Chapter XII (3)

It is the more to be regretted that, in our Universities, translations from English into Greek or Latin should be made so great an object, instead of translations from Greek or Latin into English, because the latter study is perhaps the most beneficial, both to spread a taste for ancient beauties, and to diffuse the means of rivalling them in our own tongue, which the wit of man has ever devised. There is nothing which improves the style like translation from the masterpieces of foreign languages. It is far more beneficial than copying or committing to memory the most perfect specimens of composition in our own tongue, because it both brings us in contact with the most exquisite specimens of human genius, and exercises the mind in the endeavour to transfer them to our own idiom. It varies the thought, it extends the ideas, it suggests new methods of expression. It is the foreign travelling of the soul. It renders foreign or ancient languages tributary to our own; it fills the mind with remote ideas; it not only "elevates us in the scale of thinking beings," but increases our power of communicating our thoughts to the world. What boundless treasures have Milton and Collins, Taylor and Gray, imported into our language from the classical writers: how much was the nerve and form of their expression enhanced by their study of antiquity! Of what value are all their Latin compositions compared to those which, so enriched, they have left in their own tongue?

The next circumstance which has contributed to stamp its peculiar style, and hitherto unequalled perfection, on ancient oratory, is the circumstance that it was all, or nearly all, WRITTEN and committed to memory. This at least was _certainly_ the case with all the orations which have come down to our times; for, if not written, how have they been preserved? There were no short-hand writers in those days. The art of stenography was unknown. No reporters from the _Times_ were in attendance, to catch, with almost magical rapidity, every word which fell from the speaker's lips, and render it with exact fidelity in its ample columns the following morning. What was written came, and could only come, from the author himself. It is well known that several of the most celebrated speeches of Cicero never were delivered at all: the frequent repetition of the same ideas, in the same identical words, in the orations of Demosthenes, affords conclusive evidence that they were not merely carefully prepared, but actually written out. Indeed, to any one who considers the style of the speeches, not only of these great masters, but of all the orators of antiquity, it must be sufficiently evident that nearly all that has come down to us had been written. Some part, without doubt, was caught from the inspiration of the moment: a happy retort was sometimes the result of an interruption, a felicitous reply of an antagonist's attack. But these were the exceptions, not the rule. These extempore bursts were interwoven with the framework of the piece, and committed to paper next day, when the author corrected his speech for permanent preservation. In the dexterous interweaving consisted no small part of the skill of the orator. But the greater part of every speech was, beyond all doubt, written and committed to memory. The style everywhere proves this. It is as impossible for any man, how bright soever his genius or copious his language, to speak extempore in the condensed and emphatic style of the ancient orators, as it would be to compose, as an Improvisatore, the verses of Pope or Campbell.

This circumstance sounds strange in those times, and especially to an Englishman, because it is well known that the grand requisite, the one thing needful to a modern orator, is to speak extempore. Power in reply is considered as the highest quality; and it is to it, _par excellence_, that the much coveted phrase "effective" is applied. We all know what would be the fate of a speaker in the House of Commons who should commit his speeches to memory, and take lessons from Macready or Kean in their delivery. Beyond all doubt, derision would take the place of admiration; the laughs would be much more frequent than the cheers. Yet this is precisely what Cicero and Demosthenes did; it was thus that Pericles ruled the Athenian Democracy, and Æschines all but overturned the giant strength of his immortal adversary. We are not to imagine that these men, whose works have stood the test of twenty centuries, were wrong in their system; it is not to be supposed that every subsequent nation of the earth has misdirected its admiration. It is more probable that some circumstances have occurred to turn oratory, in modern times, aside from its highest flights, and induced a style in public speaking which has now become habitual, and will alone be tolerated, but which is inconsistent with the most perfect style of oratory. Nor is it difficult, if we consider the composition of modern senates, and the objects for which they are assembled, to see what these circumstances are.

As freedom and popular institutions are indispensable to eloquence, it is in England and France, since the Revolution, that oratory of a high description can alone be looked for. But the Anglo-Saxons are essentially a _practical_ race; and the stamp in this respect which nature has affixed to their character, appears, in every age, not less in their deeds than their accomplishments. Imagination has shone forth most brilliantly in many individuals of the race--but, generally speaking, we are not an imaginative people. The Fine Arts have never struck their roots in the open air amongst us; they are the delicate plants of southern realms, which require the shelter and warmth of our conservatories. It is in the highly educated classes alone that a taste for them is general. The romantic, not the classical drama, alone has ever been popular with the mass of our people; the attractions and fashion of the opera are required to make even the beauties of Metastasio tolerable to the very highest ranks. In matters of business, the same disposition is apparent. What is required, what commands success, is neither the flowers of oratory nor brilliancy of imagination nor elegance of diction, but argument to the point. It is thus that the suffrages of jurymen are to be obtained; it is thus that a majority in the House of Commons is to be secured. As the assemblies to whom modern oratory is addressed are much less numerous than those of antiquity--as they are representatives, not citizens; juries, not Areopagites--a different style of speaking has become established from that which was universally felt to be essential in the assemblies of antiquity. When the crowds of a theatre were no longer to be addressed, the theatrical style of oratory fell into disuse.

As argument to the point, accurate acquaintance with the subject, and the power of communicating something of value to the interests with which senates in modern times are intrusted, are the great requisites which are now looked for, set and prepared speeches have been abandoned. It was soon discovered that they would seldom meet the exigencies of a debate, and still less furnish the materials of a reply. They were felt to be of little value, because they did not meet what the audience wished. They were as much out of place as a set speech would be to a jury, after evidence had been led in a case. It will always be so in situations where real business is to be done, and the persons by whom it is to be done are not numerous assemblies, little acquainted with the subjects of discussion--and therefore liable to be swayed by the eloquence of the orator--but a limited number of persons, most of whom are somewhat acquainted with it, and desire to have their information extended, rather than their feelings touched. It has accordingly been often observed, that the style of speaking in the House of Commons has sensibly declined in beauty, though it has increased in knowledge of the subject, since the Reform Bill introduced the representatives of the commercial towns, and business men have found a place in such numbers in the House of Commons. It may be anticipated that, as their numbers and influence increase, the same change will become still more conspicuous.

But although these considerations sufficiently explain how it has happened that the style of speaking, in our national assemblies, has become more business-like and less ornate than in the republics of antiquity, and extempore speaking has grown into a universal practice with all public men who aspire to the honours of "effective" oratory--or such as would acquire a practical sway in the assemblies to which it is addressed--it by no means follows from this, that this system is not a deviation from the method by which alone a perfect style of eloquence is to be attained, or a step in descent in that noble art. Because a thing is useful and necessary, or even unavoidable, with a view to attain certain ends, it is not to be concluded, that it is by attending exclusively to it that the highest and most perfect style in it is to be attained. The simple style of singing best suits private performers, and often appears in the highest degree charming, when flowing from the lips of taste and beauty; but no one would compare art, in these its early stages, to what it appears in the hands of Grisi or Mademoiselle Lind. The style of speaking adopted by our leaders at the Chancery bar, or on the North Circuit, is probably the best that could be devised to attain the object to which the gentlemen of the long robe aspire--that of influencing the judges or juries of those courts; but every one must see that that object is a much inferior one to that which was aimed at by Cicero, Demosthenes, or Bossuet. Their business is with oratory as an art; but, in addition to this, eloquence is a fine art. Great eminence in the latter department can never be attained but by sedulous preparation, and the committing to memory of written compositions; and unless this is done, the fame of no orator, how much soever he may be celebrated during his career, can possibly be durable, or exceed the lifetime of the contemporaries to whom his extempore effusions were addressed.

Nothing is more common than to hear it said, after a powerful speech in the House of Lords or Commons has been delivered, that it rivalled the most finished pieces of ancient eloquence; nay, it is sometimes added that it was "above all Greek, above all Roman fame." In no instance, however, has it been found that this reputation has been lasting, or even long survived the actual appearance of the orator before the Houses of Parliament. The ample columns of Hansard's _Parliamentary Debates_ are often searched to discover inconsistencies in the delivered opinions of public men; sometimes to bring to light facts on statistics which subsequent time has caused to be forgotten; but rarely, if ever, to cull out specimens of elevated thought, condensed argument, or felicitous expression. None of these speeches will take their place beside those of Cicero and Demosthenes, or the _Oraisons Funèbres_ of Bossuet, all of which were written compositions. When the historian comes to record the arguments used on the opposite sides, on great public questions, he cannot refer to a more valuable and faithful record than the Parliamentary Debates; for they tell at once what was advanced in the legislature, and said in the nation, on every subject that came under discussion: but he cannot turn to one which it will be less safe to transfer unaltered to his pages. If he means to render the arguments interesting, or even intelligible, to the great body of readers, he must distil them into a twentieth part of their original bulk: he must dismiss all the repetitions and circumlocutions; he must say in words what he finds delivered in sentences; he must abridge a hundred pages into four or five; he must, in short, do _ex post facto_, and to convey an impression of the argument to future times, what the ancient orators did _ab ante_, and in order to secure the suffrages of the present. It is surprising, when this is carefully done, how effectually a lengthened argument can be condensed into a few pages; and how powerful the bone and muscle appears when delivered from the oppression of the superincumbent flesh.

It is not to be wondered at that it should be so. The reason for it is permanent, and will remain the same to the end of the world. In the heat and animation of a debate, a happy idea may occasionally be struck out, a felicitous retort may be suggested by an interruption. The Parliamentary speeches contain many instances of such ready talent; and it need hardly be said that the effect of it, at the moment of delivery, is in general prodigious. But it is altogether impossible to keep up a speech extempore in that style. Preparation and previous study are the parents of brief and emphatic expression: without their meeting, the offspring need not be looked for. The reason is, that it is while one thought is in the course of delivery that the mind is arranging those which are to succeed it. The conception of a ready extempore speaker must always be two or three sentences ahead of his elocution. Thence the necessity for circumlocution and repetition. It is to _gain time_ for thought--to mould future ideas. If it were not so, he would come to a dead stop, and break down at the end of the first sentence. The faculty of doing this--of speaking of one thing and thinking of another; of composing words in one sentence, and arranging ideas for another, without pause or hesitation--and doing this often in the midst of applause or interruption, is one of the most wonderful efforts of the human mind; and it is its extreme difficulty which renders elegant extempore speaking so very rare, and makes it, when it does appear, the object of such general admiration. But we are persuaded that the greatest master of extempore speaking will admit, that it is wholly impossible to keep up eloquent and condensed expression, for any length of time, without previous preparation. Whenever you hear an orator bringing out condensed and elegant expression for any length of time together, it may be concluded, with absolute certainty, that he is speaking from preparation.

Nor is such preparation inconsistent with occasional allusion to previous argument or retort against interruption; on the contrary, it is by such extempore effusions or sallies, interwoven in the text of a prepared oration, that the highest perfection in the art of oratory is to be attained. If it is wholly prepared, it will appear lifeless and methodical--it will wear the aspect of a spoken essay. If it is wholly extempore, it will be diffuse and cumbrous--crowded with repetitions, and destitute of emphasis. It is by the combination of general careful composition with occasional felicitous reply that the highest perfection in this noble art is to be attained; for the first will give it general power, the last the appearance of extempore conception. By no other method is it possible to combine the two grand requisites of the highest species of oratory--emphatic and condensed language--with those occasional allusions and sudden replies which add so much to its immediate effect, and give it all the air of being produced at the moment. It is true, this is a dangerous style to adopt, and many are the speakers who have broken down under it; for nothing is so apt to induce confusion in the mind, and forgetfulness of what should follow, as new introductions into a prepared composition. But where is there anything great or magnificent achieved in life without difficulty and danger? and the examples of the ancient orators, by whom both were overcome, is sufficient to demonstrate that it is not beyond the reach of genius and perseverance.

Still less is it to be supposed that such a style of speaking is inconsistent with the most vehement and powerful action, and all the aids which oratory can derive from intonation, gesture, and animation in delivery. On the contrary, it is in delivering such speeches that these may be brought to bear with the happiest effect,--as we daily see on the stage, where known speeches, every word of which is got by heart by the actor, and often is familiar to the audience, are every day repeated with the utmost possible effect, and the most impassioned action. It is the want of such animation in delivery which is the great cause of the failure of many able speakers, and nowhere more than in the pulpit. The common opinion that discourses there must be delivered in a cold inanimate manner, suitable to the gravity of the subject and the solemnity of the place, is an entire mistake, and has contributed, perhaps, more than any other cause, to the vast numbers whom the Dissenters have succeeded, both in England and Scotland, in enticing away from the Established Church. It is this animation which generally follows the delivery of thought extempore, compared with the cold monotonous style in which written discourses are usually delivered,--which is one great cause of the signal success which has attended the efforts of the Methodists and Low Churchmen in England, and the Free Church clergy in Scotland. The common opinion among the peasants of Scotland, that the inspiration of Heaven only descends upon extempore speakers, arises from the same cause. They think the extempore preacher is inspired because he is animated; they are sure he who reads his discourse is not so, because he is monotonous. But many examples prove that it is quite possible to combine the most finished and elaborate written composition with such intensity of feeling, and vehemence of action, as will give it the appearance of extempore and uncontrollable bursts of eloquence. The great effect of Dr Chalmers's sermons in Scotland, and Mr Irving's in England, were not required to show that it is by this combination that the highest triumphs in pulpit oratory are to be attained.

Contrast this with the tame and monotonous way in which too many learned and unexceptionable sermons were delivered in the days of Addison, and which, it is to be feared, has not become obsolete since his time:--

"Our preachers stand stock-still in the pulpit, and will not so
much as move a finger to set off the best sermons in the world.
We meet with the same speaking statues at our bars, and in all
our public places of debate. Our words flow from us in a smooth
continued stream, without those strainings of the voice, motions
of the body, and majesty of the head, which are so much celebrated
in the orators of Greece and Rome. We can talk of life and death
in cold blood, and keep our temper in a discourse which turns
upon everything that is dear to us. Though our zeal breaks out
in the finest tropes and figures, it is not able to stir a limb
about us. It was just the reverse in antiquity. We are told that
the great Latin orator very much impaired his health by this
_laterum contentio_, this vehemence of action, with which he used
to deliver himself. The Greek orator was likewise so very famous
for this particular in rhetoric that one of his antagonists, whom
he had banished from Athens, reading over the oration which had
procured his banishment, and hearing his friends admire it, could
not forbear asking them, if they were so much affected by the bare
reading of it, how much more they would have been charmed had
they heard him actually throwing out such a storm of eloquence.
How cold and dead a figure, in comparison of these two great men,
does our orator often make at the British bar or in the senate! A
deaf man would think he was cheapening a beaver, when, perhaps, he
is talking of the fate of the British nation. It is certain that
proper gestures, and vehement exertions of the voice, cannot be
too much studied by a public orator. They keep the audience awake,
and fix their attention on what is delivered to them, at the same
time that they show that the speaker is in earnest, and affected
himself with what he so passionately recommends to others. In
England, we often see people lulled asleep with cold and elaborate
discourses of piety, who would be transported out of themselves by
the bellowings of enthusiasm."[26]

It is no answer to our observations to say, that our greatest orators have been bred at the universities, and that the system cannot be very faulty which has produced Pitt and Fox, Chatham and Burke, Peel and Stanley. Supposing that all these orators had devoted themselves, at college, to classical verses, instead of compositions in their own tongue--which was by no means the case--still, that would by no means prove that the system of education in which they were bred was not eminently defective. They became great speakers, not from having been proficients in "longs and shorts" at Oxford, or in the differential calculus at Cambridge, but in spite of these acquirements. They learned the art of speaking in the forum, as Wellington's soldiers learned the art of war in the field, by practice, in presence of the enemy. Doubtless a great deal may be done, by able and energetic men, in this way; but does it follow from this that education is to go for nothing, and that the old system of sending out officers to begin a campaign and besiege towns without knowing a ravelin from a bastion, was advisable, or likely to insure success in the military art? If you have two or three thousand young men, comprising the élite of the nation, at certain seminaries, _you cannot help finding your leading statesmen and orators there_, whatever they learn at them. They would be found there, though they were taught at them nothing but riding, music, and dancing. The whole rulers of Persia were found at its schools, though they learned nothing at them but to ride, to shoot with the bow, and speak the truth. But it would be rather dangerous to hold that this proves that seminaries, where nothing else was taught, were the ones best suited to secure the first place in society for their scholars, or the blessings of good government to the state.

Nor let it be said that there is no room, as society is now constituted, for the triumphs of the higher species of eloquence; that it cannot be attempted at the bar, and would be hooted down in the House of Commons, where business men now form a large majority, and business speeches, not the flowers of rhetoric, will alone be listened to. There is much truth in these observations, although it will probably be found that, even in courts of justice and in the Reformed House of Commons, a study of the condensed and cogent style of ancient eloquence is not the worst passport to success, and is almost indispensable to the highest triumphs. But supposing the bar and the senate set aside, as places in which business will alone be tolerated, are these the _only_ places in which oratory may be practised, in which opinion may be moulded, and influence by eloquence obtained? Are there no public meetings held amongst us for the purposes of political change, social improvement, religious extension, moral amelioration, charity, or festivity, in which large numbers of the people, and often of all ranks and both sexes, are brought together, in which there is ample room for the display of all the graces of oratory, and in which the most eloquent and impassioned speaker is sure to carry away the palm? Are not these meetings the "primary assemblies," as it were, in which the ideas are elaborated, or the principles formed, which afterwards make their way into the press and the Legislature, and so determine the course of national policy, or the fate of national fortunes? Every day, with the increasing popularising of our institutions, is adding to the influence of eloquence, and multiplying the situations in which its highest style may be poured forth with the greatest effect. Above all, is not the pulpit to be found in every parish, where every week an opportunity is afforded for the most earnest appeals to the consciences of men--where the highest temporal and eternal interests are constantly the subject of discussion--where the most earnest appeals to the feelings are not only allowed, but commendable--and where a mixed and willing audience is always to be met with, of both sexes, who receive, not only with patience, but with gratitude and admiration, the most powerful and moving strains of eloquence which can be addressed to them? Rely upon it, opportunities for oratory in its very highest style are not awanting. What is awanting is due attention early in life to that noble art, the lofty spirit which arises at great objects, and the energetic will, the resolute perseverance, which deem the labour of a lifetime a light price to pay for their attainment.

LAING'S OBSERVATIONS ON EUROPE.

It is not the least merit of Mr Laing's writings that they embrace much matter within a manageable compass. The objects claiming our attention are multiplying so fast upon us--the path of the inquirer is strewn with so many important topics, that he who would keep pace with the march of knowledge, must be content to throw aside all but what is really useful for the journey. The volume before us, forming a sequel to the _Notes of a Traveller_ published by Mr Laing in 1842, fulfils this condition, and comprises within the limits of a moderate octavo a vast variety of subjects, social and political, domestic and foreign--population, the division of land, emigration, militia, university education, Continental railroads, taxes, theatres, fresco-painting, and a multitude of other topics. Among so many subjects, there are of course some on which we are unable to concur in the opinions expressed by the author; and some of his views we can hardly reconcile with the acute good sense that characterises most of his observations. But even on matters where we are forced to differ from him, his remarks are always instructive, original, and suggestive; and he generally presents both sides of a disputed question with remarkable impartiality, leaving the reader to form the conclusion for himself.

There is one circumstance which, in our opinion, greatly enhances the value of Mr Laing's observations on the social condition of our own and other countries. The very worst of all travellers is a political economist--that is, a dogmatist in the science. Whether his _Magnus Apollo_ be Smith, or Say, or Ricardo, he sees all things through the spectacles of his favourite theories. Any inquiries he makes are directed, not to elicit the truth, but to support his pre-formed opinions; and, of course, no one who goes forth on this errand ever fails of finding what he seeks. And thus it happens that a Cobden may traverse Europe from end to end; and at the very time when the thunderclouds of social convulsion were about to burst in the most awful storm that has ever shaken civilised nations, he not only discerns no symptom of the impending hurricane, but beholds nothing but the smiling prospect of contented industry--the budding spring-time of universal peace and reciprocity. But, on the other hand, the observer who is either unacquainted with the doctrines of political economy, or who affects to consider them only as objects of speculative curiosity, is, in the opposite way, just as unfit as the pedant in the science to form correct and comprehensive views of the social condition of foreign states. He wants the proper rule to direct his observations, and can hardly attain any but confused and superficial ideas of the meaning of what he sees around him. He alone is qualified to observe wisely, and to write instructively, about the institutions and customs of other nations, who, having worked out for himself the leading principles of the science, and ascertained their true limits, possesses at the same time sufficient common sense and independence of judgment to apply them. Mr Laing seems to us to be gifted in an eminent degree with these requisites for making good practical use of his theoretical knowledge of political economy. He appears to be fully aware of the vast amount of dangerous error that has resulted from a blind and indiscriminate application of the same abstract laws to all cases, without fully ascertaining their true character, or making allowance for those disturbing causes which often render the law wholly irrelevant. Political economy, like other sciences, has its two parts--the theory and the application; and it too often happens that a man who is well read in the first is totally incapable of giving an opinion on the second, and infinitely the more difficult branch. The platform orator or newspaper writer thinks that if he can but refer to an abstract formula borrowed from Ricardo or M'Culloch, it is sufficient to settle any question of social interests that may come before him--not considering that these formula and maxims _are_ abstract: and that their applicability to the affairs of everyday life may be affected by so many causes that it is scarcely possible to find any actual example to which they can be applied rigorously, and to their full extent. And hence the nonsense that is talked and written, under the name of political economy; hence the absurdities that are enacted under the idea, that nations can be governed by the square and plummet of its rules.

"The truth has been missed," says Mr Jones, in the preface to his
work on the Distribution of Wealth, "not because a steady and
comprehensive study of the story and condition of mankind would
not yield truth, but because those who have been most prominent in
circulating error have really turned aside from the task of going
through such an examination at all; have confined the observations
on which they have founded their reasonings to the small portion
of the earth's surface by which they were immediately surrounded;
and have then proceeded at once to erect a superstructure of
doctrines and opinions, either wholly false, or, if partially
true, as limited in their application as the field from which the
materials for them were collected."

Mr Laing supplies us[27] with an apt illustration of the fallacious use that is very commonly made of general laws, by neglecting to attend to the special circumstances of each case. It has been laid down as a maxim by economists, that a government should not attempt to direct, restrict, or interfere with the employment of capital and industry; but that every man should be left free to use the portion of them he possesses, how, where, and when he pleases. Now this maxim may be true enough in the abstract, and where there are no conditions to limit its application; but it is not equally true in all political states, nor in the same state at different times. The social condition of Great Britain, at the present day, may admit its application more fully than that of most other nations. But we have only to cross the German Ocean to find a circumstance easily overlooked--namely, that of climate, which upsets its relevancy altogether.

A still more striking exemplification of the same fallacy presents itself too obviously, in the opening of the corn trade in our own country. "There should be no artificial restrictions on the food of the people"--that is the abstract axiom on which our legislators grounded the abolition of all customs on imported grain. Does any one question the truth of it as a general axiom? Certainly not: and if we were setting out on a new social system--if the field on which we had to work was a _tabula rasa_, and we were free in all other respects, as well as this, to devise a scheme of government for a nascent community--that maxim would no doubt be kept in view in the construction of our code. But we have to legislate for a state of society in which everything else is artificial--in which restrictions meet us wherever we turn. Our task is not to rear a new edifice, in the plan of which we could give free scope to our taste and skill; but to repair, and if possible improve, an ancient fabric, the work of many different ages, and abounding in all manner of quaint angles and irregularities. We have to deal with the case of a country burdened with an enormous weight of general and local taxation, arbitrarily and unequally distributed,--where the employment of the people, and the application of their capital and industry, is founded on the faith of old laws and a settled commercial principle,--above all, a country where the business of exchange has to be conducted through the most anomalous medium--the medium of a _fettered currency_. One and all of these peculiarities in our condition are so many limitations of the general maxim; and the attempt to carry it out in its full extent, in defiance of these limitations, can only end in confusion and disappointment. Political economy is a safe guide in the hands of a practical legislator, only when he has fully apprehended the truth that there is not one of its principles, from beginning to end, that may not be limited by the special condition of each individual state; and unless he can carry with him this master-principle, so necessary to a right use of the theory of the science, it is far better and safer for those whose interests he directs that he should be wholly ignorant of it, and should trust altogether to common-sense and experience.

There is a very manifest disposition at present, to extend the jurisdiction of political economy to all public questions--to take it for granted that, when a case has once been argued and decided according to its laws, there is no more to be said on the subject. We are apt to forget that there is in all cases an appeal to another court, where the inquiry is not as to what is most favourable to the production of exchangeable Wealth, but what most conduces to the Happiness of the people; and that, still beyond, there is the last supreme tribunal on earth of all human actions, where there is but one law--the universal law of Morality. Are these three jurisdictions identical? Or are the decrees that issue from them necessarily in harmony with each other? So, at least, we are told by those who take the strongest view of the importance of political economy. Their doctrine is, that whatever promotes one of these objects promotes the others; and that wealth, happiness, and virtue, though distinguishable in thought, are mutually and reciprocally united in the history and experience of nations. To buy cheap and sell dear is the way for a man to get rich; but the riches of individuals in the aggregate form national wealth, national wealth produces civilisation, civilisation promotes happiness and contentment, and happiness and contentment promote virtue--such is the sorites on which is founded the creed of a very large section of the present school of economists. That country in which the means of production are most developed is the soil where the higher qualities of man's nature will be found flourishing in greatest perfection. Wealth, then, is the principal thing in the guidance of private conduct, as well as in the government of nations; and with all our getting, the chief concern is to get capital. It is this disposition to submit everything to the test of productiveness that Sismondi has so aptly designated by the title of _chrematism_. The views of that great and philosophic writer, as to the inevitable tendencies of the doctrine, have been already fully explained in our pages.[28] We allude to them now only to observe how remarkable a confirmation of his opinions is furnished by the history of the great Continental states since that review of his doctrines was written.

Is there, then, no way of reconciling the apparent antagonism between the development of man's industrial powers, and his higher interests as a rational and accountable being? Are we to conclude that the roads that lead to wealth, to happiness, and to virtue, are necessarily divergent? and that national advancement in any one of these paths implies a departure from the others? No; not necessarily so. Such is not the doctrine taught by Sismondi, and by those who, with him, impugn the title of political economy to be considered as the great paramount rule of social existence. All that they maintain is, that there is _no necessary agreement_ between these three great springs of human action; that though the law of morality may, and obviously often does, concur with the maxims of happiness, and those again with the rules of political economy, there are nevertheless many questions on which we are at a loss to reconcile them. The learned Archbishop of Dublin has an elaborate argument in his _Introductory Lectures_, to show, on _a priori_ grounds, that the condition most favourable to the exercise of man's productive energies must also be favourable, not only to the highest development of his intellectual faculties, but also to his advancement in moral purity. Now, we venture to think that no such argument, however ingeniously conducted, can be satisfactory, simply because IT IS _a priori_. Reason and experience are at variance; and no _a priori_ deduction will help us out of the practical difficulty. We, no doubt, all naturally desire and hope--nay, believe--that at some future time, and in some way at present unknown, the perplexing contradiction will be explained. Reason affirms unhesitatingly, that the same Providence which placed so bounteous a store of the physical materials of wealth at our disposal, can never have designed that their cultivation should embitter the lives of those who labour, still less that it should endanger their moral wellbeing; and we look forward, therefore, with firm faith to a period when these paths, which to our present sight seem to lead in directions so opposite, shall all be seen to reunite and terminate in one common end. But, in the present state of our powers, that insight is yet far from being attained, and the great problem yet remains to be solved.--What do we see around us? In this country--whose physical character and the spirit of whose people seem to destine her for the very home and centre of production--are there no discordant elements in our condition? While wealth has increased among us with a rapidity unexampled in the history of the world, and the struggling energies of all men have been strained to the uttermost in the race of industry--while, under the sway of commercial Ministries, legislation has been specially, almost exclusively, directed to stimulating manufactures in every way, and removing every obstacle that could be supposed, however indirectly, to hinder their extension--can we venture to assert that the condition of the great mass of the people has improved in proportion to our riches? Are the relations of employers and the employed on so satisfactory a footing as to give no grounds for anxiety? Has the labourer, by whose toil all those vast accumulations of capital are created, enjoyed an equitable share of them? Have his means of domestic comfort increased in the same ratio as the wealth of his master? Is not the rate of his remuneration diminishing with every step in our progress? Has not crime, during the last half century, increased fully ten times as fast as the numbers of our population? Who can look at these, and a hundred other similar indications that readily suggest themselves, and say that all is well; that, as far as the experience of Britain goes, the road to national wealth has also conducted us to greater happiness and moral wellbeing? Alas! the evidence is but too convincing that, if there be any way of reconciling these ends, we at least have not yet found it. But we repeat that the contrariety between them is not a necessary or universal one. The conditions of great advancement in commerce and the industrial arts, are not all or invariably unfavourable to the innocent enjoyments of life among the labouring people, or hostile to their higher interests. It is not asserted that wealth is necessarily, or in itself, injurious; but only the means which we have hitherto discovered of acquiring it. The Archbishop imputes the converse of this doctrine to those who venture to deny the supreme importance of the objects of political economy, and then proceeds to demolish it by reducing it to absurd consequences. If, says he, it be true that the riches and civilisation of a community _always_ lead to their moral degradation, if you really consider national wealth to be an evil, why do you not set about diminishing it; and, following out the counsels of Mandeville, burn your fleets, destroy your manufactories, and betake yourselves to a life of frugal and rustic simplicity? Such a challenge, we presume to think, has no bearing on the position we have been supporting; and it would be just as fair an argument on our side of the question, if we were to turn round and insist that his Grace should testify to the truth and consistency of the opinions he maintains by turning our churches into cotton factories, and the University of Dublin into a Mechanics' Institute. We go no further than to affirm that, in the experience of our own and the other most civilised nations of Europe, the rapid augmentation of wealth has not been attended with a corresponding increase of rational enjoyment, or of moral improvement, in the mass of the community. Further, we hold that a legislator must recognise these three objects not only as distinct, but as subordinate, one to the other: that is to say, the government of a country is not justified in fostering the interests of the capitalist in such a way as to trench upon the enjoyments of the common people, nor in promoting these to the neglect of their moral and religious instruction. He is not, for example, justified in allowing the employer to demand from his operatives the utmost amount of daily toil that he can extract from them, so as to leave them no time for bodily rest or intellectual culture. All policy that overlooks or contemns this natural subordination in the ends of human existence, must terminate in disaster and misery.

We have been partly led into these reflections through the consideration of a subject which occupies a prominent place in Mr Laing's _Observations_, and seems, in some respects, to illustrate--

"How wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land."

The national advantages of small estates, as compared with the scale of properties most common in this country, have been most fully and systematically discussed by M. Passy, as well as by Mr Thornton, Mr Ramsay, and Mr Mill, among our own writers. But Mr Laing has had the credit of attracting attention to the subject by his extensive personal inquiries as to the actual results of the Continental plan, and by showing (what many English readers are slow to believe) that the "_petite culture_," as pursued in north and central Germany, and in Belgium, so far from being incompatible with the profitable use of the land, is, in fact, more productive than the opposite system of large holdings. These views were strongly expressed in his _Notes of a Traveller_; and his evidence in favour of peasant proprietorship is greatly founded on by Mr Mill, in the able defence of that system which forms part of his work on political economy. The book now before us takes a more enlarged, and in some respects a different view of the question, presenting it in all its bearings, favourable and unfavourable; and thus furnishing the inquirer with all the materials on which he is left to build his own conclusions.

One who looks at the subject for the first time, and whose beau-ideal of agricultural perfection is formed on the pattern of Norfolk or Haddington, finds some difficulty in believing that a country cut up into small "laird-ships" of from five to twenty acres, can be advantageously cultivated at all. He naturally takes it for granted that, as regards efficiency of labour and quantity of produce, the large scale must always have the advantage of the smaller; and that the spade and the flail can, in the long run, have no more chance in competition with the Tweeddale plough and Crosskill's steam thrashing-machine, than a dray-horse with Flying Dutchman. And in England, or any country similarly circumstanced, his conclusion would no doubt be perfectly correct; and yet a visit to Flanders, Holstein, or the Palatinate, will convince him that the boorish-looking owners of the patches of farms he finds there, with the clumsiest implements, and, to his eyes, most uncouth ways of working, do somehow contrive to raise crops which he, with all his costly engines, and the last new wrinkle from Baldoon or Tiptree Hall, cannot pretend to match. Their superiority as to the cereal grains is perhaps questionable; but, looking to the quantity of produce generally, no impartial observer can doubt that, after making every allowance for difference of soil and climate, a given area of land in Belgium _yields more food_ than the same extent in England. How is this to be accounted for? Let us hear Mr Laing's explanation.

"The clean state of the crops here (in Flanders)--not a weed
in a mile of country, for they are all hand-weeded out of the
land, and applied for fodder or manure--the careful digging of
every corner which the plough cannot reach; the headlands and
ditch-slopes, down to the water-edge, and even the circle round
single trees close up to the stem, being all dug, and under crop
of some kind--show that the stock of people, to do all this minute
handwork, must be very much greater than the land employs with
us. The rent-paying farmer, on a nineteen years' lease, could not
afford eighteen-pence or two shillings a-day of wages for doing
such work, because it never could make him any adequate return.
But to the _owner of the soil_ it is worth doing such work by his
own and his family's labour at odd hours; because it is adding
to the perpetual fertility and value of his own property.... His
piece of land to him is his savings-bank, in which the value of
his labour is hoarded up, to be repaid him at a future day, and
secured to his family after him."[29]

This is the secret of the marvellous industry that has converted even the barren sands and marshes of these districts into one continuous garden. It has been accomplished by what, for want of a better expression, we may call spontaneous, in opposition to hired labour. The labourer is himself the owner of the soil, and to one so circumstanced work assumes quite a different aspect; the spade goes deeper, the scythe takes a wider sweep, and the muscles lift a heavier burden. No agricultural chemistry is so potent as the sense of property. The incentive to his daily toil is not the dismal vision of a parish workhouse in the background, but an ever-fresh hope for the days that are before him. His fare may be hard, his clothing coarse, and indulgences rarely procurable; but his abstinence is voluntary--"_et saltem pauperies abest_."

There can be no doubt that a much larger proportion of the population will find employment and subsistence from the land under this system than under ours. Mr Laing illustrates this by supposing the case of an estate in Scotland of 1600 arable acres divided into eight farms of 200 acres each; and he assumes that the labour employed on each of these farms, taking one season with another, is equivalent to that of ten people all the year round--an estimate which is not far from the truth on a well-managed farm.[30] Such an estate of 1600 acres will thus afford constant employment to eighty labourers.

"Now take under your eye a space of land here, in Flanders,
that you judge to be about 1600 acres. Walk over it, examine
it. Every foot of the land is cultivated--dug with the spade or
hoe where horse and plough cannot work; and all is in crop, or
in preparation for crop. In our best farmed districts there are
corners and patches in every field lying waste and uncultivated,
because the large rent-paying farmers cannot afford labour,
superintendence, and manure, for such minute portions of land
and garden-like work as the owner of a small piece of land can
bestow on every corner and spot of his own property. Here the
whole 1600 acres must be in garden-farms of five or six acres;
and it is evident that in the amount of produce from the land,
in the crops of rye, wheat, barley, rape, clover, lucern, and
flax for clothing material, which are the usual crops, the 1600
acres under such garden-culture surpass the 1600 acres under
large-farm cultivation, as much as a kitchen-garden surpasses in
productiveness a common field. On the 1600 acres here in Flanders
or Belgium, instead of the eight farmers with their eighty
farm-servants, there will be from three hundred to three hundred
and twenty families, or from fourteen hundred to sixteen hundred
individuals, each family working its own piece of land; and with
some property in cows, sheep, pigs, utensils, and other stock in
proportion to their land, and with constant employment, and secure
subsistence on their own little estates."[31]

The influence such a mode of life produces on the character of the people is a consideration of higher moment than its economical results. And on this point observation seems in general to confirm the opinion which we should naturally form beforehand. Compared with the employments of mechanics, that of the husbandman demands a much higher and more habitual exercise of the faculty of judgment. His mind is not tied down to the repetition of the same act, chipping a stone, straightening a wire, watching the whirling of a wheel, from the beginning of the year to the end, but almost each day brings a new set of thoughts with it. He cannot proceed a step without forming processes of induction from his observations, and exercising his reason as to the connection of the manifold phenomena he sees around him with their proper causes. The peasant proprietor has to task his inventive faculties too, in order to turn all his humble resources to the best advantage; and his success depends more upon his intelligent use of the limited means at his command, than upon the mere bodily energy of his labour. Of such a person it is, therefore, truly and pregnantly said by Mr Laing, that though he may not be able to read or write, he has an educated mind--a mind trained and disciplined in the school of nature. And his position favours the development of his moral powers still more than his intellectual faculties, by teaching him patience, self-restraint, thought for the future, and, above all, that humility which can scarcely fail to be felt by one who finds himself ever in contact with unseen powers and influences beyond his control.

The general diffusion of the means of comfort and of simple enjoyment, earned by unbought rural industry, is an idea that takes a strong hold of the imagination. The fancy wanders back to the days of the old yeomen of England, or further still to Horace's charming pictures of country life, or to Claudian's Old Man of Verona, thus rendered into glorious English by Sir John Beaumont:--

"Thrice happy he whose age is spent upon his owne,
The same house sees him old that him a child hath known;
He leans upon his staffe in sand where once he crept--
His memory long descentes of one poor cote hath kept.

* * * * *

Unskilful in affaires, he knows no city neare,
So freely he enjoys the light of heaven more cleare.
The yeeres by sev'rall corne--not consuls he computes;
He notes the spring by floures, and autumne by the fruits--
One space put down the sun, and bring again his rays;
Thus by a certaine orbe he measures out his dayes,
Rememb'ring some greate oke from small beginning spred,
He sees the woode grow old which with himself was bred," &c.

In every man's mind we believe there is a quiet corner, where the memories or the imaginations of country life take root and thrive spontaneously. Even the old, hardened, care-worn dweller among the sights and sins of cities will "babble o' green fields" when all other earthly things have faded from his mind. In England especially, the preference for country life amounts almost to a passion; and most of us are ready enough to admit, without demanding many reasons, that a people whose chief employment and dependence is the cultivation of their own lands, will be individually happier than if the scene of their labours were in the mine or the mill. But let us beware lest our rural partialities lead us too far.