary to exhibit sympathy as it were
abstracted from itself, to resolve it into another principle, and to
shew that it would still produce exactly the same effects as it does at
present. Now there are two ways in which I can conceive that this might
be satisfactorily made out, viz. if it could be shewn, first, that our
concern for others only affects the mind as connected with physical or
bodily uneasiness; or, 2ndly, as abstract uneasiness. Suppose, for
instance, that the imaginary feeling of what other persons suffer, as
far as it is confined to the mind only, does not affect me at all, or
produce the least disposition in my mind or wish to relieve them, but
that the idea of what they suffer gives me a pain in the head, or
produces an uneasiness at my stomach, and that then, for the first time,
I begin to feel some concern for them, and try to relieve them, in order
to get rid of my own uneasiness, because I do not like the head-ach or
the stomach-ach; this, I grant, would not entitle me to the character of
much disinterestedness, but however I might attempt to gloss the matter
over by an affectation of sensibility, and make a virtue of necessity,
would be downright, unequivocal selfishness. This first supposition,
however, is not true. To prove this, I need only appeal to every one’s
own breast, or at least to our observation of human nature; for it must
be clear to every person, in one or other of these ways, that our
interest in the pleasures and pains of others is not excited in the
manner here described. Besides, how should the mind communicate an
uneasiness to the body, which it does not feel itself? We must therefore
have recourse to the second supposition for resolving benevolence into a
mere mechanical principle, or shewing that it is at bottom the same
with, and governed by the same laws as our most selfish impulses. There
is no contradiction in supposing, that however great a disposition there
might be in the mind to be immediately affected by the pleasures and
pains of others, yet the impression made upon us by them might be
nothing more than a mere abstract sensation of pleasure or pain, a
simple detached or insulated feeling, existing by itself, and operating
as a motive to action no further than the individual was concerned, or
than he was affected by it as a positive, momentary thing. This would
still be a mechanical and selfish feeling. Compassion would in this case
be an immediate repugnance or aversion of the mind to an actual
impression, and a disposition to take the shortest way to escape from
it, every thing else being a matter of perfect indifference. This
account supposes the particles of individual feeling to be as it were
drawn off by some metaphysical process, and thus disengaged from the
lifeless unsubstantial forms, to which they were attached, to bend their
whole force to remove every thing that may cause the least disturbance
or detriment to the mind to which they belong. You must believe, on this
hypothesis, that our gross material desires setting themselves free from
the airy yoke of fancy, tend directly to the centre of self-interest, as
the lead and iron work, when once disengaged from the body of the ship,
no longer float on the surface of the water, borne about by the winds,
but sink at once to the bottom. But I have already shewn at large, and
the reader may easily perceive, that this description of the manner in
which our motives operate, has not the least foundation in nature. Our
ideas and feelings act in concert. The will cannot act without ideas,
nor otherwise than as it is directed by them. The mind is not so loosely
constructed, as that the different parts can disengage themselves at
will from the rest of the system, and follow their own separate
impulses. It is governed by many different springs united together, and
acting in subordination to the same conscious power. It is formed, that
if it could only wish to get rid of its own immediate uneasiness, it
could never get rid of it at all, because it could not _will_ the
necessary means for that purpose, and would be perpetually tormented by
ideal causes of pain, without being able to exert itself to remove them.
The sore part might shrink, but the hand would not be stretched out to
remove the object that irritated it. Without allowing an elastic power
to the understanding; a power of collecting and concentrating its forces
in any direction that seems necessary; and without supposing that our
ideas have a power to act as relative representative things, connected
together in a certain regular order, and not as mere simple pleasure and
pain; the will would be entirely useless: indeed, there could be no such
thing as volition, either with respect to our own affairs or those of
others. But the fact is, that our ideas of certain things are interwoven
into the finer texture of the mind, in a certain order and connection,
as closely as the things themselves are joined in nature; and if, as
they exist and are perceived there, they are true and efficient causes
of action, I see no reason for asserting that they act mechanically,
when, by this expression, if we affix any distinct idea to it, we must
mean something entirely different; nor for ascribing those actions and
motives to self-love, which neither take their rise from, nor are
directed by, nor end in securing the exclusive interest of the
individual as a numerical unit, a mere solitary existence. As the idea
which influences the mind is not a detached idea starting up of its own
accord, but an idea connected with other ideas and circumstances,
presented involuntarily to the mind, and which cannot be separated from
one another, or the whole of them banished from our thoughts, without
overturning the foundation of all our habits of judging and reasoning,
and deranging the understanding itself; it follows that the object of
the mind, as an intelligent and rational agent, must be, not to remove
the idea itself immediately as it is impressed on itself, but to remove
those associated feelings and ideas which connect it with the world of
external nature; that is, to make such an alteration in the relation of
external objects, as, according to the necessary connection between
certain objects and certain ideas, can alone produce the desired effect
upon the mind. Our mechanical, and voluntary motives are not therefore
the same, and it is absurd to attempt to reduce them under the same law.
They do not move in concentric spheres, but are like the opposite
currents of a river running many different ways at the same time. The
springs that give birth to our social affections are, by means of the
understanding, as much regulated by the feelings of others, as if they
had a real communication and sympathy with them, and are swayed by an
impulse that is altogether foreign to self-love.

But to return to my author: it may be expected that I should point out
some of those parts of the work which I think the most excellent. I have
already mentioned the chapter on the nature of consciousness. That on
the necessary connection of our motives is equally admirable for the
clearness and closeness of the reasoning, though he afterwards, somehow
or other, unaccountably deserts his own doctrine. Among the chapters on
subjects of morality, some of those, which I have entitled
miscellaneous, are perhaps the best, as those on vanity, education,
death, etc. The last of these, I have sometimes conceived, has a
resemblance, in a certain peculiar style of reasoning, in which truth
and sophistry are artfully blended together, to Cicero’s beautiful
little treatise on Old Age; and, setting aside the exquisite polish of
style, and gracefulness of the manner, in which it would be ridiculous
to make any comparison with that elegant writer, I think the advantage
is clearly on the side of our author, in ingenuity and richness of
illustration.[72] But he has taken his boldest and most successful
flight, in what he calls the Vision; this is the most singular part of
the work, and that by which our author’s reputation as a man of genius
must stand or fall. I have given it with care, and more at large than
any other part. The best things in it are his meeting with his wife, and
the lecture delivered by Pythagoras.

Had our author been a vain man, his situation would not have been an
enviable one. Even the sternest stoic of us all wishes at least for some
person to enter into his views and feelings, and confirm him in the
opinion he entertains of himself. But he does not seem to have had his
spirits once cheered by the animating cordial of friendly sympathy.
Discouraged by his friends, neglected by the public, and ridiculed by
the reviewers, he still drew sufficient encouragement from the testimony
of his own mind, and the inward consciousness of truth. He still pursued
his inquiries with the same calmness and industry, and entered into the
little round of his amusements with the same cheerfulness as ever. He
rested satisfied with the enjoyment of himself, and of his own
faculties; and was not disgusted with his simple employments, because
this made no noise in the world. He did not seek for truth as the echo
of loud folly; and he did not desist from the exercise of his own
reason, because he could make no impression on ignorance and vulgarity.
He could contemplate the truth by its own clear light, without the aid
of the false lustre and glittering appearance which it assumes in the
admiring eyes of the beholders. He sought for his reward, where only the
philosopher will find it, in the secret approbation of his own heart,
and the clear convictions of an enlightened understanding. The man of
deep reflection is not likely to gain much popular applause; and he does
not stand in need of it. He has learned to live upon his own stock, and
can build his self-esteem on a better foundation than that of vanity. I
cannot help mentioning, that though Mr. Tucker was blind when he wrote
the last volumes of his work, which he did with a machine contrived by
himself, he has not said a word of this circumstance: this would be with
me a sufficient trait of his character.


       THE AUTHOR OF An Essay on The Principles of Human Action.




      PREFACE TO A NEW AND IMPROVED GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE




                          BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE


Published in one volume 12mo in 1810 (xvii. + 205 pp.) with the
following title-page: ‘A new and improved Grammar of the English Tongue:
for the use of Schools In which the Genius of our Speech is especially
attended to And the Discoveries of Mr. Horne Tooke and other Modern
Writers on the Formation of Language are, for the first time
incorporated By William Hazlitt. Author of an Essay on the Principles of
Human Action etc. etc. etc. To which is added A new Guide to the English
Tongue In a letter to Mr. W. F. Mylius, Author of the School Dictionary,
By Edward Baldwin, Esq. London: Printed for M. J. Godwin, at the
Juvenile Library, No. 41, Skinner Street; And to be had of all
Booksellers. 1810.’ The volume was printed by Richard Taylor and Co.,
Shoe-Lane, London.




      PREFACE TO A NEW AND IMPROVED GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE


It is a circumstance which may at first excite some surprise, that,
amidst the various improvements in books of modern education, there has
hitherto been no such thing as a real English Grammar. Those which we
have are little else than translations of the Latin Grammar into
English. We shall, however, no longer wonder at this circumstance, when
we recollect that the Latin Grammar was regularly taught in our schools
several centuries before any attempt was made to introduce the study of
the mother-tongue; and that even since some attention has been paid to
the latter, the study of the learned languages still having the
precedence, our first notions of grammar are necessarily derived from
them. Those who have written on the subject have not been exempt from
the influence of early prejudice, and instead of correcting the error,
have strengthened it.

The following is an attempt to explain the principles of the English
language, such as it really is. We have endeavoured to admit no
distinctions, which, but for our acquaintance with other languages, we
should never have suspected to exist. The common method of teaching
English grammar by transferring the artificial rules of other languages
to our own, not only occasions much unnecessary trouble and perplexity;
but by loading the memory with mere technical formalities, accustoms the
mind to one of the worst habits that can be,—that of mistaking words for
things, and of admitting a distinction without a difference. We might
here refer particularly to the accounts given, in the most approved and
popular grammars, of the genders, and the objective case of English
nouns, that is, of a case without any difference of termination, and of
genders without any mark denoting sex, &c. &c. In this respect the
French seem to have much the advantage of us; as their grammars are,
generally speaking, real descriptions of their language, not a fanciful
and laboured account of what has no where any existence.

It is now above twenty years since Mr. Horne Tooke published his
celebrated work on grammar, called the Diversions of Purley. Though this
has produced a very important change in the theory of language, no
notice has been taken of it by grammarians in their definitions of the
Parts of Speech, or in that branch of grammar which usurps the name of
Etymology—an almost inexcusable neglect in those whose professed
business it was to instruct others in the nature and origin of language.
It is the object of the following compilation to take advantage of the
discoveries contained in that work, without adopting its errors.[73]

The soundest and most useful parts of Mr. T.’s system, are his
researches into the origin of indeclinable words, and we have engrafted
the result of most of these into our little work, so far at least as to
make the subject intelligible to the learner, though if we have merely
excited his curiosity, we shall not have entirely failed in our object.

The practical rules and observations in the following work are almost
entirely selected from other works of the same kind: if it should be
thought to have any advantage over them, it must be chiefly in the
theoretical and logical part. We shall here therefore present the reader
with a short general view of the subject, to enable him to judge in what
we differ from others, and whether it is for the better or worse.

It is common to suppose that the parts of speech, or different sorts of
words, relate to different sorts of things or ideas; and that it was to
express this difference in the subject-matter of discourse, that one
class of words was originally appropriated to one class of things, and
another to another. We have endeavoured to show on the contrary, that
the grammatical distinctions of words do not relate to the nature of the
things or ideas spoken of, but to our manner of speaking of them, _i.e._
to the particular point of view in which we have occasion to consider
them, or combine them with others in the same discourse. The difference
between a substantive and an adjective for instance, does not depend on
the intrinsical nature of the object we think or speak of, but on its
being that concerning which we affirm something, or that which we affirm
of it. So if we say that snow is white, snow, the name of the subject of
discourse, is a substantive, and white, the name of the quality we
attribute to it, is an adjective, not because snow is a substance, and
white a quality, for we may speak of a snowy mountain, or say that
whiteness is hurtful to the eyes, when these words will change their
character, though the things themselves cannot. The things themselves do
not change, but it is we who view them in a different connection with
other things, and who accordingly use different sorts of words to show
the difference of the situation which they occupy in our thoughts and
discourse.

The article is generally left quite unexplained, a mere anomaly in
language. We have endeavoured to show that it is either the numeral
adjective (_un_, one) or that it belongs to the same class with the
demonstrative pronouns, _this_, _that_, &c.

A substantive had been generally supposed to be a word expressing a real
thing or substance, as A man, a tree, a house, &c. It was however found
that this definition would exclude many words from being substantives,
which are universally allowed to be so; for example, all words
expressing qualities, actions, abstract ideas, &c. &c. such as,
Whiteness, conquest, kingdom, virtue. The only definition which in
common grammars has been substituted for this circumscribed one is as
much too loose and general: for a substantive is defined by Lowth,
Murray, &c., to be the name of any thing that exists, or of which we can
form any notion. So that all words, _i.e._ all signs of our ideas, must
be substantives. We believe that a substantive is neither the name of a
thing, nor the name of a substance, but the name of a substance or of
any other thing or idea, considered as it is in itself, or as a distinct
individual. That is, it is not the name of a thing really subsisting by
itself (according to the old definition), but of a thing _considered_ as
subsisting by itself. So if we speak of _white_ as a circumstance or
quality of snow, it is an adjective; but if we abstract the idea of
_white_ from the substance to which it belongs, and consider this colour
as it really is in itself, or as a distinct subject of discourse, it
then becomes a substantive, as in the sentence, White or whiteness is
hurtful to the sight.

Adjectives are constantly defined as if they were the names of certain
qualities, and of no other class of ideas. It is evident from what has
been said that this definition is fallacious. We speak of a _stony_
road, a _golden_ mountain, a _leather_ girdle, where the words marked in
italics, and which refer to the substance of which a thing is made, not
to its qualities, are confessedly adjectives. Any idea or thing,
considered as a circumstance belonging to or connected with another, may
be an adjective. An adjective therefore differs from a substantive, not
from its expressing some _quality_ of a substance, but from its
expressing any thing that is affirmed of or connected with another, to
wit, its quality, number, form, size, substance, situation, &c. &c., as
may be seen in the instances, A _white_ horse, A _tenth_ part, A _round_
table, A _small_ book, An _iron_ crown, A _sea_ port. On the other hand,
the characteristic difference between the adjective and the verb is,
that the former expresses something that is usually known to belong to a
thing, or which is taken for granted as a circumstance belonging to it;
whereas the latter or the verb expresses something not usually belonging
to a thing, or known to make a part of it, and which therefore forms the
subject of a distinct proposition. The use of the adjective is to
describe or define the subject of discourse, that of the verb to _mark_
any addition which the speaker wishes to make to it, or any circumstance
respecting it which it is his immediate object to enforce upon the
hearer. So if we speak of a ‘_poisonous_ plant,’ we take for granted the
connection between the subject and the attribute as a thing of course,
or as already understood; but if we say, ‘hemlock _poisons_, or _is
poisonous_,’ we then distinguish this connection of ideas as one which
we suppose the hearer to be ignorant of, or which we particularly wish
to recal to his attention.

We have been led unintentionally in speaking of the adjectives to
anticipate our account of the verb. Nothing can be more vague,
unsatisfactory and confused than the definition commonly given of the
last, namely, that it is a word signifying To be, To do, or To suffer.
From this definition the student may be tempted to suppose that Being,
Doing, and Suffering are three particular classes of ideas, which are
always expressed by the verb, and by no other part of speech. Let us
examine how far this is the case. To love, then, is a verb, because it
expresses Being, Doing, or Suffering. Love (the substantive) is not a
verb, and yet it surely expresses either Being, Doing, or Suffering.
Battle, Conquest, &c., are the names of actions, yet they are not verbs,
but substantives. Active, Hasty, Cowardly, are adjectives, all of them
expressing Action, Suffering, Being, or a state of being. In fact, those
who have made and adopted this definition, have sheltered its weakness
under an ambiguous form of expression. If they had said that a verb is a
word signifying Being, Doing, or Suffering, their account would not have
been admitted. The prefix of the infinitive mood (To be, To do, &c.) is
the only resemblance which the definition has to the subject. Instead of
defining the verb, they make use of one. It remains however to show in
what respect To Be, To Do, and To Suffer differ from Being, Doing, and
Suffering. It cannot be in the subject-matter, or the ideas themselves,
for these are the same.

Some persons have confined the signification of the verb to action. See
Introduction to an Analytical Dictionary by David Booth. But this
hypothesis, which is more determinate than the other, and at least aims
at a meaning, is hardly tenable. The verb To Be does not express action.
To belong to, To possess, To contain, To extend over, &c., do not
express action, _i.e._ motion or change. Not to say that other classes
of words, as nouns and adjectives, express action as well as verbs, as
we have shown above. It would be better to say that a verb expresses
some fact or event, that is to say, Being, Doing, or Suffering, as
distinguished from a state of Being, Doing, or Suffering. But neither do
all verbs express a single act or instance of a thing. When we say Two
and two make four, we do not mean they do so in a single instance, but
always. It is true, however, that verbs oftener express what happens to
a thing, than what belongs to it, and that they do not express any
proposition more generally than the nature of the subject requires. They
make any thing known in a more marked and pointed, and therefore in a
more limited manner. This secondary quality in the verb, however, seems
to form the chief distinction between the participle and the adjective.
Those indeed who make the participle an essential part of the verb, must
adopt the definition here referred to, _viz._ that a verb is a word
signifying a single, not a general attribution of one thing to another,
or the actually being, doing, or suffering any thing, as distinct from a
state of being, doing, or suffering. If we were to adopt any other
definition of the verb than the one we have inserted, it would certainly
be this. But we think it more consistent both with the particular
meaning of words, and with the logic of grammar, to divide adjectives
and verbs into words intended to express a _given_, or known connection
between our ideas, and words intended to communicate a new or unknown
one, than into words representing a continued connection between the
subject and the attribute, and an accidental or momentary one.

We shall here just notice by the way the very unsatisfactory account of
active and passive verbs given by grammarians. A verb is active, they
say, when it denotes the doing of an action, passive when it denotes the
receiving one. The words _To receive a blow_ will upon this principle
signify the doing of an action, and to say _that an action is performed_
will signify the receiving one. In fact the notion of agency or
passiveness has no necessary connection with the active and passive
forms of verbs. For an attempt to explain this subject, we refer to the
grammar itself.

A pronoun is a general term to express an individual. Thus by the words
He, she, it, I, you, &c., we mean that particular person or thing, which
occupies a certain situation in the discourse, the person speaking, or
the person spoken to, &c. A pronoun is literally a word used instead of,
or which supplies the place of a noun, because instead of mentioning the
name of the individual, we only refer to it by some known circumstance
of situation which ascertains the object we mean. Pronouns are therefore
adjectives defining some circumstance of a thing, and put absolutely.

Adverbs are for the most part words expressing the circumstance, manner,
degree, &c., of an action, or attribute. Some of them, however, as the
words No, Yes, are properly abbreviations of whole sentences, that is,
convey assent to or dissent from an entire proposition. The last of
these words is in fact the French verb, _Ouis_, _I hear_, used as an
indeclinable term, that is, a term having a definite sense and meaning
like declinable words, but not varied to adapt it to different
situations, because it is restricted by custom to a particular
application. The same account may be given of the other indeclinable
words. Prepositions and conjunctions are either nouns or verbs
expressing certain ideas like other nouns and verbs, but which are now
used only for a particular purpose, and in a particular manner; that is
to say, they are abruptly inserted between other words or sentences to
join them together, and point out some such abstract relation between
them as is implied in the original words themselves. So when we say All
except John, we do not mean to address ourselves formally to any person
who is to except or leave out John, though the preposition Except is
undoubtedly the imperative mood of the same verb. We merely mean to
convey the abstract idea, that John is to be excepted from the
observation we have made, or that what is true of the others is not true
of him. So the word From is a noun originally signifying Beginning, and
now inserted before another noun to point it out as the source, cause,
or first instance of any thing: as He speaks _from_ (source)
inspiration, or inspiration being the _cause_ of his speaking.
Interjections are the last class of indeclinable words, and they admit
of a similar explanation. For they are merely words, conveying some
sudden burst of passion, and left standing by themselves without any
regular connection with the rest of the discourse. We also give an
interjectional form to half sentences, when we are hurried on by passion
into the middle of what we mean to express without making any
preparation, as ‘Oh virtue! how amiable thou art! _i.e._ _I cannot
express_ how amiable thou art.’

We have thus gone through the different parts of the subject, in order
to enable those who are conversant in such questions, to judge at one
view of the merits or demerits of our plan. It is, we confess, a little
different from others. But those, whose time is chiefly occupied in
learning grammar, whether Latin or English, are not very strongly
prejudiced in favour of established systems. The imperfections of those
systems are obvious and unquestionable; and therefore an assiduous
endeavour to improve upon them, and to place the fundamental articles of
grammatical knowledge on a clearer and more intelligible footing without
implicitly subscribing to error and absurdity merely because they are
old, can scarcely fail to be received with favour, and examined with
fairness, by competent judges.




                                 NOTES




                   A REPLY TO THE ESSAY ON POPULATION


Thomas Robert Malthus’s (1766–1834) _Essay on the Principle of
Population as it affects the Future Improvement of Society_ was
published anonymously in 1798. The second edition ‘very much enlarged’
appeared with the author’s name in a large 4to volume in 1803. For a
sketch of Malthus’s life and doctrine and of the Malthusian controversy,
see Sir Leslie Stephen’s _The English Utilitarians_, II. 137–185 and
238–259. The references in the following notes are to the second (1803)
edition of the Essay. Cf. Hazlitt’s essay on Malthus in _The Spirit of
the Age, ante_, pp. 287–298, and the last five essays in _Political
Essays_, vol. III. pp. 356–385. A paper by De Quincey, entitled
‘Malthus,’ in the _London Magazine_ for Oct. 1823, led to a brief
controversy between De Quincey and Hazlitt, the particulars of which
will be found in De Quincey’s _Works_ (ed. Masson), IX. pp. 3, 20–31.
Hazlitt’s _Reply to Malthus_ was reviewed in the _Edinburgh Review_ for
August 1810 (vol. xvi. p. 464), or rather, as Hazlitt complains, the
title of his _Reply_ was prefixed to an article in the _Edinburgh_ ‘as a
pretence for making a formal eulogy’ on Malthus’s work. Hazlitt
thereupon wrote the following letter to Cobbett’s _Political Register_
(Nov. 24, 1810, vol. xviii. p. 1014) under the heading ‘Mr. Malthus and
the Edinburgh Reviewers’:—

‘SIR,—The title-page of a pamphlet which I published some time ago, and
part of which appeared in the Political Register in answer to the Essay
on Population, having been lately prefixed to an article in the
Edinburgh Review as a pretence for making a formal eulogy on that work,
I take the liberty to request your insertion of a few queries, which may
perhaps bring the dispute between Mr. Malthus’s admirers and his
opponents, to some sort of issue. It will, however, first of all be
proper to say something of the article in the Review. The writer of the
article accuses the ‘anonymous’ writer of the reply to the Essay, of
misrepresenting and misunderstanding his author, and undertakes to give
a statement of the real principles of Mr. Malthus’s work. He at the same
time informs us for whom this statement is intended, namely, for those
who are not likely even to read the work itself, and who take their
opinions on all subjects moral, political, and religious, from the
periodical reports of the Edinburgh Review. For my own part, what I have
to say will be addressed to those who have read Mr. Malthus’s work, and
who may be disposed to form some opinion of their own on the
subject.—The most remarkable circumstance in the Review is, that it is a
complete confession of the force of the arguments which have been
brought against the Essay. The defence here set up of it may indeed be
regarded as the euthanasia of that performance. For in what does this
defence consist but in an adoption, point by point, of the principal
objections and limitation, which have been offered to Mr. Malthus’s
system; and which being thus ingeniously applied to gloss its defects,
the Reviewer charges those who had pointed them out with misrepresenting
and vilifying the author? In fact, the advocates of this celebrated work
do not at present defend its doctrines, but deny them. The only resource
left them is that of screening its fallacies from the notice of the
public by raising a cry of misrepresentation against those who attempt
to expose them, and by holding a mask of flimsy affectation over the
real and distinguishing features of the work. Scarcely a glimpse remains
of the striking peculiarities of Mr. Malthus’s reasoning, his bold
paradoxes dwindle by refined gradations into mere harmless
common-places, and what is still more extraordinary, an almost entire
coincidence of sentiment is found to subsist between the author of the
essay and his most zealous opponents, if the ignorance and prejudices of
the latter would but allow them to see it. Indeed the Edinburgh Reviewer
gives pretty broad hints that neither friends nor foes have ever
understood much of the matter, and kindly presents his readers for the
first time, with the true key to this much admired production. He
accordingly proceeds with considerable self-complacency to translate the
language of the essay into the dialect of the Scotch school of economy,
to put quite on one side the author’s geometrical and arithmetical
ratios, which had wrought such wonders, to state that Mr. Malthus never
pretended to make any new discovery, and to quote a passage from Adam
Smith, which suggested the plan of his work; to shew that this far-famed
work which has been so idly magnified, and so unjustly decried as
overturning all the commonly received axioms of political philosophy,
proves absolutely nothing with respect to the prospects of mankind or
the means of social improvement, that the sole hopes either of the
present or of future generations do not centre (strange to tell!) in the
continuance of vice and misery, but in the gradual removal of these, by
diffusing rational views of things and motives of action, and
particularly by ameliorating the condition, securing the independence,
and raising the spirit, of the lower classes of society; and finally
that both the extent of population, and the degree of happiness enjoyed
by the people of any country depend very much upon, and, as far as there
is any difference observable between one country or state of society and
another, are wholly regulated by political institutions, a good or bad
government, moral habits, the state of civilization, commerce, or
agriculture, the improvements in art or science, and a variety of other
causes quite distinct from the sole mechanical principle of population.
And, this Sir, is what the Reviewer imposes on his unsuspecting readers
as the sum and substance, the true scope and effect of Mr. Malthus’s
reasoning. It is in truth an almost literal recapitulation of the chief
topics insisted on in the Reply to the Essay, which the Reviewer seems
silently to regard as a kind of necessary supplement to that work.—In
this account it is evident, both that Mr. Malthus’s pretentions as an
original discoverer are given up by the Reviewer, and that his obnoxious
and extravagant conclusions are carefully suppressed. Now with regard to
the general principle of the disproportion between the power of increase
in population, and in the means of subsistence, and the necessity of
providing some checks, moral or physical, to the former, in order to
keep it on a level with the means of subsistence, I have never in any
instance called in question either of “these important and radical
facts,” which it is the business of Mr. M.’s work to illustrate. All
that I undertook in the Reply to the Essay was to disprove Mr. Malthus’s
claim to the discovery of these facts, and to shew that he had drawn
some very false and sophistical conclusions from them, which do not
appear in the article in the Review. As far therefore as relates to the
Edinburgh Reviewers, and their readers, I might consider my aim as
accomplished, and leave Mr. Malthus’s system and pretensions in the
hands of these friendly critics, who will hardly set the seal of their
authority—on either one or the other, till they have reduced both to
something like their own ordinary standard. But against this I have
several reasons. First, as I never looked upon Mr. Malthus as “a man of
no mark or likelihood,”[74] I should be sorry to see him dandled into
insignificance, and made a mere puppet in the hands of the Reviewers.
Secondly, I in some measure owe it to myself to prove that the
objections I have brought against his system are not the phantoms of my
own imagination. Thirdly, Mr. Malthus’s work cannot be considered as
entirely superseded by the account of it in the Review, as there are, no
doubt, many persons who will still take their opinion of Mr. Malthus’s
doctrines from his own writings, and abide by what they find in the text
as good authority and sound argument, though not sanctioned in the
Commentary.—I will therefore proceed to put the questions I at first
proposed as the best means I can devise for determining, both what the
contents of Mr. Malthus’s work really are, and to what degree of credit
they are entitled, or how far they are true or false, original or
borrowed.’

The queries which follow were with a few alterations republished by
Hazlitt in _The Examiner_ (Oct. 29, 1815—The _Round Table_, No. 23) and
in _Political Essays_ (vol. III. pp. 381–5). The alterations are almost
entirely confined to the omission of all reference to the _Edinburgh
Review_, for which Hazlitt himself had begun to write in 1814. The
letter concludes as follows: ‘The drift of these questions, is, I
believe, sufficiently obvious and direct; but if they should not be
thought clear enough in themselves, I am ready to add a suitable
commentary to them, by collating a convenient number of passages from
the Essay, the Reply, and the Review.’

 PAGE

   1. LETTER I. First published in Cobbett’s _Political Register_, March
        14, 1807: xi. 398.

      _The proposed alteration._ Hazlitt alludes to the poor-law bill of
        Samuel Whitbread (1758–1815), introduced on February 19, 1807.
        One of the main features of the scheme was the establishment of
        a system of free education. The bill was attacked not only by
        Cobbett (_Political Register_, August, September, and October,
        1807), and Hazlitt, but also by Malthus. Portions of the scheme
        passed their second readings as separate bills, but were
        abandoned. See Martineau, _History of the Peace_, I. 116.

   2. ‘_Who have none to help them._’ _Job_, xxix. 12.

      ‘_Pride and covetousness._’ _St. Mark_, vii. 22.

      ‘_The compunctious visitings of nature._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene
        5.

      ‘_Laying the flattering unction._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4.

      ‘_Grinding the faces of the poor._’ _Isaiah_, iii. 15.

      _Mandeville._ He refers to Bernard Mandeville (1670?–1733), whose
        _Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices Public Benefits_, appeared
        in 1714.

      ‘_Will but skin and film_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4.

      Note. _The late Sir W. Pulteney._ Sir William Johnstone Pulteney,
        5th bart. of Westerhall (1721–1805), M.P. for Shrewsbury in
        seven successive parliaments. His name was originally Johnstone,
        but he took the name of Pulteney on marrying the youngest
        daughter and heiress of Daniel Pulteney, Lord of the Admiralty
        in Sir R. Walpole’s Ministry. ‘In private life he was remarked
        principally for his frugal habits, which were perhaps the more
        striking, as he was supposed to be the richest Commoner in the
        kingdom.... In the latter part of his life he was remarkable for
        his abstemious manner of living, his food being composed of the
        most simple nourishment, principally bread and milk.’
        _Gentleman’s Magazine_, June, 1805, Vol. LXXV., p. 587. In 1804
        he married the widow of Andrew Stuart, who fought a duel with
        Thurlow in connection with the Douglas cause. Cf. _ante_, p.
        298.

   3. _In corpore vili._ This well known saying was quoted by Burke in
        his great speech on conciliation with America. See _Select
        Works_, ed. Payne, I. 224. The editor in a note (p. 325) quotes
        from Menagiana (3rd ed., p. 129) an anecdote of Muretus which is
        said to be the origin of the saying.

   4. ‘_Baser matter._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 5.

   5. _Leurre de dupe._ An expression of Rousseau’s (_Confessions_, Liv.
        IV.).

      _Unsuccessful endeavours_, _etc._ Hazlitt refers to Whitbread’s
        management of the impeachment of Lord Melville for malversation
        as Treasurer of the Navy. Melville was acquitted on June 12,
        1806.

   6. _The celebrated Howard._ John Howard died of camp fever at Kerson
        on January 20, 1790, while investigating the condition of
        Russian military hospitals.

      _The ‘champion,’_ _etc._ A reference to Pitt’s description of
        Buonaparte as ‘the child and champion of Jacobinism. See Vol.
        III., note to page 99.

   7. ‘_The latter end_,’ _etc._ _Tempest_, Act II. Scene 1.

      LETTER II. _Political Register_, May 16, 1807: XI. 883.

      _The English have been called_, _etc._ Diderot said this in his
        _Lettre sur les aveugles_, ed. Tourneux, I. 312, but the opinion
        was expressed more than once in France during the period of
        Anglomania which prevailed in the middle of the eighteenth
        century. Cf. Texte, _Jean-Jacques Rousseau_ (trans. Matthews)
        pp. 96 _et. seq._

   8. ‘_Worthless importunity in rags._’

            ‘——Lib’ral of their aid
        To clam’rous Importunity in rags.’
                                  Cowper, _The Task_, IV. 413–4.

   9. ‘_Its bane and antidote._’ Addison’s _Cato_, Act V. Scene 1.

      _Multum abludit imago._ Horace, _Satires_, II. 3, 320.

      _Wallace is the chief._ Robert Wallace (1697–1771), a minister of
        the Scottish Church, published his _Various Prospects of
        Mankind, Nature, and Providence_, in 1761. The British Museum
        copy of Hazlitt’s _Reply_ contains the following MS. note: ‘The
        writer of this note put into the hands of Mr. Hazlitt in the
        year 1828 a small volume entitled “a philosophical survey of the
        animal creation, which is a translation (by the author) of the
        Théorie du Système Animal,” which the Rev. John Bruckner had
        published some time before: after a perusal of the English
        edition of this work, Mr. Hazlitt admitted that the principles
        of the Essay on Population had been anticipated to a greater
        extent by the Flemish Divine, who settled in England, than they
        had been by Mr. Wallace.’ The Rev. John Bruckner (1726–1804),
        Minister of the Dutch Church at Norwich, published his _Théorie
        du Système Animal_ in 1767, and _Criticisms on the Diversions of
        Purley_ in 1790.

  14. ‘_Present circumstances of the earth._’ In the _Political
        Register_ Hazlitt has the following note: ‘A different spirit
        breathes through this chapter from that of the Essay; the spirit
        of a gentleman, a philosopher, and a philanthropist. Mr.
        Malthus, indeed, sometimes limps after his model, and _cants_
        liberality in the true whine of hypocrisy.’

  15. ‘_So will his anticipation_,’ _etc._ ‘So shall my anticipation
        prevent your discovery.’ _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.

      _Arithmetical series._ In the _Political Register_ the following
        note is appended: ‘As far as I understand the nature of an
        arithmetical and geometrical series, I do not apprehend that Mr.
        M. could make good their strict application to the subject. An
        arithmetical series is where any number or quantity is increased
        by the perpetual addition of the same given sum or quantity. But
        how does Mr. M. know that this is true of the cultivation of the
        land, or that much more rapid strides may not be made at one
        time than at another?’

  15. _Mr. Shandy was of opinion, etc._ _Tristram Shandy_, Book I. chap.
        xix.

  18. LETTER III. _Political Register_, May 23, 1807: xi. 935. Hazlitt
        published part of this letter in his _Political Essays_. See
        vol. III. pp. 367–374.

      ‘_A swaggering paradox_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘The paradoxes of one age
        become the common-places of the next.’ Jowett, _Plato_, III.
        155.

  19. _The reply of the author of the Political Justice._ In _Thoughts
        on Dr. Parr’s Spital Sermon_ (1801) Godwin replied to Parr,
        Mackintosh, and Malthus. Many years later, in 1820, he wrote _Of
        Population. An Enquiry concerning the Power of Increase in the
        Numbers of Mankind, in Answer to Mr. Malthus on that Subject_.

  21. ‘_The exuberant strength of my argument._’ A phrase of Malthus’s.
        _Essay on Population_, p. 372.

  22. ‘_What conjuration_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Scene 3.

  23. _And as Trim._ _Tristram Shandy_, Book VI. chap. xxiii.

  24. ‘_These three bear record_,’ _etc._ Cf. _1 John_, v. 7.

  25. ‘_Tis as easy as lying_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.

      _To sum up the whole of the argument._ The conclusion of Letter
        III. from this point is not in the _Political Register_.

      ‘_And less than smallest dwarfs_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, I.
        779–781.

  28. ‘_It cannot but be_,’ _etc._ Malthus, _Essay on Population_, pp.
        353–4.

  29. ‘_Who am no great clerk._’ Cf. Burke, _A Letter to a Noble Lord_
        (_Works_, Bohn, V. 150). ‘He [Lord Keppel] was no great clerk.’

  35. ‘_It may be safely affirmed_,’ _etc._ Malthus, pp. 7–8.

  36. _Sancho Panza._ _Don Quixote_, Part II., Book III., chap. xlix.

  38. ‘_Fast by_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 1051–2.

      ‘_To nature’s furthest verge_,’ _etc._

         ‘Shoots far into the bosom of dim night
         A glimmering dawn. Here Nature first begins
         Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire,’ etc.
                                   _Paradise Lost_, II. 1036–8.

      ‘_Come on, sir_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act IV. Scene 6.

  41. _A new Iliad of woes._ See note to vol. III. p. 10.

  42. ‘_It keeps on its way_,’ _etc._ Cf.

       ‘——I do know but one
       That unassailable holds on his rank,
       Unshaked of motion.’
                               _Julius Caesar_, Act III. Scene 1.

  44. ‘_Squalid poverty._’ Malthus, p. 516.

      Note. ‘_I am not as this poor Hottentot._’ Cf. ‘God, I thank thee,
        that I am not as other men are, etc.’ _St. Luke_, xviii. II.

      Note. ‘_Chill and comfortless._’ Cf. ‘All dark and comfortless.’
        _King Lear_, Act III. Scene 7.

  45. ‘_Palaces, her ladies and her pomp._’

   ‘Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp of equipage.’
                                         Cowper, _The Task_, I. 643–4.

  46. ‘_Upland swells_,’ _etc._

      ‘The grassy uplands’ gentle swells
      Echo to the bleat of flocks.’
                Coleridge, _Ode on the Departing Year_, ll. 125–6.

  53. _When Don Quixote had to encounter_, _etc._ See _Don Quixote_,
        Part II., Book I. Chap. xiv.

  55. ‘_Their greatest merit_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.

      _No maid could live near such a man._ See note to vol. I. p. 305.

  56. ‘_Were they as prime_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.

      Note. _Even Miss Howe_, _etc._ In _Clarissa Harlowe_.

  62. ‘_The sin that most easily besets him._’ _Hebrews_, xii. I.

      ‘_The rich golden shaft_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Scene 1.

      ‘_All for love, or the world well lost._’ Dryden’s version of
        _Antony and Cleopatra_ (1678).

  63. ‘_But as the dust in the balance._’ _Isaiah_, xl. 15.

      _Aaron’s rod._ _Exodus_, vii. 12.

      ‘_Sits umpire_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 907–9.

      ‘_Our greatest good_,’ _etc._

          ‘Its former strength was but plethoric ill.’
                              Goldsmith, _The Traveller_, 144.

  66. _Described by Hogarth._ In what Lamb calls the ‘sublime print,’
        entitled ‘Gin Lane.’

  70. _Hume’s assertion._ _Dialogues on Natural Religion_, Part XI. p.
        212. The assertion is denied by Malthus in his Essay, p. 587.

  71. Note. _A late publication._ _Letters to Samuel Whitbread, M.P., on
        his proposed Bill for the Amendment of the Poor Laws_ (1807).

      Note. _Jactet_, _etc._ ‘Illa se jactet in aula Aeolus.’ Virgil,
        _Aeneid_, I. 140–1.

  81. _Algernon Sydney._ Sidney’s _Discourses concerning Government_,
        written about 1680, in reply to Sir Robert Filmer’s
        _Patriarcha_, were first published in 1698.

  82. ‘_The face of the clearest warning_,’ _etc._ Quoted inaccurately
        from Malthus. See _ante_, pp. 173–4.

  83. Note. ‘_Monks, eremites_,’ _etc._

    ‘Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
    White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.’
                                        _Paradise Lost_, III. 474–5.

  84. _Lord Kaims’s account_, _etc._ See Lord Kaims’s _Sketches of the
        History of Man_, vol. II. pp. 240–1 (edit. 1788).

  85. _A common-place book._ Hazlitt refers to James Burgh’s (1714–1775)
        _Political Disquisitions: or, an Enquiry into public Errors,
        Defects, and Abuses. Illustrated by, and established upon Facts
        and Remarks extracted from a Variety of Authors, ancient and
        modern. Calculated to draw the timely attention of Government
        and People to a due Consideration of the Necessity, and the
        Means, of reforming those Errors, Defects, and Abuses; of
        restoring the Constitution, and saving the State._ (3 vols.
        1774–5).

      ‘_That honest Chronicler._’ ‘But such an honest chronicler as
        Griffith.’ _Henry VIII._, Act IV. Scene 2.

      ‘_The excellent Montague._’ _Reflections on the Rise and Fall of
        the Ancient Republics. Adapted to the Present State of Great
        Britain_, by Edward Wortley Montagu (1713–1776), son of Lady
        Mary Wortley Montagu, was published in 1759. See Burgh’s
        _Political Disquisitions_, III. 68 _et seq._

  90. _The descendants of the heroes_, _etc._ This passage to the end of
        the quotation is from Bolingbroke’s _Political Tracts_, 270. See
        Burgh, III. 414.

  91. _The account which Voltaire gives._ Burgh (III. 410) quotes this
        passage from _Essais sur l’Histoire_, II. 60.

      _Since that time it has fallen_, _etc._ It is difficult to
        understand what such a worshipper of Napoleon as Hazlitt means
        by this sentence. The Vienna Congress (1815) ultimately declared
        the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.

  92. ‘_I see_,’ _he says, etc._ Burgh, III. 416.

      ‘_A consummation_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.

  93. _Lord Molesworth._ Robert Molesworth, first Viscount Molesworth
        (1656–1725), was appointed envoy extraordinary at the Danish
        Court in 1692, but left abruptly in 1694, and in the same year
        published _An Account of Denmark as it was in the year 1692_.
        See Burgh, III. 412.

  95. ‘_It must indeed be an answer_,’ _etc._ _All’s Well that Ends
        Well_, Act II. Scene 2.

      ‘_A thing may serve_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

      _Burnet’s Travels._ Gilbert Burnet’s _Some Letters containing an
        Account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy,
        etc._ (1686). See Burgh, III. 398–9.

      ‘_Italy shews_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ III. 399.

      ‘_In England_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ III. 400.

  96. ‘_The title of freemen_,’ _etc._ From Spelman’s _Glossary_, quoted
        in Burgh, III. 400.

      ‘_It is constantly_,’ _etc._ Quoted by Burgh (III. 400) from
        Hume’s _History of the Tudors_, II. 640.

      ‘_Nations have often_,’ _etc._ Burgh, III. 34.

      ‘_A single genius_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ III. 220.

      ‘_Commerce_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ III. 83–4.

      ‘_The extreme poverty_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ III. 84.

  97. ‘_Government, according to Plato_,’ _etc._ Cf. Burgh, III. 175–8.

      ‘_The great difference we see_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ III. 220.

      ‘_Among the Lacedemonians_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ III. 150.

  98. ‘_Aristotle lays down_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ III. 156.

      ‘_Lycurgus did not allow_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

      ‘_At Sparta_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ III. 181.

      ‘_A very wise man_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ III. 100.

  99. ‘_The grave Romans_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Ibid._ III. 100. The saying
        alluded to is Cicero’s. ‘Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi
        forte insanit.’ _Pro Murena._ Cap. 6.

      ‘_In the old English laws_,’ _etc._ Quoted by Burgh (III. 139)
        from Spelman’s _Concilia_.

      ‘_Who elbow us aside_,’ _etc._

       ‘Till prostitution elbow us aside
       In all our crowded streets.’
                                   Cowper, _The Task_, III. 60–1.

 100. ‘_Insensés qui vous plaignez_,’ _etc._ Hazlitt seems to be
        recalling imperfectly a passage in Rousseau’s _Émile_ (Liv.
        I.):—‘Nous plaignons le sort de l’enfance, et c’est le nôtre
        qu’il faudroit plaindre. Nos plus grands maux nous viennent de
        nous.’ See also a letter to Voltaire, 18th August 1756.
        _Correspondance_ (1822), I. 216 et seq.

 101. _Zaleucus._ See Burgh, III. 180.

      _The greedy eye_, _etc._ Cf. _The English Comic Writers_. (‘Comic
        Writers of the last Century’), and _The Round Table_ (‘On Modern
        Comedy’), vol. I., p. 13.

 102. _Narcissus and the Graces._ A ballet by Sir Henry Rowley Bishop
        (1786–1855), produced at the King’s Theatre, June, 1806.

      Note. _The Memoirs of Fanny Hill._ _Fanny Hill, or the Memoirs of
        a Woman of Pleasure_, by John Cleland (1709–1789), was
        published, Part I. in 1748, Part II. in 1749. In 1750 the work
        was republished in a milder form by Ralph Griffiths, who is said
        to have paid twenty guineas for the copyright, and made a profit
        of £10,000. Cleland was summoned before the Privy Council, and
        received a pension of £100 from Lord Granville that he might
        devote himself to worthier forms of literature.

 104. ‘_In which the wicked_,’ _etc._ _Job_, iii. 17.

      ‘_Happy are they_,’ _etc._ Hazlitt repeated this paragraph in a
        paper in _The Yellow Dwarf_. See _Political Essays_, vol. III.,
        note to p. 266.

      ‘_Hurt by the archers._’ Cowper, _The Task_, III. 113.

 105. ‘_M. Condorcet’s “Esquisse,”_’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 354. Condorcet’s
        work appeared in 1794.

 106. ‘_This posthumous publication_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

 107. ‘_This would indeed_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 368.

 108. _White Conduit-House._ A ‘popular place of entertainment and
        tea-gardens’ at Pentonville. See Wheatley and Cunningham’s
        _London Past and Present_, III. 496, and _ibid._, I. 86, for an
        account of Bagnigge-Wells, a ‘noted place of entertainment, much
        resorted to the lower sort of tradesman,’ in the neighbourhood
        of King’s Cross.

      ‘_There exists_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 355.

 109. ‘_Such establishments_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 356.

 110. _‘Killing frost._’ _Henry VIII._, Act III. Scene 2. See Malthus,
        p. 356.

 111. ‘_Variations’ etc._ Malthus, p, 359.

 112. ‘_It will be said, perhaps._’ _Ibid._ p. 362.

 113. ‘_What can we reason_,’ _etc._ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, I. 18.

 116. Note. Dr. Paley. See his _Evidences of Christianity_. Preparatory
        Considerations. Of the antecedent credibility of miracles.

 117. _The old argument of the Heap._ Hazlitt alludes to a favourite
        logical _impasse_ of the Stoics: ‘What constitutes a heap? Is it
        two, three, or four atoms, and on taking them away, when does a
        heap cease to exist?’ Cf. Horace, _Ep._ II. 1–47; and Cicero,
        _De Div._ II. 4.

      _‘It does not, however_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 363.

      _Quotes Bickerstaff._ See _The Tatler_, No. 75.

      ‘_Mr. Godwin_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 367.

 118. ‘_It is not, therefore_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 43.

 120. ‘_They neither marry_,’ _etc._ _St. Matthew_, xxii. 30.

 122. ‘_It may be curious_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 374.

 128. _The charge which he brings against Paine._ _Ibid._ p. 530.

 130. ‘_Those who were born_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 377.

 132. ‘_‘A man’ he says_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 531.

 134. ‘_In most countries_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 537.

 135. ‘_There is one right_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 531.

 138. ‘_Sharpens his understanding_,’ _etc._ ‘Thy flinty heart,’ occurs
        in _Henry VI._, Part II., Act III. Scene 2.

 139. ‘_Metaphysical aid._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 5.

 140. ‘_The quantity of food_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 375.

 142. ‘_As Mr. Godwin_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 381.

 143. ‘_He is himself again._’ ‘Richard’s himself again.’ Colley
        Cibber’s version of _Richard III._, Act V. Scene 3.

 145. ‘_Which after_,’ _etc._ Butler, _Hudibras_, Part II., Canto I,
        377–8.

      ‘_Suppose_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 396.

      ‘_The question is_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 422.

 146. ‘_It may at fist_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 398.

 150. ‘_They lay heavy burthens_,’ _etc._ _St. Matthew_, xxiii. 4.

      ‘_Fared sumptuously_,’ _etc._ _St. Luke_, xvi. 19.

 151. ‘_If instead_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 405.

 153. ‘_Whose solid virtue_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act IV. Scene 1.

 156. ‘_Independently of any considerations_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 409.

 157. ‘_Alas from what height fallen._’ Cf.

              ‘——into what pit thou seest
              From what highth fallen.’
                                  _Paradise Lost_, I. 91–2.

      And

        ‘Alas, from what high hope to what relapse
        Unlooked for are we fallen!’
                                  _Paradise Regained_, II. 30–1.

 158. ‘_Comes to him_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act I. Scene 4.

      ‘_Shall no more impart_,’ _etc._ Goldsmith, _The Deserted
        Village_, 239–40.

      ‘_Their drunkenness and dissipation._’ Malthus, p. 411.

      ‘_Their squalid appearance._’ See _Ibid._ p. 516.

 159. ‘_The symmetry of person_,’ _etc._ This is a quotation of
        Malthus’s (p. 488) from Godwin (_Political Justice_, Vol. I.,
        Book I., Chap. v).

      ‘_Our Doctors Commons_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 576.

      ‘_Father Paul._’ In Sheridan’s _Duenna_, first performed in 1775
        at Covent Garden.

      ‘_That the poor_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 411.

      ‘_A man who_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

 160. ‘_“If,” says he_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 540.

 161. ‘_This is well said_,’ _etc._ _Henry VIII._, Act III. Scene 2.

 162. ‘_I like not_,’ _etc._ _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act. IV. Scene 2.

 165. _Omne tulit punctum._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 343.

 166. _Mr. Burke has said._ ‘Nobody will be argued into slavery.’
        _Speech on American Taxation_ (April 19, 1774, _Select Works_,
        ed. Payne, I. 155).

 166. ‘_Among the prejudices_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 477.

      Note. _Tucker._ Abraham Tucker (1705–1774), whose chief work _The
        Light of Nature Pursued_ (7 vols., 1768–1778) was abridged by
        Hazlitt (1807). See _ante_, pp. 371–385. Paley admitted his
        obligations to Tucker.

 168. ‘_Will come when it will come._’ _Julius Caesar_, Act II. Scene 2.

      ‘_The object of those_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 508.

 169. ‘_The pressure of distress_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 525.

      _Blifil._ In _Tom Jones_.

      _The euthanasia foretold by Hume._ See his Essay ‘On the British
        Government.’ ‘They talk,’ said Burke, ‘of Mr. Hume’s Euthanasia
        of the British Constitution gently expiring without a groan in
        the paternal arms of a mere Monarchy. In a monarchy! Fine
        trifling indeed! There is no such Euthanasia for the British
        Constitution.’ _Regicide Peace_ (ed. Payne), p. 352.

 172. _Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes._ Virgil, _Aeneid_, II. 49.

      _As the husband secured the virtue of his wife_, _etc._ That is,
        presumably, by cutting off her head, ‘the Sign of the Good
        Woman,’ representing a headless woman carrying her head in her
        hand.

 173. ‘_I should propose_,’ _etc._ Malthus, p. 538. A great part of the
        rest of Hazlitt’s _Reply_ was repeated in the _Political
        Essays_. See vol. III. pp. 374–381.

 176. ‘_These paper bullets of the brain._’ _Much Ado about Nothing_,
        Act II. Scene 3.

 177. ‘_Would submit to the sufferings_‘, _etc._ Malthus, p. 539.

 180. ‘_The scanty relief_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 415.

      ‘_If, as in Ireland_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 548.

 181. ‘_It is not enough_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 549.

 183. ‘_In some conversations_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ p. 553.

      _Anthony’s repeated declaration._ _Julius Caesar_, Act III. Scene
        2.

 184. ‘_It very rarely_,’ _etc._ Malthus’s _Essay_ (1st edition, 1798),
        p. 34.


                         THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

 189. JEREMY BENTHAM. This essay appeared originally in the _New Monthly
        Magazine_ (1824, vol. X. p. 68), of which Thomas Campbell was
        editor from 1820 to 1830. For an account of Bentham’s life and
        work, see Sir Leslie Stephen’s _The English Utilitarians_, vol.
        I. pp. 169–326.

      _The old adage._ ‘A prophet is not without honour, save in his own
        country, and in his own house.’ _St. Matthew_, xiii. 57.

      _In the plains of Chili_, _etc._ Bentham had many disciples among
        the patriots of South America, and in 1808 thought seriously of
        going to Mexico.

      _Westminster, where he lives._ In Queen Square Place, now Queen
        Anne’s Gate. Hazlitt himself was from 1812 to 1819 a tenant of
        Bentham’s in Milton’s old house in Petty France, the garden of
        which Bentham had added to his house in Queen Square. See
        frontispiece to vol. III., and _ante_, p. 190.

      ‘_I know thee_,’ _etc._ ‘I have seen thee in her, and I do adore
        thee: my mistress show’d me thee, and thy dog, and thy bush.’
        _The Tempest_, Act II. Scene 2.

      _Mr. Hobhouse._ John Cam Hobhouse (1786–1869) was defeated at
        Westminster in February 1819, but was returned in the following
        year.

      _Lord Rolle._ John Rolle (1795–1842) was the hero of _The
        Rolliad_, and sat for the great maritime county of Devonshire.
        He was raised to the peerage in 1796. See Wraxall’s _Historical
        and Posthumous Memoirs_ (ed. Wheatley, IV. 116–119).

      ‘_That waft a thought_,’ _etc._ ‘And waft a sigh from Indus to the
        Pole.’ Pope, _Eloisa to Abelard_, 58.

      _Sir Samuel Romilly._ Romilly was returned for Westminster in July
        1818. He had already taken an active part in Parliament as a
        law-reformer.

 190. ‘_Lone island_,’ _etc._ ‘Some happier island in the watery waste.’
        Pope, _Essay on Man_, I. 106.

      _Chrestomathic School._ The object of this was to apply
        Lancasterian principles to the education of the middle classes.
        An association, of which Mackintosh, Brougham, James Mill, and
        others were trustees, was formed in 1814, and Bentham offered
        his garden as a site, but the scheme came to nothing. See Sir
        Leslie Stephen’s _The English Utilitarians_, vol. II. p. 22.

      _Franklin._ Bentham seems to have had a strong personal
        resemblance to Benjamin Franklin.

 191. _Foregone conclusion._ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.

 192. _Mr. Bentham is not the first writer_, _etc._ The principle of
        utility had been expressed by (among others) Priestley (_Essay
        on Government_, 1768), Hutcheson (_Enquiry concerning Moral Good
        and Evil_, 1725), and Beccaria (_On Crimes and Punishments_,
        1764). See _The English Utilitarians_, vol. I. p. 178.

      ‘_He has not allowed for the wind._’ A familiar expression which
        Hazlitt may have seen in _Ivanhoe_, Chap. xiii.

      ‘_Bound volatile Hermes._’ _Paradise Lost_, III. 602–3.

 193. ‘_All appliances_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act III. Scene
        1.

      _Posthæc, etc._ ‘Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.’ Virgil,
        _Aeneid_, I. 203.

 195. _No more than Montaigne_, _etc._ Essays, Booke II., Chap. xii. An
        Apologie of Raymond Sebond. Florio’s translation, _Temple
        Classics_, Vol. II., p. 209.

 196. ‘_All men act_,’ _etc._ ‘Men calculate, some with less exactness,
        indeed, some with more: but all men calculate. I would not say,
        that even a madman does not calculate.’ _Principles of Morals
        and Legislation_, Chap. XIV. § xxviii.

 196. _Too knowing by half._ ‘That’s too civil by half.’ Sheridan, _The
        Rivals_, Act III. Scene 4.

 197. _A Panopticon._ ‘A mill for grinding rogues honest, and idle men
        industrious’ (Bentham, _Works_, X. 226). Bentham published an
        account of the scheme in 1791 under the title of ‘The
        Panopticon, or the Inspection House,’ and spent a great deal of
        money in connection with it. Ultimately a committee reported
        against the scheme and proceeded to found the Millbank
        Penitentiary, which was opened in 1816. See _The English
        Utilitarians_, I. 193–206.

 197. ‘_Dip it in the ocean_,’ _etc._ ‘But I fear, friend, said I, this
        buckle won’t stand ... you may immerse it, replied he, into the
        ocean, and it will stand.’ _A Sentimental Journey_, The Wig,
        Paris.

 198. _Mr. Owen._ Cf. _Political Essays_ (vol. III. pp. 121–7) and
        _Table-Talk_ (‘On People with one Idea’).

      _His address to the higher and middle classes._ The second of
        Coleridge’s Lay Sermons (1817) was ‘addressed to the higher and
        middle classes.’

      _Hunter’s captivity among the North American Indians._ J. Dunn
        Hunter’s _Memoirs of a Captivity amongst the Indians of North
        America, from Childhood to the Age of Nineteen_, _etc._, 1824.

 199. _In nook monastic._ ‘To forswear the full stream of the world and
        to live in a nook merely monastic.’ _As You Like It_, Act III.
        Scene 2.

      ‘_Men of Ind._’ _The Tempest_, Act II. Scene 2.

      _Mr. Speaker Abbott._ Charles Abbot (1757–1829) was Speaker from
        1802 to 1817, when he retired and became Lord Colchester. His
        mother was the second wife of Bentham’s father. His unique Diary
        and Correspondence, extending from 1795 to 1829, were published
        in 3 vols. in 1861.

      _He was educated at Eton._ Bentham was a Westminster boy.

 200. _At the University._ Bentham went to Queen’s College, Oxford, in
        1760, and took his M.A. degree in 1766.

      _Church-of-Englandism._ _Church of Englandism and its Catechism
        examined_, published in 1818.

      ‘_To be honest_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.

      ‘_Looked enough abroad_,’ _etc._ ‘The corrupter sort of
        politicians, who are not by learning established in a love of
        duty, nor ever look abroad into universality.’ _Advancement of
        Learning_, Book I.

      _Mr. Godwin._ For Godwin see C. Kegan Paul’s _William Godwin: his
        Friends and Contemporaries_, 2 vols. 1876.

 201. _Political Justice._ Godwin’s _Enquiry concerning Political
        Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness_ was published
        in 1793, _Things as they are; or the Adventures of Caleb
        Williams_ in 1794.

      _As Goldsmith used to say._ ‘Whenever I write any thing, the
        public _make a point_ to know nothing about it.’ Boswell, _Life
        of Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), III. 252.

      _Sedet, in eternumque, etc._

               ‘Sedet, aeternumque sedebit,
           Infelix Theseus.’
                                 Virgil, _Aeneid_, VI. 617–18.

      _The false Duessa._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book II., Canto ii., and
        Canto viii. Stanzas 46–8.

 201. _His House of Pride._

    ‘And all the hinder partes, that few could spie,
    Were ruinous and old, but painted cunningly.’
                                _Ibid._ Book I., Canto iv. Stanza 5.

      ‘_The pillar’d firmament_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 598–9.

 202. ‘_What, then_,’ _etc._ _St. Matthew_, xi. 7.

      _Mr. Southey’s Inscriptions._ Southey’s early ‘Inscriptions’
        (1796–9), some of which he reprinted in the collected edition of
        his poems (1837–8), are, like his _Joan of Arc_ and _Wat Tyler_,
        strongly radical in sentiment. See Hazlitt’s _Political Essays_
        (vol. III. p. 205).

      _Mr. Coleridge’s Religious Musings._ Published in _Poems on
        Various Subjects_, 1796.

      ‘_Like Cato_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Prologue to the Satires_, 208. The
        line is taken from Pope’s own Prologue to Addison’s _Cato_.

      ‘_By that sin fell the angels._’ _Henry VIII._, Act III. Scene 2.

 204. ‘_There was the rub_,’ _etc._

                         ‘There’s the respect
       That makes calamity of so long life.’
                                       _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.

 204. ‘_Trenchant blade._’

                 ‘Let not the virgin’s cheek
         Make soft thy trenchant sword.’
                             _Timon of Athens_, Act IV. Scene 3.

      ‘_All is conscience and tender heart._’ Chaucer, _Prologue_, 150.

      Note. See John Leland’s _A View of the Deistical Writers_, _etc._,
        Letter vii.

 205. ‘_So ran the tenour of the bond._’ Cf. _The Merchant of Venice_,
        Act IV. Scene 1.

      ‘_It was well said_,’ _etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 161.

      ‘_Fallen first_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.

      ‘_Lost the immortal part_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act II. Scene 3.

      ‘_The guide_,’ _etc._

    ‘The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
    The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
    Of all my moral being.’
        Wordsworth, _Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey_.

 206. _Sir Walter Scott._ ‘Scott’s baronetcy,’ says Lockhart, ‘was
        conferred on him, not in consequence of any Ministerial
        suggestion, but by the King personally, and of his own
        unsolicited motion; and when the Poet kissed his hand he said to
        him: “I shall always reflect with pleasure on Sir Walter Scott’s
        having been the first creation of my reign.”’ The baronetcy was
        Gazetted on March 30, 1820.

      ‘_When in Auvergne_,’ _etc._ Quoted inaccurately from _Quentin
        Durward_, Chap. i.

      ‘_Reason is the queen_,’ _etc._ Hazlitt quotes a passage of his
        own. See _Political Essays_, Vol. III., pp. 90–1.

 207. ‘_The unreasonableness of the reason_,’ _etc._ See _Don Quixote_,
        Book I., Chap. i.

      ‘_Flying an eagle flight_,’ _etc._ _Timon of Athens_, Act I. Scene
        1.

      ‘_Thus far_,’ _etc._ _Job_, xxxviii. 11.

      _Captain Parry._ Captain, afterwards Sir William Edward Parry
        (1790–1855) had recently returned from the second of his voyages
        for the discovery of a north-west passage.

 208. ‘_Championing it to the Outrance._’ ‘And champion me to the
        utterance!’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 1.

 208. _Caleb Williams._ Published in 1794. _St. Leon: A Tale of the
        Sixteenth Century_, appeared in 1799.

      Note. _Mr. Fuseli._ Henry Fuseli (1741–1825), the painter, for
        whom, according to his biographer, Mary Wollstonecraft
        (afterwards Godwin’s wife) formed her first attachment.

 209. ‘_Bastards of his art._’ Cf.

   ‘Thought characters and words merely but art
   And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.’
                       Shakespeare, _A Lover’s Complaint_, ll. 174–5.

      _Allen-a-Dale._ This ‘northern minstrel’ figures in Scott’s own
        _Ivanhoe_.

      _Fleetwood._ _Fleetwood; or, the New Man of Feeling_, was
        published in 1805, _Mandeville: a Tale of the Seventeenth
        Century_, in 1817.

 210. _His Life of Chaucer._ Published in 1803. _His Remarks on Judge
        Eyre’s Charge to the Jury. Cursory Strictures on the Charge of
        Chief-Justice Eyre_ appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ on
        October 20, 1794. Godwin’s own note and the notes of his
        daughter, Mrs. Shelley, on the political trials of that year,
        will be found in C. Kegan Paul’s _William Godwin: His Friends
        and Contemporaries_ (I. 117–137). Cf. Hazlitt’s _Life of Thomas
        Holcroft_, Vol. II., pp. 139 _et seq._

      _Skulked behind a British throne._ See Vol. I., p. 378, note.

      _A Volume of Sermons._ _Sketches of History, in Six Sermons_
        (1784).

      _A life of Chatham._ Published anonymously in 1783.

      Note. _Antonio_, a tragedy in verse, was produced on December
        13, 1800, and ‘damned finally and hopelessly.’ See Kegan Paul
        (II. 36–55), where Lamb’s account of the tragedy and its
        representation (not reprinted in the _Essays of Elia_) is
        quoted from a paper in the _London Magazine_ (April 1, 1822).
        _Faulkener_ (not _Ferdinand_), a tragedy in prose, was
        produced with more success on December 16, 1807. Lamb wrote
        prologues to both plays. This play, which was sent to Holcroft
        to be touched up for the stage, led to a quarrel between the
        friends. See Kegan Paul, II. 122 _et seq._

      _Mr. Fawcett._ For Hazlitt’s account of Joseph Fawcett see _Table
        Talk_ (On Criticism).

      _A Speech on General Warrants._ Hazlitt refers to a speech of
        Chatham’s, not on General Warrants, but on the Cyder Tax in the
        Budget of 1763. The Parliamentary History gives only a few
        lines, but the passage quoted by Hazlitt will be found in Lord
        Brougham’s _Historical Studies of Statesmen during George III.’s
        reign_.

 212. _Mr. Coleridge, who_, _etc._ Hazlitt seems to refer to Coleridge’s
        Lectures on Poetry, delivered at the Royal Institution in 1808.

      _A History of the Commonwealth of England._ Published in 4
        volumes, 1824–8.

      _A very admirable likeness._ Reproduced as frontispiece to Vol. I.
        of Kegan Paul’s _William Godwin_, _etc._

      _Mrs. Wollstonecraft._ Godwin married Mary Wollstonecraft on March
        29, 1797. Mrs. Inchbald, according to Mrs. Shelley (Kegan Paul,
        I. 239) shed tears when the announcement was made to her.

 213. _And thank the bounteous Pan._ ‘In wanton dance they praise the
        bounteous Pan.’ _Comus_, 176.

      ‘_A mind reflecting ages past._’ These words occur in the first
        line of a laudatory poem on Shakespeare printed in the second
        folio (1632). The poem is signed ‘J. M. S.’ and was attributed
        by Coleridge to ‘John Milton, Student.’ See his _Lectures on
        Shakspere_ (ed. T. Ashe), pp. 129–30.

 213. ‘_Dark rearward and abyss._’ Cf. ‘In the dark backward and abysm
        of time.’ _The Tempest_, Act I., Scene 2.

      ‘_That which was now a horse_,’ _etc._ _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act
        IV. Scene 14.

      ‘_Quick, forgetive, apprehensive._’ ‘Makes it apprehensive, quick,
        forgetive.’ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act IV. Scene 3.

 214. ‘_What in him is weak_,’ _etc._ Cf.

      ‘——what in me is dark,
      Illumine, what is low raise and support.’
                                          _Paradise Lost_, I. 22–3.

      ‘_And by the force_,’ _etc._

      ‘As by the strength of their illusion
      Shall draw him on to his confusion.’
                                      _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 5.

      ‘_Blear_ illusion’ is a phrase of Milton’s (_Comus_, 155).

      ‘_Rich strond._’ See _The Faerie Queene_, Book III., Canto iv.,
        Stanzas 18., 29., and 34.

      ‘_Goes sounding on his way._’ Hazlitt seems to have had a hazy
        recollection of two passages in Chaucer’s _Prologue_. In his
        essay on ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets,’ he says, ‘the
        scholar in Chaucer is described as going “sounding on his way,”’
        and in his _Lectures on the English Poets_ (see Vol. V., p. 13)
        he says ‘the merchant, as described in Chaucer, went on his way
        “sounding always the increase of his winning.’” The scholar is
        not described as ‘sounding on his way,’ but Chaucer says of him,
        ‘Souninge in moral vertu was his speche,’ while the merchant,
        though ‘souninge alway th’ encrees of his winning,’ is
        not described as going on his way. Wordsworth has a line
        (_Excursion_, Book III.), ‘Went sounding on a dim and perilous
        way,’ but it seems clear that Hazlitt thought he was quoting
        Chaucer.

      ‘_His own nothings monstered._’ _Coriolanus_, Act II. Scene 2.

 215. ‘_Letting contemplation_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Till Contemplation had her
        fill.’ Dyer, _Grongar Hill_, l. 26.

      ‘_Sailing with supreme dominion_,’ _etc._ Gray, _The Progress of
        Poesy_, 115–6.

      ‘_He lisped in numbers_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Prologue to the Satires_,
        128.

      _Ode on Chatterton._ _Monody on the Death of Chatterton_, written
        in 1790 when Coleridge was eighteen.

      _Gained several prizes._ At Cambridge Coleridge won the Browne
        Gold Medal for a Greek Ode in 1792.

 216. ‘_Struggling in vain_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _The Excursion_, Book
        VI.

      ‘_Etherial braid_,’ _etc._ Hazlitt perhaps recalled two passages
        from Collins, ‘with brede etherial wove’ (_Ode to Evening_), and
        ‘the shadowy tribes of mind, in braided dance their murmurs
        joined’ (_Ode on the Poetical Character_).

      _Next he was engaged_, _etc._ Some foundation for this account of
        Coleridge will be found in his published writings, especially in
        _The Friend_ and _Biographia Literaria_, but Hazlitt seems to
        have drawn largely upon his recollections of Coleridge’s
        conversation. See his essay, ‘My First Acquaintance with the
        Poets.’

      _Like Ariel._ _The Tempest_, Act I. Scene 2.

      Note. ‘_And so by many winding nooks_,’ _etc._ _Two Gentlemen of
        Verona_, Act II. Scene 7.

      _Malebranche._ The _De la Recherche de la Vérité_ of Nicolas
        Malebranche (1638–1715) was published in 1674.

      _Cudworth’s Intellectual System._ Ralph Cudworth’s (1617–1688)
        _True Intellectual System of the Universe_ (1678).

 216. _Lord Brook’s hieroglyphic theories._ For Fulke Greville, Lord
        Brooke (1554–1628), the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, see
        Hazlitt’s essay ‘On persons one would wish to have seen’
        (_Literary Remains_), where Lamb speaks of Greville’s
        ‘apocalyptical, cabalistical’ style.

      _The Duchess of Newcastle’s fantastic folios._ Margaret Cavendish,
        Duchess of Newcastle (1624–1674), published between 1653
        and 1668 a number of folio volumes of poems, plays, and
        philosophical treatises. Lamb speaks of her (_Essays of Elia_,
        ‘Mackery End in Hertfordshire’) as ‘the thrice noble,
        chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical, and
        original-brained, generous Margaret Newcastle,’ and in another
        essay (The Two Races of Men) charges Kenney with having carried
        off” with him ‘the letters of that princely woman, the thrice
        noble Margaret Newcastle.’

      _The hortus siccus of Dissent._ Burke, _Reflections on the
        Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 14).

 217. _John Huss_, _etc._ Cf. a passage in the _Political Essays_, vol,
        III. p. 265, and notes thereon.

      _His Religious Musings._ First published in _Poems on various
        subjects_ (1796).

      _The John Bull._ The first number of ‘John Bull,’ Theodore Hook’s
        rascally paper founded to oppose the agitation in favour of
        Queen Caroline, appeared on Dec. 17, 1820. Arbuthnot’s _History
        of John Bull_ appeared in 1712.

      ‘_Laughed with Rabelais_,’ _etc._

      ‘Or laugh and shake in Rab’lais easy chair.’
                                        Pope, _The Dunciad_, I. 22.

      ‘_Spoke with rapture of Raphael_,’ _etc._ Coleridge visited Rome
        in 1806 on his way from Malta to England.

 218. _Sang for joy_, _etc._ Coleridge’s Stanzas entitled _Destruction
        of the Bastile_ (of which the second and third are lost) were
        first published in 1834. They were written about 1789, and
        Hazlitt may have seen them.

      ‘_In Philarmonia’s undivided dale._’ Coleridge in his lines _To
        the Rev. W. J. Hort_, plainly refers to the Pantisocracy scheme.
        Stanza 3, begins

       ‘In Freedom’s UNDIVIDED dell,
       Where _Toil_ and _Health_ with mellowed _Love_ shall dwell,
       Far from folly, far from men,’ etc.

      ‘_Frailty_,’ _etc._ ‘Frailty, thy name is woman!’ _Hamlet_, Act I.
        Scene 2.

      _Paragraphs in the Courier._ Many of Coleridge’s contributions to
        _The Courier_, chiefly from 1809 to 1811, are published in
        _Essays on his own Times_ (1850).

      _A poet-laureate or stamp-distributor._ The reference is of course
        to Southey and Wordsworth.

      ‘_Bourne from whence_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.

 219. _One splendid passage._ ‘Alas! they had been friends in youth,’
        etc., lines 408–426. Cf. Hazlitt’s _Lectures on the English
        Poets_ (on the Living Poets).

      _The Friend._ See note to vol. III. p. 139.

 220. ‘_He cannot be constrained by mastery._’ Wordsworth, _The
        Excursion_, Book VI. See note to vol. III. p. 166.

 221. ‘_Taught with the little nautilus to sail._’ Pope, _Essay on Man_,
        III. 177.

      ‘_Youth at its prow_,’ _etc._ Gray, _The Bard_, II. 2.

      _It was a misfortune_, _etc._ This concluding paragraph was added
        in the second edition.

      _Instead of gathering_, _etc._ Cf. Hazlitt’s essay ‘On Poetical
        Versatility’ in _The Round Table_ (vol. III. p. 151).

      ‘_From the pelting of the pitiless storm._’ _King Lear_, Act III.
        Scene 4.

      ‘_As with triple steel._’ _Paradise Lost_, II. 569.

      ‘_His words were hollow_’ _etc._ Cf. ‘But all was false and
        hollow ... yet he pleased the ear.’ _Paradise Lost_, II. 112–7.

 222. ‘_And curs’d the hour_,’ _etc._

   ‘Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
   When first from Schiraz’ walls I bent my way!’
                                     Collins, _Oriental Eclogues_, II.

      MR. IRVING. This essay is from the _New Monthly Magazine_ (1824,
        vol. X. p. 187). Edward Irving (1792–1834), after having been
        for a time Dr. Chalmers’s assistant at Glasgow, came to London
        in July 1822, as minister of the Caledonian Asylum Chapel in
        Cross Street, Hatton Garden. In 1829 he removed into the new
        church, built for him in Regent Square, where the ‘unknown
        tongues’ began to be heard. Hazlitt wrote a paper for _The
        Liberal_ (1823) entitled ‘Pulpit Oratory, Dr. Chalmers and Mr.
        Irving,’ reprinted in the present edition.

      _A burning and a shining light._ _St. John_, V. 35.

      ‘_Nothing extenuate_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Scene 2.

 223. _After the last fight._ Between the Gas-man and Bill Neate
        described by Hazlitt himself in the Essay entitled ‘The Fight,’
        republished in _Literary Remains_.

      _Shaw the Life-guardsman._ Apostrophised by Moore in his _Epistle
        from Tom Crib to Big Ben_. In a note Moore describes him as ‘a
        Life Guardsman, one of the Fancy, who distinguished himself, and
        was killed in the memorable _set-to_ at Waterloo.’

      _Crib or Molyneux._ Tom Cribb (1781–1848) the champion pugilist
        defeated Tom Molineaux, an American black, in two fights (1810
        and 1811). At the time of Hazlitt’s essay, Cribb had retired,
        and was proprietor of a public house, the King’s Arms, at the
        corner of Duke Street and King Street, St. James’s.

      _Miss Macauley’s readings._ Elizabeth Wright Macauley (1785–1837),
        poetess, actress, public reader, pamphleteer and preacher,
        appeared at Covent Garden in 1819 in the rôles of Mary Stuart
        and Jane Shore, but did not satisfy the managers, and was
        dismissed. After that she gave public readings and became a
        woman with a grievance. See her pamphlets, _Theatric Revolution_
        (1819) and _Facts against Falsehood_ (1824). In 1833 she
        published a fragment of _Autobiographical Memoirs_.

      _Exeter-Change._ The upper rooms of Exeter ‘Change in the Strand
        were let for various purposes, among others for the purposes of
        a menagerie. Byron writes in his Journal (Nov. 1813, ed.
        Prothero, II. 319): ‘Two nights ago I saw the tigers sup at
        Exeter ‘Change.’

 224. ‘_Lies floating many a rood._’ _Paradise Lost_, I. 196.

      ‘_Bestrode the world_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act I. Scene 2.

      ‘_The player’s province_,’ _etc._ Robert Lloyd, _The Actor_
        (1760), ll. 67–8.

      ‘_Damnation round the land._’ Pope, _The Universal Prayer_, St. 7.

      ‘_Hath a smooth aspect_,’ _etc._

     ‘He hath a person and a smooth dispose
     To be suspected; framed to make women false.’
                                         _Othello_, Act I. Scene 3.

      ‘_Faultless monster._’ From the _Essay on Poetry_ of John
        Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.

 225. ‘_Consummation_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.

      ‘_A lusty man’_, _etc._

         ‘A manly man, to been an abbot able.’
                                       Chaucer, _Prologue_, 167.

 225. _Glanced an eye at Mr. Canning._ The immediate cause of Irving’s
        popularity is said to have been a flattering reference to him by
        Canning in the House of Commons.

      ‘_Like an eagle_,’ _etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act V. Scene 6.

      _Peter Aretine._ Pietro Aretino (1492–1557) ‘the scourge of
        princes.’

 226. ‘_God made the country_,’ _etc._ Cowper, _The Task_, i. 749.

 227. The ‘Saints,’ etc. Wilberforce was a prominent member of the
        ‘Clapham Sect,’ and represented Yorkshire from 1784 to 1812.

      ‘_Hilting the house_,’ _etc._ This expression is used by Burke in
        his speech on American taxation (Ap. 19, 1774). See _Select
        Works_ (ed. Payne), i. 147 and note.

      _A Mr. Fox._ William Johnson Fox (1786–1864), the anti-corn law
        orator, was at this time Unitarian preacher at the Chapel in
        South Place, Finsbury, which was built for him, and opened in
        1824.

 228. _The Duke of Sussex._ The sixth son of George III., created Duke
        of Sussex in 1801.

      _Miraturque_, _etc._

       ‘Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma.’
                                       Virgil, _Georgics_, II. 82.

      _Dr. Chalmers._ Chalmers’s _Astronomical Discourses_ (week-day
        sermons delivered at the Tron Church, Glasgow) were published in
        1817, and in the same year he visited London where his sermons,
        at the Surrey Chapel, and at the Scotch Churches in London Wall
        and Swallow Street, created extraordinary enthusiasm. Hazlitt
        had heard him in Glasgow. See _Memoirs of W. Hazlitt_, II. 42.

      ‘_Four Orations_,’ _etc._ Irving’s _For the Oracles of God, four
        Orations; for Judgment to Come, an Argument in nine Parts_ was
        published in 1823. Lowndes mentions a third edition in 1824.

 229. _Orator Henley._ John Henley (1692–1756), who preached at Newport
        Market, and, later, in what Pope calls ‘Henley’s gilt tub,’ at
        Clare Market, is one of the heroes of the _Dunciad_—

    ‘Embrowned with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
    Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands.’
                                              Act III. 199, _et seq._

      Pope gives a long note upon him.

      ‘_A monkey preacher._’ Hazlitt probably refers to the passage from
        the _Dunciad_ referred to in the last note—

           ‘Oh worthy thou of Aegypt’s wise abodes,
           A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods!’
                                                   III. 207–8.

      ‘_By the coinage_,’ _etc._ A composite quotation. Cf. ‘This is the
        very coinage of your brain’ (_Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4), and ‘A
        false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain’
        (_Macbeth_, Act II. Scene 1).

 230. ‘_There’s magic in the web._’ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 4.

      ‘_By his so potent art_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act V. Scene 1.

      ‘_Now of the planetary_,’ _etc._ Cf.

    ‘And tell us whence the stars; why some are fix’d,
    And planetary some.’
                                  Cowper, _The Task_, Book III. 158.

      ‘_In the very storm_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.

 230. ‘_To be admired_,’ _etc._ Cf.

        ‘Religion, if in heavenly truths attired,
        Needs only to be seen to be admired.’
                                  Cowper, _Expostulation_, 492–3.

 231. _The late Mr. Horne Tooke._ Published originally in the _New
        Monthly Magazine_ (1824, Vol. X. p. 246). Cf. _ante_, pp. 378
        note and 389–390, and an essay ‘On the Diversions of Purley’
        (_Literary Remains_).

      ‘_So is the London Tavern!_’ According to the usual version Horne
        Tooke said: ‘So is the London Tavern—to those who can pay!’

      _Sir Allan Gardiner._ Alan Gardner (1742–1809) the admiral,
        created a baronet in 1794, represented Westminster from 1796
        till 1806, when he was raised to the peerage as Lord Gardner of
        Uttoxeter. Hazlitt refers to the general election of 1796 when
        Horne Tooke unsuccessfully stood for Westminster against Fox and
        Gardner.

 232. ‘_The King’s Old Courtier_’ _etc._

                  ‘Like an old courtier of the queen’s,
                  And the queen’s old courtier,’

      is the burden of ‘The Old and Young Courtier.’ (See Percy’s
        _Reliques_, ed. Wheatley, II. 315.)

      ‘_Lord of himself_,’ _etc._ ‘Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a
        wife.’ Dryden, _Epistle to John Driden_, 18.

 233. _He used to plague Fuseli_, _etc._ ‘He made strange havoc of
        Fuseli’s fantastic hieroglyphics, violent humours, and oddity of
        dialect.’ Hazlitt, ‘On the Conversation of Authors.’

      _At G——‘s._ Godwin’s presumably.

      _Young Betty’s acting._ William Henry West Betty (1791–1874), the
        young Roscius, made his first appearance in 1803 at the age of
        eleven, and finally retired from the stage in 1824. Many critics
        declared that his acting was finer than Kemble’s, and Home said
        that he had not seen his own creation of Douglas adequately
        realised until he had seen Betty in the part. Cf. Hazlitt’s
        essay on ‘On Patronage and Puffing’ in _Table-Talk_.

      _A professed orator._ This was Coleridge. See Hazlitt’s Essay ‘On
        the Conversation of Authors’ in _The Plain Speaker_, where Horne
        Tooke’s conversational powers are described again.

 235. ‘_Sacred vehemence._’ _Comus_, 795.

      _Lord Camelford._ Thomas Pitt (1775–1804), second Lord Camelford,
        duellist and naval commander.

      _The only palpable hit_, _etc._ Hazlitt included in his _Eloquence
        of the British Senate_ Horne Tooke’s speech (on the eligibility
        of clergymen to sit in Parliament), in which this hit was made.
        The reference in the note is to Letter LXVIII., to Lord
        Chief-Justice Mansfield.

 236. ‘_Native and endued_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act IV. Scene 7.

      _His trial before Lord Kenyon._ In 1790 Horne Tooke unsuccessfully
        contested Westminster against Fox and presented a petition to
        the House of Commons complaining of the riotous conduct of the
        electors. The House voted the petition ‘frivolous and
        vexatious,’ and Fox brought an action against Horne Tooke to
        recover the costs. An account of this action, which was tried by
        Lord Kenyon, was published in 1792.

      _His examination before the Commissioners of the Income-Tax._ See
        Stephens’s _Life of John Horne Tooke_ (II. 157).

      _The State Trials in 1794._ See _ante_, p. 211 note, and Hazlitt’s
        _Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft_ (Vol. II. pp. 139 _et seq._). Home
        Tooke was acquitted on Nov. 22, 1794.

 236. _An intercepted letter._ See Stephens’s _Life of John Horne Tooke_
        (II. 119). The letter related, not to a social invitation, but
        to the preparation of a list of sinecures held by the
        Grenvilles. The letter closed with these words: ‘Query, is it
        possible to get ready by Thursday?’

 237. _The celebrated philosopher of Malmesbury._ Thomas Hobbes
        (1588–1679), born at Malmesbury.

      _Fabellas aniles._ Horace, _Satires_, II. 6, 77–8.

      _A hasty charge._ Junius accused Horne Tooke of having deserted
        Wilkes in connection with the election of Sheriffs for the city
        in 1771. See the Letters of Junius (1805, Vol. II. pp. 104 _et
        seq._).

      ‘_Under him_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act. _III._ Scene 1.

      _He comes off more shabbily_, _etc._ Sir Leslie Stephen takes a
        different view and speaks of Horne Tooke as ‘the most successful
        antagonist of his formidable enemy.’

 238. Sir William Draper (1721–1787), who had commanded the expedition
        against Manilla, involved himself in a controversy with Junius
        by his defence of Lord Granby who was one of the persons
        attacked in Junius’s first letter (21st Jan. 1769).

      _His work on Grammar._ Part I. of Horne Tooke’s ‘Diversions of
        Purley,’ appeared in 1786, another edition containing Part II.
        in 1798–1805.

      _The essence of it_, _etc._ The _Letter to Dunning_ was written
        and published in 1778 when Horne Tooke was undergoing a term
        of imprisonment in consequence of a resolution of the
        Constitutional Society in favour of ‘our beloved American
        fellow-subjects.’ The letter contained his reasoning on the
        word _That_. Coleridge (_Table-Talk_, May 7, 1830) said: ‘All
        that is worth anything (and that is but little) in the
        Diversions of Purley is contained in a short pamphlet-letter
        which he addressed to Mr. Dunning.’

      _Mr. Harris’s Hermes._ The _Hermes, or a Philosophical Inquiry
        concerning Universal Grammar_ of James Harris (1709–1780),
        father of the first Earl of Malmesbury, was published in 1751.
        Johnson said, ‘Harris, however, is a prig, and a bad prig. I
        looked into his book, and thought he did not understand his own
        system.’ (Boswell, _Life of Johnson_, ed. G. B. Hill, III. 245.)

 239. ‘_Bear a charmed life_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Scene 8.

      ‘_Palpable to feeling as to sight._’ Cf. ‘If ’tis not gross in
        sense ... ’tis probable and palpable to thinking.’ _Othello_,
        Act I. Scene 2.

      ‘_Familiar as his garter._’

         ‘The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
         Familiar as his garter.’
                                     _Henry V._, Act I. Scene 1.

      _Mr. Windham._ Horne Tooke in the 4to edition of his _Diversions_,
        speaking of Bruckner’s _Criticisms on the Diversions of Purley_
        (1790) says that the substance of that work ‘was, with singular
        industry and a characteristical affectation, gossiped by the
        present precious Secretary at War, in Payne the bookseller’s
        shop; the cannibal commencing with this modest observation,
        that—“I had found a mare’s nest.”’ See the _Diversions_ (ed. R.
        Taylor, 1860 ed.), p. 122.

      _Bull-baiting._ Windham spoke twice in defence of bull-baiting, on
        April 18, 1800, and May 24, 1802. See his _Speeches_, i.
        331–356.

 240. ‘_A complex idea_,’ _etc._ See Horne Tooke’s _Diversions_ (ed. R.
        Taylor, 1860), p. 19.

 240. _Mr. Lindley Murray’s Grammar._ Published in 1795 at York, where
        Lindley Murray (1745–1826) settled on coming to England from
        America in 1784. De Quincey refers to Murray as ‘an imbecile
        stranger’ (_Works_, ed. Masson, x. 127), and speaks (_ib._ XI.
        352) of Hazlitt’s _New and Improved Grammar of the English
        Tongue_, _etc._ (see _ante_, p. 389) as an ‘examination’ of
        Lindley Murray’s English Grammar.

 241. _Mr. C***_ ... _Mr. M***_. Probably Croker and Malthus.

      SIR WALTER SCOTT. Published originally in the _New Monthly
        Magazine_ (1824, Vol. X. p. 297). Cf. Hazlitt’s Essay on Scott,
        Racine, and Shakespeare in _The Plain Speaker_.

      ‘_The present ignorant time._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 5.

      ‘_Laudator temporis acti._’ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 173.

 242. ‘_Poetry of no mark_,’ _etc._ ‘A fellow of no mark nor
        likelihood.’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act III. Scene 2.

      In the _New Monthly Magazine_ there is the following editorial
        note on this passage: ‘The writer of this paper, and not the
        Editor, must be considered as here presuming to be the critical
        arbiter of Sir Walter’s poetry. A journal such as this cannot be
        supported without the aid of writers of a certain degree of
        talent, and it is not possible to modify all their opinions so
        as to suit everybody’s taste.’

 243. Note. _Agnes._ _Agnes, or the Triumph of Principle_, 1822.

      _The late Mr. John Scott._ John Scott (1783–1821), editor of the
        _London Magazine_, died in Feb. 1821, from a wound received in a
        duel with Lockhart’s friend Christie, arising out of a quarrel
        between _Blackwood’s Magazine_ and the _London Magazine_. The
        ‘elaborate panegyric’ of the Scotch Novels had appeared in the
        latter magazine early in 1820.

      ‘_Skinned and filmed over._’ ‘It will but skin and film the
        ulcerous place.’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4.

 244. _Mr. Westall’s drawings._ Richard Westall illustrated _Marmion_
        (1809) and _The Lord of the Isles_ (1813).

      _A story goes_, _etc._ A very unlikely story. Long before the
        publication of _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (1805), Scott had
        written not only the translations from the German, but a good
        deal of original work in _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_
        (1802–3).

      ‘_A metre ballad-monger._’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act III. Scene 1.

      ‘_Fancies and good-nights._’ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act III. Scene
        2.

      ‘_Glances from heaven to earth_’ _etc._ _Midsummer Night’s Dream_,
        Act V. Scene 1.

 245. _Like Dorothea._ _Don Quixote_, Part I., Book IV., Chap. xxviii.

      _As Lord Peter_, _etc._ It was Martin who ‘at one twitch brought
        off a large handful of points; and, with a second pull, stripped
        away ten dozen yards of fringe,’ and Jack, who, ‘stripping down
        a parcel of gold lace a little too hastily,’ ‘rent the main body
        of his coat from top to bottom.’ _A Tale of a Tub_, Sect. VI.

      ‘_Over-laboured lassitude_.’ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution
        in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 120).

      _Mr. Constable._ Archibald Constable (1774–1827) was publisher of
        the _Edinburgh Review_, of _Marmion_, and of _Waverley_, and the
        greater number of the novels.

 246. ‘_The embryo fry_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘An eyrie of children, little
        eyases, that cry out on the top of question,’ etc. _Hamlet_, Act
        II. Scene 2.

      ‘_Comes like a satyr_,’ _etc._

               ‘A satyr that comes staring from the woods,
               Must not at first speak like an orator.’

      Earl of Roscommon, Translation of Horace’s _Ars Poetica_, ll.
        281–2. Cf. _Ars Poetica_, ll. 244 _et seq._

 246. ‘_A holy water sprinkle_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book III.,
        Canto xii. Stanza 13.

      ‘_More lively_,’ _etc._ ‘It’s spritely, waking, audible, and full
        of vent.’ _Coriolanus_, Act IV. Scene 5.

      ‘_Their habits as they lived._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4.

      ‘_Give her hand to another_,’ _etc._ _Old Mortality_, Chap.
        xxxviii.

 248. ‘_Her head to the east._’ ‘Na, na! Not that way, the feet to the
        east.’ _Guy Mannering_, Chap. XV.

      ‘_Thick-coming._’ ‘Thick-coming fancies.’ _Macbeth_, Act V. Scene
        3.

      Note. _Perhaps the finest scene._ _Guy Mannering_, Chap. li.

 249. ‘_Consummation_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.

      Note. _Ivanhoe_, Chap. xxiii.

 250. _Flints and dungs._ Hazlitt refers to a passage at the beginning
        of Chap. xliii. of _Ivanhoe_.

      ‘_Calls backing his friends._’ ‘Call you that backing of your
        friends?’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act II. Scene 4.

      _Mr. Mac-Adam._ John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836), whose services in
        the improvement of highways had been recognised and rewarded by
        Parliament in 1823.

      ‘_Sixty years since._’ ‘’Tis sixty years since,’ the second title
        of _Waverley_.

      _Mr. Peel’s Police-Bill._ Peel succeeded in establishing the
        Metropolitan Police in 1829.

 251. _Every living author ... but himself_. Many of the mottoes were of
        course written by Scott himself, though that does not affect
        Hazlitt’s argument.

      ‘_If there were a writer_,’ _etc._ This concluding paragraph did
        not appear in the _New Monthly Magazine_.

      ‘_Born for the universe_,’ _etc._ Goldsmith, _Retaliation_, 31–2.

 ‘Winked and shut his apprehension up.’
             Prologue to _Antonio’s Revenge_ (_History of Antonio and
                Mellida_, Part II.). By John Marston.

 252. _A gang of desperadoes._ Hazlitt seems to refer to the founders of
        _The Quarterly Review_.

      _The lowest panders of a venal press._ The writers in _Blackwood’s
        Magazine_, presumably.

      ‘_Who would not grieve_,’ _etc._

     ‘Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
     Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?’
                             Pope, _Prologue to the Satires_, 213–4.

 253. ‘_As if a man_,’ _etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act V. Scene 3.

      ‘_Cloud-capt._’ _The Tempest._ Act IV. Scene 1.

      ‘_Golden mean._’ The English form of Horace’s ‘auream
        mediocritatem.’ Odes, II. 10–5.

      ‘_Prouder than_,’ _etc._

                   ‘and make him fall
   His crest that prouder than blue Iris bends.’
                               _Troilus and Cressida_, Act I. Scene 3.

      Note. Byron died at Mesolonghi on April 19, 1824.

 254. ‘_Silly sooth_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Scene 4.

 255. ‘_Denotes a foregone conclusion._’ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.

 255. ‘_In cell monastic._’ ‘To live in a nook merely monastic.’ _As You
        Like It_, Act III. Scene 2.

 256. ‘_Thoughts that breathe_,’ _etc._ Gray, _The Progress of Poesy_,
        l. 110.

 257. ‘_Poor men’s cottages_,’ _etc._ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act I.
        Scene 2.

      ‘_Reasons high_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 558–9.

      ‘_Till contemplation_,’ _etc._ Dyer, _Grongar Hill_, l. 26.

      ‘_This bank and shoal of time._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 7.

 258. _Published in the Liberal._ Byron’s fragment _Heaven and Earth: A
        Mystery_, was published in the second number of _The Liberal:
        Verse and Prose from the South_, the ill-fated quarterly review
        established by Shelley, Byron, and Leigh Hunt in Italy. Byron
        and Hunt found themselves unable to work together, especially
        after Shelley’s death in July, 1822, and the review only lived
        through four numbers (1822–3).

      ‘_It is his aversion._’

      ‘A drowsy frowzy poem, call’d the “Excursion,”
      Writ in a manner which is my aversion.’
                                  _Don Juan_, Canto III. Stanza 94.

      ‘_Born in a garret_,’ _etc._

   ‘The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms,
   If Jeffrey died, except within her arms:
   Nay last not least, on that portentous morn,
   The sixteenth story, where himself was born,
   His patrimonial garret, fell to ground.’
                                 _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers._

      ‘_Letter to the Editor_,’ _etc._ Byron’s letter to William
        Roberts, Editor of the _British Review_, was published in No. 1
        of _The Liberal_. See Byron’s _Letters and Journals_ (ed.
        Prothero), Vol. IV., Appendix vii.

 259. Long’s. ‘I saw Byron for the last time in 1815, after I returned
        from France. He dined, or lunched, with me at Long’s, in Bond
        Street.’ Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_, III. 336.

      _The controversy about Pope._ See Byron’s _Letters and Journals_
        (ed. Prothero), Vol. V. Appendix iii. Byron wrote two letters to
        John Murray ‘on the Rev. W. L. Bowles’s Strictures on the Life
        and Writings of Pope,’ the first of which was published in 1821,
        the second not till 1835. Hazlitt himself wrote a paper in the
        _New Scots Magazine_ (Feb. 1818) ‘on the question whether Pope
        was a poet.’

      _From the sublime_, _etc._ ‘Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un
        pas,’ was a saying of Napoleon’s. Paine, in _The Age of Reason_,
        (Part II.) had already expressed the same thought less
        concisely.

      _Scrub in the Farce._ Scrub, in Farquhar’s _Beaux’ Stratagem_, is
        quoted for the variety of his occupations in the household of
        Squire Sullen. See Act III. Scene 3.

      ‘_Very tolerable_,’ _etc._ _Much Ado About Nothing_, Act III.
        Scene 3.

 260. ‘_A chartered libertine._’ _Henry V._, Act I. Scene 1.

      ‘_Like proud seas under him._’ _Two Noble Kinsmen_, Act II. Scene
        1.

      _It is a ludicrous circumstance_, _etc._ Scott acknowledged the
        obligation in a letter to John Murray (Dec. 17, 1821), in which
        he says: ‘I accept with feelings of great obligation, the
        flattering proposal of Lord Byron to prefix my name to the very
        grand and tremendous drama of “Cain.” I may be partial to it,
        and you will allow I have cause; but I do not think that his
        Muse has ever taken so lofty a flight amid her former soarings,’
        etc., Lockhart, v. 150. In a letter to Rose (Dec. 18, 1821),
        after comparing Byron’s devil with Milton’s he says: ‘I think,
        however, the work will not escape censure, for it is scarce
        possible to make the devil speak as the devil without giving
        offence,’ and adds, ‘I question whether our noble friend has
        brought up his friend sufficiently cleanly.’ _Familiar Letters
        of Sir Walter Scott_, II. 127.

 261. ‘_Furthest from them is best._’ Paradise Lost, I. 247.

      _The first Vision of Judgment._ Southey’s, published in 1821, and
        dedicated to the King.

      ‘_None but itself_,’ _etc._ From _The Double Falsehood_, produced
        in 1727, and written or adapted by Lewis Theobald. The line is
        quoted by Burke (_Regicide Peace_, ed. Payne, p. 40).

      ‘_The tenth transmitter_,’ _etc._ Richard Savage’s _The Bastard_,
        l. 8.

      _Lord Byron’s preposterous liberalism._ Hazlitt probably refers
        specially to Byron’s relations with Leigh Hunt and _The
        Liberal_. See _ante_, note to p. 258.

 262. ‘_Nothing can cover_,’ _etc._ Beaumont and Fletcher, or Fletcher
        and Massinger, _The False One_, Act II. Scene 1.

      MR. SOUTHEY. Cf. _Political Essays_, Vol. III. pp. 48–51, 192–232.

 263. ‘_Where he must live_,’ _etc._. _Othello_, Act IV. Scene 2.

      ‘_Whatever is, is right._’ Pope, _Essay on Man_, IV. 394.

      _Old Sarum._ The allusion is to Southey’s early radical
        inscription for Old Sarum.

      ‘_His generous ardour_,’ _etc._ ‘A generous friendship no cold
        medium knows.’

                     Pope, Homer’s _Iliad_, IX. 725.

 264. ‘_The words of truth and soberness._’ _Acts_, xxvi. 25.

      ‘_We relish Mr. Southey_,’ _etc._ ‘You may relish him more in the
        soldier than in the scholar.’ _Othello_, Act II. Scene 1.

      ‘_He is nothing_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘For I am nothing, if not critical.’
        _Ibid._

 265. _Teres et rotundus._ ‘Fortis, et in se ipso totus, teres atque
        rotundus.’

                        Horace, _Sat._ II. 7, 86.

      ‘_Does he not dedicate_,’ _etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 261.

      _His own Glendoveer._ _Curse of Kehama_, vi. 2.

 266. ‘_Or if a composer_,’ _etc._ Perhaps Hazlitt refers to William
        Sotheby (1757–1833), author of _Orestes_ (1802) and _Saul_
        (1807), or to Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868), afterwards Dean of
        St. Paul’s, who had published _Samor_ (1818), _The Fall of
        Jerusalem_ (1820), and _The Martyr of Antioch_ (1822), and was a
        constant contributor to _The Quarterly Review_. ‘A translator of
        an old Latin author’ is presumably Gifford.

      ‘_Far from the sun_,’ _etc._ Gray, _The Progress of Poesy_, l. 83.

 267. ‘_Because he is virtuous_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Scene
        3.

      _The Book of the Church._ Southey’s _The Book of the Church_,
        published in 2 vols. 1824.

      ‘_A little leaven_,’ _etc._ _Galatians_, V. 9.

      ‘_There hangs_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 5.

      _Once a philanthropist_, _etc._ Cf. ‘Once a Jacobin, always a
        Jacobin.’ See vol. III. pp. 110, 159.

 268. ‘_Like the high leaves_,’ _etc._ Southey’s _The Holly Tree_,
        Stanza 5.

      ‘_Full of wise saws_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II. Scene 7.

 269. _Mandeville’s description of Addison._ Cf. _The Round Table_, vol.
        I. p. 9.

      ‘_And follows so_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Act IV. Scene 1.

 270. MR. WORDSWORTH. Hazlitt had met Wordsworth at Alfoxden in 1798
        (see the essay ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets’), and in the
        Lake District in 1803, when he painted a portrait of the poet
        which proved unsatisfactory and was destroyed. In a letter to
        Hazlitt’s son (May 23, 1831), Wordsworth says that he does not
        recollect having met Hazlitt on more than one occasion after
        their meeting at the Lakes. Some of the opinions which Hazlitt
        attributes to Wordsworth appear to be recollections of the
        poet’s conversation. Hazlitt reviewed _The Excursion_ in _The
        Examiner_ (see _The Round Table_, vol. I. pp. 111–125), and
        spoke of him in his Lecture ‘On the Living Poets’ (see _English
        Poets_, vol. V. 161–4).

 270. ‘_Lowliness_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act II. Scene 1.

      ‘_No figures_,’ _etc._

          ‘Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,
          Which busy care draws in the brains of men.’—_Ibid._

      ‘_Skyey influences._’ _Measure for Measure_, Act III. Scene 1.

      ‘_Nihil humani_,’ _etc._ Terence, _Heautontimorumenos_, Act I.
        Scene 1.

 271. _The Lyrical Ballads._ _Lyrical Ballads, with a few other Poems_,
        published in 1798.

      ‘_The cloud-capt towers_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act IV. Scene 1.

      ‘_The judge’s robe_,’ _etc._ Quoted inaccurately from _Measure for
        Measure_, Act II. Scene 2.

 272. ‘_A sense of joy_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _To my Sister_.

      ‘_Beneath the hills_,’ _etc._ _The Excursion_, Book VI.

      _Vain pomp and glory_, _etc._ _Henry VIII._, Act III. Scene 2.

 273. ‘_To him_,’ _etc._ _Ode on the Intimations of Immortality._

 274. _Cole-Orton._ The seat of Wordsworth’s friend, Sir George Howland
        Beaumont, to whom he dedicated the 1815 edition of his Poems.
        ‘Some of the best pieces were composed under the shade of your
        own groves, upon the classic ground of Coleorton.’

      ‘_Calm contemplation_,’ _etc._

            ‘Calm pleasures there abide—majestic pains.’
                                          _Laodamia_, l. 72.

      ‘_Fall blunted_,’ _etc._

         ‘Fall blunted from each indurated heart.’
                                     Goldsmith, _The Traveller_.

 275. _Milton’s wish._ Wordsworth, in that part of _The Recluse_ which
        he published at the beginning of _The Excursion_, quotes
        Milton’s words (_Paradise Lost_, VII. 31)

            ‘——“fit audience let me find though few!”
            So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard—
            In holiest mood.’

      _Toujours perdrix._ Attributed to the confessor of Henry IV. of
        France, when the King illustrated the advantage of variety by
        ordering every course to consist of partridge. See _Notes and
        Queries_, 4th Ser. IV. 336–7.

      ‘_A man of no mark_,’ _etc._ ‘A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.’
        _Henry IV._ Part I., Act III. Scene 2.

 276. ‘_Flushed with a purple grace_,’ _etc._ _Alexander’s Feast_, III.
        51–2. Byron, in his ‘Reply to Blackwood’s Magazine’ (_Letters
        and Journals_, ed. Prothero, IV., Appendix IX. p. 484) says of
        Southey and Wordsworth, ‘Are they not of those who called
        Dryden’s _Ode_ “a drunken song”?’

      _Dares to compare himself_, _etc._ Byron in the same essay refers
        to Wordsworth’s postscripts to Lyrical Ballads, ‘where the two
        great instances of the sublime are taken from himself and
        Milton.’

      Wordsworth’s ‘Selections from Chaucer Modernised,’ written in
        1801, were published, _The Prioress’ Tale_ in 1820, _The Cuckoo
        and the Nightingale_, and _Troilus and Cressida_ in 1841.

      ‘_Action is momentary_,’ _etc._ Quoted inaccurately from _The
        Borderers_ (written 1795–6, published 1842), Act III. In a note
        to _The White Doe of Rylstone_, to which these lines were added
        as a kind of motto in 1837, Wordsworth writes: ‘This, and the
        five lines that follow, were either read or recited by me, more
        than thirty years since, to the late Mr. Hazlitt, who quoted
        some expressions in them (imperfectly remembered) in a work of
        his published several years ago.’

 277. _A great dislike to Gray._ Coleridge was induced ‘by Mr.
        Wordsworth’s conversation ... to re-examine with impartial
        strictness Gray’s celebrated Elegy.’ (_Biographia Literaria_,
        Chap. II.)

      ‘_Let observation_,’ _etc._ De Quincey (_Works_ ed. Masson, X.
        128) attributes this criticism to the author of ‘a little
        biographic sketch of Dr. Johnson, published immediately after
        his death.’ Coleridge makes the same criticism. _Lectures on
        Shakspere and Milton_, 1811–12 (ed. Ashe, p. 72).

      _Drawcansir._ In the Duke of Buckingham’s play, _The Rehearsal_
        (1671).

       ‘Let petty Kings the names of parties know:
       Where’er I come, I slay both friend and foe.’
                                                   Act V. Scene 1.

      _Bewick’s woodcuts._ Thomas Bewick (1753–1828), the famous
        wood-engraver.

      _Waterloo’s Sylvan etchings._ Antoine Waterloo (1609?–1676?), a
        native of Lille, painter, engraver, and etcher.

      ‘_He hates conchology_,’ _etc._ Hazlitt quotes from himself. See
        his Lecture on the Living Poets (_English Poets_, Vol. V. pp.
        163–4).

 278. ‘_Where one for sense_,’ _etc._ _Hudibras_, II. l. 29–30.

      ‘_Take the good_,’ _etc._ Plautus, _Rudens_, Act IV. Scene 7.

 279. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. Sir James Mackintosh (1765–1832), born in
        Inverness-shire, and educated at Aberdeen and Edinburgh
        Universities, with a view to the medical profession, came to
        London in 1788, and soon turned to politics. His _Vindiciæ
        Gallicæ_, in reply to Burke’s _Reflections on the Revolution in
        France_, appeared in 1791. Called to the bar in 1795, he soon
        gained a considerable practice. In 1803 he was appointed to a
        Judgeship in India, where he remained till 1811. Soon after his
        return he was elected (in 1813) for Nairn. From 1819 till his
        death, he sat for Knaresborough. In 1818 he was appointed to the
        professorship of law and general politics at Haileybury, a post
        which he held till 1824. He was made a privy councillor in 1827,
        and a Commissioner of the Board of Control in 1830. His
        _Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, chiefly
        during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_, contributed to
        the seventh edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, was
        republished in 1836 with a preface by Whewell. See Macaulay’s
        Essay on Mackintosh’s _History of the Revolution_.

 281. _His maiden speech._ The speech referred to was delivered on Dec.
        20, 1813. Colonel St. Paul said: ‘A more finical opposition to
        any measure he had never heard in that House.’ _Parl. Hist._,
        XXVII. pp. 301 _et seq._ Mackintosh had spoken before on Dec.
        14.

 282. _Lectures on the Law of Nature and Nations._ A course of
        thirty-nine lectures, delivered between February and June 1799.
        An ‘Introductory Discourse,’ published in 1798, contains a
        recantation of the revolutionary doctrines of the _Vindiciæ
        Gallicæ_, and an attack on Godwin. The lectures do not appear to
        have been published, but some ms. notes, taken by Sir John
        Stoddart at the time, are still preserved.

      ‘_The whiff and wind_,’ _etc._ ‘The whiff and wind of his fell
        sword.’ _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.

 282. ‘_Laid waste the borders_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Lay waste thy woods,
        destroy thy blissful bower.’ Dryden, _The Hind and the Panther_,
        Part 1. l. 158.

      ‘_Carve them as a dish_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act II. Scene 1.

 283. _Guicciardini._ Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540), author of a
        History of Italy from 1494 to 1532.

      _Thuanus._ Jacques Auguste de Thou (1553–1617), whose _Historia
        sui Temporis_ Johnson ‘seriously entertained the thought of
        translating.’

      _Dr. Pangloss._ In George Colman, the younger’s (1762–1836), _The
        Heir-at-law_, produced in 1797.

 284. ‘_Of lamentation_,’ _etc._

         ‘Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
         Heard on the rueful stream.’
                                   _Paradise Lost_, II. 579–80.

 285. ‘_Unbought grace of life._’ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution
        in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 89).

      ‘_And gladly_,’ _etc._ Chaucer, _The Canterbury Tales_, the
        Prologue, l. 308.

 286. _An Essay on the Principles of Human Action._ By Hazlitt,
        published in 1805.

 287. _A History of England._ Mackintosh collected materials for a
        history of England from 1688 to the French Revolution, but left
        only a fragment posthumously published in 1834 under the title
        of ‘A History of the Revolution in England in 1688.’

      MR. MALTHUS. Cf. _ante_, pp. 1–184 and Vol. III. pp. 356–385.

 289. ‘_Like the toad_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act. II. Scene 1.

 290. ‘_The mighty stream of tendency._’ Wordsworth, _The Excursion_,
        Book IX.

      ‘_The Corinthian capitals of polished society._’ Burke,
        _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed.
        Payne, II. 164).

 291. ‘_Palmy state._’ ‘In the most high and palmy state of Rome.’
        _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 1.

      _An obscure and almost forgotten work._ Cf. Hazlitt’s essay ‘On
        the Originality of Mr. Malthus’s Essay’ (_Political Essays_,
        Vol. III. pp. 361–7), where long passages are quoted from
        Wallace’s book.

 295. ‘_Gospel is preached to the poor._’ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is
        upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
        poor.’ _Luke_, iv. 18.

      ‘_The laws of nature_,’ _etc._ Malthus, _Essay on Population_, 4to
        ed., 1803, Book IV., Chap. vii. p. 540.

      _The ‘tables are not full.’_ Hazlitt refers to Malthus’s figure of
        ‘nature’s mighty feast.’ _Ibid._ Book IV., Chap. vi. pp. 531–2.

 296. ‘_To make it thick and slab._’ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Scene 1.

      _Mr. Godwin has lately attempted an answer._ ‘Of Population. An
        Enquiry concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of
        Mankind, in Answer to Mr. Malthus on that Subject,’ 1820.

      _A curious passage of Judge Blackstone._ _Commentaries on the Laws
        of England_, Book II. Chap. xiv.

 298. _Broke a lance with Mr. Ricardo._ In 1814 and 1815 Malthus
        published two pamphlets on the corn laws, to which Ricardo
        replied in an _Essay on the Influence of a low price of Corn on
        the Profits of Stock_ (1815). Hazlitt probably refers to
        Malthus’s _Political Economy_ (1820), in which his differences
        with Ricardo are explained. See Sir Leslie Stephen’s _The
        English Utilitarians_, II. 189 _et seq._

      _Mandeville._ The second edition (1723) of Bernard Mandeville’s
        _The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices Public Benefits_,
        contained _An Essay on Charity and Charity Schools_.

 298. _Plug Pulteney._ See _ante_, note to p. 2, note.

      MR. GIFFORD. Cf. _A Letter to William Gifford_, Vol. I. pp.
        365–411.

      ‘_In the event of his death_,’ _etc._ Gifford resigned the
        editorship of _The Quarterly Review_ in 1824, and after a short
        interval, during which John Taylor Coleridge was editor, was
        succeeded by J. G. Lockhart.

 299. _In his critical pages._ Gifford, though he used his editorial pen
        very freely, does not seem to have written so many articles in
        the _Quarterly_ as his contemporaries imagined. ‘The only entire
        article ever contributed to the _Review_ by Gifford himself was
        that which he wrote, in conjunction with Barron Field, on Ford’s
        “Dramatic works.”’ See Smiles, _Memoirs of John Murray_, I. 180,
        200; II. 44, 49. Sometimes he appears to have inserted what Dr.
        Smiles calls ‘the pungent wit, the Attic salt’ into the articles
        of his contributors.

 300. ‘_Destroy his fib_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Prologue to the Satires_, 91–2.

      ‘_I am not Stephano_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act V. Scene 1.

 301. _If a lady goes on crutches_, _etc._ The allusion is to Gifford’s
        lines on Mrs. Robinson. See _A Letter to William Gifford_, Vol.
        I. note to p. 378.

 302. _The Feast of the Poets._ By Leigh Hunt, published in 1814. See
        Vol. I. p. 377.

      ‘_A man was confined in Newgate_,’ _etc._ See Vol. I. p. 378 for
        an account of the _Quarterly review_ of Leigh Hunt’s _Rimini_.

      _Verses to Anna._ _Ibid._ p. 375.

      ‘_A bud_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act I. Scene 1.

      _Mr. Keats’s ostensible crime_, _etc._ The famous _Quarterly
        Review_ article on _Endymion_ appeared in September 1818, and
        was written by Croker.

 303. ‘_Out went the taper_,’ _etc._ Stanzas XXIII. to XXVII. of _The
        Eve of St. Agnes_, published in 1820.

 304. _Ecce iterum Crispinus._ Juvenal, _Sat._ IV. 1.

 305. ‘_I wish I was_,’ _etc._ See Vol. I. p. 375.

      Note. ‘_He! jam satis est._’ ‘Ohe jam satis est.’ Horace, _Sat._,
        l. 5, 12–3.

      Note. ‘_Why rack a grub_,’ _etc._

 ‘Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel,
 Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
 Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
 This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings,’ etc.
                               Pope, _Prologue to the Satires_, 307 _et
                                  seq._

 306. _Keats died when he was scarce twenty!_ Keats died in his 26th
        year.

 307. _Thus he informed the world_, _etc._ See a review of Hazlitt’s
        _Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_ in the _Quarterly Review_
        (Vol. XVIII., p. 458).

      ‘_It was amusing_,’ _etc._ See a review of _Political Essays_ in
        the _Quarterly Review_ (Vol. XXII. p. 162), and _A Letter to
        William Gifford_, Vol. I. p. 410. In the _Quarterly_ review of
        _Table Talk_ Hazlitt is described as a ‘slang-whanger.’

 308. _The St. Helena articles._ Two articles, in which Hudson Lowe’s
        treatment of Buonaparte is defended, appeared in the _Quarterly
        Review_ shortly after Buonaparte’s death. See Vol. XXVIII. p.
        219, and Vol. XXXIII. 177.

      _Lady Morgan._ Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan (1783?–1859), authoress
        of _The Wild Irish Girl_ (1806) was a favourite subject for the
        vulgar personal abuse of the _Quarterly Review_.

 309. _Peter Pindar._ John Wolcot, ‘Peter Pindar,’ assaulted Gifford,
        mistaking him for his namesake John Gifford, editor of the
        _Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine_. The result was Gifford’s
        _Epistle to Peter Pindar_ (1800).

      _This Drawcansir._ See _ante_, note to p. 277.

 309. _His attacks on Mrs. Robinson_, _etc._ See _A Letter to William
        Gifford_. (Vol. I., p. 378 note).

      _What he will make of Marlowe._ Gifford did not publish an edition
        of Marlowe.

      ‘_The fiery quality._’ _King Lear_, Act II. Scene 4.

      _Spiritus_, _etc._ Petronius Arbiter (_Satirae_, 118, 3rd ed.
        Bücheler, p. 84), quoted by Coleridge in _Biographia Literaria_,
        Chap. xiv. ‘Praecipitandus est liber spiritus’ in the original.

      _In attempting to add the name_, _etc._ See Gifford’s edition of
        _Massinger_ (2nd ed. 1813, Vol. I., p. 14).

 310. _An article had appeared_, _etc._ John Murray had conceived the
        scheme of establishing a Tory review, and had obtained many
        promises of support before the appearance of Jeffrey’s article
        in the _Edinburgh_ (Oct. 1808, Vol. XIII., p. 215), on Cevallos
        and the affairs of Spain. (See Smiles, _Memoirs of John Murray_,
        I. 97). The first number of the _Quarterly Review_ appeared in
        Feb. 1809.

 311. ‘_Those who are not for them_,’ _etc._ _St. Matthew_, xii. 30.

      ‘_Ugly all over with hypocrisy._’ See nowowte to Vol. I., p. 211.

      Note. William Taylor (1765–1836), whose version of Bürger’s
        _Lenore_ so fired the imagination of Scott, was a regular
        contributor to _The Monthly Review_ from 1793 to 1800, and from
        1809 to 1824.

 312. _Mr. Stuart Rose._ William Stewart Rose (1775–1843), the friend of
        Scott, and translator of Ariosto (1823–1831).

 313. _The Lyrical Ballads._ Hazlitt presumably refers to some
        introductory remarks on a new ‘sect of poets’ in a review by
        Jeffrey of Southey’s _Thalaba_. (_Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1802,
        Vol. I., p. 63).

      _Unqualified encouragement_, _etc._ For favourable references to
        Malthus see _Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1807 (Vol. XI., p. 100),
        August 1810 (Vol. XVI., p. 464), and March 1817 (Vol. XXVIII.,
        p. 1). Southey attacked Malthus in the _Quarterly Review_ (Dec.
        1812), but the _Essay on Population_ was defended five years
        later (July 1817) by Sumner.

      ‘_Reasons_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act II., Scene 4.

      _Mr. Jeffrey is the Editor of the Edinburgh Review._ Sydney Smith
        claimed to have been editor of the first number (Oct. 1802),
        Jeffrey was editor from that time till 1829, when he retired on
        being appointed Dean of the Faculty of Advocates.

 314. _Nearly a fourth part of the articles._ Lord Cockburn in his _Life
        of Lord Jeffrey_ (1874 ed., p. 404 _et seq._) gives a total list
        of 200 contributions. A selection was published in four volumes
        in 1844.

      ‘_Infinite agitation of wit._’ Bacon, _Advancement of Learning_,
        Book I., IV. 5.

 316. ‘_Spinning the thread_,’ _etc._ _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act V.
        Scene 1.

 317. _But in private your follies_, _etc._ Hazlitt very likely put
        Jeffrey to this test when he was in Edinburgh in 1823 on his
        divorce business. See Vol. II., p. 314 and note.

 319. ‘_Has no figures_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act II. Scene 1.

      ‘_Tread the primrose path_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 3.

      _A Phillips._ Charles Phillips (1787?–1859), a native of Sligo,
        who enjoyed a great reputation, both at the Irish bar, and at
        the English bar, to which he was called in 1821. Brougham
        himself described his speeches as ‘horticultural.’

      _A Plunket._ William Conyngham Plunket (1764–1854), the advocate
        of Catholic Emancipation, famous for his eloquence both at the
        bar and in Parliament, created Baron Plunket in 1827,
        chief-justice of the Irish common pleas (1827–30), and Lord
        Chancellor of Ireland (1830–1841).

 319. Note. Brougham was born in Edinburgh, where he was educated. His
        mother was Scotch (a niece of Robertson the historian), and his
        father belonged to an old Westmoreland family.

      _The late Lord Erskine._ Erskine died in November, 1823.

 320. ‘_Domestic treason_,’ _etc._

          ‘Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
          Can touch him further.’
                                  _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 2.

 321. ‘_As much again to govern it._’ In _Table Talk_ Hazlitt quotes
        this line as Butler’s.

      ‘_Pour out all as plain_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Imitations of Horace_,
        Sat. I. 51–2.

 322. ‘_Scared at the sound_,’ _etc._ Cf.

     ‘And back recoiled, he knew not why,
     Even at the sound himself had made.’
                                 Collins, _The Passions_, ll. 19–20.

      ‘_The total grist_,’ _etc._ Cowper, _The Task_, Book VI., 108.

 323. _There are few intellectual accomplishments_, _etc._ It was said
        of Brougham that if he had known a little law, he would have
        known a little of everything.

      _The celebrated Carnot._ Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot
        (1753–1823), the first organiser of the armies of the
        Revolution. He left Napoleon in 1800, but returned to him in
        1814, and was Minister of the Interior during the Hundred Days.
        He wrote many works on mathematical subjects.

      ‘_No day without a line._’ ‘Nulla dies sine linea,’ a phrase based
        on a saying of Apelles reported by Pliny. (_Nat. Hist._ XXXV.,
        36, 10).

 325. _Imbibed at Wimbledon Common._ Where Horne Tooke lived.

      ‘_Hunt half a day_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Hart-Leap Well_, Part II.

      LORD ELDON AND MR. WILBERFORCE. The paper on Lord Eldon appeared
        in the _New Monthly Magazine_ (1824, Vol. XI., p. 17).

      ‘_All tranquillity and smiles._’ Cowper, _The Task_, Book IV., 49.

 326. ‘_All is conscience_,’ _etc._ Chaucer, _Prologue_, 150.

      ‘_If wretches hang_,’ _etc._

     ‘And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.’
                                 Pope, _Rape of the Lock_, III. 22.

      _An instance_, _etc._ For John Williams’s attack on the Court of
        Chancery, see _Parl. Hist._ (June 4, 1823, and Feb. 24, 1824),
        and Walpole’s _History of England_, III. 281. An inaccurate
        report of a speech of Abercromby’s on the second of John
        Williams’s motions led the Chancellor to make some angry
        observations from the bench. The incident created a considerable
        sensation and led to a debate in Parliament. (See Twiss’s _Life
        of Lord Eldon_, II. 490–502).

 327. ‘_Resistless passion_,’ _etc._

                     ‘—— for affection,
     Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood
     Of what it likes or loathes.’
                             _Merchant of Venice_, Act IV. Scene 1.

 328. ‘_Lack lustre eye._’ _As You Like It_, Act II. 7.

      ‘_As they were in Rabelais._’ See _Pantagruel_, Liv. II., Chap.
        xxxix _et seq._

      _An injunction against Wat Tyler._ See Vol. III., note to p. 192.

 329. _The Year 1794._ The Year of unsuccessful prosecutions of Horne
        Tooke, Hardy, Thelwall, Holcroft, and others, and the year in
        which _Wat Tyler_ was written.

      ‘_One entire and perfect chrysolite._’ _Othello_, Act V. Scene 2.

      ‘_Read his history_,’ _etc._

    ‘And read their history in a nation’s eyes.’
                    Gray, _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_, Stanza 16.

 330. ‘_So small a drop_,’ _etc._ _Cymbeline_, Act IV. Scene 2.

 331. _Mr. Wilberforce._ William Wilberforce (1759–1833), member for
        Hull 1780–4, for Yorkshire 1784–1812, and for Bramber 1812–1825,
        was early converted to the evangelical party known as the
        ‘Clapham Sect’ or the ‘Saints,’ and became the parliamentary
        leader of the anti-slavery cause. The slave trade was abolished
        by the coalition government in 1807, and emancipation was
        carried in 1833, the year of Wilberforce’s death. Apart from his
        efforts in this cause and on behalf of missionary work in India,
        he gave a general support to the Tory ministries of Pitt (his
        intimate friend), and of the Duke of Portland, Perceval, and
        Lord Liverpool. In particular he approved the coercive measures
        of 1795 and 1817. This partly accounts for the bitter attack not
        only of Hazlitt, but of Cobbett (_Political Register_, Aug.
        1823).

      ‘_What lacks he then._’ _King John_, Act IV. Scene 1.

      ‘_Conscience will not budge._’ ‘Well, my conscience says,
        “Launcelot, budge not.” “Budge,” says the fiend. “Budge not,”
        says my conscience. “Conscience,” say I, “You counsel well.”’
        _Merchant of Venice_, Act II. Scene 2.

      ‘_Woe unto you_,’ _etc._ _St. Luke_, vi. 26.

      _As old Fuller calls them._ _Holy and Profane State._ _The Good
        Sea Captain_, Maxim 5.

 332. ‘_Out upon such half-faced fellowship._’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act
        I. Scene 3.

 333. ‘_By every little breath_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book I.,
        Canto vii. Stanza 32.

      _Clarkson._ Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846). The most indefatigable of
        the extra-parliamentary agitators against slavery. Coleridge
        referred to him as ‘the moral steam engine, or Giant with one
        idea.’

 334. Note. Byron in his _Detached Notes_ (see _Letters and Journals_,
        ed. Prothero, II. 241 note) relates this well-known story as
        having been told to him by Sheridan himself.

      MR. COBBETT. This essay appeared in _Table Talk_ (Vol. I., 1821)
        and was republished in a small volume in 1835, the year of
        Cobbett’s death. Cf. a passage on Cobbett in the _Examiner_
        printed in notes to the _Round Table_, Vol. I. p. 424.

      _Cribb._ See _ante_, note to p. 223.

      ‘_Fillips the ear_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act I. Scene 2.

      _‘Lays waste’ a city orator_, _etc._ The reference is probably to
        an attack on Robert Waithman in the _Political Register_. (See
        _Political Works_, IV. 319 and V. 298.) Waithman was member for
        the City of London from 1816 till 1820, and from 1826 till his
        death in 1833. See _ante_, p. 282, and _post_, note to p. 366.

 335. ‘_Damnable iteration._’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act I. Scene 2.

 336. _Nunquam sufflaminandus erat._ ‘Itaque D. Augustus optime dixit,
        Aterius noster sufflaminandus est.’ M. Annaeus Seneca,
        _Controversiae_, 4, praef. § 7. The saying is quoted by Ben
        Jonson (_Timber_, LXIV.).

      ‘_Weary, stale_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 2.

 337. _Barmecide._ _Arabian Nights_, The Barber’s Story of his Sixth
        Brother.

      ‘_Live in his description._’ A reminiscence, perhaps of the line
        in Pope’s _Dunciad_ (I. 69), ‘But liv’d in Settle’s numbers one
        day more.’

      _Mr. ——._ Probably Brougham. See _Political Works_, V. 145 _et
        seq._

      _His Grammar._ ‘A Grammar of the English Language, in a Series of
        Letters’ (1818).

      _Like Giant Despair._ ‘So, when he arose, he getteth him a
        grievous crab-tree cudgel.... Then he falls upon them, and beats
        them fearfully, in such sort, that they were not able to help
        themselves, or to turn them upon the floor.’ _Pilgrim’s
        Progress_, Part I.

 338. _The Yanguesian carriers._ _Don Quixote_, Part I., Book III. Chap.
        xv.

      ‘_He has the back-trick_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Scene 3.

      ‘_Arrowy sleet._’

      ‘——and flying behind them shot
      Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face
      Of their pursuers.’
                                  _Paradise Regained_, III. 323–5.

      _An Ishmaelite indeed._ Cf. ‘Behold an Israelite indeed,’ etc.
        _St. John_, i. 47. Hazlitt has in mind the description
        (_Genesis_, xvi. 12) of Ishmael: ‘And he will be a wild man; his
        hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against
        him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.’

 340. _The two-penny trash._ Set _Political Register_, August 1817
        (_Political Works_, V. 236).

      ‘_Till a Bill passed the House_,’ _etc._ Cobbett’s _Political
        Register_ had evaded the stamp duty until 1819, when it was
        rendered liable to duty by the fifth of the famous Six Acts
        passed in that year.

      ‘_Ample scope_,’ _etc._ ‘Give ample room, and verge enough.’ Gray,
        _The Bard_, II. 1.

 341. ‘_He pours out_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, Sat. I.
        51–2.

      _Antipholis of Ephesus_, _etc._ See _The Comedy of Errors_, Act V.
        Scene 1.

      _The relics of Mr. Thomas Paine_, _etc._ When Cobbett returned to
        England from America in 1819 he brought Paine’s bones to
        Liverpool and left them there. After Cobbett’s death they were
        seized as part of the property of Paine’s son who became a
        bankrupt.

      ‘_His canonized bones._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 4.

 342. _The Edinburgh Review_, _etc._ In an article by Jeffrey, July
        1807, Vol. X. 386. The reply of Cobbett referred to by Hazlitt
        appeared in the _Political Register_, August 1807. _Political
        Works_, II. 294.

 343. _The Pleasures of Memory._ By Rogers, published in 1792.

      _The Pleasures of Hope._ By Campbell, published in 1799.

 344. _We should dread to point out_, _etc._ Scott said to Washington
        Irving (Lockhart, IV. 93): ‘The fact is, Campbell is, in a
        manner, a bugbear to himself. The brightness of his early
        success is a detriment to all his further efforts. _He is afraid
        of the shadow that his own fame casts before him._’

      ‘_Snatches a grace_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Criticism_, 155.

      ‘_Yet sweeter_,’ _etc._ _Winter’s Tale_, Act. IV. Scene 4.

 345. ‘_And by the vision_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth’s _Ode, Intimations of
        Immortality_, 73–4.

      _Gertrude of Wyoming._ Published in 1809.

      ‘_A loved bequest_,’ _etc._ Part I. Stanzas 11–13.

 346. ‘_Famous poet’s page._’ Cf. ‘A most famous Poet’s witt.’ Spenser,
        _Verses addressed by the Author of the Faerie Queene_ (to the
        Earl of Essex).

      ‘_Jealous leer malign._’ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 503.

 346. ‘_Scattered in stray-gifts_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Stray
        Pleasures_.

      ‘_Like angel’s visits_,’ _etc._ _Pleasures of Hope_, Part II. l.
        378. Cf. _Lectures on the English Poets_ (Vol. V. p. 150), where
        Hazlitt adds: ‘Mr. Campbell in altering the expression has
        spoiled it. “Few,” and “far between” are the same thing.’

      ‘_We perceive a softness_,’ _etc._ Cf. Vol. V. p. 184.

 347. ‘_Ruddy drops_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act II. Scene 1.

      _Hohenlinden._ Published anonymously with _Lochiel_ in 1802, and
        included in the 4to (1803) edition of _The Pleasures of Hope_.

 348. _Mr. Campbell’s prose-criticisms._ Campbell’s ‘Lectures on Poetry
        Re-written’ appeared in the _New Monthly Magazine_ of which he
        was editor from 1820 to 1830. Hazlitt does not refer to his
        _Specimens of the British Poets, with biographical and critical
        notices, and an Essay on English Poetry_ (7 vols. 1819).

      _Mr. Crabbe._ The Poems of George Crabbe (1754–1832), with a Life
        by his son George, were published in 8 vols. 1834, and in one
        volume 1847. The one volume edition has recently been re-issued,
        as a result of the praises bestowed on Crabbe by Edward
        Fitzgerald, who himself made a Selection from the _Tales of the
        Hall_.

      _Audrey’s question._ _As You Like It._ Act III. Scene 3.

 349. ‘_Turns diseases_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act I. Scene 2.

      _Mr. Crabbe’s first poems_, _etc._ Crabbe’s first poems were
        _Inebriety_ (published anonymously in 1775), _The Candidate_
        (1780), and _The Library_ (1781). It was _The Village_ (1783)
        that Johnson read and approved. (See Boswell’s _Life_, ed. G. B.
        Hill, IV. 175.) Crabbe’s patron was Burke, by whom he was no
        doubt introduced to Reynolds, and later to Johnson.

 350. _He brings as a parallel instance_, _etc._ In the Preface to the
        _Tales_ (1812). See _Works_ (1834, IV. 144).

      ‘_In the worst inn’s worst room_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_,
        III. 299.

 351. _He sets out with professing_, _etc._ Hazlitt refers to the
        opening lines of _The Village_.

      _The sad vicissitudes of things._ This phrase occurs in a poem,
        _Contemplation_, by the Rev. Richard Gifford, which was quoted
        by Johnson. See _Tour to the Hebrides_ (Boswell’s _Life_, ed. G.
        B. Hill, V. 117–8). The phrase also occurs in Sterne’s _Sermons_
        (No. XVI.).

      ‘_At one bound_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 181.

      _He does not weave the web_, _etc._ An unacknowledged quotation
        from _All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act IV. Scene 3.

      _The only leaf_, _etc._ Crabbe resided for some time at Belvoir
        Castle as chaplain to the fourth Duke of Rutland. He dedicated
        _The Borough_ to the fifth Duke, and _Tales of the Hall_ to the
        Duchess.

 352. ‘_Thus by himself_,’ _etc._ _The Borough_, Letter xxii., Peter
        Grimes.

 353. _The episode of Phœbe Dawson._ In _The Parish Register_ (Part
        II.). The tale interested Fox on his death-bed. (See _Works_,
        1834, II. 16, 180.)

      _The character of the Methodist parson_, _etc._ Hazlitt probably
        refers to the story of Ruth (_Tales of the Hall_, Book V.,
        _Works_, 1834, VI. 93).

      _Mr. T. Moore._ Cf. _Political Essays_ (Vol. III., pp. 311–321).

      ‘_Or winglet_,’ _etc._ Campbell, _Gertrude of Wyoming_, Part II.,
        Stanza 12.

      ‘_No dainty flower_,’ _etc._ Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_, Book
        II., Canto vi., Stanzas 12 and 13.

 354. ‘_Wasteful and superfluous excess._’ ‘Wasteful and ridiculous
        excess.’ _King John_, Act IV. Scene 2.

 355. ‘_And spread_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act I. Scene 1.

      ‘_Dying or ere they sicken._’ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Scene 3.

 355. ‘_A perpetual feast_,’ _etc._ Milton, _Comus_, 478–9.

      ‘_On the rack_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘That on the torture of the mind to
        lie in restless ecstasy.’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 2.

      ‘_Looks so fair_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act IV. Scene 2.

      ‘_Another morn_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V. 310–1.

 356. ‘_Now, upon Syria’s_,’ _etc._ _Lalla Rookh_, ‘Paradise and the
        Peri.’

      _Della Cruscan sentiment._ See the essay on Gifford, _ante_, p.
        309.

 357. ‘_A penitent tear._’

        ‘——the tear that, warm and meek,
        Dew’d that repentant sinner’s cheek.’
                                        ‘Paradise and the Peri.’

      ‘_Joy, joy for ever_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

      ‘_May bestride the Gossamer_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II.
        Scene 6.

      ‘_In vain Mokanna_,’ _etc._ _Lalla Rookh_, ‘The Veiled Prophet of
        Khorassan.’

 358. ‘_Whose coming_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

      _The ‘Twopenny Post-bag.’_ Published in 1812.

      ‘_Nests of spicery._’ _Richard III._, Act IV. Scene 4.

      ‘_In the manner_,’ _etc._ Moore, _Horace_, Ode XI. Lib. II. Freely
        translated by the Pr—ce R—g—t.

      ‘_An Adonis of fifty._’ ‘This Adonis in loveliness was a corpulent
        man of fifty.’ These words occur in a paper in _The Examiner_
        (March 22, 1812), for which Leigh Hunt and his brother John were
        sent to prison.

      Note 2. Moore’s _Little Man and Little Soul_ was dedicated to
        Charles Abbot (1757–1829) the Speaker, afterwards Lord
        Colchester. Abbot, in his address to the Regent in July
        1813, referred to a Bill for the removal of Roman Catholic
        disabilities which had been defeated.

 359. ‘_In choosing songs_,’ _etc._ Moore, _Satirical and Humorous
        Poems. Extracts from the Diary of a Politician_.

      _The ‘Fudge Family.’_ See Hazlitt’s _Political Essays_, Vol. III.,
        pp. 311–321.

      _The ‘divine Fanny Bias.’_ _The ‘Fudge Family in Paris._’ Letter
        V.

      _The ‘mountains_ à la Russe.’ _Ibid._ Letter VIII.

      _Is Mr. Moore bound_, _etc._ Moore had urged Byron not to become
        associated with Leigh Hunt in _The Liberal_. See Byron’s
        _Letters and Journals_, ed. Prothero, VI. 22. Hazlitt himself
        deals with this matter at some length in an essay in the _Plain
        Speaker_, entitled, ‘On the Jealousy and Spleen of Party.’ See
        also _Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, II., 69–73. ‘The Spirit of
        Monarchy’ was a paper contributed by Hazlitt to _The Liberal_;
        ‘Fables for the Holy Alliance,’ a skit of Moore’s, published in
        1823.

 360. ‘_To be admired_,’ _etc._ ‘Needs only to be seen to be admired.’
        Cowper, _Expostulation_, 493.

 361. _His Story of Rimini._ Published in 1816. A savage review appeared
        in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ for May 1818.

      _His Epistle to Lord Byron._ Included in _Foliage; or, Poems,
        Original and Translated_ (1818).

      _The Feast of the Poets._ Published in 1814. See Vol. I., p. 377.

 362. _Some allusion was made_, _etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 358.

      _Elia, and Geoffrey Crayon._ Cf. Hazlitt’s essay ‘On Persons one
        would wish to have seen’ (_Literary Remains_), for another
        account of Lamb. In a letter to Bernard Barton (Feb. 10, 1825)
        Lamb says: ‘The “Spirit of the Age” is by Hazlitt. The
        characters of Coleridge, etc., he had done better in former
        publications, the praise and abuse much stronger, etc., but the
        new ones are capitally done. Horne Tooke is a matchless
        portrait. My advice is to borrow it rather than buy it. I have
        it. He has laid too many colours on my likeness; but I have had
        so much injustice done me in my own name, that I make a rule of
        accepting as much over-measure to “Elia” as gentlemen think
        proper to bestow.’ In a letter to J. Taylor (_Letters_, ed.
        Ainger, II., 35) he explains how he came to take the name of
        ‘Elia.’

 362. ‘_The pale reflex_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act III. Scene 5.

      ‘_Native to_,’ _etc._ ‘Though I am native here, and to the manner
        born.’ _Hamlet_ Act I. Scene 4.

 363. ‘_Shuffle off_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._, Act III. Scene 1.

      ‘_The self-applauding bird_,’ _etc._ Cowper, _Truth_, l. 58 _et
        seq._

      ‘_New-born gauds_,’ _etc._ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Scene
        3.

      ‘_Give to dust_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

      ‘_Do not in broad_,’ _etc._

      ‘Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
      Nor in the glistering foil
      Set off to the world, nor in the broad rumour lies,
      But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
      And perfect witness of all-judging love.’
                                                  _Lycidas_, 78–82.

 364. ‘_Fine fretwork_,’ _etc._ _Essays of Elia._ The South-Sea House.

 365. ‘_The chimes at midnight._’ ‘We have heard the chimes at midnight,
        Master Shallow.’ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act III. Scene 2.

      ‘_Cheese and pippins._’ Cf. _Merry Wives of Windsor_. Act I. Scene
        2, and _Henry IV._, Part II., Act V. Scene 3.

      _A certain writer._ Hazlitt himself, who contributed three papers
        on Guy Faux to _The Examiner_ in 1821, reprinted for the first
        time in the present edition. Lamb wrote a paper on the same
        subject in _The London Magazine_ for November 1823, _Works_, ed.
        R. H. Shepherd, vol. I. p. 345. See Hazlitt’s essay ‘On Persons
        one would wish to have seen’ (_Literary Remains_).

 366. ‘_To have coined_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act IV. Scene 3.

      ‘_Civic honours._’ See _Letters of Charles Lamb_, ed. W. C.
        Hazlitt, II. 159, where, in a letter to Mrs. Hazlitt, Lamb
        describes his dinner at the Mansion House.

      _Mr. Waithman’s perusal._ Robert Waithman (1764–1833), the
        political reformer, was Lord Mayor in 1823. See _ante_, note to
        p. 334.

      Note. _John Woodvil_ was published in 1802. The lines quoted are
        in Act II.

 367. _Mr. Washington Irvine’s acquaintance_, _etc._ Washington Irving
        (1783–1859), published in New York _The History of New York, By
        Diedrich Knickerbocker_ (1809), and came in 1815 to Europe,
        where he stayed for seventeen years. His _Sketch Book of
        Geoffrey Crayon, Gent_, was published in America in 1819, and in
        London first in part by Miller, then by Murray in 1820; his
        _Bracebridge Hall_ by Murray in 1822. These and his later books,
        _Tales of a Traveller_ (1824), _Tales of the Alhambra_ (1832),
        _Life of Oliver Goldsmith_ (1849), _Life of Mahomet_ (1850),
        _Life of Washington_ (1855), and others are now included in
        fifteen volumes of Bohn’s Standard Library. For an account of
        their publication and of Murray’s lawsuit against Bohn, see
        Smiles’s _Memoirs of John Murray_, Vol. II. _passim_.

      _In his_ ‘mind’s eye.’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 2.

 368. _Mr. Knowles._ James Sheridan Knowles (1784–1862) whose
        _Virginius_ was produced at Covent Garden in May 1820, had
        recently been a confidant of Hazlitt’s in the matter of Sarah
        Walker. See Vol. II. p. 328 (_Liber Amoris_).

 368. _Mr. Knowles himself_, _etc._ Knowles who had acted in the
        provinces as early as 1802, returned to the stage in 1832, when
        he played Master Walter in his own comedy of _The Hunchback_. He
        continued to act till 1843.

 371. _Preface to An Abridgment_, _etc._ The first four volumes of
        Abraham Tucker’s (1705–1774) _The Light of Nature Pursued_ were
        published under the name of ‘Edward Search’ in 1768, the
        remaining three, edited by his daughter, appearing posthumously
        in 1778.

      _Clarissa._ The _eight_ volumes of _Clarissa Harlowe_ were
        abridged by E. S. Dallas in 1868, the _six_ volumes of _Sir
        Charles Grandison_ by Mary Howitt in 1873.

      _Without suffering_, _etc._ Apparently a kind of legal formula, as
        in Hall’s Chronicles (Henry V. 70 b.): ‘that we suffre harm or
        diminucion in person estate worship or goods.’

      ‘_Not sicklied o’er_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.

 373. _John Buncle._ See Vol. I. pp. 51–7 (_The Round Table_).

      ‘_His unrivalled power of illustration._’ See the Preface to
        Paley’s _Moral Philosophy_.

 377. ‘_Petrific mace._’ ‘Death with his mace petrific.’ _Paradise
        Lost_, X. 294.

 378. Note. ‘_Just such shard-born beetle things._’ _Macbeth_, Act III.
        Scene 2.

      Note. _Mr. Horne Tooke._ Cf. _ante_, 231–241.

      Note. _Promontory of noses._ _Tristram Shandy_, Slaukenbergius’s
        Tale.

      Note. _Andrew Paraeus’s._ Ambrose Paraeus’s ‘Solution of noses’ is
        in _Tristram Shandy_, Book III. Chap, xxviii.

      Note. ‘_It is as absurd_,’ _etc._ Cf. _ante_, p. 240.

 381. _Soame Jenyns’s argument._ See Disquisition VII. (_Works_, 1790,
        III. 258 _et seq._). The argument is controverted by Jenyns.

 384. Note. _There is one argument_, _etc._ ‘At sperat adolescens diu se
        victurum: quod sperare idem senex non potest. Insipienter
        sperat. Quid enim stultius, quam incerta pro certis habere,
        falsa pro veris! Senex, ne quod speret quidem, habet: at est eo
        meliore conditione, quam adolescens, quum id, quod ille sperat,
        his jam consecutus est. Ille vult diu vivere: his diu vixit.’
        _De Senectute_, Cap. xix.

 388. _Edward Baldwin._ The name under which Godwin wrote various works
        published by his wife.

 393. _David Booth._ David Booth (1766–1846) published an _Introduction
        to an Analytical Dictionary of the English Language_ in 1806.
        Only one volume of the Dictionary itself was published (1835).


 Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, (late) Printers to Her Majesty at the
                       Edinburgh University Press

-----

Footnote 1:

  The late Sir W. Pulteney, whose character for liberality is well
  known, was firmly persuaded that the author of the Essay on Population
  was the greatest man that ever lived, and really wished to have
  bestowed some personal remuneration on Mr. M. as his political
  confessor, for having absolved him from all doubts and scruples in the
  exercise of his favourite virtue.

Footnote 2:

  Among the former are Hume, Wallace, Smith, and Price; among the latter
  are the Economists, Montesquieu, Franklin, Sir James Steuart, Arthur
  Young, Mr. Townshend, Plato, and Aristotle.

Footnote 3:

  I beg leave to refer the reader to some letters which appeared on this
  subject, in the Monthly Magazine, written by a well informed and
  ingenious man, who had too much good sense and firmness to be carried
  away by the tide of vulgar prejudice.

Footnote 4:

  Yet it is extraordinary that with all their wisdom and virtue they
  would not be able to take any steps to prevent this distress. This is
  a species of fascination, of which it is difficult to form any
  conception.

Footnote 5:

  The prevalence of this check may be estimated _by the general
  proportion_ of virtue and happiness in the world, for if there had
  been no such check there could have been nothing but vice and misery.

Footnote 6:

  In the second edition, it says, _moral restraint_, vice or misery.
  What are we to think of a man who writes a book to prove that vice and
  misery are the only security for the happiness of the human race, and
  then writes another to say, that vice and folly are not the only
  security, but that our only resource must be either in vice and folly,
  or in wisdom and virtue? This is like making a white skin part of the
  definition of a man, and defending it by saying that they are all
  _white_, except those who are _black_ or _tawny_.

Footnote 7:

  I here follow the text of Mr. Malthus, who takes great pains to give a
  striking description of the savage tribes, as a pleasing contrast, no
  doubt, to the elegancies and comforts of polished life. Mr. Malthus’s
  extreme sensibility to the grossness and inconveniences of the savage
  state, may be construed into refinement and delicacy. But it does not
  strike me so. There is something in this mis-placed and selfish
  fastidiousness, that shocks me more than the objects of it. It does
  not lead to compassion but to hatred. We strive to get rid of our
  uneasiness, by hardening ourselves towards the objects which occasion
  it, and lose the passive feelings of disgust excited in us by others
  in the active desire to inflict pain upon them. Aversion too easily
  changes into malice. Mr. Malthus seems fond of indulging this feeling
  against all those who have not the same advantages as himself. With a
  pious gratitude he seems fond of repeating to himself, ‘I am not as
  this poor Hottentot.’ He then gives you his bill of fare, which is
  none of the most delicate, without omitting a single article, and by
  shrugging up his shoulders, making wry mouths at him, and fairly
  turning your stomach, excites in you the same loathing and abhorrence
  of this poor creature that he takes delight in feeling himself. ‘Your
  very nice people have the nastiest imaginations.’ He triumphs over the
  calamities and degradation of his fellow-creatures. He lays open all
  the sores and blotches of humanity with the same calmness and alacrity
  as a hospital surgeon does those of a diseased body. He turns the
  world into a charnel-house. Through a dreary space of 300 ‘chill and
  comfortless’ pages, he ransacks all quarters of the globe only ‘to
  present a speaking picture of hunger and nakedness, in quest of
  objects best suited to his feelings, in anxious search of calamities
  most akin to his _invalid_ imagination,’ and eagerly gropes into every
  hole and corner of wretchedness to collect evidence in support of his
  grand misery-scheme, as at the time of an election, you see the
  city-candidates sneaking into the dirty alleys, and putrid cellars of
  Shoreditch or Whitechapel, and the candidates for Westminster into
  those of St. Giles’s, canvassing for votes, their patriotic zeal
  prevailing over their sense of dignity, and sense of smell.

Footnote 8:

  I mention these names because it is always customary to mention them
  in speaking on this subject: and there are some readers who are more
  impressed with a thing, the oftener it is repeated.

Footnote 9:

  I here leave out of the question, as not essential to it, the effect
  of sudden rises or falls, and other accidental variations in the
  produce of a country which cannot be foreseen or provided against, on
  the state of population.

Footnote 10:

  I find there is here some transposition of names and circumstances,
  but it does not much matter.

Footnote 11:

  I am happy to find that a philosophical work, like Mr. Malthus’s, has
  got a good deal into the hands of young ladies of a liberal education
  and an inquisitive turn of mind. The question is no doubt highly
  interesting; and the author has thrown over it a warmth of colouring,
  that can hardly fail to please. Even Miss Howe was fond of ardours.

Footnote 12:

  I have here purposely left an opening for Mr. Malthus’s ingenuity. He
  will I hope take the hint and write another quarto volume to prove by
  anatomical and medical inquiries into the state of all countries,
  beginning at the north and ending at the south pole, that there is the
  same variation in the quantity and kind of food required by the human
  stomach in different climates and countries, as there is in the
  quantity of sexual indulgence.

Footnote 13:

  Such a change would not require the perfect subjugation, or rather
  annihilation of these passions, or perfect virtue, in the literal
  sense, as Mr. Malthus seems to imply in a late publication—which I
  have not read. It might as well be pretended that no man could ever
  keep his fingers off bank-notes, or pay his debts, who was not
  perfectly honest. In neither case is there required any thing more
  than such a superiority in one set for motives over another, from
  pride, habit, example, opinion, &c. as just to incline the balance.
  The gentlemen of the society of Lloyd’s fund would no doubt scorn to
  touch a shilling of the money entrusted to their care: yet we should
  hardly conclude from hence that they are all of them persons of
  perfectly disinterested characters, and altogether indifferent to
  money-matters. The Turks, it is said, who are very far from the
  character of perfection, leave their goods for sale on an open stall,
  and the buyer comes and takes what he wants, and leaves the money on
  the stall. Men are not governed by extreme motives. If perfect virtue
  were necessary to common honesty, fair dealing, and propriety of
  conduct, there would be nothing but swindlers and black-guards in the
  world. Men steer clear of the law not so much through fear, as because
  it stamps the public opinion. It is a positive thing. If men could
  make up their minds as decidedly about the general characters and
  conduct of individuals without, as they do with, the rough rebuke of
  the law to sharpen their moral sense (to which by the bye Mr. Godwin’s
  plan of plain speaking would contribute not a little) this would go a
  great way towards rendering a system of equality practicable. But I
  meddle with these questions only as things of idle speculation.
  _Jactet se in aulis, &c._

Footnote 14:

  See also other passages giving an account of the state of population
  in Africa, &c. which will be found at the end.

Footnote 15:

  This is a work which I would recommend to every reader of whatever
  party, not only for the knowledge it contains, but for the purity,
  simplicity, and noble dignity of the style. It smacks of the old Roman
  elevation.

Footnote 16:

  I should like to know whether Mr. Malthus would go so far as to say
  that all the wars and rebellions occasioned by religion, that all the
  plots, assassinations, burnings, massacres, the persecutions, feuds,
  animosities, hatreds and jealousy of different sects, that the
  cruelty, bigotry, the pernicious customs, and abominable practices of
  the Pagan and other superstitions, such as human sacrifices, &c.
  whether all those mischiefs and enormities of which religion has been
  made a tool, whether the martyrdom of the first christians, the
  massacre of St. Bartholomew, the fires of Smithfield, the expeditions
  to the holy land, the Gunpowder Plot, the Inquisition, the long
  Parliament, the Reformation and the Revolution,—Popery, Protestantism,
  monks, eremites, and friars, with all their trumpery’ were the
  offspring of the principle of population.

Footnote 17:

  See the extracts from Davenant, Montague, and Bolingbroke.

Footnote 18:

  See the ingenious and elegant defence of the Slave-Trade, attributed
  in the newspapers to his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence. There is
  a magnanimity and noble ingenuousness in the avowal of such a
  sentiment, which can only be expected from those, who from the
  elevated superiority of their situation can look down with contempt on
  the opinion of mankind, and the vulgar notions of decency and order.

Footnote 19:

  Mr. Malthus, for what reason I know not, in his account of the state
  of population in the different countries of modern Europe, has
  declined giving any account of the state of population in Italy.

Footnote 20:

  Among other instances it is mentioned, that every vassal was obliged
  to give the first night of his bride to the lord of the manor, if he
  demanded it. It is hard to be sure for a man to be cuckolded the very
  first night of his marriage. But even at present, though the formality
  of the thing is abolished, there are very few husbands who are not
  tolerably certain of being cuckolded by the first lord, or duke, who
  thinks it worth his while to attempt it. It is some consolation to us
  poor devils of authors, that we have no chance of getting a wife who
  is at all likely to meet with any such distinction. But if I were a
  snug tradesman or city-merchant, and had bargained for a sweet girl
  whose smile was Elysium, whose air was enchantment, and her looks all
  love,—I should be terribly afraid of the cocked hats at the opera. I
  should tremble at every coronet coach that passed the door, and should
  run mad at the sight of a prince’s feather.

Footnote 21:

  Even this is making a very large concession to Mr. Malthus. The real
  points to be given are the possible power of productiveness in the
  earth and the necessary tendency of population to increase.

Footnote 22:

  Fletcher of Saltoun.

Footnote 23:

  Spelman’s Glossary.

Footnote 24:

  Have Dryden’s Fables, the New Eloise, or the Memoirs of Fanny Hill
  never added any thing to the pressure of the principle of population,
  without any reference to the parish registers of deaths and marriages?

Footnote 25:

  Mr. M. always translates the word _misere_ or want misery, and has
  adopted it as the burthen of his song. He has made a very significant
  use of this equivoque in many parts of his work.

Footnote 26:

  The engrafting of trees might be mentioned as an instance in point.

Footnote 27:

  Dr. Paley, of whose depth or originality I have in general but a
  slender opinion, has made one very shrewd and effectual observation in
  reply to Hume’s argument upon miracles; which is, that according to
  Hume’s reasoning, miracles must be _equally_ inadmissible and
  improbable, whether we believe in a superintending Providence or not.
  There must therefore be some fallacy in an argument, which completely
  sets aside so material a consideration. I would recommend this answer,
  which I think a true and philosophical one, to Mr. Malthus’s
  attention, as it may perhaps lead him ‘to new-model some of his
  arguments’ about experience.

Footnote 28:

  It is to no purpose to object, that they would hinder the poor from
  increasing in proportion. This would be merely a negative
  check,—preventing the increase on one side, but setting no bounds to
  it on the other. Besides, not having the poor to work for them, they
  must work for themselves. Neither can it be said that property is a
  fluctuating thing, that changes hands, and passes from the rich to the
  poor and from the poor back again to the rich, still keeping up the
  same inequality; for the greatest wealth would soon be melted down by
  the principle of population, and it is only by the accumulation and
  transmission of property in regular descents that any great inequality
  can subsist. Mr. Malthus wishes to preserve the balance of society by
  hindering the poor from marrying; perhaps it would be preserved as
  effectually by forcing the rich to marry.

Footnote 29:

  Thus the shop-keeper cannot in general be supposed to be actuated by
  any fear of want. His exertions are animated entirely by the prospect
  of gain, or advantage. Yet how trifling are his profits compared with
  those of the merchant. This however does not abate his diligence. It
  may be said that the advantage is as great to him. That is, it is the
  greatest in his power to make; which is the very thing I mean to say.
  In fact we are wound up to a certain pitch of resolution and activity
  almost as mechanically as we wind up a clock.

Footnote 30:

  The immediate rise in the price of manufactured articles upon any rise
  in the price of labour is either a foolish impatience of loss, or a
  trick to make the labourer refund his own earnings by paying more for
  what he wants himself, and by being _pigeoned_ by others that they may
  be able to pay the additional price. It has nothing to do with a fair
  and liberal determination to raise the price of labour, which of
  itself, and if not immediately counteracted by the power and artifices
  of the rich must always tend to the benefit of the labouring part of
  the community.

Footnote 31:

  This is something like Mr. Godwin’s saying, he does not regard a
  new-born infant with any peculiar complacency. They both differ from
  the founder of the Christian religion, who has said, Bring unto me
  little children. But modern philosophers scorn to pin their faith on
  musty sayings.

Footnote 32:

  But a moment ago the subject was involved in the most profound
  obscurity, and great advantages were expected from the manner in which
  Mr. Malthus was to bring it home to each man’s comprehension. In the
  passage immediately following the above, our author quotes Dr. Paley’s
  Moral Philosophy, and as he often refers to this work, I shall here
  take the liberty of entering my protest against it. It is a school in
  which a man learns to tamper with his own mind, and will become any
  thing sooner than an honest man. It is a directory, shewing him how to
  disguise and palliate his real motives (however unworthy) by
  metaphysical subterfuges, and where to look for every infirmity which
  can beset him, with its appropriate apology, taken from the common
  topics of religion and morality. All that is good in Paley is taken
  from Tucker; and even _his_ morality is not the most bracing that can
  be imagined.

Footnote 33:

  Now Lord Colchester.

Footnote 34:

  Lord Bacon’s Advancement of Learning.

Footnote 35:

  Shaftesbury made this an objection to Christianity, which was answered
  by Foster, Leland, and other eminent divines, on the ground that
  Christianity had a higher object in view, namely, general
  philanthropy.

Footnote 36:

  Mr. Fuseli used to object to this striking delineation a want of
  historical correctness, inasmuch as the animating principle of the
  true chivalrous character was the sense of honour, not the mere regard
  to, or saving of, appearances. This, we think, must be an
  hypercriticism, from all we remember of books of chivalry and heroes
  of romance.

Footnote 37:

  We had forgotten the tragedies of Antonio and Ferdinand. Peace be with
  their _manes_!

Footnote 38:

  To be sure, it was redeemed by a high respect and by some magnificent
  compliments. Once in particular, at his own table, after a good deal
  of _badinage_ and cross-questioning about his being the author of the
  Reply to Judge Eyre’s Charge, on Mr. Godwin’s acknowledging that he
  was, Mr. Tooke said, ‘Come here then,’—and when his guest went round
  to his chair, he took his hand, and pressed it to his lips, saying—‘I
  can do no less for the hand that saved my life!‘

Footnote 39:

  Mr. Coleridge named his eldest son (the writer of some beautiful
  Sonnets) after Hartley, and the second after Berkeley. The third was
  called Derwent, after the river of that name. Nothing can be more
  characteristic of his mind than this circumstance. All his ideas
  indeed are like a river, flowing on for ever, and still murmuring as
  it flows, discharging its waters and still replenished—

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

Footnote 40:

  We remember finding the volume in the orchard at Burford-bridge near
  Boxhill, and passing a whole and very delightful morning in reading
  it, without quitting the shade of an apple-tree. We have not been able
  to pay Mr. Irving’s book the same compliment of reading it at a
  sitting.

Footnote 41:

  ‘They receive him like a virgin at the Magdalen, _Go thou and do
  likewise_’—JUNIUS.

Footnote 42:

  This work is not without merit in the details and examples of English
  construction. But its fault even in that part is that he confounds the
  genius of the English language, making it periphrastic and literal,
  instead of elliptical and idiomatic. According to Mr. Murray, hardly
  any of our best writers ever wrote a word of English.

Footnote 43:

  At least, with only one change in the genitive case.

Footnote 44:

  No! For we met with a young lady who kept a circulating library and a
  milliner’s shop, in a watering-place in the country, who, when we
  inquired for the _Scotch Novels_, spoke indifferently about them, said
  they were ‘so dry she could hardly get through them,’ and recommended
  us to read _Agnes_. We never thought of it before; but we would
  venture to lay a wager that there are many other young ladies in the
  same situation, and who think ‘Old Mortality’ ‘dry.’

Footnote 45:

  Just as Cobbett is a matter-of-fact reasoner.

Footnote 46:

  St. Ronan’s Well.

Footnote 47:

  Perhaps the finest scene in all these novels, is that where the
  Dominie meets his pupil, Miss Lucy, the morning after her brother’s
  arrival.

Footnote 48:

  ‘And here we cannot but think it necessary to offer some better proof
  than the incidents of an idle tale, to vindicate the melancholy
  representation of manners which has been just laid before the reader.
  It is grievous to think that those valiant Barons, to whose stand
  against the crown the liberties of England were indebted for their
  existence, should themselves have been such dreadful oppressors, and
  capable of excesses, contrary not only to the laws of England, but to
  those of nature and humanity. But alas! we have only to extract from
  the industrious Henry one of those numerous passages which he has
  collected from contemporary historians, to prove that fiction itself
  can hardly reach the dark reality of the horrors of the period.

  ‘The description given by the author of the Saxon Chronicle of the
  cruelties exercised in the reign of King Stephen by the great barons
  and lords of castles, who were all Normans, affords a strong proof of
  the excesses of which they were capable when their passions were
  inflamed. “They grievously oppressed the poor people by building
  castles; and when they were built, they filled them with wicked men or
  rather devils, who seized both men and women who they imagined had any
  money, threw them into prison, and put them to more cruel tortures
  than the martyrs ever endured. They suffocated some in mud, and
  suspended others by the feet, or the head, or the thumbs, kindling
  fires below them. They squeezed the heads of some with knotted cords
  till they pierced their brains, while they threw others into dungeons
  swarming with serpents, snakes, and toads.” But it would be cruel to
  put the reader to the pain of perusing the remainder of the
  description.’—_Henry’s Hist._ edit. 1805, vol. vii. p. 346.

Footnote 49:

  This Essay was written just before Lord Byron’s death.

Footnote 50:

        ‘Don Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero
        My Leipsic, and my Mont St. Jean seems Cain.’
                                            _Don Juan_, Canto xi.

Footnote 51:

  This censure applies to the first Cantos of DON JUAN much more than to
  the last. It has been called a TRISTRAM SHANDY in rhyme: it is rather
  a poem written about itself.

Footnote 52:

  The late Rev. Joseph Fawcett, of Walthamstow.

Footnote 53:

  At the time when the _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_ first made its appearance, as
  a reply to the _Reflections on the French Revolution_, it was cried up
  by the partisans of the new school, as a work superior in the charms
  of composition to its redoubted rival: in acuteness, depth, and
  soundness of reasoning, of course there was supposed to be no
  comparison.

Footnote 54:

  What an awkward bedfellow for a tuft of violets!

Footnote 55:

      ‘How oft, O Dart! what time the faithful pair
      Walk’d forth, the fragrant hour of eve to share,
      On thy romantic banks, have my _wild strains_
      (Not yet forgot amidst my native plains)
      While thou hast sweetly gurgled down the vale,
      Filled up the pause of love’s delightful tale!
      While, ever as she read, the conscious maid,
      By faultering voice and downcast looks betray’d,
      Would blushing on her lover’s neck recline,
      And with her finger—point the tenderest line!’
                                          _Mæviad_, _pp._ 194, 202.

  Yet the author assures us just before, that in these ‘wild strains’
  ‘all was plain.’

    ‘Even then (admire, John Bell! my simple ways)
    No heaven and hell danced madly through my lays,
    No oaths, no execrations; _all was plain_;
    Yet trust me, while thy ever jingling train
    Chime their sonorous woes with frigid art,
    And shock the reason and revolt the heart;
    My hopes and fears, in nature’s language drest,
    Awakened love in many a gentle breast.’
                                                _Ibid._, _v._ 185–92.

  If any one else had composed these ‘wild strains,’ in which ‘all is
  plain,’ Mr. Gifford would have accused them of three things. ‘1.
  Downright nonsense. 2. Downright frigidity. 3. Downright doggrel;’ and
  proceeded to anatomise them very cordially in his way. As it is, he is
  thrilled with a very pleasing horror at his former scenes of
  tenderness, and ‘gasps at the recollection’ ‘of _watery Aquarius_!’
  _he! jam satis est!_ ‘Why rack a grub—a butterfly upon a wheel?‘

Footnote 56:

  Mr. Merry was even with our author in personality of abuse. See his
  Lines on the Story of the Ape that was given in charge to the
  ex-tutor.

Footnote 57:

  The style of philosophical criticism, which has been the boast of the
  Edinburgh Review, was first introduced into the Monthly Review about
  the year 1796, in a series of articles by Mr. William Taylor, of
  Norwich.

Footnote 58:

  Mr. Brougham is not a Scotchman literally, but by adoption.

Footnote 59:

  After all, the best as well as most amusing comment on the character
  just described was that made by Sheridan, who being picked up in no
  very creditable plight by the watch, and asked rather roughly who he
  was, made answer—‘I am Mr. Wilberforce!’ The guardians of the night
  conducted him home with all the honours due to Grace and Nature.

Footnote 60:

  The late Lord Chancellor Thurlow used to say that Cobbett was the only
  writer that deserved the name of a political reasoner.

Footnote 61:

  Mr. Cobbett speaks almost as well as he writes. The only time I ever
  saw him he seemed to me a very pleasant man—easy of access, affable,
  clear-headed, simple and mild in his manner, deliberate and unruffled
  in his speech, though some of his expressions were not very qualified.
  His figure is tall and portly: he has a good sensible face—rather
  full, with little grey eyes, a hard, square forehead, a ruddy
  complexion, with hair grey or powdered; and had on a scarlet
  broad-cloth waistcoat, with the flaps of the pockets hanging down, as
  was the custom for gentlemen-farmers in the last century, or as we see
  it in the pictures of Members of Parliament in the reign of George I.
  I certainly did not think less favourably of him for seeing him.

Footnote 62:

      Like angels’ visits, short and far between’—
                                                   _Blair’s Grave._

Footnote 63:

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

Footnote 64:

  Compare his songs with Burns’s.

Footnote 65:

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

  Parody on

            ‘There was a little man, and he had a little gun.—

  One should think this exquisite ridicule of a pedantic effusion might
  have silenced for ever the automaton that delivered it: but the
  official personage in question at the close of the Session addressed
  an extra-official congratulation to the Prince Regent on a bill that
  had _not_ passed—as if to repeat and insist upon our errors were to
  justify them.

Footnote 66:

  The description of sports in the forest:

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

Footnote 67:

  These persons who have been so long on the rack of incomprehensible
  theories and captious disputes, whose minds have been stretched on the
  Procrustes’ bed of metaphysical systems, till they have acquired a
  horror of any thing like common sense or familiar expression, put me
  in mind of what is said of those who have been really put to the rack:
  they can bear their unnatural distorted state tolerably well; it is
  the return of sense and motion which is death to them.

Footnote 68:

  How difficult do we find it, to believe that a person is telling us a
  falsehood, while we are with him, though we may at the same time be
  thoroughly convinced that this is the case.

Footnote 69:

  In this age of solid reason, it is always necessary to refer to
  particular examples, as it was formerly necessary to explain all hard
  words to the ladies. Condillac, in his Logic, that favourite manual of
  the modern sciolist, with admirable clearness proves, that our idea of
  virtue is a sensible image; because virtue implies a law, and that law
  must be written in a book, which must consist of letters, or figures
  of a certain shape, colour, and dimensions, which are real things, the
  objects of sense: that we are therefore right in asserting virtue to
  have a real existence, namely on paper, and in supposing that we have
  some idea of it, that is, as consisting of the letters of the
  alphabet. Mr. Horne Tooke, a man of wonderful wit, knowledge, and
  acuteness, but who, with my consent, shall not be empanelled as a
  juror to decide upon any question of abstruse reasoning, has
  endeavoured to explain away the whole meaning of language, by doing
  away its habitual or customary meaning, by denying that words have any
  meaning but what is derived to them from the umbilical root which
  first unites them to matter; and by making it out, that our thoughts
  having no life or motion in them, but as they are dragged about
  mechanically by words, are ‘just such shard-born beetle things’

              ‘As only buz to heav’n on ev’ning wings;
              Strike in the dark, offending but by chance;

                     ·       ·       ·       ·       ·

              They know not beings, and but _bear_ a name.’

  Mr. Tooke’s description of the formation of language[70] is a sort of
  pantomime or masquerade, where you see the trunks of our abstract
  ideas going about in search of their _heads_, or clumsily setting on
  their own _noses_, and afterwards pointing to them in answer to all
  questions: it reminds you of the island of Pantagruel (or some such
  place), where the men carry their heads before them

Footnote 70:

  See his account of the terminations head and ness, or nez. in their
  hands, or you would fancy that our author had lately been at the
  Promontory of noses. Andrew Paraeus, on the solution of noses, was a
  novice to him. I am a little uneasy at this scheme of reducing all our
  ideas to points and solid substances. It is like the project to the
  philosopher, who contended that all the solid matter in the universe
  might be contained in a nutshell. This is ticklish ground to tread
  upon. At this rate, and if the proportion holds, each man will hardly
  have a single particle of understanding left to his share; and in two
  large quarto volumes, there may not perhaps be three grains of solid
  sense. Mr. Tooke, as a man of wit, may naturally wish to turn every
  thing to _point_. But this method will not hold in metaphysics: it is
  necessary to spin the thread of our ideas a little finer, and to take
  up with the flimsy texture of mental appearances. It is not easy to
  philosophize in solid epigrams, or explain abstruse questions by the
  tagging of points. I do not, however, mean to object to Mr. Tooke’s
  etymological system as an actual history of language, but to that
  superficial gloss of philosophy which is spread over it, and to the
  whole of his logic: I might instance in the axiom, on which the whole
  turns, that ‘it is as absurd to talk of a complex idea as of a complex
  star.’ Now this and such like phrases had better have been left out:
  it is a good antithesis, but it is nothing more. Or if it had been put
  into the mouth of Sir Francis, who is a young man of lively parts, and
  then gravely answered by Mr. Tooke, it would have been all very well.
  But as it stands, it is injurious to the interests of philosophy, and
  an affront to common sense. Hartley proceeded a good way in making a
  dissected map of the brain; and did all he could to prove the human
  soul to consist of a white curd. After all, he was forced to confess,
  that it was impossible to get at the mind itself; and he was obliged
  to rest satisfied with having spent many years, and wasted immense
  ingenuity, in ‘vicariously torturing and defacing’ its nearest
  representative in matter. He was too great a man not to perceive the
  impossibility of ever reconciling matter and motion with the nature of
  thought; and he therefore left his system imperfect. But it fell into
  good hands, and soon had all its deficiencies supplied, and its doubts
  cleared up, to the entire satisfaction and admiration of all the dull,
  the superficial, and the ignorant.

Footnote 71:

  Essay on Human Action.

Footnote 72:

  There is one argument in defence of Old Age, in Cicero, which is so
  exquisitely put, that nothing can surpass it: it is a perfect _bon
  bouche_ for a metaphysician. It is where some one objects to old age,
  that the old man, whatever comforts he may enjoy, cannot hope to live
  long, which the young man at least expects to do. To which is
  answered: So much the better; the one has already done what the other
  only hopes to do: the old man has already lived long: the young man
  only hopes that he may. A man would be happy a whole day after having
  such a thought as this.

Footnote 73:

  Mr. Tooke has fallen into the same mistake with which he reproaches
  preceding writers, that of supposing the different sorts of words to
  be the measure of the different sorts of things. He has only reversed
  their inference: for as the old grammarians, who admitted more
  different sorts of words, contended for more differences of things, so
  Mr. Tooke, who admits of fewer sorts of words, argues that there can
  be only as many different ideas or things, as are expressed by the
  different parts of speech. Thus, if substantives and adjectives do not
  represent substance and quality, there can be no such difference in
  nature, or in the human understanding. This we conceive to be a piece
  of as false philosophy, as if we were to affirm that there can be no
  difference between blue or yellow, because they are both adjectives,
  or between light and sound, because they are both substantives. Mr.
  Tooke’s whole object is to show that the different parts of speech do
  not relate to the differences in ideas or things, and yet he would
  make the difference in the one, the test of the difference in the
  other. As to all that he has said of abstraction, and the real or
  physical meaning of words, we believe that we do not understand him;
  for, as far as we do, his facts and cases seem to us to prove the very
  reverse of his conclusions. So he has brought 2000 instances of the
  meaning of words to demonstrate that we have no abstract ideas, not
  one of which 2000 meanings is any thing else but an abstract idea.
  Logic and metaphysics are the weak sides of his reasoning. But he has
  rendered essential services to grammar, which cannot be overlooked or
  forgotten.

Footnote 74:

  ‘A fellow of no mark nor likelihood,’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act III.
  Scene 2.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
 3. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and collected together
      at the end of the last chapter.
 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.







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