Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

The more or less powerful instinct of maternity is an affair of temperament, nurtured or modified by other instincts or passions, and by circumstances favourable or unfavourable to its existence. The bird that flies at the invader of its nest—the tigress that gathers its young under it, and darts its murderous glance at all who attempt to interfere with the objects of its affections, is more respectable than any one of these mothers “upon instinct,” who are only that. It is not the instinct, or feeling, but the judgment that directs it, which is laudable. Maternity is no abstraction; and when people say, “such a one is injudicious, or ignorant, or feeble, or shallow, but she is a good mother,” they talk nonsense. That which the woman is, the mother will be; and her personal qualities will direct and govern her maternal instinct, as her taste will influence her appetite. If she be prejudiced and ignorant, the _good mother_ will mismanage her children; and if she be violent in temper and vehement in opinion, the good mother will be petulant and unjust towards them: if she be inconsistent and capricious, she will alternate between fits of severity and bursts of indulgence, equally fatal: if she be vain, and coquettish, and selfish, she may be fond of her children through her pride, but she will always be ready to sacrifice their enjoyments, and even their interests, to the triumphs of her own vanity, or the gratification of her egotism.

The perfection of motherhood lies, therefore, in the harmonious blending of a happy instinct, with those qualities which make the good member of general society—with good sense and information—with subdued or regulated passions, and that abnegation, which lays every selfish consideration at the feet of duty. To make a good mother, it is not sufficient to seek the happiness of the child, but to seek it with foresight and effect. Her actions must be regulated by long-sighted views, and steadily and perseveringly directed to that health of the body and of the mind, which can alone enable the objects of her solicitude to meet the shocks and rubs of life with firmness, and to maintain that independence, in practice and principle, which sets the vicissitudes of fortune at defiance, fitting its possessor to fill the various stations, whether of wealth or poverty, of honour or obscurity, to which chance may conduct him.

This is my idea of the duties of maternity, and of the perfection of that most perfect creature, a good mother. I know it is not everybody’s idea, and that there is another _beau idéal_ of maternity, which is much more prevalent.

There is the good mother, that spends half her life in hugging, flattering, and stuffing her child, till, like the little Dalai Lama of Thibet, he thinks he has come into the world for no other purpose than to be adored like a god, and crammed like a capon. This is the good mother, who, in her fondness, is seen watching anxiously, after a long late dinner, for the entrance of the little victim which she has dressed up for sacrifice, and whose vigils are prolonged beyond its natural strength, that it may partake of the poisonous luxuries in the last service of the feast of ceremony, till the fever of over excitement mounts to its cheek, sparkles in the eye, and gives incoherency to its voluble nonsense; an excitement to be followed not by the deep and dreamless sleep of infancy, but by the restless slumbers and fearful visions of indigestion. Alas for the mother and for the child! and alas for the guests called upon for their quota of admiration upon such melancholy occasions, such terrible exhibitions of human vanity and human weakness, counteracting the finest instincts of human nature!

Clever and truth-telling Miss Edgeworth—you who have written such rational and charming books for children—why have you not written some _easy lessons_ for their mothers? Why have you not composed a manual for their use, to teach them a few elementary facts in physics and in morals; and, above all, to teach them that nature, in all things, is the sole basis of right thinking and right acting, under all circumstances, and in all times? Did mothers know and feel this, what sorrows and disappointments might be spared to their hearts and their hopes, to their affections and their ambition; what time, now given to acquire arts, for which nature has refused the requisite organization, might be dedicated to health, and what lives might be spared, whose loss, (attributed sacrilegiously to “the will of God,”) has only been a sacrifice to “maids, women, hot blankets, excessive hot fires,” and the ignorance, and prejudices, and selfish fondness of the “best of mothers.”

TOYS AND TRINKETS.

“Parfaits dans le petit—sublimes en bijoux—
Grands inventeurs de riens, nous faisons des jaloux.”

_Voyage à Berlin._

I should like to know if the march of intellect has any thing to do with the indifference which the children of our day shew for toys. The Mrs. Chenevixes, and the _petits Dunkerques_ of modern times would be ruined and undone, if it were not for the papas and mammas, whose _boudoirs_ and dressing-rooms are the only baby-houses to be found in modern mansions.

The witty, the gallant Marquis de Sévigné was called by his mother “_le roi des bagatelles_,” from his love of _bijouterie_; and Lord —— might be called the emperor. His pipes and snuff-boxes alone might entitle him to the imperial grade in the sovereignty of trifles: while Lady —— is the very Catherine of Russia of trinkets, and autocrat of the toy-shop. There is not a useless utility, a superfluous superfluity, that ingenuity can devise for the amusement of idleness, which may not now be found on the tables of the great, and the imitators of their present rage for toys:—gold scissors that do not cut; silver needles that do not sew; pearl pen-knives that mend no pens; and work-boxes that hold no work save clock-work; _fagots_ that never burn; and _allumettes_ that are never to be lighted: with a hundred devices in gems and jewels, which it must have taken some poetical talent, and more poetical fancy than goes to half the sonnets and “_lines_” that we read, or at least pay for, to invent.

All this seems very frivolous; but then these “trifles light as air” are sometimes important enough in their results: for, if such fairy favours are occasionally bestowed by tributary friends, they are sometimes the insidious offerings of concealed admirers; who tell in toys, what words dare not utter; and give the history of a passion in a series of trinkets, which, if hearts of turquoise, and seals of emeralds could speak, would be found more than circumstantial evidences in Doctors’ Commons.

That _petites-maîtres_, and _petites-maîtresses_ should thus “trifle life away,” and occupy their time and money like children, may not appear so very extraordinary; but that literary women—intellectual women—women who affect to think, and presume to write—and publish too, and make head against such organs of opinion as Quarterly Reviews, and the like—that _they_ should give themselves the airs of fashionable frivolity, and endeavour to reconcile “_les goûts d’un grand seigneur, et les revenus d’un poëte_,” is really “too bad.” It is, however, a fair example of the incongruities of character, and the influence of vogue. What would the Scuderies, and the Daciers, and the Carters, and the Montagus say to the toy-shop house of a certain forty-volume-power female writer of the present day, who, if she has not written as well, has written as much, as those three voluminous ladies combined? What a disappointment to blue-stocking visitors, who expect to find her in the midst of that charming literary litter, intellectual disorder, and elegant neglect of all the elegancies of ordinary life, which marked the _ménages_ of the _femmes-savantes_ of the late and preceding centuries!—the broken tea-cup (substituted for a wine-glass) of Mary Wolstonecraft! or the Scotch mull and brown pocket-handkerchief of Catherine Macauley!! What a shock to hear this quarto authoress talk of _esprit de rose_ instead of _l’esprit des lois_; to find the atmosphere of her drawing-room perfumed by a _jardin_ of fresh flowers, whose odour, she pretends, has the same effect on her brain as sherries had upon Falstaff’s, “driving thence all the dull and crudy vapours, which environ it!”

How their literary Fustinesses of former times would turn up their intellectual noses at the frivolous tastes of this new-light _Armande_, could they see her, as I see her at this moment, writing at a rose-wood _secrétaire_, accommodating and pliant as any _secrétaire_ on the list of diplomacy, and “seizing,” literally, not figuratively, (like Anna Matilda) her “golden quill.” There she sits, surrounded by the inspiring semblances of deathless wits and immortal beauties, shining from enamels durable as their fame—by bookcases, that glitter in gilt vellum and rosy russian—with Dante illustrated on Sevre vases, and the loves of Petrarch and Laura told on tea-cups. Which of the coronetted muses of the present _saturnalia_ of Parnassus, where cooks and countesses jostle for precedency, does this sketch pourtray? Which of the Lady Charlottes and the Honourable Annas, who affect new patents of distinction, and think more of the honour bestowed by their publisher, than their pedigree, does this cap fit? Not one; for this literary _petite-maîtresse_—this amateur of frivolities, and inditer of philosophy—this collector of French toys, and collator of Irish chronicles—this trifler by taste, and author by necessity,

“Cet homme-là, Sire—c’est moi!”[53]

I don’t defend this passion for trifles—I only expose it, as an illustrative item in the history of female authorship, which is so often reproached with a slovenly neglect of all that is feminine and frivolous.

When somebody presented the celebrated Mademoiselle Scuderie with a bunch of pretty seals, she refused them, deeming them derogatory to the dignity of a “_Fille Savante_,” as she is called by Menage—so she sent them back with a couplet, observing,

“Car enfin des jolis cachets
Demandent des jolis secrets,
Ou du moins des jolis billets.”

It is odd enough that I should be thus blamed for my love of trifles and of truth—and for pursuing both, in my public and private life, with an earnestness, which at least attests my sincerity, if it does not prove my judgment. “_On ne saurait avoir trop de fantaisies, musquées ou non musquées_,” says Madame de Sévigné. This is also my creed: for I hold, that whatever cheers us on in the arduous path of life, and flings a flower over its dreariness—whatever innocently employs and safely recreates—whatever gives an object, or an amusement, “soberly,” (as Lady Grace has it,) is worth cultivating, even although it be but a taste for toys. When, therefore, one cannot command a box at the opera, it is well to be able to command a box from Bautte![54] When one cannot enjoy Rossini in full orchestra, it is a privilege to hear his best symphonies played on one’s writing-desk or work-table—and when denied the enchantments of Pasta and Pisaroni, it is pleasant still to hang upon tones, which, like theirs, seem to proceed from no “_mortal mixture of earth’s mould_”—fairy strains, played, as it were, by fairy fingers, on fairy instruments, made and moulded “_par quelque araignée du voisinage_.” Sensible women, I know, laugh at all this. Still, a woman should be “_femme avant tout_;” and she who is not so, more or less, is not a fair and perfect specimen of her sex.

The great always love toys. Even heroes are not above them. That gallant Centaur, Prince Potemkin, had the finest collection of _joujoux_ of any grown gentleman on record; and Catherine the Great was wont to reward his devotion and his services, alternately, by trinkets and principalities, or to appease his jealousy by a government or a toy—

“Pleurez, pleurez, petit enfant—
Vous aurez votre moulin-à-vent.”

The Russian “_petit enfant_” was often found seated before a mountain of baby-things, in his military pavilion, by the Prince de Ligne, who has left such a pleasant description of the scene, and so wittily recorded the fact.

By far the prettiest toy I ever read or heard of, and the most appropriate for the baby-house of a literary lady, was one invented by Madame de Théanges, the sister of Madame de Montespan; and presented by that beautiful and _mondaine_ Abbess, to the Duc de Maine, as an _étrenne_, in 1675.

This exquisite toy represented one of the royal apartments of Versailles, richly gilt and decorated—a state-bed occupied an alcove, and was surrounded by a gilt balustrade. In a _grand fauteuil_, within the precincts, sat the young prince, shewing a copy of adulatory verses to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, who stood beside him; while behind his chair was placed the celebrated Bossuet, and the Prince de Marsiliac. Two ladies, who had also the privilege of the _ruelle_, sat reading within the alcove. These were the charming Madame de la Fayette, and Madame de Théanges, whose beauty was set off by her religious habit, as Abbess de Fontrevault. Immediately without the balustrade stood Racine and Boileau—the former beckoning in the modest La Fontaine, who stood timidly at the door—the latter, with a pitch-fork, humorously affecting to keep off a crowd of bad poets, who were forcing their way to the presence and patronage of the young prince.

The merit and the value of this superb toy was, that all these figures were accurate portraits, exquisitely done in wax, and presented by the illustrious originals themselves to Madame de Théanges, for her classical and ingenious _étrenne_.

FAUTEUIL—BERGÈRE—ARM-CHAIR—EPISCOPAL SEAT.

“Inutile a chi non reposa.”

_Book of Emblems—Device, a Chair._

Last night we were playing a _charade en action_. As Madame Catalani, and her clever son, with some other foreigners, were of the party, we played it in French. I personated an antiquated ultra _baronne_, restored to her _donjon_ in Normandy, and receiving a visit from an old _châtelain_ of the neighbourhood, who came to congratulate her on the restoration of all old things. The scene we made of giving _les honneurs du fauteuil_ to my neighbour, my horror at the indignity of offering a _chaise de paille_ to an _ancien noble_ of seven quarters; and the overthrow of the whole party, chairs and all, in the struggle of ceremony, occasioned a good deal of laughing. I borrowed the trait from a scene I had witnessed in the Faubourg, on my first arrival in Paris, when a great effort was making to restore the _fauteuil_ to its ancient honours.

The history of arm-chairs would make an amusing volume, if given from antique times to the present, from the _fauteuil_ of the middle ages, when it had reached its highest political importance, down to the modern _dormeuse_, in which, at this moment, I am scribbling, _ex cathedra_! What a specimen of the progress of society it would embrace—what state secrets it would reveal—what sanguinary wars—what treaties of peace, what family ties dissolved—what courses of true love turned aside—all owing to the important _fauteuil_!

“Armed-chairs—chairs with a back—the stool of honour—the right hand and the left,” says Voltaire, “have, for many ages, been the important objects of diplomacy, and the subjects of illustrious quarrels.” Buonaparte, whose weakness it was to adopt the worn-out _étiquettes_ of an order of things directly opposed to his own existence, raised the _fauteuil_ along with the altar and the throne; and it is said, that, when Madame Letitia Buonaparte made her visit of ceremony, on the _accouchement_ of her imperial daughter-in-law, the arm-chair was removed from the room, lest she (being, as she was, _roturière_, though the mother of an emperor, four kings, and two or three princesses) might presume to usurp its honours in the presence of the daughter of the Cæsars, the descendant of the Hapsbourgs!

Alas, for the vicissitudes of human grandeur! There are those living, more _roturière_ than the excellent Madame Buonaparte, who have since seated themselves on whatever chair they pleased, in the presence of the ex-Empress of France, the now obscure Duchess of Parma; who herself sat, confounded with other ladies, in the _salon_ of an English peeress, obtaining no distinction, save what was conferred by the attention and courtesy of an English ambassadress. Oh! if the great would, or could, but feel how little they owe of the world’s homage to themselves, and how much to their position,—before some dreadful reverses teach them the sad truth, that they are but the signs of that power, which lies in principles, and not in persons.

The curule chair of the Romans had a certain respect attached to it, as being the seat of magistracy—very different, however, from the awe which is inspired by the sight of a throne in the hearts of the loyal idolaters of modern absolutism. The luxurious Romans, who, when not in activity, lay extended, even at their meals, on couches, seem not to have considered a mere seat in connexion with rank and power. The Fabiuses and Catos borrowed no distinction from the privilege of sitting in an arm chair. The form of the curule chair is preserved in the sculptured marble of some of the noble statues of antiquity, which are designed in the seated attitude. The ease of their position seems rather to result from the grace of the individuals represented, than from the commodity of the chair, which is low-backed and simple in form. Its substance, however, was ivory, richly carved—a curious fact in the history of the arts.

It was with the barbarous lower ages that the arm-chair first acquired its modern consequence, and it continued to increase in political importance down to the French revolution. The code of etiquettes concerning the _fauteuil_ in old France, was a consecrated volume. To claim _les honneurs du fauteuil_, or to give them, determined the most knotty points of precedence which agitated dynasties, and disturbed the peace of kingdoms. The origin of this distinction lay very probably in the rarity of the object—in the rude unaccommodated and dreary stone towers, in which the ancestors of families of many quarters then sheltered their heads. The easy chair was reserved for the elder or chief of the family, who, in those patriarchal times, ruled with an iron despotism over his timid, but often unnatural offspring; for the son, who was not permitted to sit in the presence of his father, frequently usurped his dominions, and hurried him from his _fauteuil_ to his grave. The filial history of the respectful and royal sons of Spain and Russia, is the epitome of the story of those times, when the _fauteuil_ was the domestic throne of every tyrant _châtelain_, and the exclusive privilege of the great.

To know the full consequence attached to sitting in an arm-chair, the French memoirs must be deeply studied; particularly those, written in the simplicity of their hearts, by Dangeau and Mademoiselle Montpensier. The life of the “_grande Mademoiselle_” was one continued agony of quarrels on the subject of the _fauteuil_ and the _chaise à dos_; and half the diplomacy of Europe in her time was occupied with discussions on similar subjects. Cardinal Richelieu, having refused to walk three steps beyond the door of his apartment—(he was willing to walk two)—to meet the English ambassador, who came to treat of the marriage of Charles the First with Henrietta of France, that marriage, of such importance to both crowns, was nearly broken off. The cardinal, however, affected sickness, and receiving the English duke in a _chaise longue_, thus avoided the odd step, without breaking off the alliance.

Louis the Thirteenth, desiring to hold a private council with his minister and master, Richelieu, was obliged to visit him in his bed-room, where he lay dangerously ill. But as a subject, though dying, could not be permitted to receive the king in bed, except the king was lying in bed also, Louis was wheeled in, on a _chaise longue_, and they both thus lay in state to discuss the affairs of the nation. Louis the Fourteenth observed the same form, when he went to visit the wounded hero Turenne.

In the olden times the easy chair, or _chaise de doléance_, was reserved for invalids, in the houses of the middle ranks of England and Germany; but the chair of “_le roi Dagobert_”[55] if in existence, would have a chance of being discarded, even by the most zealous _voltigeur_, in favour of a modern _dormeuse_, with its easy fall, cushioned back, and pillows of iron, softer than down,—now at the disposition of every member of the family. In all that respects the comforts and commodity of life, the wisdom of our ancestors was confessedly at fault.

The two most interesting arm-chairs in existence, are the Shakspeare chair, late in the possession of Mrs. Garrick, and Voltaire’s chair, which stood beside the fire-place in the Hôtel de Vilette, Rue Vaugirard, when I last saw it, in 1820. The inauguration chairs of the O’Neals, the O’Donnels, and the O’Briens would form long items of antiquarian research in the chapter of arm-chairs, too long probably for the patience of the general reader.

So much for the social arm-chair,—the _chaise à dos_, and _fauteuil_ of the court—the _bergère_ and _chaise à bras_ of the château. But the history of the chair of the church—the episcopal chair—with all its sedentary rites, connected with the divine offices and high privileges of its incumbent, is of far more importance. The _where_, and the _how_, the princes of the church should sit enthroned above their prostrate flock, became an object of ecclesiastical attention in the early ages of christianity; and scarcely had the primitive christians issued from the caves and obscure places whence so many divine things were given out, than councils were held, and canons established the sites, and positions, and materials of the easy seats of the bishops and clergy. Then came the _absis_, and the _faldistorium_, or chair of state, used for pontifical duties; and then the episcopal thrones and patriarchal and papal chairs of Rome, all symbols of worldly power and spiritual pride, alike the objects of ambition and contest, and claimed, and struggled, and fought for, like the poor mondaine _fauteuil_, by prince bishops, who, in the early ages, were proud of a _wooden seat_, but who in process of time occupied chairs elevated and gorgeous as regal thrones.

The ruins of the old episcopal throne in the famous cathedral of Rouen, which has flourished from the fourth century, are now forsaken for a magnificent and luxurious chair, or _faldistorium_. The history of the origin and progress of the bishop’s seat, as fixed in his church or cathedral, from the first Bishop of Canterbury, who humbly took his _sedes lignea_, to the last whom divine grace has called to fill its sumptuous throne,[56] would in itself throw a strong light upon the history of the church of England. “_Que de choses dans un menuet!_” exclaimed a French dancing-master in an ecstacy at the mysteries he was teaching a royal pupil. _Que de choses dans un fauteuil!_ One may write upon a fiddle-stick, doggedly, if not learnedly. One of the best things Swift ever did write, was on a broom-stick.

THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE.

The tendency in human affairs to proceed by impulses, is a curious fact in the history of the species. At certain indefinite epochs, and often without any very manifest cause, mankind are seized with some sudden passion, and are hurried with an almost universal fervor towards some particular object, which takes possession of the general imagination. The enthusiasm thus kindled, pervades all ranks, and masters all dispositions, giving a common tone and character to whole generations—until, exhausted by its own efforts, it gradually subsides, and gives place to other and newer caprices. This it is which constitutes the spirit of the age—an important matter of consideration for the young adventurer, at his outset in life. The passion for monkery, for crusading, for reformation in religion, for philosophy, for political economy, &c. &c., are cases in point, sufficiently notorious; not to dwell upon the many minor movements of nations—such as the South Sea bubble, the tulip mania, mesmerism, craniology, &c., each of which, in its day, has turned the heads of the community, and formed, as it were, an episode in the history of man.

Notwithstanding some occasional absurdities into which this sympathetic susceptibility of our nature may have hurried particular societies, it is the great mainspring of improvement—the countervailing power to authority and precedent. Without such sudden _engouemens_, the world would not be driven from the beaten track; and the public intellect would lapse for ever into a state of stagnation, like that which has reigned among the Turks since the subsidence of their military and religious enthusiasm. As the impulse of a ship gives its power to the rudder, so the spirit of the age gives efficacy to genius. Scarcely an individual can be quoted as eminent, who did not flourish in an age of considerable excitement; for when the great mass of mankind are at rest, talent, clogged by the general sluggishness, in vain exerts it powers. Its excessive activity is _à charge_—its labours are not understood; and if not persecuted, are received with a chilling and paralyzing indifference. Between the accession of the House of Hanover and the American war, there was a manifest stagnation of the public mind in England; and the minor stars of Dodsley’s galaxy shone forth, uneclipsed by the splendour of any first-rate luminary. During the struggles of the French revolution, on the contrary, a succession of geniuses of the highest order, in every department of literature, science, the arts, military and political affairs, &c. &c., added new honours to the British name, and hurried forward civilization with astonishing rapidity.

Those who have had the misfortune to be tied down to the uncongenial society of a _coterie_, to whose feelings and interests they were strangers, may have some notion of what it is to run counter to the spirit of the age, and to set up one’s own systems against the mania of the public. Much as a man may be convinced of the truth of his own opinions, and satisfied as he may be of the error of the world’s opposition, still it were well to be convinced of his own self-denial and forbearance, before he embarks in an open warfare with received notions. To act with sufficient ability to attract notice, is to become at once the marked victim of antiquated error and interested prejudice; and to maintain such a position requires irreproachable character, and a firmness that is not to be shaken by disappointment, nor turned aside by sarcasm or reproach. They, on the contrary, who have the good luck to stumble on a coincidence of feeling and opinion with the society in which they are merged, will find that the cards play themselves; and, without any extraordinary exertion of industry, talent, or virtue, they will easily win the whole game.

It is not very long since the class of reformers embraced but a few individuals; and many must recollect the unmeasured obloquy incurred by certain individuals for the promulgation of truths, which were so unpalatable when first broached, but which soon became familiar, and then ceased to bestow notoriety, or to draw down persecution. Even in these times of free discussion, it is both easier and pleasanter to promote the cause of liberality under the shelter of whiggism, than to make an open avowal of the whole extent of the principle of reform, at which so many still start in apprehension of danger to their own personal interests.

The opinions of the world are usually a mixture of small portions of truth, with an overwhelming mass of error. From amongst an infinite variety of shades, is formed a sort of average doctrine, which constitutes the opinion of the greatest number. Around this centre are accumulated the various extremes which represent the prejudices and interests of the smaller corps and categories in society. To belong to any of these corps ensures toleration, in proportion to their numbers and respectability; and the same truth may be advanced, with different success, accordingly as it is promulgated under the sanction of a powerful, or an inefficient name. The Unitarians are permitted openly to impugn the divinity of our Saviour; and the Quakers are allowed to reject all interference of priests; while those, who are vulgarly and quaintly called Free-thinkers, are punished for an idle jest against the established church. The former, existing in considerable bodies, are enabled to master opinion; while the latter, having few to sympathise with them, are opposed by all the prejudices and all the passions of society.

It is seldom that opinions are received purely and absolutely by the public; but most frequently they are modified by local and accidental coincidents. There is more toleration, for example, among Englishmen for Mahometanism in India, than for simple dissent at home. So, likewise, the party which would roast a papist alive in Ireland, looks with complacency on the re-establishment of the Pope on the throne of Italy. Whence is it that the same man should be contented that his co-religionist should be reviled and persecuted by our “ancient ally” at Constantinople, while he resents the slightest deviation from the established creed in England? Merely because one of these facts stands co-ordinated with his habits and his interests, and the other exists in violation of them.

It is not, then, so much the intrinsic opinion to be attacked, which is matter for consideration, as the point of view in which it may be presented, and the manner of effecting its separation from the interests in which it is involved. The attack upon established error should resemble that game which children play, by casting a bundle of small sticks into a confused heap; and then endeavouring to pick them out, one by one, without disturbing the rest. We should begin by casting about for the detached and isolated points, and next remove those which have the fewest connexions—leaving untouched the pieces in which there are the greatest implications—till at last perhaps they will fall by their own weight.

Much also depends upon times and seasons. When the current of opinion runs strong, an expert swimmer will not directly breast it, but take advantage of back-waters and of sheltering prominences: but when the tide is on the turn, and the force of the stream is nearly spent, he dashes boldly into the middle of the waters, and gains his point by the shortest possible cut.

It is by inattention to this fact, that effect is often mistaken for cause. Preachers and orators lay the French revolution to the charge of Voltaire and the philosophers, who were but the creatures of the revolutionary movement. They would neither have shewn themselves so boldly, nor obtained so much sympathy, if the spirit of the age had not been preeminently coincident with, and favourable to, their efforts. Had Bacon lived in the twelfth century, and had he, by a miracle, possessed the knowledge which he afterwards displayed, he would have either been brought to the stake, or his books, through the neglect of his cotemporaries, would have been consigned to the dust of libraries, to have awaited a more congenial and spirit-stirring epoch. Wickliff was as bold and as clear-sighted a reformer, as Luther; but he was more in advance of his age: and his want of success was the penalty of the discrepancy.

In combating error, it is a golden rule to leave unnoticed whatever is indifferent to the point at issue. In converting a Jew, it is unwise to begin by ostentatiously eating pork. Leave the Quaker in the undisturbed possession of his hat, and the Catholic in the quiet enjoyment of his red herring. In the same spirit, it is good to back truth by authority and precedent: for though mere reason is better argument, yet authority, by chiming in with the prejudices of the hearer, will in all probability be the more availing. There are thousands who would reject the doctrine of philosophical necessity, nakedly proposed, who would willingly embrace it, if disguised under the mask of grace and predestination; simply because a few grave names may be cited in favour of the latter opinion.

The interests and passions of those who may be hostile to a given reformation, are not all involved in an equal degree. There are thousands and tens of thousands who will accept of a principle, up to a certain point, where it begins to operate on themselves. With a few exceptions, all the world is beginning to be reconciled with free trade in every branch of industry,—but their own. It is therefore dangerous to push a principle at once to its utmost extreme. The further it is carried, the more persons are alarmed, and the less is the shame attendant upon brutish opposition. The moderate, moreover, in all disputes, collect around them the half thinkers and half feelers—a powerful faction, embracing those who are too indolent to inquire, or too corrupt to desire a practical improvement to the fullest extent. For such personages a middle term is a convenient retreat; and by neutralizing their opposition, you gain time and a clearer stage. This may not always be very candid: but if the “_così al egro_” system be allowable in oratory, it is no less justifiable where the grave interests of the species are at issue. The number of those who see questions in their wholeness, is very small; the mass are more moved by especial instances and examples.

In knowledge, nothing is isolated; and the establishment of one truth is the dethronement of many errors. With these, it is best to deal in detail; and await the gradual development of a growing spirit, before venturing upon points in which the age is not prepared to follow. Every body admits that the Deity is wise and good: but he who should deduce all the necessary consequences of this abstract verity, would expose such a mass of inconsistencies and absurdities, as would bring the whole force of the many to bear against him; and would ensure for himself the palm of martyrdom, without advancing public opinion one iota. Proceed, therefore, like the snail, with your feelers before you; and reserve to yourself, by a timely halt, the privilege of never combating with more opponents at once than you feel able to overthrow. Disgraceful retreats are pregnant with fearful delays: for a _coup manqué_ is followed by a revulsion of sentiment which may require the lapse of a generation to recover.

A point of prudence, equally commendable, is to avoid taking in hand too many simultaneous reforms. In this respect Voltaire was wiser than Rousseau, who levelled his attacks at once against the abuses of church and state. By respecting the nobility, while he attacked the clergy, Voltaire even now exercises a beneficial influence on French affairs. The Jesuits have at this moment many opponents among the old noblesse, who have derived their opinions on church government from that writer, simply because he spared the pretensions of their own class. In the field of argument, as in the field of battle, an undue extension of the line is accompanied by a corresponding weakness in all its points.

There is, however, one case in which a contrary method is more availing; namely, when the public spirit is not carried very powerfully in any certain direction, and when opinion stagnates. In such moments, the more startling and extravagant the novelty, the more likely it is to produce an impression. Authority and precedent are beaten down and trodden upon by a shock which unsettles all habitual notions: and an enthusiasm is unexpectedly engendered, which commences a new epoch in the history of nations. It was thus that the American revolution found its age; and that the political works of Thomas Paine produced an effect, which a writer of less daring and intensity could never have achieved. Under all circumstances, extreme opinions have the merit of setting the thinking part of the public to work: but when they are scattered _mal à propos_, it is with the certain shipwreck of the propounders; and often with a flux and reflux of sentiment, that eventually consumes more time and means, than are necessary to arrive at the proposed end, by a gentler and more undermining method.

These remarks will explain the partial successes of writers, who have taken in one age and country more than in others. Newton and Locke were admired in England, long before they made their way on the Continent; but latterly Locke has been more popular abroad than at home: because the spirit of the age, moving in contrary directions, has led the English back towards despotism in politics and mysticism in religion; whereas, abroad, it flowed in a full tide towards reason and liberality. It is now fashionable to question Locke’s fundamental principle, not because an innate idea can be brought in evidence against him, but on account of certain supposed consequences to which his principle is said to lead—and this happens in the nineteenth century! So, likewise, Beccaria, Filangieri, and other writers of the same cast, have never attained the same popularity in England, as with their own countrymen; while Bentham, who at home is an object of sarcasm and suspicion, is admired on the Continent as the very prophet of legislation. A change in the spirit of the age is at this moment (1821) working a corresponding alteration in the reputation of the writers of the French Augustan epoch; who are losing much of their former popularity, or rather idolatry, among their countrymen; and are giving place to authors, whose ideas and manners are more consonant to the existing state of public feeling and opinion.

Knaves and hypocrites are perfectly aware of these truths; unless, indeed, it is the blind instinct of cupidity, which leads them so directly to their corrupt ends. But reformers in general, either are ignorant of them, or disregard them. The enthusiasm which leads forward the advanced guard of opinion, but rarely allows an observance of what is merely prudential; and the high-minded votarist of truth, shrinks from whatever assumes the aspect of compromise, as from a degradation. The first promulgators of useful innovations are therefore usually the victims of their zeal. They gain the honour of the day with posterity; but in the mean time they are cast down, and form with their bodies the bridge over which the more calculating spirits of a future day pass in triumph to their end. Thus Romilly spent a life of disappointment and vexation, that Mr. Peel might reap the fruits of his labours; and thus the Archbishop of Canterbury enjoys a splendid income, for preaching the doctrines which brought Latimer and Ridley to the stake.

THE KEY OF THE BOOK CASE.

“Casa mia, casa mia,
Piccolina che sia,
Tu sei sempre casa mia.”[57]

Where did the Italians get these homely lines? they who have no “_casa piccolina_,” and whose home is an opera box. Now I have just such a _casa_ as this domestic maxim implies; and I love it beyond measure. Though often glad to leave it behind me, I always return to it with satisfaction. I never knew any, but the foolish and the worthless of my own sex, who did not feel a real pleasure in the performance of domestic duties; and though one may be sometimes inclined to leave behind, “_tous ses maris et tous ses enfans_,” as Madame de Coulanges has it, still a true woman always comes back with pride and delight to the fuss, and rummage, and self-importance of domestic legislation. The great must know less of this, than those whose fortunes are at odds with their tastes and position; and the blue stockings, of all ranks, affect to have souls above saucepans. But we of the trade, who have taken our places as candidates for the emoluments and honours of authorship, are not forced upon such affectation.

“One of the advantages of being a wit,” says Swift, “is the license it gives to play the fool;” and one of the privileges of a female writer who has no longer a name to make, is, that she may make her own—pudding, if she likes it. For myself, I am a heaven-born cook: but of this, more hereafter. Still, what I miss most, when I leave my own house, is not my _batterie de cuisine_, but my library. Not that it is as large as the Alexandrian, nor as curious as the Vatican; but that it is just that sort of library in which, as Madame de Sévigné says, “you cannot lay your hand on a volume without a desire to read it through.”

_Madonna mia!_ how well I know the smell of a country-house library! Being, by divine indignation, an author, people think I do nothing but read and write books, “eat paper, and drink ink,” as Sir Nathaniel says; and are pleased to consider that which is but the episode, as the history of my life. It frequently happens that, before I have made acquaintance with half the rose trees, smelled the geraniums, or swallowed a draught of the delicious air I left town expressly to breathe, I am presented with the key of the book-case—[I would as soon lock up my bells as my books, since the great merit of both is to be always at hand]—So I go twisting and turning the said key into its rusty lock; and, _ouf!_ the fust and the must, when the book-case is opened! Then, what a search for something one can read through in less than a twelvemonth. Out of every hundred volumes, there are scarcely more than six or seven works; for country-house libraries are made up of folios, quartos, or large octavos, _pour le moins_; except that here and there is a sort of thick, short, squat volume, that belongs to no class of form; and every work runs from ten to fifteen volumes. The reason is, that country-house libraries are generally heir-looms, originally collected as a mark of gentility by the wisdom of the country-house ancestors. They consist of what are called standard books—books that would let the world stand still to the end of time!—composed and collected when knowledge, instead of being given, as now, in quintessential drops, was weighed out by the stone, or measured by the yard. Concentration, in all things—the throwing off the rubbish, and getting at the element—is the true proof of excellence; and it is now, in literature, as in medicine; instead of being choked with a pint of bark mud, (all port wine as it may be,) we swallow a few pellucid drops of _quinine_, without wry faces or deep inspirations! It formerly took a life to write a book, and half a one to read it. Oh, the “Rollin’s Histories,” and “Voyages round the World,” and the “Clelias and Cassandras,” and the poems in fifty-nine cantos—the folio “Thoughts upon Nothing,” and the seven-volume ponderosity of “Sir Charles Grandison!”

Denon—whose own work on Egypt, hit off, as it is, with his own peculiar _finesse_ and spirit, (_touche fine et spirituelle_,)—is a fair illustration of the genuine style of modern writing—Denon was the most impatient person under the infliction of voluminous works (myself excepted) that I ever knew. It was a constant theme of abuse and laughter between us. One night I was leaning on his arm, at a _soirée_, at the Prince de Beauveau’s, when the excellent and estimable Monsieur S——, in passing close by us, trod on his foot: he turned to me, with an expression of pain, and said, “_Ah! ma chère petite, les dix-huit volumes m’ont tombé sur le pied!_”[58] And yet, after all, I, too, have appeared pranked out in two quarto volumes, heavier than myself, and quite as tall: but of this presumptuous magnitude, I stood as guiltless as of the Talmud. Three small, compact, lady-like octavos were ever the utmost boundary of my authorical ambition. For all beyond this, my publishers were more in fault than I.

One exception I must make: I originally wrote my “Novice of St. Dominick” in ten goodly, stout volumes, which, with much humility, as I thought, I cut down to seven. With these seven—by far the heaviest part of my luggage—I arrived in London, and presented myself to Sir Richard Phillips, who advised me, to take back my manuscript, like a good girl, and reduce it to five. “Insatiate monster, would not one suffice!” But down went the volumes; and when I took the remaining sibyl leaves to Sir Richard, he again begged they might be reduced to four. This was too much; though I verily believe, at this moment, that the publisher’s good-natured consideration of my _amour propre_ alone prevented him from stinting my exuberance to two volumes, which, perhaps, he ought to have done. The work, however, succeeded, in spite of its bulk, and still maintains a preference over my lighter and better productions, in the estimation at least of my cotemporaries, the ladies of a certain age, who first read its multitudinous pages, when they were as young as the author who wrote them; and who still mistake their own first, warm impressions for the merits of a work, which, truth to tell, had not too many to boast of.

Extreme youth, like extreme age, is naturally verbose. If the aged speak from the fulness of memory, the young are loquacious from the novelty and strength of their sensations. Youth, likewise, suspects not its own tritisms and plagiarisms; nor thinks it is telling what every body knows, and nobody cares for. The secret, the grand secret, that “_l’art d’ennuyer est l’art de tout dire_”[59]—that to exhaust a subject is not to illustrate it—is unknown to the young, who know so little, and who feel so much.

When I wrote “The Novice,” two volumes or ten were alike to me. But I must keep the history of my authorship for another time. It would make a cat laugh: alas! it has often made me cry!

APOTHECARIES.

À propos to _quinine_, that pretty, elegant medicine, that looks like distilled diamonds, or the rill that runs between the ornamented banks of my dear Kilfane. This getting at quintessences is rather injurious to the craft and mystery of compounding. When people cease to take medicine by the pint, adieu to _Messieurs les Apothicaires_! This was confessed, with much _naïveté_, lately, by one of the profession, who left it, to undertake an extensive brewery. Being asked the motive of this change, he said, “The public will now swallow my drugs by the quart, instead of the phial.”

How many professions depend upon the ignorance of the age in which they flourish. In the middle ages, the apothecaries were general shopkeepers, and, in England, for a long time, the exclusive dealers in wine. In Italy, where so many traces of the middle ages still subsist unchanged, the apothecary is called, to this day, _speziale_, or spice-dealer. When we resided at Como, we purchased our tea, sugar, wax-lights, oils, and medicines, all at the same shop. Up to the time of James the First, the apothecaries of London were not a distinct body, but belonged to the Grocers’ Company. The probability is, that humanity gained little by the change; for a trade, when turned into a mystery, is but better fitted to play upon the innate gullibility of man. The _hocus-pocus_ of pouring one bottle into another, lost nothing in the hands of persons, who assumed the right of administering, by gallons, their own compositions.

_Rabelais_, by-the-by, was the son of an apothecary, who was Seigneur de la Devinière. Could this feudal lord of lands have been an apothecary, in the modern sense of the word?—or was he not rather a wholesale general merchant?

The Chinese, in their dull wisdom, have a curious custom in their great towns—a substitute for our dispensaries. A stone, of many cubits high, is erected in some public place, with the names and prices of every medicine inscribed; and when the poor want physic, they apply to the treasury, and get the price of the drug required. This speaks volumes for the probity of the people. If, in Ireland, the treasury was authorized thus to advance the purchase-money of medicines to the poor, instead of their applying to the Medical-Hall, I fear their steps would more probably wander to the whisky-shop. This public pricing of drugs bespeaks also great and general ignorance among the people, who are not considered capable of purchasing the outlandish commodity. How different from the modern American, who buys not only his physic, but his theology, where and how he pleases!

In our own times, there has been a vast revolution in apothecaries. As to the mere outward man, what a difference between the formal proprietor of a Dalmahoy-wig, and a snuff-coloured or crimson suit of dittoes, an amber-headed cane, and scarlet _roquelaure_, (who phlebotomized our fathers, with the solemn air of his own Galen’s-head,) and the spruce, dapper incumbent of a cabriolet, who now bounds up to your knocker with a hop-step-and-a-jump! But the “march of intellect” has done much more still for the interior. Every professional man must, in these days, know something of his business; and the apothecary, whose mental stock in trade is not as much improved as his _matériel_, will have poor chance of employment.—The dealers in physic first began as conjurors; then figured as priests; next sunk into retailers of hard words; and finally have become almost as reasonable and intelligible mortals, as the patients to whom they administer. What will this jacobinical age come to next?

MAXIMS—PORTRAITS.

Nobody writes maxims now. Maxims do not belong to the state of intellect and literature of the present age. In times when knowledge was the exclusive property of a particular class, and when mankind leaned upon the opinions of the learned, they were more apt to refer their conduct to a well established rule, than to govern it by their own reflections. These were the times for “wise saws and modern instances.” Men now think for themselves, and do not require recipes for thinking. It is remarkable, that the most celebrated maxim-mongers of modern times were men of quality; and that their aphorisms are chiefly applicable to the exigencies, vices, and virtues of a court, of which the flower of maxim-mongers has said, “It does not render us happy, while it prevents the search of happiness in other directions.”

Towards the middle of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, maxims became a rage in France. Their terseness, point, and epigrammatic turn, particularly adapted them to _l’esprit du siècle_, and to a language made up of phrases—All the coteries of the Hôtels La Rochefoucauld, Carnavalet, D’Albret, &c. &c., including all the genuine wit and taste of the day, as opposed to the Hôtel Rambouillet and other “_bureaux d’esprit_,” dealt largely in maxims. The Duc de Rochefoucauld published his, and distanced all competitors. The philosophy of more enlightened times owed much to this breviary of practical and worldly experience. Helvetius borrowed from it his leading doctrine; and Hume, without acknowledging the obligation, stood deeply indebted to its dogmas for his opinions.

What a sensation the “Maxims” must have made at Versailles, when they first came out, and

“Each cried, ‘that is levelled at me.’”

Mesdames de La Fayette, Sévigné, Coulange, Cornuel, and others of the female wits who surrounded the gouty chair of the once brilliant cavalier of the beautiful De Longueville, saw the work in MS. long before it was published, and probably helped the illustrious author to some of the poignant maxims, to which female _finesse_ seems to have lent its delicacy and its bitterness. It was from this very MS. that a splendid edition of the work was published, some years back, by the Rochefoucauld family, and edited by Mons. Suard, the late perpetual Secretary of the Academy; who assured me, not only that the work was printed from this precious morsel of autography, but that he was further assisted in his editorial capacity by a copy of the first printed edition, which was marked all over with the duke’s own corrections, erasures, and marginal notes.

One morning, in Paris, (1818) as I sat reading a letter of Madame de Sévigné, dated from the Hôtel de la Rochefoucauld, the Count G—— de la R—— was announced. I was so deep in the _coterie_ of Le Faubourg, that I started, and expected to find the coadjutor along with him. “I have brought you,” said my noble visitor, “a little _étrenne_;” and he presented me with the works of his illustrious ancestor—_Me voilà donc_ a link in the chain with times and persons who so early got possession of my mind and imagination, through the accidents of my miscellaneous and unguided studies. There is a magic in an historical name, that no democracy of opinion or principle can resist, except in the dull and unlettered; and it is to the glory of some of the greatest families of France, that they were illustrated by some highly-gifted and highly-spirited member, who enhanced the advantages of descent and birth, and redeemed their class from the popular odium which the vices and meanness of its majority incurred.