Chapter VII: Part 7

We trace in Porson’s habits of thought the influence which the study of mathematics had upon him.[76] He was to his dying day fond of these studies. There are still preserved many papers of his scribbled over with mathematical calculations; and when the fit seized him in the street which caused his death, an equation was found in his pocket.

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Footnote 76:

In enabling him to give to English scholarship its accuracy and
certainty,—as a substratum on which to rest other branches of
knowledge often more useful in themselves. See Mr. Luard’s able
_Cambridge Essay_.

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ARISTOTLE.

Aristotle’s Philosophy, from its being upheld by the Roman Catholic theology, was lowered in a corresponding degree by the Reformation. Hence it fell into undeserved neglect during the latter part of the seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth century. Of late years, however, the true worth of his writings has been more fully appreciated, and the study of his best treatises has been much revived. Dr. Holland remarks: “The whole of Aristotle’s writings on Sleep, and other collateral topics, deserve much more frequent perusal than is given to them in the present day.” The geological theory of Lyell, viz. that the causes which produce geological phenomena are in constant and gradual operation, is the theory of Aristotle and John Ray brought down to our present state of knowledge.

It has been well said that Solomon, Aristotle, and Bacon are the only three men, since our race appeared on earth, who would have been justified in saying that “they took all knowledge for their province.”

GEOLOGY IN EDUCATION.

The genius of Werner, of De Saussure, and of Cuvier, laid the foundations on which Geology now rests. They gave us the first glimpse of the fauna and flora of the earlier ages of our planet. Professor Jameson soon saw that these investigations would also lead to much curious information in regard to the former physical and geographical distribution of plants and animals; and to the changes which the animated world in general, and particular genera and species, have undergone, and probably are still undergoing; and he would naturally be led to speculate on the changes that must have taken place in the climate of the globe during these various changes and revolutions. The writings of Blumenbach, Von Hoff, Cuvier, Brongniart, Steffens, and other naturalists, are proofs of what has been done by following up the views of Werner. Ami Boué, speaking of the services Professor Jameson has rendered to science, says: “He has spread valuable working pupils all over the world, and he was the electric spark which originated the beginning of true geology in Great Britain.”

It is not much more than seventy years since Bishop Watson, a man of
no mean abilities and of no slight distinction, turned the science
of geology into open ridicule. He said that the geologists who
attempted to speculate on the internal formation of the globe
reminded him only of a gnat which might be perched upon the
shoulders of an elephant, and might, by the reach of its tiny
puncture, affect to tell him what was the whole internal structure
of the majestic animal below.[77] Listen now to the language of an
eminent man of the present day, Sir David Brewster, on the same
great subject: “How interesting must it be to study such
phenomena—to escape for a while from the works of man—to go back to
primeval times, and learn how its Maker moulded the earth—how He
wore down the primitive mass into the strata of its present
surface—how He deposited the precious metals in its bowels—how He
filled it with races of living animals, and again buried them in its
depths, to chronicle the steps of creative power—how He covered its
surface with its fruit-bearing soil, and spread out the waters of
the deep as the great highway of nations, to unite into one
brotherhood the different races of his creatures, and to bless them
by the interchange of their produce and their affections!” And
again, referring to the discoveries of the great Cuvier in connexion
with geology, he says: “In thus deciphering the handwriting of
nature on her tablets of stone, the same distinguished naturalist
discovered that all organised beings were not created at the same
period. In the commissariat of Providence the stores were provided
before the arrival of the host that was to devour them. Plants were
created before animals, the molluscous fishes next appeared, then
the reptiles, and last of all the mammiferous quadrupeds completed
the scale of animal life.” Such are the terms in which able men now
refer to geological science.[78]

Fortunately, the science of Geology is an eminently popular one. The arguments which go to establish its leading doctrines require no long course of previous study to make them intelligible, and its professors, in this country at least, have been no way disposed to confine their teaching to the sanctuaries of learning. Wherever an audience can be gathered together, some eminent geologist is always ready to discourse for the benefit of the gentiles of science, who have rewarded their instructors by a larger share of popularity than is generally bestowed on the professors of other branches of physical knowledge. The consequence is, that a smattering of Geology is now very generally diffused amongst the upper and middle classes in this country—an excellent thing in itself, since even a smattering of natural science helps to enlarge and elevate the mind, but sometimes inconvenient, because few learn enough to get a correct idea of the extent of their own ignorance as compared with the smallness of their knowledge. In the interest of science, the main point to be gained is that, out of the large number who approach the threshold, a sufficient number should be induced to enter into her service, and that each of these should find work fit for his strength and his special faculties. Measured in this way, the progress of Geology seems to be sufficiently satisfactory.[79]

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Footnote 77:

Mr. Watson, among other qualities, which certainly contributed to his
advancement in life, possessed a happy confidence in himself, and an
opinion of his own fitness for any situation to which he should think
proper to aspire, though totally destitute at the time of every
qualification requisite to the discharge of its functions. On the 19th
of November 1764, he informs us, “I was unanimously elected by the
Senate, assembled in full congregation, Professor of Chemistry. At the
time this honour was conferred upon me _I knew nothing at all of
chemistry_; had never read a syllable on the subject, nor seen a
single experiment in it.”—_Quarterly Review_, vol. xviii. p. 233.

Footnote 78:

Sir John Pakington, M.P.

Footnote 79:

_Saturday Review._

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THE BEST EDUCATION.

Philip de Mornay enjoins: “The best thing to be instilled into the minds of children, is to fear God. This is the beginning, the middle, and the end, of wisdom. Next, they ought to be induced to be kind one to another. Great care ought to be taken to guard against speaking on improper subjects in their presence, since lasting impressions are made at a very early age; on the contrary, our conversation ought to be on good and instructive topics. Imperceptibly to themselves or others, they derive great benefit from such discourse; for it is quite certain that children take the tinge either of good or evil, without the process being discovered.”

True excellence is only to be arrived at by the true Education; for in Education, as in all the rest of life, there are two ways of acting. “The one way, when the learner looks upon his powers as his own, and works them in a self-confident, hard spirit; which is by far the quickest way to temporary success. The other, when the learner, looking upon all his powers as given to him, works humbly in a tentative spirit, distrusting self, keeping the heart open to improvement, thinking that every body and every thing can teach him something; putting himself, in fact, in God’s hand, as a learner, not as a judge. To such a spirit belongs the promise that he shall be led into all truth. Directly we imagine we know a thing, we close our stores, and shut the gates against fresh treasures; but whilst laying up truth, still think that all is incomplete, still humbly think, however broad and firm and deep the foundation we have laid may be, that eternity shall not suffice for the superstructure; in fact, still hold the vessel to be filled, and God will ever fill it; still use that fulness in His service, and at the right time the right thing shall come. Nothing but pride shuts out knowledge. Who is not conscious, taking only the merest intellectual work, how little really depends on himself, how many thoughts are direct gifts, how much precious material _comes_ into his hands, is given—is given—not his own; who will not admit, if nothing more, that a headache, a qualm, may destroy his cherished hopes, so little can he rely on self?”[80]

The late Baron Alderson, writing to his son, says: “I have sent you to Eton that you may be taught your duties as an English young gentleman. The first duty of such a person is to be a good and religious Christian; the next is to be a good scholar; and the third is to be accomplished in all manly exercises and games, such as rowing, swimming, jumping, cricket, and the like. Most boys, I fear, begin at the wrong end, and take the last first; and, what is still worse, never arrive at either of the other two at all. I hope, however, better things of you; and to hear first that you are a good, truthful, honest boy, and then that you are one of the hardest workers in your class; and after that, I confess I shall be by no means sorry to hear that you can show the idle boys that an industrious one can be a good cricketer, and jump as wide a ditch, or clear as high a hedge, as any of them.”

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Footnote 80:

Thring’s _Sermons delivered at Uppingham School_.

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ADVICE TO THE STUDENT.

Dr. Arnold has given this sound counsel: “Preserve proportion in your reading, keep your view of men and things extensive, and, _depend upon it, a mixed knowledge is not a superficial one;_ as far as it goes, the views that it gives are true; but he who reads deeply in one class of writers only, gets views which are almost sure to be perverted, and which are not only narrow but false.”

It is a great mistake to suppose that full employment shuts out leisure. The secret of leisure is to have eight hours a day entirely devoted to business, and you will then find you have time for other pursuits; this for some time to come will seem to you a paradox; but you will one day be convinced of the truth, that the man who is the most engaged has always the most leisure.

KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM.

That Knowledge is not True Wisdom cannot be too strongly urged upon youth. “There is a heaping up of knowledge just as amenable to this censure as the ignorance of the unlearned, not indeed so censured by man, but equally worthy of it in a true judgment. The intellectual fool, full of knowledge but without wisdom, whose way is right in his own eyes, is no less a fool, nay, more so, than the ignorant fool, and as far from true wisdom. For knowledge is a very different thing from wisdom; knowledge is but the collecting together of a mass of material at best, whilst wisdom is the right perception and right use leading to further riches. The mere heaper-up of knowledge digs, as it were, ore out of the earth, working underground in darkness; whereas the wise man fashions all his knowledge into use and beauty, praising and blessing God with it, and receiving from Him a fuller measure in consequence. Wisdom is knowledge applied to life and to the praise of God,—a thing of the heart, the heart controlling and using all the head gathers; knowledge by itself is a mere barren store of the head, quite separable from goodness and love,—a thing capable of being possessed by devils. For this we must mark, the humblest good heart which loves God alone can attain to the knowledge of God. No mere intellectual power and pride can do that. And hence we may see why the man whose way is right in his own eyes is a fool.”[81]

Montaigne thus points out an educational error, common in our time as well as in that of this charming writer, whom a gentleman is ashamed not to have read:

The care and expense our parents are at have no other aim but to
furnish our heads with knowledge, but not a word of judgment and
virtue. Cry out of one that passes by to our people, “Oh, what a
learned man is that!” and of another, “Oh, what a good man is that!”
they will not fail to turn their eyes and pay their respects to the
former. There should then be a third man to cry out, “Oh, what
blockheads they are!” Men are ready to ask, “Does he understand
Greek or Latin—is he a poet or prose-writer?” But whether he is the
better or more discreet man, though it is the main question, is the
last; for the inquiry should be, who has the best learning, not who
has the most. We only take pains to stuff the memory, and leave the
understanding and conscience quite unfurnished. Of what service is
it to us to have a bellyful of meat, if it does not digest—if it
does not change its form in our bodies—and if it does not nourish
and strengthen us? We suffer ourselves to lean so much upon the arms
of others, that our strength is of no use to us. Would I fortify
myself against the fear of death, I do it at the expense of Seneca;
would I extract consolation for myself or my friend, I borrow it
from Cicero; whereas I might have found it in myself, if I had been
trained up in the exercise of my own reason. I do not fancy the
acquiescence in second-hand hearsay knowledge; for though we may be
learned by the help of another’s knowledge, we can never be wise but
by our own wisdom. Agesilaus being asked what he thought most proper
for boys to learn, replied: What they ought to do when they come to
be men.

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Footnote 81:

Thring’s _Sermons delivered at Uppingham School_.

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EDUCATION ALARMISTS.

That a little learning is a dangerous thing, is an old saying, which has been fearfully repeated in these days; but a little learning every one will have, and the only way of averting the danger is, by providing the people with all facilities for acquiring more.

Lord Stowell was no admirer of the prevailing rage for universal education, and made a remark with which Lord Sidmouth was much struck: “If you provide,” he said, “a larger amount of cultivated talent than there is a demand for, the surplus is very likely to turn sour.”

Sir John Coleridge, in expressing his high sense of the obligations of the country to the University of Oxford for their recent aids to Middle-Class Education, says: “If the lower orders are to be raised in political power in this country, to make that a blessing you must cultivate the lower orders for discharging the duties to be thrown upon them. Therefore it is that I think the University of Oxford conferred the largest benefit that it had in its power to confer upon this country at large, when, passing simply from the education of the higher orders and those who were destined for the Church, it spread out its hands in a frank and liberal spirit to all classes of society, and offered to connect every body with itself, in a certain measure, who would only fit himself for it by proper application.”

YORKSHIRE SCHOOLS.

The disappearance from our newspapers of strings of “Education” advertisements of Schools with low tariffs in Yorkshire, shows the effect of satiric humour in correcting abuses of our own time. The dietary of a school in Yorkshire, barmecide breakfasts and dinners, was often held up _in terrorem_ to refractory boys, who heard the threat of “I’ll send you to Yorkshire,” with fear and trembling. Mr. Dickens gives an admirable exposure of this Spartan system in his tale of _Nicholas Nickleby_, in the preface to which he says:

I cannot call to mind now how I came to hear about Yorkshire
schools, when I was not a very robust child, sitting in bye places,
near Rochester Castle, with a head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom
Pipes, and Sancho Panza; but I know that my first impressions of
them were picked up at that time, and that they were, somehow or
other, connected with a suppurated abscess that some boy had come
home with in consequence of his Yorkshire guide, philosopher, and
friend having ripped it open with an inky penknife.

Before the book was written, Mr. Dickens went into Yorkshire to look for a school in which the imaginary boy of an imaginary widow might be put away until the thawing of a tardy compassion in that widow’s imaginary friends. Then some stern realities were seen; and we are told also, in the preface, of a supper with a real John Browdie, whose answer as to the search for a cheap Yorkshire schoolmaster was, “Dom’d if ar can gang to bed and not tellee, for weedur’s sak’, to keep the lattle boy from a’ sike scoundrels, while there’s a harse to hoold in a’ London, or a goother to lie asleep in!”

BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.

Great mistakes have been made in writing books for children. When Sir Walter Scott was about to write his _Tales of a Grandfather_, he remarked: “I am persuaded both children and the lower class of readers hate books which are written _down_ to their capacity, and love those that are composed for their elders and betters. I will make, if possible, a book that a child shall understand, yet a man should feel some temptation to peruse should he chance to take it up.... The grand and interesting consists in ideas, not in words.” Again, “the problem of narrating history is at once to excite and gratify the curiosity of youth, and please and instruct the wisest of mature minds.”[82]

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Footnote 82:

Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_.

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THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

The treasures of our tongue, says Dr. Richardson, the lexicographer, are spread over continents, and cultivated among islands in the northern and the southern hemisphere, from “the unformed Occident to the strange shores of unknowing nations in the East.” The sun, indeed, now never sets upon the empire of Great Britain. Not one hour of the twenty-four in which the earth completes her diurnal revolution, not one round of the minute-hand of the dial, is allowed to pass, in which, on some portion of the surface of the globe, the air is not filled with “accents that are ours.” They are heard in the ordinary transactions of life, or in the administration of law, or in the deliberations of the senate-house or council-chamber, or in the offices of private devotion, or in the public observance of the rites and duties of a common faith.

Dr. Richardson’s _Dictionary of the English Language_, the foremost work of its class, we owe greatly to the judicious energy of Mr. Pickering, the publisher, who laid out two thousand pounds in books, specially for this great labour, before it was commenced. If publishers would imitate Mr. Pickering’s liberality oftener than is done, there would be fewer incomplete and abortive compilations than are yearly issued from the press. Dr. Richardson acknowledges this valuable aid in his Preface, where he justly makes his boast of bringing within the circle of his reading a large number of books which had never been employed for lexicographical purposes before; and Dean Trench acknowledges that the virgin soil which Richardson has tilled has often yielded him large and rich returns.

Of the uselessness of our legions of words to be found in dictionaries, a writer of the day observes:

Dictionary English is something very different not only from common
colloquial English, but even from that of ordinary written
composition. Instead of about 40,000 words, there is probably no
single author in the language from whose works, however voluminous,
so many as 10,000 words could be collected. Of the 40,000 words
there are certainly many more than one-half that are only employed,
if they are ever employed at all, on the rarest occasions. We should
any of us be surprised to find, if we counted them, with how small a
number of words we manage to express all that we have to say either
with our lips or even with the pen. Our common literary English
probably hardly extends to 10,000 words, our common spoken English
hardly to 5000. And the proportion of native or home-grown words is
undoubtedly very much higher in both the 5000 and the 10,000 than it
is in the 40,000. Perhaps of the 30,000 words, or thereabouts,
standing in the dictionaries, that are very rarely or never used,
even in writing, between 20,000 and 25,000 may be free of French or
Latin extraction. If we assume 22,500 to be so, that will leave 5000
Teutonic words in common use; and in our literary English, taken at
10,000 words, those that are non-Roman will thus amount to about
one-half. Of that half 4000 words may be current in our spoken
language, which will therefore be genuine English for four-fifths of
its entire extent. It will consist of about 4000 Gothic and 1000
Roman words.[83]

The Rev. Dr. D’Orsey has shown, by coloured charts and elaborate tables, the proportion of the Teutonic and Romanic elements in the spoken language of England, and in the writings of our great authors. Thus, out of 100,000 words, at least 60,000 were Teutonic, 30,000 Romanic, and 10,000 from all other sources.

It would be almost impossible to compose a sentence of moderate length consisting solely of words of Latin derivation. But there are many which can be rendered wholly in Anglo-Saxon. It would be easy to make the Lord’s Prayer entirely, as it is in present use almost entirely, Anglo-Saxon. It consists of sixty words, and six of these only have a Latin root. But for each of them, except one, we have an exact Saxon equivalent. For “trespasses” we may substitute “sins;” for “temptation,” “trials;” for “deliver,” “free;” and for “power,” “might.” Dr. Trench proposes for “glory,” “brightness;” but this we think is not a good substitute.

The gradual changes in language are very remarkable. Dean Trench, in one of his popular manuals, observes: “How few aged persons, let them retain the fullest possession of their faculties, are conscious of any difference between the spoken language of their early youth and that of their old age; that words, and ways of using words, are obsolete now which were usual then; that many words are current now which had no existence at that time. And yet it is certain that so it must be. A man may fairly be supposed to remember clearly and well for sixty years back; and it needs less than five of these sixties to bring us to the period of Spenser, and not more than eight to set us in the time of Chaucer and Wiclif. How great a change, how vast a difference in our language, within eight memories! No one, overlooking this whole term, will deny the greatness of the change. For all this, we may be tolerably sure that, had it been possible to interrogate a series of eight persons, such as together had filled up this time, intelligent men, but men whose attention had not been especially roused on this subject, each in his turn would have denied that there had been any change at all during his lifetime. And yet, having regard to the multitude of words which have fallen into disuse during these four or five hundred years, we are sure that there must have been some lives in this chain which saw those words in use at their commencement, and out of use before their close. And so, too, of the multitude of words which have come into being within the limits of each of these lives.”

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Footnote 83:

_Dublin University Magazine._

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WHAT IS “ARGUMENT”?

The origin and proper value of the word “Argument” has been thus explained by the Rev. Dr. Donaldson, in a paper read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society:

The author first investigated the etymology and meaning of the Latin verb _arguo_, and its participle _argutus_. He showed that _arguo_ was a corruption of _argruo_ = _ad gruo_; that _gruo_ (in _argruo_, _ingruo_, _congruo_) ought to be compared with κρούω, which means “to dash one thing against another,” especially for the purpose of making a shrill, ringing noise; that _arguo_ means “to knock something for the purpose of making it ring, or testing its soundness,” hence “to test, examine, and prove any thing;” and that _argutus_ signifies “made to ring,” hence “making a distinct, shrill noise,” or “tested and put to the proof.” Accordingly _argumentum_ means _id quod arguit_, “that which makes a substance ring, which sounds, examines, tests, and proves it.”

It was then shown that these meanings were not only borne out by the classical usage of the word, but also by the technical application of “argument” as a logical term. For it is not equivalent to “argumentation,” or the process of reasoning; it does not even denote a complete syllogism; though Dr. Whately and some other writers on logic had fallen into this vague use of the word, and though it was so understood in the disputations of the Cambridge schools. The proper use of the word “argument” in logic is to denote “the middle term,” _i. e._ “the term used for proof.” In a sense similar to this the word is employed by mathematicians; and there can be no doubt that the oldest and best logicians confine the word to this, which is still its most common signification.

The author shows, by a collection of examples from the best English poets, that the established meanings of the word “argument” are reducible to three: (1) a proof, or means of proving; (2) a process of reasoning, or controversy, made up of such proofs; (3) the subject-matter of any discourse, writing, or picture. He maintains that the second of these meanings should be excluded from scientific language.

By this we are reminded of Swift’s dictum, of much wider application—that “Argument, as generally managed, is the worst sort of conversation; as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.”

HANDWRITING.

The characters of writing have followed the genius of the barbarous ages: they are well or ill formed, in proportion as the sciences have flourished more or less. Antiquaries remark that the medals struck during the consulship of Fabius Pictor, 250 years before Augustus, have the letters better formed than those of the older date. Those of the time of Augustus, and the following age, show characters of perfect beauty. Those of Diocletian and Maximian are worse formed than those of the Antonines; and again, those of the Justins and Justinians degenerate into a Gothic taste. But it is not to medals only that these remarks are applicable: we see the same inferiority of written characters generally following in the train of barbarism and ignorance. During the first race of the French kings, we find no writing which is not a mixture of Roman and other characters. Under the empire of Charlemagne and of Louis le Débonnaire, the characters returned almost to the same point of perfection which distinguished them in the time of Augustus, but in the following age there was a relapse to the former barbarism; so that for four or five centuries we find only the Gothic characters in manuscripts; for it is not worth while making an exception for short periods which were somewhat more polished, and when there was less inelegance in the formation of the letters.

The being _able to write_ has been taken by our statists as the best evidence of the progress of education. Thus, twenty years ago, only 67 in every 100 men who married in England signed their names upon the register, and 51 in every 100 women, and thirteen years later the percentage was but 69·6 of the men and 56·1 of the women; but in the last seven years, a period which probably shows in its marriages the result chiefly of the education of the years 1840-45 or thereabouts, the advance has been much greater, and the Registrar-General reports that in 1860 the proportion of men writing their names had risen to 74·5, and of women to 63·8. In the whole twenty years the proportion of men who write has risen from being only two-thirds to be three-fourths, and of women from being a half to be nearly two-thirds, which may be expressed with tolerable accuracy by saying that where four persons had to “make their mark” then, only three do so now. This is for all England; but the rate of progress has not been the same in every part of the kingdom.

In the reign of George III., when education had become more general, the crosses of those who could not write lost the distinction and artistic character of older times, and the large bold round-hand corresponds in style with the buildings and furniture then in use. This writing, although without much beauty, has, notwithstanding, the merit of distinctness. In these railway times, with the exception of book-keepers in banks and clerks in merchants’ offices, few seem to have time to trim their letters. Few artists write a good hand. Physicians’ prescriptions are often as difficult to decipher as ancient hieroglyphics; and it must be confessed that writers for the press are not generally remarkable for either the distinctness or beauty of their manuscript. As regards artists, the practice of handling the brush and pencil is not favourable to graceful penmanship; and in respect of the literary profession, it is generally difficult for the pen to keep pace with the thoughts, to say nothing of the fact, that time often presses.[84]

Short-Hand is of great antiquity; for Seneca tells us that in his time reporting had been carried to such perfection, that a writer could keep pace in his report with the most rapid speaker.

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Footnote 84:

Communicated to _The Builder_.

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ENGLISH STYLE.

Style in writing has been well defined by Swift as “proper words in proper places.” However, this is rarely seen.

To the unsettled state of our language, and owing to the want of proper training in composition, may be attributed the general corruption of English Style, which has scarcely ceased since Southey, in his _Colloquies_, wrote the following vigorous condemnation of it:

More lasting effect was produced by translators, who, in later
times, have corrupted our idiom as much as, in early ones, they
enriched our vocabulary; and to this injury the Scotch have greatly
contributed; for, composing in a language which is not their mother
tongue, they necessarily acquired an artificial and formal style,
which, not so much through the merit of a few, as owing to the
perseverance of others, who for half a century seated themselves on
the bench of criticism, has almost superseded the vernacular English
of Addison and Swift. Our journals, indeed, have been the great
corrupters of our style, and continue to be so; and not for this
reason only. Men who write in newspapers, and magazines, and
reviews, write for present effect; in most cases, this is as much
their natural and proper aim, as it would be in public speaking; but
when it is so, they consider, like public speakers, not so much what
is accurate or just, either in matter or manner, as what will be
acceptable to those whom they address. Writing also under the
excitement of emulation and rivalry, they seek, by all the artifices
and efforts of an ambitious style, to dazzle their readers; and they
are wise in their generation, experience having shown that common
minds are taken by glittering faults, both in prose and verse, as
larks are with looking-glasses.

In this school it is that most writers are now trained; and after
such training, any thing like an easy and natural movement is as
little to be looked for in their compositions as in the step of a
dancing-master. To the views of style, which are thus generated,
there must be added the inaccuracies inevitably arising from haste,
when a certain quantity of matter is to be supplied for a daily or
weekly publication, which allows of no delay,—the slovenliness that
confidence as well as fatigue and inattention will produce,—and the
barbarisms which are the effect of ignorance, or that smattering of
knowledge which serves only to render ignorance presumptuous. These
are the causes of corruption in our current style; and when these
are considered, there would be ground for apprehending that the best
writings of the last century might become as obsolete as ours in the
like process of time, if we had not in our Liturgy and our Bible a
standard from which it will not be possible wholly to depart.

The days of sentences of one word, and of others without a verb, had not then arrived; nor had the spasmodic and sensation style been introduced. Southey’s own style, whether for narrative, for exposition, or for animated argumentation, was perhaps the most effective English style of the time. It combines in a remarkable degree a somewhat lofty dignity with ease and idiomatic vigour. He was the most hard-working writer of his time, and left about 12,000_l._ in money, besides a valuable library.

Sir Thomas Browne satirises the strenuous advocacy of the classical style by saying: “We are now forced to study Latin, in order to understand English.” And Pope ridicules that

Easy Ciceronian style,
So Latin, yet so English all the while.

It is no paradox to say that the perfection of style is to have none, but to let the words be suggested by the sentiments, unchecked by the monotony of a manner, and untainted by affectation.

How striking is this short passage in a speech of Edward IV. to his Parliament! “The injuries that I have received are known every where, and the eyes of the world are fixed upon me to see with what countenance I suffer.” If actual events could often be related in this way, there would be more books in circulating libraries than romances and novels.

This lively and graphic style is plainly the best, though now and then the historian’s criticism is wanted to support a startling fact, or to explain a confused transaction. Thus, the learned Rudbeck, in his _Atlantica_, four volumes folio, ascribing an ancient temple in Sweden to one of Noah’s sons, warily adds, “’Twas probably the youngest.”

A more practical definition of style may be gathered from what Fox said of his great antagonist, Pitt,—and therefore the more to be trusted,—that he always used _the_ word; and each word had its own place, not regulated by chance, but by law.

To write a good Letter is a rare accomplishment. It is owing to the want of proper training in the laws of composition that so few persons in England can write even a common letter correctly. We will give a familiar instance of a very frequent solecism which occurs in one of the most common acts of every-day life—the answer to a dinner invitation; and it is one in which, we are sorry to say, well-educated ladies are too often caught tripping. When “Mr. A. and Mrs. A. request the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs. B.’s company at dinner,” the reply usually is, “Mr. and Mrs. B. _will_ have the pleasure of accepting” the invitation. But the acceptance is already _un fait accompli_ by the very act of writing it,—it is a present, not a future event; and the answer of course ought to be either “Mr. and Mrs. B. _have_ the pleasure of accepting,” or “Mr. and Mrs. B. _will have_ the pleasure of _dining_.”[85]

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Footnote 85:

_Fraser’s Magazine._

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ART OF WRITING.

“He that would write well,” says Roger Ascham, “must follow the advice of Aristotle, to speak as the common people speak, and to think as the wise think.”

Coleridge says: “To write or talk concerning any subject, without having previously taken the pains to understand it, is a breach of the duty which we owe to ourselves, though it may be no offence against the law of the land. The privilege of talking, and even publishing, nonsense, is necessary in a free state; but the more sparingly we make use of it, the better.”[86]

Much reading and good company are supposed to be the best methods of getting at the niceties and elegancies of a language; but this road is long and irksome. The great point is to acquire our most usual Anglicisms; all those phrases and peculiarities which form the characteristics of our language. Nearly eighty years since, Mr. Sharp took upon himself to say that we had no grammar capable of teaching a foreigner to read our authors; adding, “but of this I am sure, that we have none by which he can be enabled to understand our conversation.”

What an annoyance are long speakers, long talkers, and long writers—people who will not take time to think, or are not capable of thinking accurately! Once when Dr. South had preached before Queen Anne, her majesty observed to him, “You have given me a most excellent discourse, Dr. South; but I wish you had had time to make it longer.” “Nay, madam,” replied the doctor, “if I had had time, I should have made it shorter.”

Method in treating your subject is of great importance. Southey has well illustrated the absence of this quality. A Quaker, by name Benjamin Lay (who was a little cracked in the head, though sound at the heart), took one of his compositions to Benjamin Franklin, that it might be printed and published. Franklin, having looked over the manuscript, observed that it was deficient in arrangement: “It is no matter,” replied the author; “print any part thou pleaseth first.” Many are the speeches, and the sermons, and the treatises, and the poems, and the volumes, which are like Benjamin Lay’s book: the head might serve for the tail, and the tail for the body, and the body for the head; either end for the middle, and the middle for either end; nay, if you could turn them inside out, like a polypus or a glove, they would be no worse for the operation.[87]

* * * * *

Free Translation is a rare accomplishment. Sir John Denham, who is declared by Johnson “to have been one of the first that understood the necessity of emancipating translation from the drudgery of counting lines and interpreting single words,” gives the same praise to Sir Richard Fanshawe, whom he addresses thus:

That servile path thou nobly dost decline,
Of tracing word by word and line by line;
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue,
To make translations and translators too:
They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,
True to his sense, but truer to his fame.

Dryden said, all the translations of the old school “want to be translated into English;” and verbal translation he compares to “dancing on ropes with fettered legs.” Education cannot do all that Helvetius supposes, but it can do much. _Elle fait danser l’ours_,—It makes a bear dance. It is said that some insects take the colour of the leaf that they feed upon. “I was common clay till roses were planted in me,” says some aromatic earth, in an eastern fable.

To unlearn is harder than to learn, and the Grecian flute-player was right in requiring double fees from those pupils who had been taught by another master. “I am rubbing their father out of my children as fast as I can,” said a clever widow of rank and fashion.

The Education of princes, or indeed the spoilt children of rich and distinguished parents, must be the _experimentum crucis_ of teaching. “If Fénelon did succeed, as it is recorded he did, in educating the Dauphin, his success was little less than a miracle. How can any man, though of advanced age and of high reputation, perhaps also of a sacred profession and of elevated station, be expected to preserve any useful authority over a child (probably a wayward little animal), if he, the tutor, must always address the pupil by his title, or at least must never forget that he is heir to a throne?”

There is some truth in the following remarks by a writer in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, upon information overmuch:

We deal largely in general knowledge—an excellent article, no doubt;
but one may have too much of it. Sometimes ignorance is really
bliss. It has not added to my personal comfort to know to a decimal
fraction what proportion of red earth I may expect to find in my
cocoa every morning; to have become knowingly conscious that my
coffee is mixed with ground liver and litmus, instead of honest
chicory; and that bisulphuret of mercury forms the basis of my
cayenne. It was once my fate to have a friend staying in my house
who was one of these minute philosophers. He used to amuse himself
after breakfast by a careful analysis and diagnosis of the contents
of the teapot, laid out as a kind of _hortus siccus_ on his plate.
“This leaf, now,” he would say, “is fuchsia; observe the serrated
edges: that’s no tea-leaf—positively poisonous. This now, again, is
blackthorn, or privet—yes, privet; you may know it by the divisions
in the panicles: that’s no tea-leaf.” A most uncomfortable guest he
was; and though not a bad companion in many respects, I felt my
appetite improved the first time I sat down to dinner without him.
It won’t do to look into all your meals with a microscope. Of course
there is a medium between these over-curious investigations and an
implicit faith in every thing that is set before you.

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Footnote 86:

One fine morning, a stalwart anti-Newtonian, properly accredited,
presented himself to Baron Maseres, in the library of his mansion at
Reigate: “I am come to talk over my favourite subject,” he said (it
was, to overturn the universe!). “I am happy to see you,” replied the
Baron; “but before we commence, I must ask you if you consider
yourself proficient in mathematics?” The anti-Newtonian was
dumbfounded. “Then,” rejoined the Baron, “it would be unprofitable for
us to begin;” and he passed on to a more genial topic.

Footnote 87:

_The Doctor._

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Business-Life.

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WANT OF A PURSUIT.

Such is the complicated constitution of human nature, that a man without a predominant inclination is not likely to be either useful or happy.

He who is every thing is nothing, is as true of our sensitive as of our intellectual nature. He is rather a bundle of little likings, than a compact and energetic individual. A strong desire soon subdues the weaker, and rules us with the united force of all that it subjugates.

Such being the force of human feelings, it must embitter our daily lives if our employments are unsuited to our talents and our wishes; yet how few, alas, are so fortunate as to be gaining either wealth or fame while gratifying an inclination!

In the best of all arts, the art of living, the greatest skill is not to wait; but, as you run along, snatch at every fruit and every flower growing within your reach; for, after all that can be said, youth, the age of hope and admiration, and manhood, the age of business and of influence, are to be preferred to the period of extinguished passions and languid curiosity. At that season, our hopes and wishes must have been too long dropping, leaf by leaf, away. The last scenes of the fifth act are seldom the most interesting, either in a tragedy or a comedy. Yet many compensations arise as our sensibility decays:

Time steals away the rose, ’tis true;
But then the thorn is blunted too.[88]

Life, without some necessity for exertion (says Mr. Walker[89]), must ever lack real interest. That state is capable of the greatest enjoyment where necessity urges, but not painfully; where effort is required, but as much as possible without anxiety; where the spring and summer of life are preparatory to the harvest of autumn and the repose of winter. Then is every season sweet, and, in a well-spent life, the last the best—the season of calm enjoyment, the richest in recollections, the brightest in hope. Good training and a fair start constitute a more desirable patrimony than wealth; and those parents who study their children’s welfare rather than the gratification of their own avarice or vanity, would do well to think of this. Is it better to run a successful race, or to begin and end at the goal?

---------------------
Footnote 88:

Richard Sharp.

Footnote 89:

In _The Original_, a series of Periodical Papers, published in 1835,
by Thomas Walker, M.A., one of the Police Magistrates of the
Metropolis.

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THE ENGLISH CHARACTER.

Four and thirty years since, Sir Humphry Davy wrote:“The English as a nation are preëminently active, and the natives of no other country follow their objects with so much force, fire, and constancy. And as human powers are limited, there are few examples of very distinguished men living in this country to old age: they usually fail, droop, and die, before they have attained the period naturally marked out for the end of human existence. The lives of our statesmen, warriors, poets, and even philosophers, offer abundant proofs of the truth of this opinion: whatever burns, consumes; ashes remain. Before the period of youth is passed, gray hairs usually cover those brows which are adorned with the civic oak or the laurel; and in the luxurious and exciting life of the men of pleasure, their tints are not even preserved by the myrtle wreath or the garland of roses from the premature winter of time.” If these characteristics were applicable to English life a third of a century since, how much has their fitness been strengthened by the rapidity of action, the excitement, and want of repose adding to the wear and tear of existence, since that period.

That the Englishman is one of the most noble species of the genus to which he belongs, seems to be generally conceded. The poet Southey expressed the opinion of more thinkers than himself when he said that the Englishman is the model or pattern man, at least of all the species at present existing. But even those who are most thoroughly convinced of this must admit that he has his peculiarities—foremost among which is his nationality; and one of the most striking peculiarities of that nationality is pride. Another potent element in the English character is its practical worth,—this word “practical” being the shibboleth by which we love to recognise ourselves; as the Greeks delighted to picture themselves as more wise, the French as more polite, than other nations.

Our genius has a most real, concrete, and altogether terrestrial tendency: there seems to be a considerable majority of Sadducees among us, or, as Plato calls them, “uninitiated persons, who believe in nothing but what they can lay hold of with their hands. These men will make railways, telegraphs, and tunnels, and build crystal palaces, and collect mechanical products from the ends of the earth, and exhibit in every possible shape and variety the sublime of what is mechanical and material; but for the supersensual ideas, they will have none of them.”[90]

Nevertheless, if we look through the history of the world’s genius, we shall find its greatest successes to lie in the practical. Homer begged; Tasso begged in a different way; Galileo was racked; De Witt assassinated,—and all for wishing to improve their species. At the same time, Raffaelle, Michel Angelo, Zeuxis, Apelles, Rubens, Reynolds, Titian, Shakspeare, were rich and happy. Why? because with their genius they combined practical prudence. This is the grand secret of success.

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Footnote 90:

Professor Blackie; _Edinburgh Essays_, 1856.

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WORTH OF ENERGY.

A man with knowledge but without energy is a home furnished but not inhabited; a man with energy but no knowledge, a house dwelt in but unfurnished.

Mr. Sharp[91] counsels us: “Prefer a life of energy to a life of inaction. There are always kind friends enough ready to preach up caution and delay, &c. Yet it is impossible to lay down any general rule of a prudential kind. Every one must be judged of after a careful review of all its circumstances; for if one, only one, be overlooked, the decision may be injurious or fatal. Thus, there will ever be many conflicting reasons for and against a spirit of enterprise and a habit of caution.

“Those who advise others to withstand the temptations of hope will always appear to be wiser than they really are, for how often can it be made certain that the rejected and untried hazard would have been successful? Besides, those who dissuade us from action have corrupt but powerful allies in our indolence, irresolution, and cowardice. To despond is very easy, but it requires works as well as faith to engage successfully in a difficult undertaking.

“There are, however, few difficulties that hold out against real attacks: they fly, like the visible horizon, before those who advance. A passionate desire and an unwearied will can perform impossibilities, or what seem to be so to the cold and the feeble. If we do but go on, some unseen path will open among the hills.

“We must not allow ourselves to be discouraged by the apparent disproportion between the result of single efforts and the magnitude of the obstacles to be encountered. Nothing great or good is to be obtained without courage and industry; but courage and industry must have sunk in despair, and the world must have remained unornamented and unimproved, if men had nicely compared the effect of a single stroke of the chisel with the pyramid to be raised, or of a single impression of the spade with the mountain to be levelled.

* * * * *

“Efforts, it must not be forgotten, are as indispensable as desires. The globe is not to be circumnavigated by one wind. ‘It is better to wear out than to rust,’ says Bishop Cumberland. ‘There will be time enough for repose in the grave,’ said Nicole to Pascal. In truth, the proper rest for man is change of occupation.

“The toils as well as risks of an active life are commonly overrated, so much may be done by the diligent use of ordinary opportunities; but they must not always be waited for. We must not only strike the iron while it is hot, but strike it till ‘it is made hot.’ Herschel, the great astronomer, declares that 90 or 100 hours, clear enough for observation, cannot be called an unproductive year.

“The lazy, the dissipated, and the fearful, should patiently see the active and the bold pass them in the course. They must bring down their pretensions to the level of their talents. Those who have not energy to work must learn to be humble, and should not vainly hope to unite the incompatible enjoyments of indolence and enterprise, of ambition and self-indulgence.”

These lines of fair encouragement are the advice of a man of the world, but whose feelings had not become blunted by his intercourse with the world: he was one of the most cheerful, amiable, and happy beings it ever fell to our lot to know; his joyous manner was the true index to his large and sound heart.

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Footnote 91:

Mr. Richard Sharp, F.R.S., and some time M.P. for Port-Arlington, in
Ireland. He was celebrated for his conversational talents, and hence
was known as “Conversation Sharp.” At Fridley-farm, Sir James
Macintosh, and other distinguished men of his day, were frequently Mr.
Sharp’s guests. Of his volume of _Letters, Essays, and Poems_, a third
edition appeared in 1834.

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TEST OF GREATNESS.

The true test of a great man (says Lord Brougham),—that at least which must secure his place among the highest order of great men,—is his having been in advance of his age. This it is which decides whether or not he has carried forward the grand plan of human improvement; has conformed his views and adapted his conduct to the existing circumstances of society, or changed those so as to better its condition; has been one of the lights of the world, or only reflected the borrowed rays of former luminaries, and sat in the same shade with the rest of his generation at the same twilight or the same dawn.