Chapter XXXIX: Book I: , IV. 5

316. ‘_Spinning the thread_,’ _etc._ _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act V.
Scene 1.

317. _But in private your follies_, _etc._ Hazlitt very likely put
Jeffrey to this test when he was in Edinburgh in 1823 on his
divorce business. See Vol. II., p. 314 and note.

319. ‘_Has no figures_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act II. Scene 1.

‘_Tread the primrose path_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 3.

_A Phillips._ Charles Phillips (1787?–1859), a native of Sligo,
who enjoyed a great reputation, both at the Irish bar, and at
the English bar, to which he was called in 1821. Brougham
himself described his speeches as ‘horticultural.’

_A Plunket._ William Conyngham Plunket (1764–1854), the advocate
of Catholic Emancipation, famous for his eloquence both at the
bar and in Parliament, created Baron Plunket in 1827,
chief-justice of the Irish common pleas (1827–30), and Lord
Chancellor of Ireland (1830–1841).

319. Note. Brougham was born in Edinburgh, where he was educated. His
mother was Scotch (a niece of Robertson the historian), and his
father belonged to an old Westmoreland family.

_The late Lord Erskine._ Erskine died in November, 1823.

320. ‘_Domestic treason_,’ _etc._

‘Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.’
_Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 2.

321. ‘_As much again to govern it._’ In _Table Talk_ Hazlitt quotes
this line as Butler’s.

‘_Pour out all as plain_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Imitations of Horace_,
Sat. I. 51–2.

322. ‘_Scared at the sound_,’ _etc._ Cf.

‘And back recoiled, he knew not why,
Even at the sound himself had made.’
Collins, _The Passions_, ll. 19–20.

‘_The total grist_,’ _etc._ Cowper, _The Task_, Book VI., 108.

323. _There are few intellectual accomplishments_, _etc._ It was said
of Brougham that if he had known a little law, he would have
known a little of everything.

_The celebrated Carnot._ Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot
(1753–1823), the first organiser of the armies of the
Revolution. He left Napoleon in 1800, but returned to him in
1814, and was Minister of the Interior during the Hundred Days.
He wrote many works on mathematical subjects.

‘_No day without a line._’ ‘Nulla dies sine linea,’ a phrase based
on a saying of Apelles reported by Pliny. (_Nat. Hist._ XXXV.,
36, 10).

325. _Imbibed at Wimbledon Common._ Where Horne Tooke lived.

‘_Hunt half a day_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Hart-Leap Well_, Part II.

LORD ELDON AND MR. WILBERFORCE. The paper on Lord Eldon appeared
in the _New Monthly Magazine_ (1824, Vol. XI., p. 17).

‘_All tranquillity and smiles._’ Cowper, _The Task_, Book IV., 49.

326. ‘_All is conscience_,’ _etc._ Chaucer, _Prologue_, 150.

‘_If wretches hang_,’ _etc._

‘And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.’
Pope, _Rape of the Lock_, III. 22.

_An instance_, _etc._ For John Williams’s attack on the Court of
Chancery, see _Parl. Hist._ (June 4, 1823, and Feb. 24, 1824),
and Walpole’s _History of England_, III. 281. An inaccurate
report of a speech of Abercromby’s on the second of John
Williams’s motions led the Chancellor to make some angry
observations from the bench. The incident created a considerable
sensation and led to a debate in Parliament. (See Twiss’s _Life
of Lord Eldon_, II. 490–502).

327. ‘_Resistless passion_,’ _etc._

‘—— for affection,
Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood
Of what it likes or loathes.’
_Merchant of Venice_, Act IV. Scene 1.

328. ‘_Lack lustre eye._’ _As You Like It_, Act II. 7.

‘_As they were in Rabelais._’ See _Pantagruel_, Liv. II., Chap.
xxxix _et seq._

_An injunction against Wat Tyler._ See Vol. III., note to p. 192.

329. _The Year 1794._ The Year of unsuccessful prosecutions of Horne
Tooke, Hardy, Thelwall, Holcroft, and others, and the year in
which _Wat Tyler_ was written.

‘_One entire and perfect chrysolite._’ _Othello_, Act V. Scene 2.

‘_Read his history_,’ _etc._

‘And read their history in a nation’s eyes.’
Gray, _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_, Stanza 16.

330. ‘_So small a drop_,’ _etc._ _Cymbeline_, Act IV. Scene 2.

331. _Mr. Wilberforce._ William Wilberforce (1759–1833), member for
Hull 1780–4, for Yorkshire 1784–1812, and for Bramber 1812–1825,
was early converted to the evangelical party known as the
‘Clapham Sect’ or the ‘Saints,’ and became the parliamentary
leader of the anti-slavery cause. The slave trade was abolished
by the coalition government in 1807, and emancipation was
carried in 1833, the year of Wilberforce’s death. Apart from his
efforts in this cause and on behalf of missionary work in India,
he gave a general support to the Tory ministries of Pitt (his
intimate friend), and of the Duke of Portland, Perceval, and
Lord Liverpool. In particular he approved the coercive measures
of 1795 and 1817. This partly accounts for the bitter attack not
only of Hazlitt, but of Cobbett (_Political Register_, Aug.
1823).

‘_What lacks he then._’ _King John_, Act IV. Scene 1.

‘_Conscience will not budge._’ ‘Well, my conscience says,
“Launcelot, budge not.” “Budge,” says the fiend. “Budge not,”
says my conscience. “Conscience,” say I, “You counsel well.”’
_Merchant of Venice_, Act II. Scene 2.

‘_Woe unto you_,’ _etc._ _St. Luke_, vi. 26.

_As old Fuller calls them._ _Holy and Profane State._ _The Good
Sea Captain_, Maxim 5.

332. ‘_Out upon such half-faced fellowship._’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act
I. Scene 3.

333. ‘_By every little breath_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book I.,
Canto vii. Stanza 32.

_Clarkson._ Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846). The most indefatigable of
the extra-parliamentary agitators against slavery. Coleridge
referred to him as ‘the moral steam engine, or Giant with one
idea.’

334. Note. Byron in his _Detached Notes_ (see _Letters and Journals_,
ed. Prothero, II. 241 note) relates this well-known story as
having been told to him by Sheridan himself.

MR. COBBETT. This essay appeared in _Table Talk_ (Vol. I., 1821)
and was republished in a small volume in 1835, the year of
Cobbett’s death. Cf. a passage on Cobbett in the _Examiner_
printed in notes to the _Round Table_, Vol. I. p. 424.

_Cribb._ See _ante_, note to p. 223.

‘_Fillips the ear_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act I. Scene 2.

_‘Lays waste’ a city orator_, _etc._ The reference is probably to
an attack on Robert Waithman in the _Political Register_. (See
_Political Works_, IV. 319 and V. 298.) Waithman was member for
the City of London from 1816 till 1820, and from 1826 till his
death in 1833. See _ante_, p. 282, and _post_, note to p. 366.

335. ‘_Damnable iteration._’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act I. Scene 2.

336. _Nunquam sufflaminandus erat._ ‘Itaque D. Augustus optime dixit,
Aterius noster sufflaminandus est.’ M. Annaeus Seneca,
_Controversiae_, 4, praef. § 7. The saying is quoted by Ben
Jonson (_Timber_, LXIV.).

‘_Weary, stale_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 2.

337. _Barmecide._ _Arabian Nights_, The Barber’s Story of his Sixth
Brother.

‘_Live in his description._’ A reminiscence, perhaps of the line
in Pope’s _Dunciad_ (I. 69), ‘But liv’d in Settle’s numbers one
day more.’

_Mr. ——._ Probably Brougham. See _Political Works_, V. 145 _et
seq._

_His Grammar._ ‘A Grammar of the English Language, in a Series of
Letters’ (1818).

_Like Giant Despair._ ‘So, when he arose, he getteth him a
grievous crab-tree cudgel.... Then he falls upon them, and beats
them fearfully, in such sort, that they were not able to help
themselves, or to turn them upon the floor.’ _Pilgrim’s
Progress_, Part I.

338. _The Yanguesian carriers._ _Don Quixote_, Part I., Book III. Chap.
xv.

‘_He has the back-trick_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Scene 3.

‘_Arrowy sleet._’

‘——and flying behind them shot
Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face
Of their pursuers.’
_Paradise Regained_, III. 323–5.

_An Ishmaelite indeed._ Cf. ‘Behold an Israelite indeed,’ etc.
_St. John_, i. 47. Hazlitt has in mind the description
(_Genesis_, xvi. 12) of Ishmael: ‘And he will be a wild man; his
hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against
him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.’

340. _The two-penny trash._ Set _Political Register_, August 1817
(_Political Works_, V. 236).

‘_Till a Bill passed the House_,’ _etc._ Cobbett’s _Political
Register_ had evaded the stamp duty until 1819, when it was
rendered liable to duty by the fifth of the famous Six Acts
passed in that year.

‘_Ample scope_,’ _etc._ ‘Give ample room, and verge enough.’ Gray,
_The Bard_, II. 1.

341. ‘_He pours out_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, Sat. I.
51–2.

_Antipholis of Ephesus_, _etc._ See _The Comedy of Errors_, Act V.
Scene 1.

_The relics of Mr. Thomas Paine_, _etc._ When Cobbett returned to
England from America in 1819 he brought Paine’s bones to
Liverpool and left them there. After Cobbett’s death they were
seized as part of the property of Paine’s son who became a
bankrupt.

‘_His canonized bones._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 4.

342. _The Edinburgh Review_, _etc._ In an article by Jeffrey, July
1807, Vol. X. 386. The reply of Cobbett referred to by Hazlitt
appeared in the _Political Register_, August 1807. _Political
Works_, II. 294.

343. _The Pleasures of Memory._ By Rogers, published in 1792.

_The Pleasures of Hope._ By Campbell, published in 1799.

344. _We should dread to point out_, _etc._ Scott said to Washington
Irving (Lockhart, IV. 93): ‘The fact is, Campbell is, in a
manner, a bugbear to himself. The brightness of his early
success is a detriment to all his further efforts. _He is afraid
of the shadow that his own fame casts before him._’

‘_Snatches a grace_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Criticism_, 155.

‘_Yet sweeter_,’ _etc._ _Winter’s Tale_, Act. IV. Scene 4.

345. ‘_And by the vision_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth’s _Ode, Intimations of
Immortality_, 73–4.

_Gertrude of Wyoming._ Published in 1809.

‘_A loved bequest_,’ _etc._ Part I. Stanzas 11–13.

346. ‘_Famous poet’s page._’ Cf. ‘A most famous Poet’s witt.’ Spenser,
_Verses addressed by the Author of the Faerie Queene_ (to the
Earl of Essex).

‘_Jealous leer malign._’ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 503.

346. ‘_Scattered in stray-gifts_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Stray
Pleasures_.

‘_Like angel’s visits_,’ _etc._ _Pleasures of Hope_, Part II. l.
378. Cf. _Lectures on the English Poets_ (Vol. V. p. 150), where
Hazlitt adds: ‘Mr. Campbell in altering the expression has
spoiled it. “Few,” and “far between” are the same thing.’

‘_We perceive a softness_,’ _etc._ Cf. Vol. V. p. 184.

347. ‘_Ruddy drops_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act II. Scene 1.

_Hohenlinden._ Published anonymously with _Lochiel_ in 1802, and
included in the 4to (1803) edition of _The Pleasures of Hope_.

348. _Mr. Campbell’s prose-criticisms._ Campbell’s ‘Lectures on Poetry
Re-written’ appeared in the _New Monthly Magazine_ of which he
was editor from 1820 to 1830. Hazlitt does not refer to his
_Specimens of the British Poets, with biographical and critical
notices, and an Essay on English Poetry_ (7 vols. 1819).

_Mr. Crabbe._ The Poems of George Crabbe (1754–1832), with a Life
by his son George, were published in 8 vols. 1834, and in one
volume 1847. The one volume edition has recently been re-issued,
as a result of the praises bestowed on Crabbe by Edward
Fitzgerald, who himself made a Selection from the _Tales of the
Hall_.

_Audrey’s question._ _As You Like It._ Act III. Scene 3.

349. ‘_Turns diseases_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act I. Scene 2.

_Mr. Crabbe’s first poems_, _etc._ Crabbe’s first poems were
_Inebriety_ (published anonymously in 1775), _The Candidate_
(1780), and _The Library_ (1781). It was _The Village_ (1783)
that Johnson read and approved. (See Boswell’s _Life_, ed. G. B.
Hill, IV. 175.) Crabbe’s patron was Burke, by whom he was no
doubt introduced to Reynolds, and later to Johnson.

350. _He brings as a parallel instance_, _etc._ In the Preface to the
_Tales_ (1812). See _Works_ (1834, IV. 144).

‘_In the worst inn’s worst room_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_,
III. 299.

351. _He sets out with professing_, _etc._ Hazlitt refers to the
opening lines of _The Village_.

_The sad vicissitudes of things._ This phrase occurs in a poem,
_Contemplation_, by the Rev. Richard Gifford, which was quoted
by Johnson. See _Tour to the Hebrides_ (Boswell’s _Life_, ed. G.
B. Hill, V. 117–8). The phrase also occurs in Sterne’s _Sermons_
(No. XVI.).

‘_At one bound_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 181.

_He does not weave the web_, _etc._ An unacknowledged quotation
from _All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act IV. Scene 3.

_The only leaf_, _etc._ Crabbe resided for some time at Belvoir
Castle as chaplain to the fourth Duke of Rutland. He dedicated
_The Borough_ to the fifth Duke, and _Tales of the Hall_ to the
Duchess.

352. ‘_Thus by himself_,’ _etc._ _The Borough_, Letter xxii., Peter
Grimes.

353. _The episode of Phœbe Dawson._ In _The Parish Register_ (Part
II.). The tale interested Fox on his death-bed. (See _Works_,
1834, II. 16, 180.)

_The character of the Methodist parson_, _etc._ Hazlitt probably
refers to the story of Ruth (_Tales of the Hall_, Book V.,
_Works_, 1834, VI. 93).

_Mr. T. Moore._ Cf. _Political Essays_ (Vol. III., pp. 311–321).

‘_Or winglet_,’ _etc._ Campbell, _Gertrude of Wyoming_, Part II.,
Stanza 12.

‘_No dainty flower_,’ _etc._ Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_, Book
II., Canto vi., Stanzas 12 and 13.

354. ‘_Wasteful and superfluous excess._’ ‘Wasteful and ridiculous
excess.’ _King John_, Act IV. Scene 2.

355. ‘_And spread_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act I. Scene 1.

‘_Dying or ere they sicken._’ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Scene 3.

355. ‘_A perpetual feast_,’ _etc._ Milton, _Comus_, 478–9.

‘_On the rack_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘That on the torture of the mind to
lie in restless ecstasy.’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 2.

‘_Looks so fair_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act IV. Scene 2.

‘_Another morn_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V. 310–1.

356. ‘_Now, upon Syria’s_,’ _etc._ _Lalla Rookh_, ‘Paradise and the
Peri.’

_Della Cruscan sentiment._ See the essay on Gifford, _ante_, p.
309.

357. ‘_A penitent tear._’

‘——the tear that, warm and meek,
Dew’d that repentant sinner’s cheek.’
‘Paradise and the Peri.’

‘_Joy, joy for ever_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

‘_May bestride the Gossamer_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II.
Scene 6.

‘_In vain Mokanna_,’ _etc._ _Lalla Rookh_, ‘The Veiled Prophet of
Khorassan.’

358. ‘_Whose coming_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

_The ‘Twopenny Post-bag.’_ Published in 1812.

‘_Nests of spicery._’ _Richard III._, Act IV. Scene 4.

‘_In the manner_,’ _etc._ Moore, _Horace_, Ode XI. Lib. II. Freely
translated by the Pr—ce R—g—t.

‘_An Adonis of fifty._’ ‘This Adonis in loveliness was a corpulent
man of fifty.’ These words occur in a paper in _The Examiner_
(March 22, 1812), for which Leigh Hunt and his brother John were
sent to prison.

Note 2. Moore’s _Little Man and Little Soul_ was dedicated to
Charles Abbot (1757–1829) the Speaker, afterwards Lord
Colchester. Abbot, in his address to the Regent in July
1813, referred to a Bill for the removal of Roman Catholic
disabilities which had been defeated.

359. ‘_In choosing songs_,’ _etc._ Moore, _Satirical and Humorous
Poems. Extracts from the Diary of a Politician_.

_The ‘Fudge Family.’_ See Hazlitt’s _Political Essays_, Vol. III.,
pp. 311–321.

_The ‘divine Fanny Bias.’_ _The ‘Fudge Family in Paris._’ Letter
V.

_The ‘mountains_ à la Russe.’ _Ibid._ Letter VIII.

_Is Mr. Moore bound_, _etc._ Moore had urged Byron not to become
associated with Leigh Hunt in _The Liberal_. See Byron’s
_Letters and Journals_, ed. Prothero, VI. 22. Hazlitt himself
deals with this matter at some length in an essay in the _Plain
Speaker_, entitled, ‘On the Jealousy and Spleen of Party.’ See
also _Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, II., 69–73. ‘The Spirit of
Monarchy’ was a paper contributed by Hazlitt to _The Liberal_;
‘Fables for the Holy Alliance,’ a skit of Moore’s, published in
1823.

360. ‘_To be admired_,’ _etc._ ‘Needs only to be seen to be admired.’
Cowper, _Expostulation_, 493.

361. _His Story of Rimini._ Published in 1816. A savage review appeared
in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ for May 1818.

_His Epistle to Lord Byron._ Included in _Foliage; or, Poems,
Original and Translated_ (1818).

_The Feast of the Poets._ Published in 1814. See Vol. I., p. 377.

362. _Some allusion was made_, _etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 358.

_Elia, and Geoffrey Crayon._ Cf. Hazlitt’s essay ‘On Persons one
would wish to have seen’ (_Literary Remains_), for another
account of Lamb. In a letter to Bernard Barton (Feb. 10, 1825)
Lamb says: ‘The “Spirit of the Age” is by Hazlitt. The
characters of Coleridge, etc., he had done better in former
publications, the praise and abuse much stronger, etc., but the
new ones are capitally done. Horne Tooke is a matchless
portrait. My advice is to borrow it rather than buy it. I have
it. He has laid too many colours on my likeness; but I have had
so much injustice done me in my own name, that I make a rule of
accepting as much over-measure to “Elia” as gentlemen think
proper to bestow.’ In a letter to J. Taylor (_Letters_, ed.
Ainger, II., 35) he explains how he came to take the name of
‘Elia.’

362. ‘_The pale reflex_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act III. Scene 5.

‘_Native to_,’ _etc._ ‘Though I am native here, and to the manner
born.’ _Hamlet_ Act I. Scene 4.

363. ‘_Shuffle off_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._, Act III. Scene 1.

‘_The self-applauding bird_,’ _etc._ Cowper, _Truth_, l. 58 _et
seq._

‘_New-born gauds_,’ _etc._ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Scene
3.

‘_Give to dust_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

‘_Do not in broad_,’ _etc._

‘Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in the broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging love.’
_Lycidas_, 78–82.

364. ‘_Fine fretwork_,’ _etc._ _Essays of Elia._ The South-Sea House.

365. ‘_The chimes at midnight._’ ‘We have heard the chimes at midnight,
Master Shallow.’ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act III. Scene 2.

‘_Cheese and pippins._’ Cf. _Merry Wives of Windsor_. Act I. Scene
2, and _Henry IV._, Part II., Act V. Scene 3.

_A certain writer._ Hazlitt himself, who contributed three papers
on Guy Faux to _The Examiner_ in 1821, reprinted for the first
time in the present edition. Lamb wrote a paper on the same
subject in _The London Magazine_ for November 1823, _Works_, ed.
R. H. Shepherd, vol. I. p. 345. See Hazlitt’s essay ‘On Persons
one would wish to have seen’ (_Literary Remains_).

366. ‘_To have coined_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act IV. Scene 3.

‘_Civic honours._’ See _Letters of Charles Lamb_, ed. W. C.
Hazlitt, II. 159, where, in a letter to Mrs. Hazlitt, Lamb
describes his dinner at the Mansion House.

_Mr. Waithman’s perusal._ Robert Waithman (1764–1833), the
political reformer, was Lord Mayor in 1823. See _ante_, note to
p. 334.

Note. _John Woodvil_ was published in 1802. The lines quoted are
in Act II.

367. _Mr. Washington Irvine’s acquaintance_, _etc._ Washington Irving
(1783–1859), published in New York _The History of New York, By
Diedrich Knickerbocker_ (1809), and came in 1815 to Europe,
where he stayed for seventeen years. His _Sketch Book of
Geoffrey Crayon, Gent_, was published in America in 1819, and in
London first in part by Miller, then by Murray in 1820; his
_Bracebridge Hall_ by Murray in 1822. These and his later books,
_Tales of a Traveller_ (1824), _Tales of the Alhambra_ (1832),
_Life of Oliver Goldsmith_ (1849), _Life of Mahomet_ (1850),
_Life of Washington_ (1855), and others are now included in
fifteen volumes of Bohn’s Standard Library. For an account of
their publication and of Murray’s lawsuit against Bohn, see
Smiles’s _Memoirs of John Murray_, Vol. II. _passim_.

_In his_ ‘mind’s eye.’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 2.

368. _Mr. Knowles._ James Sheridan Knowles (1784–1862) whose
_Virginius_ was produced at Covent Garden in May 1820, had
recently been a confidant of Hazlitt’s in the matter of Sarah
Walker. See Vol. II. p. 328 (_Liber Amoris_).

368. _Mr. Knowles himself_, _etc._ Knowles who had acted in the
provinces as early as 1802, returned to the stage in 1832, when
he played Master Walter in his own comedy of _The Hunchback_. He
continued to act till 1843.

371. _Preface to An Abridgment_, _etc._ The first four volumes of
Abraham Tucker’s (1705–1774) _The Light of Nature Pursued_ were
published under the name of ‘Edward Search’ in 1768, the
remaining three, edited by his daughter, appearing posthumously
in 1778.

_Clarissa._ The _eight_ volumes of _Clarissa Harlowe_ were
abridged by E. S. Dallas in 1868, the _six_ volumes of _Sir
Charles Grandison_ by Mary Howitt in 1873.

_Without suffering_, _etc._ Apparently a kind of legal formula, as
in Hall’s Chronicles (Henry V. 70 b.): ‘that we suffre harm or
diminucion in person estate worship or goods.’

‘_Not sicklied o’er_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.

373. _John Buncle._ See Vol. I. pp. 51–7 (_The Round Table_).

‘_His unrivalled power of illustration._’ See the Preface to
Paley’s _Moral Philosophy_.

377. ‘_Petrific mace._’ ‘Death with his mace petrific.’ _Paradise
Lost_, X. 294.

378. Note. ‘_Just such shard-born beetle things._’ _Macbeth_, Act III.
Scene 2.

Note. _Mr. Horne Tooke._ Cf. _ante_, 231–241.

Note. _Promontory of noses._ _Tristram Shandy_, Slaukenbergius’s
Tale.

Note. _Andrew Paraeus’s._ Ambrose Paraeus’s ‘Solution of noses’ is
in _Tristram Shandy_, Book III. Chap, xxviii.

Note. ‘_It is as absurd_,’ _etc._ Cf. _ante_, p. 240.

381. _Soame Jenyns’s argument._ See Disquisition VII. (_Works_, 1790,
III. 258 _et seq._). The argument is controverted by Jenyns.

384. Note. _There is one argument_, _etc._ ‘At sperat adolescens diu se
victurum: quod sperare idem senex non potest. Insipienter
sperat. Quid enim stultius, quam incerta pro certis habere,
falsa pro veris! Senex, ne quod speret quidem, habet: at est eo
meliore conditione, quam adolescens, quum id, quod ille sperat,
his jam consecutus est. Ille vult diu vivere: his diu vixit.’
_De Senectute_, Cap. xix.

388. _Edward Baldwin._ The name under which Godwin wrote various works
published by his wife.

393. _David Booth._ David Booth (1766–1846) published an _Introduction
to an Analytical Dictionary of the English Language_ in 1806.
Only one volume of the Dictionary itself was published (1835).

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, (late) Printers to Her Majesty at the
Edinburgh University Press

-----

Footnote 1:

The late Sir W. Pulteney, whose character for liberality is well
known, was firmly persuaded that the author of the Essay on Population
was the greatest man that ever lived, and really wished to have
bestowed some personal remuneration on Mr. M. as his political
confessor, for having absolved him from all doubts and scruples in the
exercise of his favourite virtue.

Footnote 2:

Among the former are Hume, Wallace, Smith, and Price; among the latter
are the Economists, Montesquieu, Franklin, Sir James Steuart, Arthur
Young, Mr. Townshend, Plato, and Aristotle.

Footnote 3:

I beg leave to refer the reader to some letters which appeared on this
subject, in the Monthly Magazine, written by a well informed and
ingenious man, who had too much good sense and firmness to be carried
away by the tide of vulgar prejudice.

Footnote 4:

Yet it is extraordinary that with all their wisdom and virtue they
would not be able to take any steps to prevent this distress. This is
a species of fascination, of which it is difficult to form any
conception.

Footnote 5:

The prevalence of this check may be estimated _by the general
proportion_ of virtue and happiness in the world, for if there had
been no such check there could have been nothing but vice and misery.

Footnote 6:

In the second edition, it says, _moral restraint_, vice or misery.
What are we to think of a man who writes a book to prove that vice and
misery are the only security for the happiness of the human race, and
then writes another to say, that vice and folly are not the only
security, but that our only resource must be either in vice and folly,
or in wisdom and virtue? This is like making a white skin part of the
definition of a man, and defending it by saying that they are all
_white_, except those who are _black_ or _tawny_.

Footnote 7:

I here follow the text of Mr. Malthus, who takes great pains to give a
striking description of the savage tribes, as a pleasing contrast, no
doubt, to the elegancies and comforts of polished life. Mr. Malthus’s
extreme sensibility to the grossness and inconveniences of the savage
state, may be construed into refinement and delicacy. But it does not
strike me so. There is something in this mis-placed and selfish
fastidiousness, that shocks me more than the objects of it. It does
not lead to compassion but to hatred. We strive to get rid of our
uneasiness, by hardening ourselves towards the objects which occasion
it, and lose the passive feelings of disgust excited in us by others
in the active desire to inflict pain upon them. Aversion too easily
changes into malice. Mr. Malthus seems fond of indulging this feeling
against all those who have not the same advantages as himself. With a
pious gratitude he seems fond of repeating to himself, ‘I am not as
this poor Hottentot.’ He then gives you his bill of fare, which is
none of the most delicate, without omitting a single article, and by
shrugging up his shoulders, making wry mouths at him, and fairly
turning your stomach, excites in you the same loathing and abhorrence
of this poor creature that he takes delight in feeling himself. ‘Your
very nice people have the nastiest imaginations.’ He triumphs over the
calamities and degradation of his fellow-creatures. He lays open all
the sores and blotches of humanity with the same calmness and alacrity
as a hospital surgeon does those of a diseased body. He turns the
world into a charnel-house. Through a dreary space of 300 ‘chill and
comfortless’ pages, he ransacks all quarters of the globe only ‘to
present a speaking picture of hunger and nakedness, in quest of
objects best suited to his feelings, in anxious search of calamities
most akin to his _invalid_ imagination,’ and eagerly gropes into every
hole and corner of wretchedness to collect evidence in support of his
grand misery-scheme, as at the time of an election, you see the
city-candidates sneaking into the dirty alleys, and putrid cellars of
Shoreditch or Whitechapel, and the candidates for Westminster into
those of St. Giles’s, canvassing for votes, their patriotic zeal
prevailing over their sense of dignity, and sense of smell.

Footnote 8:

I mention these names because it is always customary to mention them
in speaking on this subject: and there are some readers who are more
impressed with a thing, the oftener it is repeated.

Footnote 9:

I here leave out of the question, as not essential to it, the effect
of sudden rises or falls, and other accidental variations in the
produce of a country which cannot be foreseen or provided against, on
the state of population.

Footnote 10:

I find there is here some transposition of names and circumstances,
but it does not much matter.

Footnote 11:

I am happy to find that a philosophical work, like Mr. Malthus’s, has
got a good deal into the hands of young ladies of a liberal education
and an inquisitive turn of mind. The question is no doubt highly
interesting; and the author has thrown over it a warmth of colouring,
that can hardly fail to please. Even Miss Howe was fond of ardours.

Footnote 12:

I have here purposely left an opening for Mr. Malthus’s ingenuity. He
will I hope take the hint and write another quarto volume to prove by
anatomical and medical inquiries into the state of all countries,
beginning at the north and ending at the south pole, that there is the
same variation in the quantity and kind of food required by the human
stomach in different climates and countries, as there is in the
quantity of sexual indulgence.

Footnote 13:

Such a change would not require the perfect subjugation, or rather
annihilation of these passions, or perfect virtue, in the literal
sense, as Mr. Malthus seems to imply in a late publication—which I
have not read. It might as well be pretended that no man could ever
keep his fingers off bank-notes, or pay his debts, who was not
perfectly honest. In neither case is there required any thing more
than such a superiority in one set for motives over another, from
pride, habit, example, opinion, &c. as just to incline the balance.
The gentlemen of the society of Lloyd’s fund would no doubt scorn to
touch a shilling of the money entrusted to their care: yet we should
hardly conclude from hence that they are all of them persons of
perfectly disinterested characters, and altogether indifferent to
money-matters. The Turks, it is said, who are very far from the
character of perfection, leave their goods for sale on an open stall,
and the buyer comes and takes what he wants, and leaves the money on
the stall. Men are not governed by extreme motives. If perfect virtue
were necessary to common honesty, fair dealing, and propriety of
conduct, there would be nothing but swindlers and black-guards in the
world. Men steer clear of the law not so much through fear, as because
it stamps the public opinion. It is a positive thing. If men could
make up their minds as decidedly about the general characters and
conduct of individuals without, as they do with, the rough rebuke of
the law to sharpen their moral sense (to which by the bye Mr. Godwin’s
plan of plain speaking would contribute not a little) this would go a
great way towards rendering a system of equality practicable. But I
meddle with these questions only as things of idle speculation.
_Jactet se in aulis, &c._

Footnote 14:

See also other passages giving an account of the state of population
in Africa, &c. which will be found at the end.

Footnote 15:

This is a work which I would recommend to every reader of whatever
party, not only for the knowledge it contains, but for the purity,
simplicity, and noble dignity of the style. It smacks of the old Roman
elevation.

Footnote 16:

I should like to know whether Mr. Malthus would go so far as to say
that all the wars and rebellions occasioned by religion, that all the
plots, assassinations, burnings, massacres, the persecutions, feuds,
animosities, hatreds and jealousy of different sects, that the
cruelty, bigotry, the pernicious customs, and abominable practices of
the Pagan and other superstitions, such as human sacrifices, &c.
whether all those mischiefs and enormities of which religion has been
made a tool, whether the martyrdom of the first christians, the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, the fires of Smithfield, the expeditions
to the holy land, the Gunpowder Plot, the Inquisition, the long
Parliament, the Reformation and the Revolution,—Popery, Protestantism,
monks, eremites, and friars, with all their trumpery’ were the
offspring of the principle of population.

Footnote 17:

See the extracts from Davenant, Montague, and Bolingbroke.

Footnote 18:

See the ingenious and elegant defence of the Slave-Trade, attributed
in the newspapers to his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence. There is
a magnanimity and noble ingenuousness in the avowal of such a
sentiment, which can only be expected from those, who from the
elevated superiority of their situation can look down with contempt on
the opinion of mankind, and the vulgar notions of decency and order.

Footnote 19:

Mr. Malthus, for what reason I know not, in his account of the state
of population in the different countries of modern Europe, has
declined giving any account of the state of population in Italy.

Footnote 20:

Among other instances it is mentioned, that every vassal was obliged
to give the first night of his bride to the lord of the manor, if he
demanded it. It is hard to be sure for a man to be cuckolded the very
first night of his marriage. But even at present, though the formality
of the thing is abolished, there are very few husbands who are not
tolerably certain of being cuckolded by the first lord, or duke, who
thinks it worth his while to attempt it. It is some consolation to us
poor devils of authors, that we have no chance of getting a wife who
is at all likely to meet with any such distinction. But if I were a
snug tradesman or city-merchant, and had bargained for a sweet girl
whose smile was Elysium, whose air was enchantment, and her looks all
love,—I should be terribly afraid of the cocked hats at the opera. I
should tremble at every coronet coach that passed the door, and should
run mad at the sight of a prince’s feather.

Footnote 21:

Even this is making a very large concession to Mr. Malthus. The real
points to be given are the possible power of productiveness in the
earth and the necessary tendency of population to increase.

Footnote 22:

Fletcher of Saltoun.

Footnote 23:

Spelman’s Glossary.

Footnote 24:

Have Dryden’s Fables, the New Eloise, or the Memoirs of Fanny Hill
never added any thing to the pressure of the principle of population,
without any reference to the parish registers of deaths and marriages?

Footnote 25:

Mr. M. always translates the word _misere_ or want misery, and has
adopted it as the burthen of his song. He has made a very significant
use of this equivoque in many parts of his work.

Footnote 26:

The engrafting of trees might be mentioned as an instance in point.

Footnote 27:

Dr. Paley, of whose depth or originality I have in general but a
slender opinion, has made one very shrewd and effectual observation in
reply to Hume’s argument upon miracles; which is, that according to
Hume’s reasoning, miracles must be _equally_ inadmissible and
improbable, whether we believe in a superintending Providence or not.
There must therefore be some fallacy in an argument, which completely
sets aside so material a consideration. I would recommend this answer,
which I think a true and philosophical one, to Mr. Malthus’s
attention, as it may perhaps lead him ‘to new-model some of his
arguments’ about experience.

Footnote 28:

It is to no purpose to object, that they would hinder the poor from
increasing in proportion. This would be merely a negative
check,—preventing the increase on one side, but setting no bounds to
it on the other. Besides, not having the poor to work for them, they
must work for themselves. Neither can it be said that property is a
fluctuating thing, that changes hands, and passes from the rich to the
poor and from the poor back again to the rich, still keeping up the
same inequality; for the greatest wealth would soon be melted down by
the principle of population, and it is only by the accumulation and
transmission of property in regular descents that any great inequality
can subsist. Mr. Malthus wishes to preserve the balance of society by
hindering the poor from marrying; perhaps it would be preserved as
effectually by forcing the rich to marry.

Footnote 29:

Thus the shop-keeper cannot in general be supposed to be actuated by
any fear of want. His exertions are animated entirely by the prospect
of gain, or advantage. Yet how trifling are his profits compared with
those of the merchant. This however does not abate his diligence. It
may be said that the advantage is as great to him. That is, it is the
greatest in his power to make; which is the very thing I mean to say.
In fact we are wound up to a certain pitch of resolution and activity
almost as mechanically as we wind up a clock.

Footnote 30:

The immediate rise in the price of manufactured articles upon any rise
in the price of labour is either a foolish impatience of loss, or a
trick to make the labourer refund his own earnings by paying more for
what he wants himself, and by being _pigeoned_ by others that they may
be able to pay the additional price. It has nothing to do with a fair
and liberal determination to raise the price of labour, which of
itself, and if not immediately counteracted by the power and artifices
of the rich must always tend to the benefit of the labouring part of
the community.

Footnote 31:

This is something like Mr. Godwin’s saying, he does not regard a
new-born infant with any peculiar complacency. They both differ from
the founder of the Christian religion, who has said, Bring unto me
little children. But modern philosophers scorn to pin their faith on
musty sayings.

Footnote 32:

But a moment ago the subject was involved in the most profound
obscurity, and great advantages were expected from the manner in which
Mr. Malthus was to bring it home to each man’s comprehension. In the
passage immediately following the above, our author quotes Dr. Paley’s
Moral Philosophy, and as he often refers to this work, I shall here
take the liberty of entering my protest against it. It is a school in
which a man learns to tamper with his own mind, and will become any
thing sooner than an honest man. It is a directory, shewing him how to
disguise and palliate his real motives (however unworthy) by
metaphysical subterfuges, and where to look for every infirmity which
can beset him, with its appropriate apology, taken from the common
topics of religion and morality. All that is good in Paley is taken
from Tucker; and even _his_ morality is not the most bracing that can
be imagined.

Footnote 33:

Now Lord Colchester.

Footnote 34:

Lord Bacon’s Advancement of Learning.

Footnote 35:

Shaftesbury made this an objection to Christianity, which was answered
by Foster, Leland, and other eminent divines, on the ground that
Christianity had a higher object in view, namely, general
philanthropy.

Footnote 36:

Mr. Fuseli used to object to this striking delineation a want of
historical correctness, inasmuch as the animating principle of the
true chivalrous character was the sense of honour, not the mere regard
to, or saving of, appearances. This, we think, must be an
hypercriticism, from all we remember of books of chivalry and heroes
of romance.

Footnote 37:

We had forgotten the tragedies of Antonio and Ferdinand. Peace be with
their _manes_!

Footnote 38:

To be sure, it was redeemed by a high respect and by some magnificent
compliments. Once in particular, at his own table, after a good deal
of _badinage_ and cross-questioning about his being the author of the
Reply to Judge Eyre’s Charge, on Mr. Godwin’s acknowledging that he
was, Mr. Tooke said, ‘Come here then,’—and when his guest went round
to his chair, he took his hand, and pressed it to his lips, saying—‘I
can do no less for the hand that saved my life!‘

Footnote 39:

Mr. Coleridge named his eldest son (the writer of some beautiful
Sonnets) after Hartley, and the second after Berkeley. The third was
called Derwent, after the river of that name. Nothing can be more
characteristic of his mind than this circumstance. All his ideas
indeed are like a river, flowing on for ever, and still murmuring as
it flows, discharging its waters and still replenished—

‘And so by many winding nooks it strays,
With willing sport to the wild ocean!’

Footnote 40:

We remember finding the volume in the orchard at Burford-bridge near
Boxhill, and passing a whole and very delightful morning in reading
it, without quitting the shade of an apple-tree. We have not been able
to pay Mr. Irving’s book the same compliment of reading it at a
sitting.

Footnote 41:

‘They receive him like a virgin at the Magdalen, _Go thou and do
likewise_’—JUNIUS.

Footnote 42:

This work is not without merit in the details and examples of English
construction. But its fault even in that part is that he confounds the
genius of the English language, making it periphrastic and literal,
instead of elliptical and idiomatic. According to Mr. Murray, hardly
any of our best writers ever wrote a word of English.

Footnote 43:

At least, with only one change in the genitive case.

Footnote 44:

No! For we met with a young lady who kept a circulating library and a
milliner’s shop, in a watering-place in the country, who, when we
inquired for the _Scotch Novels_, spoke indifferently about them, said
they were ‘so dry she could hardly get through them,’ and recommended
us to read _Agnes_. We never thought of it before; but we would
venture to lay a wager that there are many other young ladies in the
same situation, and who think ‘Old Mortality’ ‘dry.’

Footnote 45:

Just as Cobbett is a matter-of-fact reasoner.

Footnote 46:

St. Ronan’s Well.

Footnote 47:

Perhaps the finest scene in all these novels, is that where the
Dominie meets his pupil, Miss Lucy, the morning after her brother’s
arrival.

Footnote 48:

‘And here we cannot but think it necessary to offer some better proof
than the incidents of an idle tale, to vindicate the melancholy
representation of manners which has been just laid before the reader.
It is grievous to think that those valiant Barons, to whose stand
against the crown the liberties of England were indebted for their
existence, should themselves have been such dreadful oppressors, and
capable of excesses, contrary not only to the laws of England, but to
those of nature and humanity. But alas! we have only to extract from
the industrious Henry one of those numerous passages which he has
collected from contemporary historians, to prove that fiction itself
can hardly reach the dark reality of the horrors of the period.

‘The description given by the author of the Saxon Chronicle of the
cruelties exercised in the reign of King Stephen by the great barons
and lords of castles, who were all Normans, affords a strong proof of
the excesses of which they were capable when their passions were
inflamed. “They grievously oppressed the poor people by building
castles; and when they were built, they filled them with wicked men or
rather devils, who seized both men and women who they imagined had any
money, threw them into prison, and put them to more cruel tortures
than the martyrs ever endured. They suffocated some in mud, and
suspended others by the feet, or the head, or the thumbs, kindling
fires below them. They squeezed the heads of some with knotted cords
till they pierced their brains, while they threw others into dungeons
swarming with serpents, snakes, and toads.” But it would be cruel to
put the reader to the pain of perusing the remainder of the
description.’—_Henry’s Hist._ edit. 1805, vol. vii. p. 346.

Footnote 49:

This Essay was written just before Lord Byron’s death.

Footnote 50:

‘Don Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero
My Leipsic, and my Mont St. Jean seems Cain.’
_Don Juan_, Canto xi.

Footnote 51:

This censure applies to the first Cantos of DON JUAN much more than to
the last. It has been called a TRISTRAM SHANDY in rhyme: it is rather
a poem written about itself.

Footnote 52:

The late Rev. Joseph Fawcett, of Walthamstow.

Footnote 53:

At the time when the _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_ first made its appearance, as
a reply to the _Reflections on the French Revolution_, it was cried up
by the partisans of the new school, as a work superior in the charms
of composition to its redoubted rival: in acuteness, depth, and
soundness of reasoning, of course there was supposed to be no
comparison.

Footnote 54:

What an awkward bedfellow for a tuft of violets!

Footnote 55:

‘How oft, O Dart! what time the faithful pair
Walk’d forth, the fragrant hour of eve to share,
On thy romantic banks, have my _wild strains_
(Not yet forgot amidst my native plains)
While thou hast sweetly gurgled down the vale,
Filled up the pause of love’s delightful tale!
While, ever as she read, the conscious maid,
By faultering voice and downcast looks betray’d,
Would blushing on her lover’s neck recline,
And with her finger—point the tenderest line!’
_Mæviad_, _pp._ 194, 202.

Yet the author assures us just before, that in these ‘wild strains’
‘all was plain.’

‘Even then (admire, John Bell! my simple ways)
No heaven and hell danced madly through my lays,
No oaths, no execrations; _all was plain_;
Yet trust me, while thy ever jingling train
Chime their sonorous woes with frigid art,
And shock the reason and revolt the heart;
My hopes and fears, in nature’s language drest,
Awakened love in many a gentle breast.’
_Ibid._, _v._ 185–92.

If any one else had composed these ‘wild strains,’ in which ‘all is
plain,’ Mr. Gifford would have accused them of three things. ‘1.
Downright nonsense. 2. Downright frigidity. 3. Downright doggrel;’ and
proceeded to anatomise them very cordially in his way. As it is, he is
thrilled with a very pleasing horror at his former scenes of
tenderness, and ‘gasps at the recollection’ ‘of _watery Aquarius_!’
_he! jam satis est!_ ‘Why rack a grub—a butterfly upon a wheel?‘

Footnote 56:

Mr. Merry was even with our author in personality of abuse. See his
Lines on the Story of the Ape that was given in charge to the
ex-tutor.

Footnote 57:

The style of philosophical criticism, which has been the boast of the
Edinburgh Review, was first introduced into the Monthly Review about
the year 1796, in a series of articles by Mr. William Taylor, of
Norwich.

Footnote 58:

Mr. Brougham is not a Scotchman literally, but by adoption.

Footnote 59:

After all, the best as well as most amusing comment on the character
just described was that made by Sheridan, who being picked up in no
very creditable plight by the watch, and asked rather roughly who he
was, made answer—‘I am Mr. Wilberforce!’ The guardians of the night
conducted him home with all the honours due to Grace and Nature.

Footnote 60:

The late Lord Chancellor Thurlow used to say that Cobbett was the only
writer that deserved the name of a political reasoner.

Footnote 61:

Mr. Cobbett speaks almost as well as he writes. The only time I ever
saw him he seemed to me a very pleasant man—easy of access, affable,
clear-headed, simple and mild in his manner, deliberate and unruffled
in his speech, though some of his expressions were not very qualified.
His figure is tall and portly: he has a good sensible face—rather
full, with little grey eyes, a hard, square forehead, a ruddy
complexion, with hair grey or powdered; and had on a scarlet
broad-cloth waistcoat, with the flaps of the pockets hanging down, as
was the custom for gentlemen-farmers in the last century, or as we see
it in the pictures of Members of Parliament in the reign of George I.
I certainly did not think less favourably of him for seeing him.

Footnote 62:

Like angels’ visits, short and far between’—
_Blair’s Grave._

Footnote 63:

Is not this word, which occurs in the last line but one, (as well as
before) an instance of that repetition, which we so often meet with in
the most correct and elegant writers?

Footnote 64:

Compare his songs with Burns’s.

Footnote 65:

‘There was a little man, and he had a little soul,
And he said, Little soul, let us try,’ &c.

Parody on

‘There was a little man, and he had a little gun.—

One should think this exquisite ridicule of a pedantic effusion might
have silenced for ever the automaton that delivered it: but the
official personage in question at the close of the Session addressed
an extra-official congratulation to the Prince Regent on a bill that
had _not_ passed—as if to repeat and insist upon our errors were to
justify them.

Footnote 66:

The description of sports in the forest:

‘To see the sun to bed and to arise,
Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes,’ &c.

Footnote 67:

These persons who have been so long on the rack of incomprehensible
theories and captious disputes, whose minds have been stretched on the
Procrustes’ bed of metaphysical systems, till they have acquired a
horror of any thing like common sense or familiar expression, put me
in mind of what is said of those who have been really put to the rack:
they can bear their unnatural distorted state tolerably well; it is
the return of sense and motion which is death to them.

Footnote 68:

How difficult do we find it, to believe that a person is telling us a
falsehood, while we are with him, though we may at the same time be
thoroughly convinced that this is the case.

Footnote 69:

In this age of solid reason, it is always necessary to refer to
particular examples, as it was formerly necessary to explain all hard
words to the ladies. Condillac, in his Logic, that favourite manual of
the modern sciolist, with admirable clearness proves, that our idea of
virtue is a sensible image; because virtue implies a law, and that law
must be written in a book, which must consist of letters, or figures
of a certain shape, colour, and dimensions, which are real things, the
objects of sense: that we are therefore right in asserting virtue to
have a real existence, namely on paper, and in supposing that we have
some idea of it, that is, as consisting of the letters of the
alphabet. Mr. Horne Tooke, a man of wonderful wit, knowledge, and
acuteness, but who, with my consent, shall not be empanelled as a
juror to decide upon any question of abstruse reasoning, has
endeavoured to explain away the whole meaning of language, by doing
away its habitual or customary meaning, by denying that words have any
meaning but what is derived to them from the umbilical root which
first unites them to matter; and by making it out, that our thoughts
having no life or motion in them, but as they are dragged about
mechanically by words, are ‘just such shard-born beetle things’

‘As only buz to heav’n on ev’ning wings;
Strike in the dark, offending but by chance;

· · · · ·

They know not beings, and but _bear_ a name.’

Mr. Tooke’s description of the formation of language[70] is a sort of
pantomime or masquerade, where you see the trunks of our abstract
ideas going about in search of their _heads_, or clumsily setting on
their own _noses_, and afterwards pointing to them in answer to all
questions: it reminds you of the island of Pantagruel (or some such
place), where the men carry their heads before them

Footnote 70:

See his account of the terminations head and ness, or nez. in their
hands, or you would fancy that our author had lately been at the
Promontory of noses. Andrew Paraeus, on the solution of noses, was a
novice to him. I am a little uneasy at this scheme of reducing all our
ideas to points and solid substances. It is like the project to the
philosopher, who contended that all the solid matter in the universe
might be contained in a nutshell. This is ticklish ground to tread
upon. At this rate, and if the proportion holds, each man will hardly
have a single particle of understanding left to his share; and in two
large quarto volumes, there may not perhaps be three grains of solid
sense. Mr. Tooke, as a man of wit, may naturally wish to turn every
thing to _point_. But this method will not hold in metaphysics: it is
necessary to spin the thread of our ideas a little finer, and to take
up with the flimsy texture of mental appearances. It is not easy to
philosophize in solid epigrams, or explain abstruse questions by the
tagging of points. I do not, however, mean to object to Mr. Tooke’s
etymological system as an actual history of language, but to that
superficial gloss of philosophy which is spread over it, and to the
whole of his logic: I might instance in the axiom, on which the whole
turns, that ‘it is as absurd to talk of a complex idea as of a complex
star.’ Now this and such like phrases had better have been left out:
it is a good antithesis, but it is nothing more. Or if it had been put
into the mouth of Sir Francis, who is a young man of lively parts, and
then gravely answered by Mr. Tooke, it would have been all very well.
But as it stands, it is injurious to the interests of philosophy, and
an affront to common sense. Hartley proceeded a good way in making a
dissected map of the brain; and did all he could to prove the human
soul to consist of a white curd. After all, he was forced to confess,
that it was impossible to get at the mind itself; and he was obliged
to rest satisfied with having spent many years, and wasted immense
ingenuity, in ‘vicariously torturing and defacing’ its nearest
representative in matter. He was too great a man not to perceive the
impossibility of ever reconciling matter and motion with the nature of
thought; and he therefore left his system imperfect. But it fell into
good hands, and soon had all its deficiencies supplied, and its doubts
cleared up, to the entire satisfaction and admiration of all the dull,
the superficial, and the ignorant.

Footnote 71:

Essay on Human Action.

Footnote 72:

There is one argument in defence of Old Age, in Cicero, which is so
exquisitely put, that nothing can surpass it: it is a perfect _bon
bouche_ for a metaphysician. It is where some one objects to old age,
that the old man, whatever comforts he may enjoy, cannot hope to live
long, which the young man at least expects to do. To which is
answered: So much the better; the one has already done what the other
only hopes to do: the old man has already lived long: the young man
only hopes that he may. A man would be happy a whole day after having
such a thought as this.

Footnote 73:

Mr. Tooke has fallen into the same mistake with which he reproaches
preceding writers, that of supposing the different sorts of words to
be the measure of the different sorts of things. He has only reversed
their inference: for as the old grammarians, who admitted more
different sorts of words, contended for more differences of things, so
Mr. Tooke, who admits of fewer sorts of words, argues that there can
be only as many different ideas or things, as are expressed by the
different parts of speech. Thus, if substantives and adjectives do not
represent substance and quality, there can be no such difference in
nature, or in the human understanding. This we conceive to be a piece
of as false philosophy, as if we were to affirm that there can be no
difference between blue or yellow, because they are both adjectives,
or between light and sound, because they are both substantives. Mr.
Tooke’s whole object is to show that the different parts of speech do
not relate to the differences in ideas or things, and yet he would
make the difference in the one, the test of the difference in the
other. As to all that he has said of abstraction, and the real or
physical meaning of words, we believe that we do not understand him;
for, as far as we do, his facts and cases seem to us to prove the very
reverse of his conclusions. So he has brought 2000 instances of the
meaning of words to demonstrate that we have no abstract ideas, not
one of which 2000 meanings is any thing else but an abstract idea.
Logic and metaphysics are the weak sides of his reasoning. But he has
rendered essential services to grammar, which cannot be overlooked or
forgotten.

Footnote 74:

‘A fellow of no mark nor likelihood,’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act III.
Scene 2.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 3. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.