Chapter XVI: Part 16

Addison, in one of the papers of The Spectator, enlarges upon the thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of before that which would fall to them by such a division--by imagining a proclamation made by Jupiter, that every mortal should bring in his griefs and calamities, and throw them in a heap. There was a large plain appointed for this purpose. He took his stand in the centre of it, and saw the whole human species marching one after another, and throwing down their several loads, which immediately grew up into a prodigious mountain, that seemed to rise above the clouds. He observed one bringing in a bundle very carefully concealed under an old embroidered cloak, which, upon his throwing into the heap, he discovered to be poverty. Another, after a great deal of puffing, threw down his luggage, which, upon examining, he found to be his wife. He saw multitudes of old women throw down their wrinkles, and several young ones strip themselves of their tawny skins. There were very great heaps of red noses, large lips, and rusty teeth,--in truth, he was surprised to see the greatest part of the mountain made up of bodily deformities. Observing one advancing toward the heap with a larger cargo than ordinary upon his back, he found upon his near approach that it was only a natural hump, which he disposed of with great joy of heart among the collection of human miseries. But what most surprised him of all was that there was not a single vice or folly thrown in the whole heap; at which he was very much astonished, having concluded with himself that every one would take this opportunity of getting rid of his passions, prejudices, and frailties.

"Passions, prejudices, and frailties!" "There is no man so good," says Montaigne, "who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. [Talleyrand, when Rulhiere said he had been guilty of only one wickedness in his life, asked, "When will it end?"] We are so far from being good men, according to the laws of God, that we cannot be so according to our own; human wisdom never yet arrived at the duty that it had itself prescribed; and could it arrive there, it would still prescribe itself others beyond it, to which it would ever aspire and pretend; so great an enemy of consistency is our human condition." Of prejudice it has been truly said by Basil Montagu, in a note to one of his publications, that "it has the singular ability of accommodating itself to all the possible varieties of the human mind. Some passions and vices are but thinly scattered among mankind, and find only here and there a fitness of reception. But prejudice, like the spider, makes everywhere its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. There is scarcely a situation, except fire and water, in which a spider will not live. So let the mind be as naked as the walls of an empty and forsaken tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented with the richest abilities of thinking; let it be hot, cold, dark or light, lonely or inhabited, still prejudice, if undisturbed, will fill it with cobwebs, and live, like the spider, where there seems nothing to live on. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same; and as several of our passions are strongly characterized by the animal world, prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind." "We are all frail, but do thou esteem none more frail than thyself." "Those many that need pity," says Jeremy Taylor, "and those infinities of people that refuse to pity, are miserable upon a several charge, but yet they almost make up all mankind."

"Lord, what is man--what the best of men--but man at the best!" exclaimed the impassioned and pious Whitefield.

"Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving why they do it:
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

"Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us,
He knows each chord--its various tone,
Each spring--its various bias:
Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted."

It is said that when Leonardo da Vinci had finished his celebrated picture of the Last Supper, he introduced a friend to inspect the work privately, and give his judgment concerning it. "Exquisite!" exclaimed his friend; "that wine-cup seems to stand out from the table as solid, glittering silver." Thereupon the artist took a brush and blotted out the cup, saying, "I meant that the figure of Christ should first and mainly attract the observer's eye, and whatever diverts attention from him must be blotted out." Could we poor mortals just as readily blot out of our lives whatever diverts attention from the real good that is in us, how differently would we appear to others.

"Artists," says Hawthorne, "are fond of painting their own portraits; and in Florence, there is a gallery of hundreds of them, including the most illustrious, in all of which there are autobiographical characteristics, so to speak; traits, expressions, loftinesses, and amenities, which would have been invisible had they not been painted from within. Yet their reality and truth are none the less."

A good woman, who had bred a large family, and led a long life of devotion and self-sacrifice--worn out by care, and weary of her burdens--came at length to what was supposed to be her death-bed. A clergyman in the neighborhood thought it to be his duty to call upon her. He asked her in usual language if she had made her peace with her Maker; to which she replied that she was not aware that there had been any trouble.

"The most important thing in life," said Pascal, "is the choice of a profession; and yet this is a thing purely in the disposal of chance." We, however, take little or no account of the effects of particular professions or occupations upon the mind and character, holding all alike responsible for opinions and conduct. It does not occur to us as possible that even suicide and murder may primarily result from vocation. Roesch and Esquirol affirm from observation that indigo-dyers become melancholy; and those who dye scarlet, choleric.

Cottle, the bookseller, wrote with a pencil some lines on the wall of the room in Bristol, Newgate, where poor Savage died, which were admired by Coleridge. These are two of them:--

"If some virtues in thy breast there be,
Ask if they sprang from circumstance or thee."

So much, alas, must be known to judge of a human life. Could we only know that we cannot know enough to judge one another, to say nothing of the indispensable wisdom that surpasses all knowledge. Happily, God is Judge.

Knowledge, in the common sense, as commonly acquired, what is it?

Some need much time to know a little; others know at a glance all that they can. Cumberland said Bubb Doddington was in nothing more remarkable than in ready perspicuity and discernment of a subject thrown before him on a sudden. "Take his first thoughts then, and he would charm you; give him time to ponder and refine, you would perceive the spirit of his sentiments and the vigor of his genius evaporate by the process; for though his first view of the question would be a wide one, and clear withal, when he came to exercise the subtlety of his disquisitional powers upon it, he would so ingeniously dissect and break it into fractions, that as an object, when looked upon too intently for a length of time, grows misty and confused, so would the question under his discussion when the humor took him to be hypercritical." Coleridge said Horne Tooke "had that clearness which is founded on shallowness. He doubted nothing, and therefore gave you all that he himself knew, or meant, with great completeness." Thucydides said of Themistocles that "he had the best judgment in actual circumstances, and he formed his judgment with the least deliberation." Quick or deliberate, shallow or profound, all are apt to assume to know all, when they may be little wiser, in truth, than AEsop's two travelers who had visited Arabia, and were conversing together about the chameleon. "A very singular animal," said one, "I never saw one at all like it in my life. It has the head of a fish, its body is as thin as that of a lizard, its pace is slow, its color blue." "Stop there," said the other, "you are quite mistaken, the animal is green; I saw it with my two eyes." "I saw it as well as you," cried the first, "and I am certain that it is blue." "I am positive that it is green." "And I that it is blue." The travelers were getting very angry with each other, and were about to settle the disputed point by blows, when happily a third person arrived. "Well, gentlemen, what is the matter here? Calm yourselves, I pray you." "Will you be the judge of our quarrel?" "Yes; what is it?" "This person maintains that the chameleon is green, while I say that it is blue." "My dear sirs, you are both in the wrong; the animal is neither one nor the other--it is black." "Black! you must be jesting!" "Not at all, I assure you; I have one with me in a box, and you shall judge for yourselves." The box was produced and opened, when, to the surprise of all three, the animal was as yellow as gold! In one of the Hindoo books we are told that in a certain country there existed a village of the blind men. These men had heard that there was an amazing animal called the elephant, but they knew not how to form an idea of his shape. One day an elephant happened to pass through the place; the villagers crowded to the spot where this animal was standing. One of them got hold of his trunk, another seized his ear, another his tail, another one of his legs, etc. After thus trying to gratify their curiosity, they returned into the village, and, sitting down together, they began to give their ideas of what the elephant was like; the man who had seized his trunk said he thought the elephant was like the body of the plantain-tree; the man who had felt his ear said he thought he was like the fan with which the Hindoos clean the rice; the man who had felt his tail said he thought he must be like a snake, and the man who had seized his leg thought he must be like a pillar. An old blind man of some judgment was present, who was greatly perplexed how to reconcile these jarring notions respecting the form of the elephant, but he at length said, "You have all been to examine this animal, it is true, and what you report cannot be false. I suppose, therefore, that that which was like the plantain-tree must be his trunk; that which was like a fan must be his ear; that which was like a snake must be his tail, and that which was like a pillar must be his body." Once upon a time a pastor of a village church adopted a plan to interest the members of his flock in the study of the Bible. It was this: "At the Wednesday evening meeting he would announce the topic to be discussed on the ensuing week, thus giving a week for preparation. One evening the subject was St. Paul. After the preliminary devotional exercises, the pastor called upon one of the deacons to 'speak to the question.' He immediately arose, and began to describe the personal appearance of the great apostle to the Gentiles. He said St. Paul was a tall, rather spare man, with black hair and eyes, dark complexion, bilious temperament, etc. His picture of Paul was a faithful portrait of himself. He sat down, and another prominent member arose and said, 'I think the brother preceding me has read the Scriptures to little purpose if his description of St. Paul is a sample of his Bible knowledge. St. Paul was, as I understand it, a rather short, thick-set man, with sandy hair, gray eyes, florid complexion, and a nervous, sanguine temperament,' giving, like his predecessor, an accurate picture of himself. He was followed by another who had a keen sense of the ludicrous, and who was withal an inveterate stammerer. He said, 'My bro-bro-brethren, I have never fo-found in my Bi-ble much about the p-per-personal ap-pe-pearance of St. P-p-paul. But one thing is clearly established, and tha-that is, St. P-p-paul had an imp-p-pediment in his speech.'"

"Having lived long," said Dr. Franklin, "I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but I found to be otherwise. It is, therefore, that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that whenever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication tells the pope that 'the only difference between our two churches, in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Romish Church is infallible, and the Church of England never in the wrong.' But, though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady who, in a little dispute with her sister, said, 'I don't know how it happens, sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right.'" "I could never," says Sir Thomas Browne, "divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which, perhaps, within a few days, I should dissent myself." "Whoever shall call to memory how many and many times he has been mistaken in his own judgment," says the great French essayist, "is he not a great fool if he does not ever after distrust it?" "Beware," said John Wesley, "of forming a hasty judgment. There are secrets which few but God are acquainted with. Some years since I told a gentleman, 'Sir, I am afraid you are covetous.' He asked me, 'What is the reason of your fears?' I answered, 'A year ago, when I made a collection for the expense of repairing the Foundry, you subscribed five guineas. At the subscription made this year you subscribed only half a guinea.' He made no reply; but after a time asked, 'Pray, sir, answer me a question. Why do you live upon potatoes?' (I did so between three and four years.) I replied, 'It has much conduced to my health.' He answered, 'I believe it has. But did you not do it likewise to save money?' I said, 'I did, for what I save from my own meat will feed another that else would have none.' 'But, sir,' said he, 'if this be your motive, you may save much more. I know a man that goes to the market at the beginning of each week. There he buys a pennyworth of parsnips, which he boils in a large quantity of water. The parsnips serve him for food, and the water for drink, the ensuing week, so his meat and drink together cost him only a penny a week.' This he constantly did, though he had then two hundred pounds a year, to pay the debts which he had contracted before he knew God! And this was he I had set down for a covetous man." "We shall have two wonders in heaven," said the wise and gentle Tillotson; "the one, how many come to be absent whom we expected to find there; the other, how many are there whom we had no hope of meeting." There is significance in the epitaph by Steele, in The Spectator: "Here lieth R. C., in expectation of the last day. What sort of a man he was that day will discover."

It would seem that, as things are, there is nothing so natural as intolerance; and it is not to be wondered at that the language to express toleration should be of modern invention. Coleridge was of opinion "that toleration was impossible till indifference made it worthless." Dr. King had a different view; he said, "The opinion of any one in this world, except the wise and good, who do not aspire to be even tolerant,--who are too modest to be tolerant, since toleration implies superiority,--is of little consequence." Hunt said of Lamb, that "he had felt, thought, and suffered so much, that he literally had intolerance for nothing." Palgrave, in his Travels through Central and Eastern Arabia, relates of Abd-el-Lateef, a Wahabee, that one day seeing a corpulent Hindoo, he exclaimed, "What a log for hell-fire!" This follower of Mahomet had not only the intolerance, but the conceit of super-excellence that the poor sectarian followers of Christ too often have. When he was preaching one day to the people of Riad, he recounted the tradition according to which Mahomet declared that his followers should divide into seventy-three sects, and that seventy-two were destined to hell-fire, and only one to paradise. "And what, O messenger of God, are the signs of that happy sect to which is insured the exclusive possession of paradise?" Whereto Mahomet had replied, "It is those who shall be in all comformable to myself and my companions." "And that," added Abd-el-Lateef, lowering his voice to the deep tone of conviction, "that, by the mercy of God, are we, the people of Riad."

Upon the subject of toleration and charity, read a part of the remarkable dialogue from Arthur Helps' Friends in Council:--

DUNSFORD.--It is hard to be tolerant of intolerant people; to see how natural their intolerance is, and in fact thoroughly to comprehend it and feel for it. This is the last stage of tolerance, which few men, I suppose, in this world attain.

MIDHURST.--Tolerance appears to me an unworked mine....

MILVERTON.--There is one great difficulty to be surmounted; and that is, how to make hard, clear, righteous men, who have not sinned much, have not suffered much, are not afflicted by strong passions, who have not many ties in the world, and who have been easily prosperous,--how to make such men tolerant. Think of this for a moment. For a man who has been rigidly good to be supremely tolerant would require an amount of insight which seems to belong only to the greatest genius. I have often fancied that the main scheme of the world is to create tenderness in man; and I have a notion that the outer world would change if man were to acquire more of this tenderness. You see at present he is obliged to be kept down by urgent wants of all kinds, or he would otherwise have more time and thought to devote to cruelty and discord. If he could live in a better world, I mean in a world where nature was more propitious, I believe he would have such a world. And in some mysterious way, I suspect that nature is constrained to adapt herself to the main impress of the character of the average beings in the world.

ELLESMERE.--These are very extraordinary thoughts.

DUNSFORD.--They are not far from Christianity.

MILVERTON.--You must admit, Ellesmere, that Christianity has never been tried. I do not ask you to canvass doctrinal and controversial matters. But take the leading precepts; read the Sermon on the Mount, and see if it is the least like the doctrines of modern life.

DUNSFORD.--I cannot help thinking, when you are all talking of tolerance, why you do not use the better word, of which we hear something in Scripture,--charity.

MILVERTON.--If I were a clergyman, there is much that I should dislike to have to say (being a man of very dubious mind); there is much also that I should dislike to have to read; but I should feel that it was a great day for me when I had to read out that short but most abounding chapter from St. Paul on charity. The more you study that chapter, the more profound you find it. The way that the apostle begins is most remarkable; and I doubt if it has been often duly considered. We think much of knowledge in our own times; but consider what the early Christian must have thought of one who possessed the gift of tongues or the gift of prophecy. Think also what the early Christian must have thought of the man who possessed "all faith." Then listen to St. Paul's summing up of these great gifts in comparison with charity. Dunsford, will you give us the words? You remember them, I dare say.

DUNSFORD.--(1 Cor. ch. xiii.) "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

"And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."

MILVERTON.--You will let me proceed, I know, if it is only to hear more from Dunsford of that chapter. I have said that the early Christian would have thought much of the man who possessed the gift of tongues, of prophecy, of faith. But how he must have venerated the rich man who entered into his little community, and gave up all his goods to the poor! Again, how the early Christian must have regarded with longing admiration the first martyrs for his creed! Then hear what St. Paul says of this outward charity, and of this martyrdom, when compared with this infinitely more difficult charity of the soul and martyrdom of the temper. Dunsford will proceed with the chapter.

DUNSFORD.--"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."

MILVERTON.--Pray go on, Dunsford.

DUNSFORD.--"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

"Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

"Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

"Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away."

MILVERTON.--That is surely one of the most beautiful things that has ever been written by man. It does not do to talk much after it.

Channing closes his Essay upon the Means of Promoting Christianity with this remarkable passage: "If, in this age of societies, we should think it wise to recommend another institution for the propagation of Christianity, it would be one the members of which should be pledged to assist and animate one another in living according to the Sermon on the Mount. How far such a measure would be effectual we venture not to predict; but of one thing we are sure, that, should it prosper, it would do more for spreading the gospel than all other associations which are now receiving the patronage of the Christian world."

At the White House, on an occasion I shall never forget, said a visitor, the conversation turned upon religious subjects, and Lincoln made this impressive remark: "I have never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their articles of belief and confessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for membership," he continued, "the Saviour's condensed statement of the substance of both law and gospel, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself, that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul."

"You may remember," says Farrar, in his Silence and Voices of God, "how, in the old legend, St. Brendan, in his northward voyage, saw a man sitting upon an iceberg, and with horror recognized him as the traitor Judas Iscariot; and the traitor told him how, at Christmas time, amid the drench of the burning lake, an angel had touched his arm, and bidden him for one hour to cool his agony on an iceberg in the Arctic sea; and when he asked the cause of this mercy, bade him recognize in him a leper to whom in Joppa streets he had given a cloak to shelter him from the wind; and how for that one kind deed this respite was allotted him. Let us reject the ghastly side of the legend, and accept its truth. Yes, charity,--love to God as shown in love to man--is better than all burnt-offering and sacrifice." "In thy face," said the dying Bunsen to the wife of his heart, bending over him, "in thy face have I seen the Eternal."

When Abraham, according to another old legend, sat at his tent door, as was his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied coming toward him an old man, stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travail, who was a hundred years of age. He received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit down; but observing that the old man eat, and prayed not, nor begged for blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not worship the God of heaven. The old man told him that he worshiped the fire only, and acknowledged no other God. At which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger was. He replied, "I thrust him away because he did not worship Thee." God answered him, "I have suffered him these hundred years, although he dishonored me; and couldst not thou endure him one night?"

"Ah! poor things that we are. We are all sore with many bruises and wounds. The marvel is that our own tenderness does not make us tender to all others."

"He shall be immortal who liveth till he be stoned by one without fault."

"I saw in Rome, once, Anstiss," said Hope, "an old coin,--a silver denarius,--all coated and crusted with green and purple rust. I called it rust; but Aleck told me it was copper; the alloy thrown out from the silver, until there was none left. Within, it was all pure. It takes ages to do it; but it does get done. Souls are like that, Anstiss. Something moves in them, slowly, till the debasement is all thrown out. Sometime, the very varnish shall be taken off."

"Day by day I think I read more plain,
This crowning truth, that, spite of sin and pain,
No life that God has given is lived in vain;
But each poor, weak, and sin-polluted soul
Shall struggle free at last, and reach its goal,--
A perfect part of God's great perfect whole."

INDEX

Abernethy, a timid lecturer, 255.

Abd-el-Lateef, anecdote of, 383.

Addison, on living and dressing according to the rules of common sense, 64;
his care in composition, 127;
reputed portrait of, 189;
his belief in ghosts, 243;
his marriage, 246;
enlarges on a thought of Socrates, 374.

Advice, on asking and giving, 104.

AEschines, of Pericles and Aspasia, 41.

AEsop, fable of the travelers and the chameleon, 379.

Agassiz, had no time to make money, 139.

Aikenhead, hanged for free religious opinions, 362.

Alfieri, how he composed, 126.

Alfred, King of Denmark, story of, 165.

Alger, public opinion the atmosphere of society, 7;
most men live blindly, 23;
ruins, and what they symbolize, 216;
on the blindness or Homer, Milton, Galileo, and Haendel, 228;
on the happiness of solitude, 342;
his account of the hermit of Grub Street, 343;
the forest of statues on the roof of Milan cathedral, 354;
the scholar's pantheon at the top of his mind, 354.

Amyot, his poverty and success, 125.

Anaxagoras, a request made by, 216;
whom he believed to be most happy, 346.

Andersen, advice to, 148.

Anecdote of a singer and his wife in Leipsic, 316;
of a hypochondriacal comedian, 323.

Angelo, Michel, confesses his ignorance, 29;
on reforming mankind, 93;
anecdote of, 168;
and Raphael, 171;
a gem once worn on the finger of, 178;
and the Reformation, 252;
the statues of, 303;
and Bramante, 303;
of Donatello's statue, 325;
a saying of his commending moderation, 348.

Annals of the Parish, why rejected, 148.

Anson, Lord, different opinions of, 189.

Appleseed, Johnny, character and career of, 112.

Apelles and Protogenes, 171.

Apuleius, a curious fact relating to, 249.

Arago, his claim for ancient Egypt, 181.

Arbuthnot, Pope, and Gay, fate of a joint play of, 255.

Archimedes, the tomb of, 215.

Arctic morality, 102.

Arctic region, small proportion of fuel used in the, 241;
effect of frost in the, 301.

Arethusa, Fountain of, 302.

Aristotle, on proverbs, 159;
logic known before, 182;
fate of, 223.

Arnold, Matthew, moral rules for the sage only, 369.

Artist, an, in serpents, 300.

Aspasia and Pericles, 41.

Atterbury, Bishop, what he said of Newton, 107.

Augereau, at the coronation of Napoleon, 110.

Augustine, St., and the idea of Fourierism, 182;
subtleties on the question, What then is time? 339;
on a happy life, 340;
a passage from his Confessions, 354.

Auld Lang Syne, 204.

Auld Robin Gray, its authorship a secret for fifty years, 254.

Aurelius, Marcus, tolerant and good to all but Christians, 33;
his idea of free government, 185;
his doubtful wife and bad son, 247;
what he learnt from his tutor, 347;
a lofty thought of, on the sacredness of life, 355.

Babinet, his opinion of a submarine telegraph, 267.

Bacon, on nature reviving--AEsop's damsel, 48;
of policy and craft, 65.

Bailly, story told of, 167.

Balzac, his care in composition, 128.

Barbauld, Mrs., passage from, 296;
lines by, 356.

Barere, views and conduct early and late in life, 104.

Barry, Michael J., some lines by, 120.

Barton, Bernard, his surprise at a funeral, 156.

Bathurst, Lord, and the Essay on Man, 249.

Baxter, a believer in witchcraft, 250;
his views at the end of life, 268;
the result, after a trial of worldly things, 326.

Bayle, on Pericles and Aspasia, 41;
on the spirit of party, 61;
on Machiavelli's Prince, 233;
the purity of, 245.

Beattie, Dr., of a witty parson, 43.

Beaumarchais, adaptations of Tarare, 221.

Becket, Thomas a, story of the mother of, 212.

Beckford, and his romance, Vathek, 252.

Bentivoglio, misfortunes of, 262.

Beranger, refuses a legacy, 141.

Berkeley, Bishop, on being master of one's time, 136.

Bernis, Cardinal, and Madame de Pompadour, 268.

Betterton, a borrower from Steele, 169.

Beyle, Henri, a laborious writer, 125.

Beza, one of his invectives, 45;
his coarse, amorous poems, 268.

Bible, the, in literature, 161;
a reference to, 241.

Billingsgate, fish-woman of, 28.

Blackwood's Magazine on diversity, 5;
on the inevitable and irremediable, 91;
on public opinion, 361;
on the adoring principle in human nature, 368.

Blake, William, artist, genius, mystic, madman, 281.

Blessington, Lady, relating to Moore, 140.

Boileau, an unwearied corrector, 126;
relating to Moliere, 149.

Bolingbroke to Swift, 214.

Books never published, 194.

Boots with pointed toes believed to be the cause of the plague, 203.

Borghese, Paulo, poverty of, 261.

Borghese, Princess, anecdote of, 311.

Bossuet, confesses his insignificance, 30;
appearance of his manuscript, 129.

Boswell, and intellectual chemistry, 42;
on being reckoned wise, 168;
the bulwark of Johnson's fame, 190;
Johnson's pretended contempt of, 243.

Boyle, effect of falling water upon, 244.

Brackenridge, distrust of moderation natural, 296.

Brahe, Tycho, and the idiot Lep, 228;
his terror of a hare or fox, 244.

Brain, insensibility of the, 242.

Bramah, origin of the idea of his lock, 181.

Brewster, Sir David, and the story of the falling apple, 175;
on Galileo's abjuration, 223.

Bronte, Charlotte, a painstaking writer, 126;
life and genius of, 276, 277, 278.

Brougham, how he composed one of his speeches, 132;
a curious fact of, 254.

Brown, John, utterances and incidents of, 113;
and the old engine-house, 264;
and the governor of Virginia, 264;
a daughter of, 265;
one of his trusted men, 265.

Brown, Tom, a remark of, 121.

Browne, Sir Thomas, on self-love, 14;
confesses his ignorance, 31;
on a neglect of the great, 151;
on maxims that will never be out of date, 159;
his faith in witchcraft, 224;
a lofty thought of, on the immortality of life, 355;
on usurping the gates of heaven, 366;
his distrust of his own judgment, 381.

Bruce, and the story of the spider, 165;
death of, 260.

Brunel, a remark of, relating to Pompey's Pillar, 181.

Brunelleschi, and the story of the egg, 166.

Buffon, his manner of composing, 128.

Buelow, effects of his stopping practice, 130.

Bulwer, on truth, 4;
anecdote of Kean, 13;
relating to Calvin and Torquemada, 46;
his description of a superior man, 68;
on the English language, 158;
on the language of Spain, 158;
on La Rochefoucauld, 234;
of Descartes, 238;
looking from the window of his club, 338;
paraphrase from Phaedrus, 374.

Bunsen, dying exclamation of, 387.

Bunyan, wrote Pilgrim's Progress in prison, 135.

Burke, no great fire without great heat, 46;
a remark of on idleness, 122;
how he worried his printer, 132;
at Beaconsfield, 154;
his tribute to John Howard, 231;
his great care as a writer, 249;
his style in youth and old age, 254.

Burnet, Bishop, his estimate of Newton, 107;
on Lord Rochester, 236.

Burns, characterizes woman, 3;
remarks of and by, 123;
his poverty and pride, 137;
advised to imitate Mrs. John Hunter, 145;
confidence in his own powers, 150;
tribute of Hawthorne to, 153;
the Scotsman's religion, 174;
a complaint of himself, 244;
pronounced incapable of music, 263;
on sensibility, 314;
his constitutional melancholy, 315;
lines by, 344;
his gospel of charity, 376.

Burton, naught so sweet as melancholy, naught so damned as melancholy, 314;
on content and true happiness, 325.

Butler, misery of, 315.

Byron, some lines by, 150;
criticises mythology, 187;
a peculiarity of, 244.

Caesar, Augustus, his fear of thunder, 244.

Caesar, Julius, the corpse of, 222;
ambition of, criticised by Pascal, 353.

Cagliostro, Lavater duped by, 258.

Calamities sometimes blessings, 226.

Caligula and his horse, 99.

Caliph, memorial of an illustrious, 333.

Callcott, his picture of Milton and his daughter, 175.

Calvin, occasional violence of, 45.

Camoens, poverty of, 134, 261.

Campbell, his difficulty in finding a bookseller, 133;
Scott and Hohenlinden, 150;
and Prof. Wilson, 268.

Candide's supper at Venice with the six kings, 333.

Canova exhibiting his paintings, 261.

Canute, the story of, 166.

Captain of Virginia militia, exclamation of, 119.

Carlyle, legend of Moses and the Dead Sea people, 49;
on the effects of custom, 64;
fastidiousness as a writer, 130;
his opinion of a hero, 232;
compares men to sheep, 295.

Cashmere shawls, 180.

Castelar, a republican's opinion of Rome, 307;
on the unhappiness of life, 337;
pleads for universal toleration, 361.

Cato, how he was estimated by contemporaries, 144;
learned Greek after he was seventy, 267.

Cecil, sorrowed in the bright lustre of a court, 334.

Cervantes, poverty of, 134;
planned and commenced Don Quixote in prison, 135;
a curious fact of, 191;
his wretchedness and melancholy, 315.

Chalmers, as to certain of his compositions, 254;
and the views of Malthus, 263.

Change, anecdotes and facts illustrating, 9, 10, 11.

Channing, on establishing a new society, 386.

Chapman, Jonathan, known as Johnny Appleseed, 112.

Charlemagne, a story of the daughter of, 165.

Charles I., a story told of, 167.

Charles II., his criticism of Sir Matthew Hale, 3;
touching for the evil, 224;
and Cromwell, 304;
and Wycherley, 304;
the name given him by one who knew him, 304;
manner of his death, 304;
character of, drawn by Macaulay, 306.

Charles XII., of Sweden, anecdote of, 167.

Charity, Christian, a story illustrating, 357.

Chaulnes, Duke de, and Johnson, 370.

Chaumette, devoted to an aviary, 99.

Cheops, ring of, 178.

Chesterfield, a remark on, 190;
speeches of, written by Johnson, 248.

Chillingworth, at last confident of nothing, 258.

China, scarcity of labor in, 240.

Chinese rebuke of Christians, 101.

Chrysippus, of misers, 72.

Cicero, of the man and his eggs, 6;
his experience at a watering-place, 16;
how laboriously he prepared his speeches, 131;
the diminutive copy of the Iliad he saw, 178;
on universal brotherhood, 185;
hunting the tomb of Archimedes, 215;
timidity of, 262.

Clairvoyance, very old, 183.

Coal, a man executed for burning it, 202.

Cobbe, Frances Power, on the Christian movement, 370.

Cobbett, revisits the scenes of his boyhood, 220.

Cockburn, Lord, anecdote of Dr. Henry, 80.

Coleridge, one just flogging he received, 21;
horrified by the exclamation of a boy, 22;
some devil and some god in man, 42;
anecdote of a dignified man, 69;
on doing good, 93;
of traders in philanthropy, 97;
project of pantisocracy, 102;
fears he has caught the itch, 103;
gained little by his writings, 133;
what he thought a sufficient income, 138;
of Goethe, 147;
intellect of, 151;
comparison of Shakespeare with Milton, 152;
on Shakespeare and Homer, 152;
at York minster, 196;
a remark of, in one of his lectures, 200;
and John Chester, 211;
curious facts relating to, 250;
and the House that Jack built, 268;
on certain smells, 302;
his summing up of life, 336;
remark on Horne Tooke, 378;
remark on toleration, 383.

Columbus, and the egg, 166;
fact relating to, 259.

Commodus, tolerant to Christians, 247.

Common sense defined, 7.

Communist, a, defined, 105.

Conciergerie, flirting and love-making in the, 35.

Confucius, describes the conduct of the superior man, 23;
his joy in frugality, 136;
and the Golden Rule, 185;
anecdote of, 373.

Congreve, what the one wise man knew, 32.

Conscience, 22.

Corey, Giles, pressed to death, 60.

Corneille, his poverty, 134;
what Napoleon said of him, 153;
tiresome in conversation, 260.

Cornwall, Barry, his fear of the sea, 251.

Correggio, no portrait of, 262.

Corwin, Thomas, anecdote of, 168.

Cottle, Joseph, relating to Coleridge, 22;
of Coleridge at York minster, 196;
lines by, admired by Coleridge, 378.

Couthon, devoted to a spaniel, 99.

Cowley, a curious fact of, 245.

Cowper, his poems and their publisher, 192;
his mental malady, 226;
the ballad of John Gilpin, 227;
the poor school-master, Teedon, 228;
his attempt at suicide, 246;
his giggling with Thurlow, 246;
the sanest of English poets, 254;
fancied himself hated by his Creator, 259;
a melancholy confession of, 317.

Crabbe, wrote and burned three novels, 259.

Credulity, 20, 224.

Creed, in the biliary duct, 8;
referred to in the rebuke of a clergyman, 20.

Crichton, curious achievement of, 264.

Cromwell, his distrust of popular applause, 298;
and Charles II., 304;
and Milton, 304;
how estimated when flattery was mute, 304;
manner of his death, 304.

Crowne, John, reading by lightning, 46.

Cumberland, and Sheridan, 9;
describes Soame Jenyns, 236;
Goldsmith and his comedy, 270;
the dinner at the Shakespeare tavern, 271;
predicament of an artist in serpents, 300;
a reflection on old age, 332;
on a man gifted with worldly qualities, 350;
remark on Bubb Doddington, 378.

Curing public evils, 25.

Curiosity, 17, 32.

Curran, contest with the fish-woman, 28;
remark to Phillips about his speeches, 249;
melancholy nature of, 314.

Curtis, George William, castles in Spain, 327.

Cushman, Charlotte, anecdote related by, 35.

Custom, doth make cowards of us all, 64.

Daguerre, his discovery anticipated, 181.

Damascus blades of the Crusades, 180.

Dante, a story told of, 170;
the prodigal and the avaricious together, 302.

D'Arblay, Madame, and Mrs. Barbauld's stanza on Life, 356.

Darwin, cattle in East Falkland Island, 10;
earthquake at Talcahuano, 17;
a curious fox on the island of San Pedro, 18;
conduct of the Fuegians, 27;
petrified trees on the Andes, 108;
conduct of the New Zealand chief, 211;
the three years' drought in Buenos Ayres, 222;
sound and silence in the forest of Brazil, 301.

D'Alembert, declines the favors of royalty, 141.

De Coverley, Sir Roger, cause of the death of, 373.

De Foe, rules from the Complete English Tradesman, 86.

De l'Isle and the Marseillaise, 205, 248.

Della Valle, conduct of the women at Goa, 34;
his own strange conduct, 35.

Demetrius, and his father, 166;
a story told of, 167.

Democritus, thought to be a madman, 144.

Demosthenes, gloried in the smell of the lamp, 131;
timidity of, 262.

Denham, curious facts relating to, 235;
anecdote of, 235.

De Quincey, no thought without blemish, 90;
his estimate of Goethe, 146;
of Milton, 152.

Descartes, modesty of, 238.

De Retz, statement of, 234.

Desert, painful silence of the, 301.

De Stael, Madame, criticism of Godwin, 98;
and Madame Recamier, 172;
Talleyrand's reply to, 187;
Napoleon's hatred of, 253;
mourns the solitude of life, 335.

De Tocqueville, character of the French, 40;
remark of an old lady to, 75;
story told to by Rulhiere, 77;
on old age, 333;
some wise observations on life, 341.

Devil, the Reformation and the, 204;
the priest and the, 204.

Dickens, his care in composition, 128.

Digby, an illustration from, 11.

Dignity, assumed, described, and satirized, 67, 68, 69, 70.

Diminutive writing and printing, 178.

Diogenes, banished for counterfeiting, 260.

Dionysius, story of, 166.

Disraeli, Isaac, his sketch of Audley, 73;
anecdote of, 138;
on proverbs, 159;
on men of genius, 232.

Disraeli, Benjamin, on the limits of human reason, 62.

Diversity, 4, 5.

Doddington, Bubb, characterized by Cumberland, 378.

Doing good, Lamb on, 89;
difficulty of, 93;
remark of Coleridge, 93;
passages from Thoreau, 93.

Domitian, amused himself catching flies, 263.

Drake, and the origin of the Culprit Fay, 193.

Drummond, the sonorous laugher, 271.

Dryden, criticises the judges of his day, 3;
anecdote relating to, 154;
a curious fact of, 255.

Duchatel, his poverty and renown, 125.

Dunbar, neglect of the poems of, 199.

Dutch Ambassador and the King of Siam, 101.

Dyer, George, his experience while usher, 88;
an associate of Lamb's, 284;
his biography of Robinson, 284;
his absent-mindedness, 284;
anecdotes of, 285, 286.

Eckermann, describes a scene on the Simplon, 350.

Edwards, Jonathan, effect of his work on Original Sin, 56;
curious fact relating to, 266.

Egypt, hospitals for cats in, 99;
ventilation in the pyramids of, 181;
the railroad dates back to, 181;
social questions discussed to rags in, 181.

Eldon, Lord, an anecdote he was fond of relating, 76;
a remark in old age, 104;
and Bessy Surtees, 246;
his daughter's elopement, 246;
a curious experience of, at Oxford, 246.

Elizabeth, Queen, a curious fact of, 245.

Elliot, Sir Gilbert, passion necessary to revolution, 46.

Elliott, the Corn-Law Rhymer, defines a communist, 105.

Eloquence, a rude specimen of, 313.

Emerson, a man like a bit of Labrador spar, 3;
the soul not twin-born, 5;
life a series of surprises, 24;
confesses his ignorance, 32;
on the good of evil, 40;
few spontaneous actions, 64;
on reforming, 90;
is virtue piecemeal? 93;
of one that would help himself and others, 105;
the martyrdom of John Brown, 119;
advantages of riches not with the heir, 121;
personal independence, 138;
of Shakespeare, 153;
of the theory and practice of life, 240;
the plant papyrus, 241;
relating to Columbus, 259;
the difference between the wise and the unwise, 354;
effects of an acceptance of the sentiment of love, 359.

Epictetus, on forgiving injuries, 185.

Epicurus, his name a synonym for sensuality, 261;
his moderation, 349.

Erasmus, on self-love, 12;
two natures in Luther, 47;
of the Colloquies of, 193;
effect of the smell of fish upon, 244;
and Luther, 308;
what he said of Luther, 309.

Erskine, a severe corrector, 132.

Essay on Man, curious statement relating to, 249.

Esquirol, effects of occupation, 378.

Euclid, stereoscope known to, 181.

Evelyn, observation on Jeffreys, 189;
his argument against solitude, 244.

Evil, ceremony of touching for the, 224.

Extremes, law of, 295;
meeting of in morals and legislation, 304.

Fairy's funeral, description of a, 293.

Falstaff, dress to represent, 69.

Faraday, curious fact relating to, 253.

Farrar, legend of St. Brendan and Judas Iscariot, 387;
of the purification of souls, 388.

Faustina, wife of Marcus Aurelius, 247.

Fenelon, and the publication of Telemachus, 193;
on a violent zeal that we must correct, 363;
anecdotes of, 373.

Fielding, a curious fact relating to, 191;
and Richardson, 199;
on our faults, and the difficulty of amending them, 338.

Fittleworth, rector of, how he lost his living, 37.

Fitzherbert and Townshend, 211.

Flaxman, of the Graces and the Furies, 10;
determines the sex of a statue, 187;
strange fact of the wife of, 226.

Foote, how he took off the Dublin printer, 78;
a story of, 164;
a remark on the death of, 265.

Forster, relating to Goldsmith, 156.

Foster, record of a reflective aged man, 7;
analysis of an atheist, 19;
story of the devil turned preacher, 43;
on self-idolizing dreamers, 91;
care in composition, 129;
tribute to John Howard, 229;
on a violation of the laws of goodness, 240;
origin of his essays, 246.

Fournier, devoted to a squirrel, 99.

Fox, fastidious in composition, 126.

Francis, Sir Philip, and Junius, 257.

Franklin, Dr., his advice to the three sages, 367;
doubted his own judgment as he grew older, 381.

Frederick the Great, a story told of, 167;
and Robespierre, 238.

Frederick William, canes a Jew in a street of Berlin, 51.

Froissart, of a reverend monk, 48.

Froude, terrible story related by, 57;
human things and icebergs, 109;
a reflection of, applied to John Brown, 119;
of fortune and rank, 121;
prosperity consistent with worldliness, 349;
the Scots a happy people, 350;
on putting to death for a speculative theological opinion, 363;
how the laity should treat the controversial divines, 367.

Fuller, Margaret, on Goethe, 105;
few great, few able to appreciate greatness, 143.

Fuller, Thomas, statement relating to Rabelais, 190;
curious fact relating to Wolsey, 224;
the Holy Ghost came down not in the shape of a vulture, 359;
he shall be immortal who liveth till he be stoned by one without fault, 388.

Fuseli, a habit of in sketching, 2.

Gainsborough, a remark on painting and engraving, 198.

Galileo, ceremony of abjuration, 223;
blindness of, 228.

Galt, an observation by, 110;
Annals of the Parish, 148.

Garrick, variety of his countenance, 10;
a story of his acting, 78;
the public grew tired of admiring him, 297.

Gaskell, account of the death of a cock-fighting squire, 38;
anecdote of Grimshaw, 55.

Gay, Pope, and Arbuthnot, fate of a joint play of, 255.

Gems, imitations of, 177;
cabinet of in Italy, 178.

Genius, our obligations to, 161.

Geoffrin, Madame, and Rulhiere, 170.

Gertrud bird, 79.

Giardini, of playing the violin, 130.

Gibbon, his fastidiousness as a writer, 125;
review of the series of Byzantine emperors, 219.

Gladstone, interesting reply of, 263.

Glass in Pompeii, 177.

Godwin, Madame de Stael's criticism of, 98;
a good husband and kind father, 255;
and Rough, 311.

Goethe, confesses his ignorance, 29;
reason can never be popular, 62;
anecdote of Merck and the grand duke, 89;
to know how cherries and strawberries taste, 90;
a fortunate mistake of, 92;
nature, 103;
giving advice, 104;
aristocracy and democracy, 104;
the world cannot keep quiet, 109;
his works commercially, 133;
objections to luxurious furniture, 137;
of Dante's great poem, 147;
advised against writing Faust, 148;
genius of Shakespeare, 152;
influence of Voltaire, 153;
a staff officer's opinion of, 155;
first impression of Switzerland, 195;
critical remark of, 198;
on a peculiarity of Schiller, 244;
disparaged himself as a poet, 261;
pleasant dreams after falling asleep in tears, 318;
compares life to a residence at a watering-place, 332;
the simplicity of the world, 347;
arrogance natural to youth, 352;
remark of at the age of seventy-five, 355;
truth and error, 361;
of a Christianity of feeling and action, 366.

Goldsmith, of the vanity of human judgment, 24;
ten years composing the Traveller, 129;
to Bob Bryanton, 135;
proud reply to Hawkins, 139;
reply to Dr. Scott, 139;
criticises Waller, Pope, and Milton, 145;
opinion of Tristram Shandy, 147;
his street ballads, 156;
a saying of credited to Talleyrand, 172;
relations with Bott, the barrister, 200;
friendship and jealousy, 240;
as a talker and as a writer, 244;
Goody Two Shoes, 268;
at the British Coffee House, 270;
first acting of She Stoops to Conquer, 270;
conduct during, 271.

Goodness tainted, 94.

Gordianus, epitaph of, 263.

Grammont, Count, on Sir John Denham, 235.

Gray, twenty years touching up his Elegy, 126;
criticises Thomson and Akenside, 145;
diffidence and fastidiousness of, 238;
his Elegy not intended for the public, 258.

Greene, Peele, and Marlowe, 249.

Grimaldi, devouring melancholy of, 315.

Groenvelt, Dr., persecution of, 201.

Guerin, Eugenie de, her story of the poor shepherdess, 345.

Guerin, Maurice de, on a solitary life, 342.

Guido, and the portrait of Beatrice Cenci, 313.

Guizot, declines a title, 141.

Hadrian's villa, 217.

Hale, Sir Matthew, criticised by Charles II., 3;
unpublished writings of, 194;
trials before for witchcraft, 224;
influenced by Jeffreys, 247.

Hall, Robert, sought relief in Dante, 267.

Hallam, his opinion of Hooker, 225.

Hammond, Elton, 278.

Haendel, blindness of, 228;
his hallelujahs open the heavens, 229.

Harrington, imprisonment of, 135;
man a religious creature, 368.

Harvey, effects of his discovery, 147, 301.

Hawthorne, on men who surrender themselves to an overruling power, 97;
on special reformers, 98;
distinction between a philanthropic man and a philanthropist, 113;
Byron and Burns, 153;
of the Scarlet Letter, 188;
statement relating to the Mayflower, 241;
of artists who have painted their own portraits, 377.

Haydn, a story told of, 175.

Hayward, passages from, 164, 165, 174.

Hazlitt, his violence at times, 36;
legend of a Brahman turned into a monkey, 48;
of two pictures by Northcote, 190;
of Coleridge and John Chester, 211;
the poet Gray, 238;
every man an exception, 240;
strange facts about, 263;
opinion of Mary Lamb, 267;
of Garrick, 297;
wanting one thing, he wanted everything, 325;
on aiming at too much, 337;
on keeping in our own walk in life, 347;
life, at the beginning and the end, 352.

Heart, insensibility of the, 242.

Heine, pleads for the negro king, 27;
of Luther, 47;
when he would forgive his enemies, 53;
tribute to Goethe, 153;
ignorance of doctors, 208;
of the leper-poet, 318;
a paralytic, 320;
fame nauseous to, 331.

Helps, Arthur, the nature of man, 33;
you never know enough about a man to condemn him, 39;
the art of life, 341;
dialogue on toleration and charity, 383.

Helvetius, of the passions, 46;
advice to Montesquieu, 148.

Henderson, faculty of getting words by heart, 125.

Henry VI. of France, a story of, 171.

Henry, Patrick, his last speech, 264.

Hercules, a diminutive figure of, 178.

Herder, advice to Goethe, 148.

Herrick, a painstaking elaborator, 129.

Hiero, questions Simonides, 31, 348.

Hildebrand, Pope, fate of, 223.

Hill, Dr., and Hannah Glass, 268.

Hillard, on Hadrian's villa, 217.

History and fiction, 164.

Hogarth, relating to the sale of certain pictures, 192;
his estimate of Reynolds, 198;
impressions as to his true vocation, 258.

Hogg, his neighbors thought him no poet, 145.

Holbein, German engraving in the manner of, 326.

Hood, origin of the Song of the Shirt, 149;
what delighted him, 155;
a victim of distress and melancholy, 321;
anecdotes of, 321;
lines on his dead child, 322;
passages from letters to little children, 322, 323.

Hook, attempt of Southey to hoax, 200.

Hooker, circumstances of his marriage, 224;
character of, by Izaak Walton, 225.

Home, Sweet Home, 205.

Homer, called a plagiarist, 144;
effect of his character and genius, 162.

Horace, a laborious writer, 125;
passage from, 302.

Howard, John, humanity of, 229;
and solitary confinement, 260.

Howe, John, his method of conducting public fasts, 37.

Huber, Francois, blindness of, 259.

Human things compared to icebergs, 109.

Humboldt, credits the Chinese with magnetic carriages, 181.

Hume, his care in composition, 126;
his history slow of sale at first, 133;
advice to Robertson, 148.

Humility illustrated by the rain-drop, 344.

Hunt, Leigh, tribute to Haendel, 228;
on pseudo-Christianity, 364;
remark on Lamb, 383.

Hyacinthe, the church of the future, 366.

Hypocrite, profession of, 71.

Ice, curious facts relating to, 210.

Iceland, the best building in, 241.

Icicles, formation of, 209.

Ideas, the few great, remain about the same, 157.

Ignorance, 17, 18, 19, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 240, 352.

Incledon, stories of Garrick and Foote, 77.

Indian cazique, story of, 101.

Intellectual chemistry, 42.

Invective, a primitive Quaker's, 44.

Ireland, baptisms in, 37.