Chapter XXI: Front Matter (21)

No one had then dared to answer the claim of a whole nation to the choice of a free government with the impudent taunt, ‘Your King is at hand!’ Mr. Burke had in vain sung his _requiem_ over the ‘age of chivalry:’ Mr. Pitt mouthed out his speeches on the existence of social order to no purpose: Mr. Malthus had not cut up Liberty by the roots by passing ‘the grinding law of necessity’ over it, and entailing vice and misery on all future generations as their happiest lot: Mr. Ricardo had not pared down the schemes of visionary projectors and idle talkers into the form of Rent: Mr. Southey had not surmounted his cap of Liberty with the laurel wreath; nor Mr. Wordsworth proclaimed Carnage as ‘God’s Daughter;’ nor Mr. Coleridge, to patch up a rotten cause, written the FRIEND. Every thing had not then been done (or had, ‘like a devilish engine, back recoiled upon itself’) to stop the progress of truth, to stifle the voice of humanity, to break in pieces and defeat opinion by sophistry, calumny, intimidation, by tampering with the interests of the proud and selfish, the prejudices of the ignorant, the fears of the timid, the scruples of the good, and by resorting to every subterfuge which art could devise to perpetuate the abuses of power. Freedom then stood erect, crowned with orient light, ‘with looks commercing with the skies:’—since then, she has fallen by the sword and by slander, whose edge is sharper than the sword; by her own headlong zeal or the watchful malice of her foes, and through that one unrelenting purpose in the hearts of Sovereigns to baffle, degrade, and destroy the People, whom they had hitherto considered as their property, and whom they now saw (oh! unheard-of presumption) setting up a claim to be free. This claim has been once more set aside, annulled, overthrown, trampled upon with every mark of insult and ignominy, in word or deed; and the consequence has been that all those who had stood forward to advocate it have been hurled into the air with it, scattered, stunned, and have never yet recovered from their confusion and dismay. The shock was great, as it was unexpected; the surprise extreme: Liberty became a sort of bye-word; and such was the violence of party-spirit and the desire to retaliate former indignities, that all those who had ever been attached to the fallen cause seemed to have suffered contamination and to labour under a stigma. The PARTY (both of Whigs and Reformers) were left completely in the lurch; and (what may appear extraordinary at first sight) instead of wishing to strengthen their cause, took every method to thin their ranks and make the terms of admission to them more difficult. In proportion as they were scouted by the rest of the world, they grew more captious, irritable, and jealous of each other’s pretensions. The general obloquy was so great that every one was willing to escape from it in the crowd, or to curry favour with the victors by denouncing the excesses or picking holes in the conduct of his neighbours. While the victims of popular prejudice and ministerial persecution were eagerly sought for, no one was ready to own that he was one of the set. Unpopularity ‘doth part the flux of company.’ Each claimed an exception for himself or party, was glad to have any loop-hole to hide himself from this ‘open and apparent shame,’ and to shift the blame from his own shoulders, and would by no means be mixed up with Jacobins and Levellers—the terms with which their triumphant opponents qualified indiscriminately all those who differed with them in any degree. Where the cause was so disreputable, the company should be select. As the flood-gates of Billingsgate abuse and courtly malice were let loose, each _coterie_ drew itself up in a narrower circle: the louder and more sweeping was the storm of Tory spite without, the finer were the distinctions, the more fastidious the precautions used within. The Whigs, completely cowed by the Tories, threw all the odium on the Reformers; who in return with equal magnanimity vented their stock of spleen and vituperative rage on the Whigs. The common cause was forgot in each man’s anxiety for his own safety and character. If any one, bolder than the rest, wanted to ward off the blows that fell in showers, or to retaliate on the assailants, he was held back or turned out as one who longed to bring an old house about their ears. One object was to give as little offence as possible to ‘the powers that be’—to lie by, to trim, to shuffle, to wait for events, to be severe on our own errors, just to the merits of a prosperous adversary, and not to throw away the scabbard or make reconciliation hopeless. Just as all was hushed up, and the ‘chop-fallen’ Whigs were about to be sent for to Court, a great cloutering blow from an incorrigible Jacobin might spoil all, and put off the least chance of anything being done ‘for the good of the country,’ till another reign or the next century. But the great thing was to be genteel, and keep out the rabble. They that touch pitch are defiled. ‘No connection with the mob,’ was labelled on the back of every friend of the People. Every pitiful retainer of Opposition took care to disclaim all affinity with such fellows as Hunt, Carlisle, or Cobbett.[70] As it was the continual drift of the Ministerial writers to confound the different _grades_ of their antagonists, so the chief dread of the Minority was to be confounded with the populace, the _Canaille_, &c. They would be thought neither _with_ the Government or _of_ the People. They are an awkward mark to hit at. It is true they have no superfluous popularity to throw away upon others, and they may be so far right in being shy in the choice of their associates. They are critical in examining volunteers into the service. It is necessary to ask leave of a number of circumstances equally frivolous and vexatious, before you can enlist in their skeleton-regiment. Thus you must have a good coat to your back; for they have no uniform to give you. You must bring a character in your pocket; for they have no respectability to lose. If you have any scars to shew, you had best hide them, or procure a certificate for your pacific behaviour from the opposite side, with whom they wish to stand well, and not to be always wounding the feelings of distinguished individuals. You must have vouchers that you were neither born, bred, nor reside within the Bills of Mortality, or Mr. Theodore Hook will cry ‘Cockney’! You must have studied at one or other of the English Universities, or Mr. Croker will prove every third word to be a _Bull_. If you are a patriot and a martyr to your principles, this is a painful consideration, and must act as a draw-back to your pretensions, which would have a more glossy and creditable appearance, if they had never been tried. If you are a lord or a dangler after lords, it is well: the glittering star hides the plebeian stains, the obedient smile and habitual cringe of approbation are always welcome. A courtier abuses courts with a better grace: for one who has held a place to rail at place-men and pensioners shews candour and a disregard to self. There is nothing low, vulgar, or disreputable in it!—I doubt whether this _martinet_ discipline and spruceness of demeanour is favourable to the popular side. The Tories are not so squeamish in their choice of tools. If a writer comes up to a certain standard of dulness, impudence, and want of principle, nothing more is expected. There is fat M——, lean J——, black C——, flimsy H——, lame G——, and one-eyed M——. Do they not form an impenetrable phalanx round the throne, and worthy of it! Who ever thought of inquiring into the talents, qualifications, birth, or breeding of a Government-scribbler? If the workman is fitted to the work, they care not one straw what you or I say about him. This shews a confidence in themselves, and is the way to assure others. The Whigs, who do not feel their ground so well, make up for their want of strength by a proportionable want of spirit. Their cause is ticklish, and they support it by the least hazardous means. Any violent or desperate measures on their part might recoil upon themselves.

‘When they censure the age,
They are cautious and sage,
Lest the courtiers offended should be.’

Whilst they are pelted with the most scurrilous epithets and unsparing abuse, they insist on language the most classical and polished in return; and if any unfortunate devil lets an expression or allusion escape that stings, or jars the tone of good company, he is given up without remorse to the tender mercies of his foes for this infraction of good manners and breach of treaty. The envy or cowardice of these half-faced friends of liberty regularly sacrifices its warmest defenders to the hatred of its enemies—mock-patriotism and effeminate self-love ratifying the lists of proscription made out by servility and intolerance. This is base, and contrary to all the rules of political warfare. What! if the Tories give a man a bad name, must the Whigs hang him? If a writer annoys the first, must he alarm the last? Or when they find he has irritated his and their opponents beyond all forgiveness and endurance, instead of concluding from the abuse heaped upon him that he has ‘done the State some service,’ must they set him aside as an improper person merely for the odium which he has incurred by his efforts in the common cause, which, had they been of no effect, would have left him still fit for their purposes of negative success and harmless opposition? Their ambition seems to be to exist by sufferance; to be safe in a sort of conventional insignificance; and in their dread of exciting the notice or hostility of the lords of the earth, they are like the man in the storm who silenced the appeal of his companion to the Gods—‘Call not so loud, or they will hear us!’ One would think that in all ordinary cases honesty to feel for a losing cause, capacity to understand it, and courage to defend it, would be sufficient introduction and recommendation to fight the battles of a party, and serve at least in the ranks. But this of Whig Opposition is, it seems, a peculiar case. There is more in it than meets the eye. The _corps_ may one day be summoned to pass muster before Majesty, and in that case it will be expected that they should be of _crack_ materials, without a stain and without a flaw. Nothing can be too elegant, too immaculate and refined for their imaginary return to office. They are in a pitiable dilemma—having to reconcile the hopeless reversion of court-favour with the most distant and delicate attempts at popularity. They are strangely puzzled in the choice and management of their associates. Some of them must undergo a thorough ventilation and perfuming, like poor Morgan, before Captain Whiffle would suffer him to come into his presence. Neither can any thing base and plebeian be supposed to ‘come betwixt the wind and their nobility.’ As their designs are doubtful, their friends must not be suspected: as their principles are popular, their pretensions must be proportionably aristocratic. The reputation of Whiggism, like that of women, is a delicate thing, and will bear neither to be blown upon or handled. It has an ill odour, which requires the aid of fashionable essences and court-powders to carry it off. It labours under the frown of the Sovereign: and swoons at the shout and pressure of the People. Even in its present forlorn and abject state, it relapses into convulsions if any low fellow offers to lend it a helping hand: those who would have their overtures of service accepted must be bedizened and sparkling all over with titles, wealth, place, connections, fashion (in lieu of zeal and talent), as a set-off to the imputation of low designs and radical origin; for there is nothing that the patrons of the People dread so much as being identified with them, and of all things the patriotic party abhor (even in their dreams) a _misalliance_ with the rabble!

Why must I mention the instances, in order to make the foregoing statement intelligible or credible? I would not, but that I and others have suffered by the weakness here pointed out; and I think the cause must ultimately suffer by it, unless some antidote be applied by reason or ridicule. Let one example serve for all. At the time that Lord Byron thought proper to join with Mr. Leigh Hunt and Mr. Shelley in the publication called the LIBERAL, Blackwood’s Magazine overflowed, as might be expected, with tenfold gall and bitterness; the John Bull was outrageous; and Mr. Jerdan black in the face at this unheard-of and disgraceful union. But who would have supposed that Mr. Thomas Moore and Mr. Hobhouse, those staunch friends and partisans of the people, should also be thrown into almost hysterical agonies of well-bred horror at the coalition between their noble and ignoble acquaintance, between the Patrician and ‘the Newspaper-Man?’ Mr. Moore darted backwards and forwards from Cold-Bath-Fields’ Prison to the Examiner-Officer, from Mr. Longman’s to Mr. Murray’s shop, in a state of ridiculous trepidation, to see what was to be done to prevent this degradation of the aristocracy of letters, this indecent encroachment of plebeian pretensions, this undue extension of patronage and compromise of privilege. The Tories were shocked that Lord Byron should grace the popular side by his direct countenance and assistance—the Whigs were shocked that he should share his confidence and counsels with any one who did not unite the double recommendations of birth and genius—but themselves! Mr. Moore had lived so long among the Great that he fancied himself one of them, and regarded the indignity as done to himself. Mr. Hobhouse had lately been black-balled by the Clubs, and must feel particularly sore and tenacious on the score of public opinion. Mr. Shelley’s father, however, was an older Baronet than Mr. Hobhouse’s—Mr. Leigh Hunt was ‘to the full as genteel a man’ as Mr. Moore in birth, appearance, and education—the pursuits of all four were the same, the Muse, the public favour, and the public good! Mr. Moore was himself invited to assist in the undertaking, but he professed an utter aversion to, and warned Lord Byron against having any concern with, _joint-publications_, as of a very neutralizing and levelling description. He might speak from experience. He had tried his hand in that Ulysses’ bow of critics and politicians, the Edinburgh Review, though his secret had never transpired. Mr. Hobhouse too had written Illustrations of Childe Harold (a sort of partnership concern)—yet to quash the publication of the LIBERAL, he seriously proposed that his Noble Friend should write once a week _in his own name_ in the Examiner—the Liberal scheme, he was afraid, might succeed: the Newspaper one, he knew, could not. I have been whispered that the Member for Westminster (for whom I once gave an ineffectual vote) has also conceived some distaste for me—I do not know why, except that I was at one time named as the writer of the famous _Trecenti Juravimus_ Letter to Mr. Canning, which appeared in the Examiner and was afterwards suppressed. He might feel the disgrace of such a supposition: I confess I did not feel the honour. The cabal, the bustle, the significant hints, the confidential rumours were at the height when, after Mr. Shelley’s death, I was invited to take part in this obnoxious publication (obnoxious alike to friend and foe)—and when the _Essay on the Spirit of Monarchy_ appeared, (which must indeed have operated like a bomb-shell thrown into the _coteries_ that Mr. Moore frequented, as well as those that he had left,) this gentleman wrote off to Lord Byron, to say that ‘there was a taint in the Liberal, and that he should lose no time in getting out of it.’ And this from Mr. Moore to Lord Byron—the last of whom had just involved the publication, against which he was cautioned as having a taint in it, in a prosecution for libel by his _Vision of Judgment_, and the first of whom had scarcely written any thing all his life that had not a taint in it. It is true, the Holland-House party might be somewhat staggered by a _jeu-d’esprit_ that set their Blackstone and De Lolme theories at defiance, and that they could as little write as answer. But it was not that. Mr. Moore also complained that ‘I had spoken against Lalla Rookh,’ though he had just before sent me his ‘Fudge Family.’ Still it was not that. But at the time he sent me that very delightful and spirited publication, my little bark was seen ‘hulling on the flood’ in a kind of dubious twilight, and it was not known whether I might not prove a vessel of gallant trim. Mr. Blackwood had not then directed his Grub-street battery against me: but as soon as this was the case, Mr. Moore was willing to ‘whistle me down the wind, and let me prey at fortune;’ not that I ‘proved haggard,’ but the contrary. It is sheer cowardice and want of heart. The sole object of the set is not to stem the tide of prejudice and falsehood, but to get out of the way themselves. The instant another is assailed (however unjustly), instead of standing manfully by him, they _cut_ the connection as fast as possible, and sanction by their silence and reserve the accusations they ought to repel. _Sauve qui peut_—every one has enough to do to look after his own reputation or safety without rescuing a friend or propping up a falling cause. It is only by keeping in the back-ground on such occasions (like Gil Blas when his friend Ambrose Lamela was led by in triumph to the _auto-da-fe_) that they can escape the like honours and a summary punishment. A shower of mud, a flight of nick-names (glancing a little out of their original direction) might obscure the last glimpse of Royal favour, or stop the last gasp of popularity. Nor could they answer it to their Noble friends and more elegant pursuits to be seen in such company, or to have their names coupled with similar outrages. Their sleek, glossy, aspiring pretensions should not be exposed to vulgar contamination, or to be trodden under foot of a swinish multitude. Their birthday suits (unused) should not be dragged through the kennel, nor their ‘tricksy’ laurel-wreaths stuck in the pillory. This would make them equally unfit to be taken into the palaces of princes or the carriages of peers. If excluded from both, what would become of them? The only way, therefore, to avoid being implicated in the abuse poured upon others is to pretend that it is just—the way not to be made the object of the _hue and cry_ raised against a friend is to aid it by underhand whispers. It is pleasant neither to participate in disgrace nor to have honours divided. The more Lord Byron confined his intimacy and friendship to a few persons of middling rank, but of extraordinary merit, the more it must redound to his and their credit—the lines of Pope,

‘To view with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts which caused himself to rise,’—

might still find a copy in the breast of more than one scribbler of politics and fashion. Mr. Moore might not think without a pang of the author of Rimini sitting at his ease with the author of Childe Harold; Mr. Hobhouse might be averse to see my dogged prose bound up in the same volume with his Lordship’s splendid verse, and assuredly it would not facilitate his admission to the Clubs, that his friend Lord Byron had taken the Editor of the Examiner by the hand, and that their common friend Mr. Moore had taken no active steps to prevent it!

Those who have the least character to spare, can the least afford to part with their good word to others: a losing cause is always most divided against itself. If the Whigs are fastidious, the Reformers are sour. If the first are frightened at the least breath of scandal, the last are disgusted with the smallest approach to popularity. The one desert you, if all men do not speak well of you: the other never forgive your having shaken off the _incognito_ which they assume so successfully, or your having escaped from the Grub into the Butterfly state. The one require that you should enjoy the public favour in its newest gloss: with the other set, the smallest elegance of pretension or accomplishment is fatal. The Whigs never stomached the account of the ‘Characters of Shakespear’s Plays’ in the Quarterly: the Reformers never forgave me for writing them at all, or for being suspected of an inclination to the _belles-lettres_. ‘The Gods,’ they feared, ‘had made me poetical’; and poetry with them is ‘not a true thing.’ To please the one, you must be a _dandy_: not to incur the censure of the other, you must turn cynic. The one are on the alert to know what the world think or say of you: the others make it a condition that you shall fly in the face of all the world, to think and say exactly as they do. The first thing the Westminster Review did was to attack the Edinburgh. The fault of the one is too great a deference for established and prevailing opinions: that of the other is a natural antipathy to every thing with which any one else sympathises. They do not trim, but they are rivetted to their own sullen and violent prejudices. They think to attract by repulsion, to force others to yield to their opinion by never giving up an inch of ground, and to cram the truth down the throats of their starveling readers, as you cram turkeys with gravel and saw-dust. They would gain proselytes by proscribing all those who do not take their Shiboleth, and advance a cause by shutting out all that can adorn or strengthen it. They would exercise a monstrous ostracism on every ornament of style or blandishment of sentiment; and unless they can allure by barrenness and deformity, and convince you _against the grain_, think they have done nothing. They abjure Sir Walter’s novels and Mr. Moore’s poetry as light and frivolous: who but they! Nothing satisfies or gives them pleasure that does not give others pain: they scorn to win you by flattery and fair words; they set up their grim, bare idols, and expect you to fall down and worship them; and truth is with them a Sphinx, that in embracing pierces you to the heart. All this they think is the effect of philosophy; but it is temper, and a bad, sour, cold, malignant temper into the bargain. If the Whigs are too effeminate and susceptible of extraneous impressions, these underlings are too hard and tenacious of their own.[71] They are certainly the least amiable people in the world. Nor are they likely to reform others by their self-willed dogmatism and ungracious manner. If they had this object at heart, they would correct both (for true humanity and wisdom are the same), but they would rather lose the cause of human kind than not shock and offend while they would be thought only anxious to convince, as Mr. Place lost Mr. Hobhouse his first election by a string of radical resolutions, which so far gained their end.—One is hard-bested in times like these, and between such opposite factions, when almost every one seems to pull his own way, and to make his principles a stalking-horse to some private end; when you offend some without conciliating others; when you incur most blame, where you expected most favour; when a universal outcry is raised against you on one side, which is answered by as dead a silence on the other; when none but those who have the worst designs appear to know their own meaning or to be held together by any mutual tie, and when the only assurance you can obtain that your intentions have been upright, or in any degree carried into effect, is that you are the object of _their_ unremitting obloquy and ill-will. If you look for any other testimony to it, you will look in vain. The Tories know their enemies: the People do not know their friends. The frown and the lightning glance of power is upon you, and points out the path of honour and of duty: but you can hope to receive no note of encouragement or approbation from the painted booths of Whig Aristocracy, or the sordid styes of Reform!

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Footnote 1:

Is it not a collateral proof that Sir Walter Scott is the Author of
Waverley, that ever since these Novels began to appear, his Muse has
been silent, till the publication of Halidon-Hill?

Footnote 2:

See the Portraits of Kneller, Richardson, and others.

Footnote 3:

Goldsmith was not a talker, though he blurted out his good things now
and then: yet his style is gay and voluble enough. Pope was also a
silent man; and his prose is timid and constrained, and his verse
inclining to the monotonous.

Footnote 4:

As a singular example of steadiness of nerves, Mr. Tooke on one
occasion had got upon the table at a public dinner to return thanks
for his health having been drank. He held a bumper of wine in his
hand, but he was received with considerable opposition by one party,
and at the end of the disturbance, which lasted for a quarter of an
hour, he found the wine glass still full to the brim.

Footnote 5:

I have been told, that when Sheridan was first introduced to Mr. Fox,
what cemented an immediate intimacy between them was the following
circumstance. Mr. Sheridan had been the night before to the House of
Commons; and being asked what his impression was, said he had been
principally struck with the difference of manner between Mr. Fox and
Lord Stormont. The latter began by declaring in a slow, solemn,
drawling, nasal tone that ‘when he considered the enormity and the
unconstitutional tendency of the measures just proposed, he was
hurried away in a torrent of passion and a whirlwind of impetuosity,’
pausing between every word and syllable; while the first said
(speaking with the rapidity of lightning, and with breathless anxiety
and impatience), that ‘such was the magnitude, such the importance,
such the vital interest of this question, that he could not help
imploring, he could not help adjuring the House to come to it with the
utmost calmness, the utmost coolness, the utmost deliberation.’ This
trait of discrimination instantly won Mr. Fox’s heart.

Footnote 6:

‘_Templum in modum arcis._’
TACITUS of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Footnote 7:

The topics of metaphysical argument having got into female society in
France, is a proof how much they must have been discussed there
generally, and how unfounded the charge is which we bring against them
of excessive thoughtlessness and frivolity. The French (taken all
together) are a more sensible, reflecting, and better informed people
than the English.

Footnote 8:

See Memoirs of Granville Sharp, by Prince Hoare, Esq.

Footnote 9:

The Rev. W. Shepherd, of Gateacre, in the Preface to his Life of
Poggio.

Footnote 10:

School-boys attend to their tasks as soon as they acquire a relish for
study, and apply to that for which they find they have a capacity. If
a boy shows no inclination for the Latin tongue, it is a sign he has
not a turn for learning languages. Yet he dances well. Give up the
thought of making a scholar of him, and bring him up to be a
dancing-master!

Footnote 11:

This circumstance did not happen to me, but to an acquaintance.

Footnote 12:

Lavender.

Footnote 13:

Mr. C****r made his first appearance in this country as a hack-writer,
and received this surname from the classic lips of Mr. Cumberland.

Footnote 14:

Sir Joshua may be thought to have studied the composition of his
female portraits very coolly. There is a picture of his remaining of a
Mrs. Symmons, who appears to have been a delicate beauty, pale, with a
very little colour in her cheeks: but then to set off this want of
complexion, she is painted in a snow-white satin dress, there is a
white marble pillar near her, a white cloud over her head, and by her
side stands one white lily.

Footnote 15:

‘No man lives too long, who lives to do with spirit, and suffer with
resignation, what Providence pleases to command or inflict: but indeed
they are sharp incommodities which beset old age. It was but the other
day, that in putting in order some things which had been brought here
on my taking leave of London for ever, I looked over a number of fine
portraits, most of them of persons now dead, but whose society, in my
better days, made this a proud and happy place. Amongst these was the
picture of Lord Keppel. It was painted by an artist worthy of the
subject, the excellent friend of that excellent man from their
earliest youth, and a common friend of us both, with whom we lived for
many years without a moment of coldness, of peevishness, of jealousy,
or of jar, to the day of our final separation.

‘I ever looked on Lord Keppel as one of the greatest and best men of
his age; and I loved and cultivated him accordingly. He was much in my
heart, and I believe I was in his to the very last beat. It was after
his trial at Portsmouth that he gave me this picture. With what zeal
and anxious affection I attended him through that his agony of glory;
what part, my son, in early flush and enthusiasm of his virtue and the
pious passion with which he attached himself to all my connexions,
with what prodigality we both squandered ourselves in courting almost
every sort of enmity for his sake, I believe he felt, just as I should
have felt, such friendship on such an occasion.’—_Letter to a Noble
Lord_, p. 29, _second edition, printed for T. Williams_.

I have given this passage entire here, because I wish to be informed,
if I could, what is the construction of the last sentence of it. It
has puzzled me all my life. One difficulty might be got over by making
a pause after ‘I believe he felt,’ and leaving out the comma between
‘have felt’ and ‘such friendship.’ That is, the meaning would be, ‘I
believe he felt with what zeal and anxious affection,’ &c. ‘just as I
should have felt such friendship on such an occasion.’ But then again,
what is to become of the ‘what part, my son?’ &c. With what does this
connect, or to what verb is ‘my son’ the nominative case, or by what
verb is ‘what part’ governed? I should really be glad, if, from any
manuscript, printed copy, or marginal correction, this point could be
cleared up, and so fine a passage resolved, by any possible ellipsis,
into ordinary grammar.

Footnote 16:

The only exception to the general drift of this Essay (and that is an
exception in theory—I know of none in practice) is, that in reading we
always take the right side, and make the case properly our own. Our
imaginations are sufficiently excited, we have nothing to do with the
matter but as a pure creation of the mind, and we therefore yield to
the natural, unwarped impression of good and evil. Our own passions,
interests, and prejudices out of the question, or in an abstracted
point of view, we judge fairly and conscientiously; for conscience is
nothing but the abstract idea of right and wrong. But no sooner have
we to act or suffer, than the spirit of contradiction or some other
demon comes into play, and there is an end of common sense and reason.
Even the very strength of the speculative faculty, or the desire to
square things with an _ideal_ standard of perfection (whether we can
or no) leads perhaps to half the absurdities and miseries of mankind.
We are hunting after what we cannot find, and quarrelling with the
good within our reach. Among the thousands that have read _The Heart
of Midlothian_ there assuredly never was a single person who did not
wish Jeanie Deans success. Even Gentle George was sorry for what he
had done, when it was over, though he would have played the same prank
the next day: and the _unknown_ author, in his immediate character of
contributor to Blackwood and the Sentinel, is about as respectable a
personage as Daddy Ratton himself. On the stage, every one takes part
with Othello against Iago. Do boys at school, in reading Homer,
generally side with the Greeks or Trojans?

Footnote 17:

There is a fellow in Hogarth’s _Election Dinner_, holding his wig in
one hand, and wiping his bare scalp with the other. What a peep for a
craniologist! Let him look well to it, and see that his system is
borne out by the gesture, character, and actions of the portrait! A
celebrated Scotch barrister being introduced to Dr. Spurzheim without
his wig, said—‘It is dangerous to appear before you, Doctor, at this
disadvantage.’ To which the Doctor replied—‘Oh! you have nothing to
fear. Your head——’ ‘At least,’ interrupted the other, ‘you will not
find the organ of credulity there!’

Footnote 18:

It appears, I understand, from an ingenious paper published by Dr.
Combe of Edinburgh, that three heads have caused considerable
uneasiness and consternation to a _Society of Phrenologists_ in that
city, _viz._ those of Sir Walter Scott, of the Duke of Wellington, and
of Marshal Blucher. The first, contrary to the expectation of these
learned persons, wants the organ of imagination; the second the organ
of combination; and the last possesses the organ of fancy. This, I
confess, as to the two first, appears to me a needless alarm. It would
incline me (more than any thing I have yet heard) to an opinion that
there is something like an art of divination in the science. I had
long ago formed and been hardy enough to express a conviction that Sir
Walter’s _forte_ is a sort of _traditional literature_ (whatever he
accumulates or scatters through his pages, he leaves as he finds it,
with very few marks of the master-mind upon it)—and as to the second
person mentioned, he has just those powers of combination which belong
to a man who leads a bull-dog in a string, and lets the animal loose
upon his prey at the proper moment. With regard to Prince Blucher, if
he had not ‘_fancy_ in himself, he was the cause of it in others,’ for
he turned the heads of many people, who ‘fancied’ his campaigns were
the precursors of the Millennium. I have at different times seen these
three puzzling heads, and I should say that the Poet looks like a
gentleman-farmer, the Prince like a corporal on guard, or the
lieutenant of a press-gang, the Duke like nothing or nobody. You look
at the head of the first with admiration of its capacity and solid
contents, at the last with wonder at what it _can_ contain (any more
than a drum-head), at the man of ‘fancy’ or of ‘_the_ fancy’ with
disgust at the grossness and brutality which he did not affect to
conceal. These, however, are slight physiognomical observations taken
at random: but I should be happy to have my ‘squandering glances’ in
any degree confirmed by the profounder science and more accurate
investigations of northern genius!

Footnote 19:

The books that we like in youth we return to in age, if there is
nature and simplicity in them. At what age should Robinson Crusoe be
laid aside? I do not think that Don Quixote is a book for children; or
at least, they understand it better as they grow up.

Footnote 20:

I do not speak of poverty as an absolute evil; though when accompanied
with luxurious habits and vanity, it is a great one. Even hardships
and privations have their use, and give strength and endurance. Labour
renders ease delightful—hunger is the best sauce. The peasant, who at
noon rests from his weary task under a hawthorn hedge, and eats his
slice of coarse bread and cheese or rusty bacon, enjoys more real
luxury than the prince with pampered, listless appetite under a canopy
of state. Why then does the mind of man pity the former, and envy the
latter? It is because the imagination changes places with others in
situation only, not in feeling; and in fancying ourselves the peasant,
we revolt at his homely fare, from not being possessed of his gross
taste or keen appetite, while in thinking of the prince, we suppose
ourselves to sit down to his delicate viands and sumptuous board, with
a relish unabated by long habit and vicious excess. I am not sure
whether Mandeville has not given the same answer to this hackneyed
question.

Footnote 21:

Women abroad (generally speaking) are more like men in the tone of
their conversation and habits of thinking, so that from the same
premises you cannot draw the same conclusions as in England.

Footnote 22:

This circumstance is noticed in Ivanhoe, though a different turn is
given to it by the philosopher of Rotherwood.

‘Nay, I can tell you more,’ said Wamba in the same tone, ‘there is old
Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the
charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou; but becomes Beef, a fiery
French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are
destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf too becomes Monsieur de Veau in
like manner: he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a Norman
name when he becomes matter of enjoyment.’—Vol. 1, Chap. 1.

Footnote 23:

Hence the peculiar horror of cannibalism from the stronger sympathy
with our own sensations, and the greater violence that is done to it
by the sacrilegious use of what once possessed human life and feeling.

Footnote 24:

Thomas Cooper of Manchester, the able logician and political partisan,
tried the experiment some years ago, when he invited a number of
gentlemen and officers quartered in the town to dine with him on an
ass’s foal instead of a calf’s-head, on the anniversary of the 30th of
January. The circumstance got wind, and gave great offence. Mr. Cooper
had to attend a country-meeting soon after at Boulton-le-Moors, and
one of the country magistrates coming to the inn for the same purpose,
and when he asked ‘If any one was in the room!’ receiving for
answer—‘No one but Mr. Cooper of Manchester’—ordered out his horse and
immediately rode home again. Some verses made on the occasion by Mr.
Scarlett and Mr. Shepherd of Gateacre explained the story thus—

‘The reason how this came to pass is
The Justice had heard that Cooper ate asses!’

Footnote 25:

What a plague Moses had with his Jews to make them ‘reform and live
cleanly!’ To this day (according to a learned traveller) the Jews,
wherever scattered, have an aversion to agriculture and almost to its
products; and a Jewish girl will refuse to accept a flower—if you
offer her a piece of money, of jewellery or embroidery, she knows well
enough what to make of the proffered courtesy. See _Hacquet’s Travels
in Carpathia_, &c.

Footnote 26:

The dirt and comparative want of conveniences among Catholics is often
attributed to the number of their Saints’ days and festivals, which
divert them from labour, and give them an idle and disorderly turn of
mind.

Footnote 27:

Lord Bacon, in speaking of the _Schoolmen_.

Footnote 28:

This is not confined to the Westminster. A certain _Talking Potatoe_
(who is now one of the props of Church and State), when he first came
to this country, used to frighten some respectable old gentlewomen,
who invited him to supper, by asking for a slice of the ‘leg of the
Saviour,’ meaning a leg of Lamb; or a bit of ‘the Holy Ghost pie,’
meaning a pigeon-pie on the table. Ill-nature and impertinence are the
same in all schools.

Footnote 29:

One of them has printed a poem entitled ‘RHODOPE;’ which, however,
does not show the least taste or capacity for poetry, or any idea
corresponding to it. _Bad poetry_ serves to prove the existence of
_good_. If all poetry were like Rhodope, the philosophic author might
fulminate his anathemas against it (floods of ghastly, livid ire) as
long as he pleased: but if this were poetry, there would be no
occasion for so much anger: no one would read it or think any thing of
it!

Footnote 30:

‘_Old Lady Lambert._ Come, come: I wish you would follow Dr.
Cantwell’s precepts, whose practice is conformable to what he teaches.
Virtuous man!—above all sensual regards, he considers the world merely
as a collection of dirt and pebble-stones. How has he weaned me from
temporal connexions! My heart is now set upon nothing sublunary; and,
I thank Heaven, I am so insensible to every thing in this vile world,
that I could see you, my son, my daughters, my brothers, my
grandchildren, all expire before me, and mind it no more than the
going out of so many snuffs of a candle.

‘_Charlotte._ Upon my word, madam, it is a very humane disposition you
have been able to arrive at, and your family is much obliged to the
Doctor for his instructions.’—ACT II. Scene 1.

Footnote 31:

It is more desirable to be the handsomest than the wisest man in his
Majesty’s dominions, for there are more people who have eyes than
understandings. Sir John Suckling tells us that

He prized black eyes and a lucky hit
At bowls, above all the trophies of wit.

In like manner, I would be permitted to say, that I am somewhat sick
of this trade of authorship, where the critics look askance at one’s
best-meant efforts, but am still fond of those athletic exercises,
where they do not keep two scores to mark the game, with Whig and Tory
notches. The accomplishments of the body are obvious and clear to all:
those of the mind are recondite and doubtful, and therefore grudgingly
acknowledged, or held up as the sport of prejudice, spite, and folly.

Footnote 32:

Written in June 1820.

Footnote 33:

Quere, Villiers, because in another place it is said, that ‘when the
latter entered the presence-chamber, he attracted all eyes by the
handsomeness of his person, and the gracefulness of his demeanour.’

Footnote 34:

Wycherley was a great favourite with the Duchess of Cleveland.

Footnote 35:

The writer of this Essay once saw a Prince of the Blood pull off his
hat to every one in the street, till he came to the beggarman that
swept the crossing. This was a nice distinction. Farther, it was a
distinction that the writer of this Essay would not make to be a
Prince of the Blood. Perhaps, however, a question might be started in
the manner of Montaigne, whether the beggar did not pull off his hat
in quality of asking charity, and not as a mark of respect. Now a
Prince may decline giving charity, though he is obliged to return a
civility. If he does not, he may be treated with disrespect another
time, and that is an alternative he is bound to prevent. Any other
person might set up such a plea, but the person to whom a whole street
had been bowing just before.

Footnote 36:

Nearly the same sentiment was wittily and happily expressed by a
friend, who had some lottery puffs, which he had been employed to
write, returned on his hands for their too great severity of thought
and classical terseness of style, and who observed on that occasion,
that ‘Modest merit never can succeed!’

Footnote 37:

During the peace of Amiens, a young English officer, of the name of
Lovelace, was presented at Buonaparte’s levee. Instead of the usual
question, ‘Where have you served, Sir?’ the First Consul immediately
addressed him, ‘I perceive your name, Sir, is the same as that of the
hero of Richardson’s Romance!’ Here was a Consul. The young man’s
uncle, who was called Lovelace, told me this anecdote while we were
stopping together at Calais. I had also been thinking that his was the
same name as that of the hero of Richardson’s Romance. This is one of
my reasons for liking Buonaparte.

Footnote 38:

He is there called ‘Citizen Lauderdale.’ Is this the present Earl?

Footnote 39:

‘I know at this time a person of vast estate, who is the immediate
descendant of a fine gentleman, but the great-grandson of a broker, in
whom his ancestor is now revived. He is a very honest gentleman in his
principles, but cannot for his blood talk fairly: he is heartily sorry
for it; but he cheats by constitution, and over-reaches by
instinct.’—See this subject delightfully treated in the 75th Number of
the Tatler, in an account of Mr. Bickerstaff’s pedigree, on occasion
of his sister’s marriage.

Footnote 40:

Fideliter didicisse ingenuas artes
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.

The same maxim does not establish the purity of morals that infers
their mildness.

Footnote 41:

Richardson’s Works, On the Science of a Connoisseur, p. 212.

Footnote 42:

The reputation is not the man. Yet all true reputation begins and ends
in the opinion of a man’s intimate friends. He _is_ what they think
him, and in the last result will be thought so by others. Where there
is no solid merit to bear the pressure of personal contact, fame is
but a vapour raised by accident or prejudice, and will soon vanish
like a vapour or a noisome stench. But he who appears to those about
him what he would have the world think him, from whom every one that
approaches him in whatever circumstances brings something away to
confirm the loud rumour of the popular voice, is alone great in spite
of fortune. The malice of friendship, the littleness of curiosity, is
as severe a test as the impartiality and enlarged views of history.

Footnote 43:

Mercier.

Footnote 44:

It appears, notwithstanding, that this sophistical apology for the
restoration of the Spanish Inquisition, with the reversion of
sovereign power into kingly hands, was false and spurious. The power
has once more reverted into the hands of an abused people, and the
Inquisition has been abolished.—Since this was written, there has been
another turn of the screws, and——But no more on that head.

Footnote 45:

This was written in Mr. Shelley’s life-time.

Footnote 46:

‘The Gothic architecture, though not so ancient as the Grecian, is
more so to our imagination, with which the artist is more concerned
than with absolute truth.’—_Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses_, vol.
ii. p. 138.

Till I met with this remark in so circumspect and guarded a writer as
Sir Joshua, I was afraid of being charged with extravagance in some of
the above assertions. _Pereant isti qui ante nos nostra dixerunt._ It
is thus that our favourite speculations are often accounted paradoxes
by the ignorant,—while by the learned reader they are set down as
plagiarisms.

Footnote 47:

‘_Rosalind._ Time travels in divers paces with divers persons: I’ll
tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time
gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.

_Orlando._ I prythee, who doth he trot withal?

_Ros._ Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of
her marriage and the day it is solemnized: if the interim be but a
se’nnight, time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven
years.

_Orl._ Who ambles time withal?

_Ros._ With a priest that lacks Latin, and a rich man that hath not
the gout; for the one sleeps easily, because he cannot study; and the
other lives merrily, because he feels no pain; the one lacking the
burden of lean and wasteful learning; the other knowing no burden of
heavy tedious penury. These time ambles with.

_Orl._ Who doth he gallop withal?

_Ros._ With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot
can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.

_Orl._ Who stays it withal?

_Ros._ With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and
term, and then they perceive not how time moves.’—_As You Like It_,