CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 ACS .N59 
 
 Fragments of criticism. By Jolin Nichoi 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 633 181 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029633181 
 
FRAGMENTS OF CRITICISM. 
 
 JOHN NICHOL, B.A., 
 
 " OXON. 
 
 PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION, 
 
 EDINBURGH: JAMES NICHOL. 
 1860. 
 
rdinbttrgh : 
 
 printed by ballantyne and co^fpa^ry, 
 
 Paul's work. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I.— ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE CONTACT OF MYTHOLOGY AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY, . 3 
 
 II. THE ELBATICS, . . .... 11 
 
 EXCURSUS ON PYTHAGORAS AND EMPEDOCLBS, . 26 
 
 EXCURSUS ON GHDEK MUSIC, . . . .32 
 
 HI, ^ANCIENT PHYSICAL SCIENCE 34 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 20, line 12, for " on " read " of " 
 
 „ 25, „ 4, for " pride " read " finite " 
 
 „ 27, „ 16, for " of all " read " of all," 
 
 » 29, „ 5, for " lay in " read " largior " 
 
 „ 30, „ 16, for " ea-TrjptKTa " read " e(rrr)piKTm " 
 
 „ 42, „ 33, for " sciences — they pursued " read " sciences they 
 
 pursued," 
 
 „ 53, „ 21, fm-" eyj^vxov" read"€ij.\JAvxov" 
 
 „ 54, „ 34, for " crisis " read " crises " 
 
 „ 57, „ 17,for"'Trfptxp^s"^ead"7revi.xpS}s" 
 
 „ 58, „ 14, for " the process " read " this process " 
 
 „ 60, „ 23, for " dva-iKarepov" read " (f>v(TiKaiTepov" 
 
 „ 79, „ 28, /or " Thurnel " reac^ " Thurnall " 
 
 „ 111, „ 4, for " the dream " read " in the dream " 
 
 „ 130, „ last, for " the laws " read " its laws " 
 
 „ 166, „ 15, for " present " read " pleasant " 
 
 „ 179, „ 8, for « knees '' read " knee " 
 
 II. ESTIMATE OF JOHNSON, 
 
 III. WYCLIPPE, 
 
 IV. ASPASIA — THE HETjBRA, 
 V. ALEXANDER THE KING, 
 
 VI. DEMOSTHENES — THE ORATOR, 
 Vn. DIOGENES — THE CYNIC, 
 VIII. DEMOCRITUS-;— THE ATOMIST, 
 
 IX. DIODORUS AND EUCLID THE LOGICIANS, 
 
 X. CLEANTHES — THE STOIC, 
 XI. CATULLUS — THE POET, 
 XIL DE QUINCEY — THE LITTERATEUR, 
 
 182 
 186 
 195 
 197 
 210 
 219 
 221 
 223 
 225 
 227 
 230 
 
 XIII. CARLYLE — THE MODERN CENSOR, ... . , 235 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I.— ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE CONTACT OF MTTHOLOGT AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY, . . 3 
 
 II. THE ELBATICS, .11 
 
 EXCUBSUS ON PTTHAGORAS AND EMPEDOCLES, . 26 
 
 EXCURSUS ON GRUEK MUSIC, . . 32 
 
 III. ANCIENT PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ... 34 
 
 IV. THE POLITICS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY, . . . . 44 
 
 EXCURSUS ON ANCIENT SLAVERY, . .... 53 
 
 V. THE USE OF (jiVfTlS IN ARISTOTLE, . . 57 
 VI. NOTES ON THE RELIGION OF HERODOTUS, . . . . 63 
 
 NOTE ON THE MEAN IN ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS, . . .68 
 
 EXCURSUS ON THE GREEK ORACLES, . ... 70 
 
 II.— MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 I. MIGHT AND EIGHT, . . . . . 77 
 
 n. RECENT POEMS AND PLAYS, ... 89 
 
 III. AURORA LEIGH, . 115 
 
 IV. MEROPE, ... . . ... 135 
 
 V. Tennyson's idylls of the king, . . . .149 
 
 III.— BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 I. CICERO'S CHARACTER, .... . 179 
 
 II. ESTIMATE OF JOHNSON, . . ... 182 
 
 III. WTCLIPFE, ... . . 186 
 
 IV. ASPASIA THE HET^RA, ... . 195 
 
 V. ALEXANDER — THE KING, ... . .197 
 
 VI. DEMOSTHENES — THE ORATOR, . . . . 210 
 
 VIL DIOGENES THE CYNIC, . . . .219 
 
 Vin. DBMOCRITUS-;— THE ATOMIST, ... ... 221 
 
 IX. DIODORUS AND EUCLID THE LOGICIANS, . . 223 
 
 X. CLEANTHES — THE STOIC, ■ 225 
 
 XL CATULLUS — THE POET, . . . . ■ 227 
 
 XIL DE QUINCEY — THE LITTERATEUR, . ' ... 230 
 
 XIII. CARLTLE — THE MODERN CENSOR, . . . . 235 
 
PART I. 
 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
' Die Gesohichte der Pliilosophie ist in ihrsm Resultat nicht einer Qalerie von 
 Verirrungen des menschlichen Geistes, aondern vielmehr eineUi tantheon 
 Ton Gottersgeatalten zu vergleiohen." — Heqel. 
 
I. 
 
 THE CONTACT OF MYTHOLOGY AND GREEK 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Theeb are sciences, like geology, civilisations, as that of tlie United 
 States of America, which are comparatively recent in their origin, 
 whose growth and progress we can trace from their beginnings 
 down to their latest development. Their history is all in the 
 daylight, an open book, which he who runs may i'ead. But in- 
 stances like these are comparatively rare. The records of nations 
 which have any claim to antiquity lead us back into those dim and 
 doubtful regions where we have only broken lights to guide us, 
 and truth and fiction are confused in the mists of mythology. 
 It is the same with those speculations and researches which have 
 from their very nature interested mankind from remote ages. 
 The beginnings of thought as well as the beginnings of history 
 are mythological. The rudiments of all the old sciences come 
 before us in the form of fragments, relating to a variety of im- 
 portant but ill-defined themes which it was the task of later times 
 to disentangle and methodise. The curiosity which prompts to 
 inquiry is of earlier date than either the patience or the experience 
 which is required for a rigorous investigation. Hence we find 
 the first philosophers, like children, asking questions so profound 
 that they cannot understand the answers, and trying to scale the 
 heavens before they begin to subdue the earth. 'AvoCKvau 'icr'yaTov 
 irp&Tov ryevecreb. Theology, which in the order of logic is based 
 upon metaphysics, preceded in the order of time, and was made 
 to appear as the basis of the philosophy which it suggested. 
 
 The earliest indications of reflective thought in Greece are to 
 be found in sentences of the elder poets, and the detached formulae 
 
4 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of an unconscious Ethics, which are attributed to the seven sages. 
 Some nations, as the Chinese, seem never to have passed in their 
 intellectual growth beyond the arrangement of such mere moral 
 maxims ; these cannot be said to have attained to a philosophy. 
 It was in the epoch succeeding that of those sages that speculation 
 really arose ; men's .ininds were groping their way from the world 
 of sense to the world of thought, and sought the aid of words, 
 figures, and fancies, borrowed from a mythology which, with its 
 nature-worship on the one side and its half-historic world of 
 gods and heroes on the other, was the effort of a whole people 
 to reconcile their abstract ideas with their concrete imaginations 
 and memories. 
 
 The influence of mythology on Greek philosophy may be traced 
 in various degrees in three main stages of its progress. 
 
 a. Forming, along with rudimentary notions of physics, a founda- 
 tion for the systems of the Ionic school. 
 
 b. Pervading, in a measure, the writings of Pythagoras, Hera- 
 clitus, the Eleatics, and Empedocles. 
 
 c. Lingering in the Myths of Plato. 
 
 a. Perhaps the most striking peculiarity of the lonians was the 
 universality of their aim. None of their systems had what we 
 may call a single or definite object. They did not seek to explore 
 any branch of science, to establish a method of inquiry, to invent 
 a dialectic, to lay down a scheme of ethics, or to unfold a theory 
 of forces. Their authors had no idea of science being divided into 
 branches at all ; they sought to explain the whole mystery of the 
 universe. Their philosophy arose, according to Aristotle, i^ acyvn^ 
 al-rimv: their themes were creation and existence, matter and 
 mind. They followed them out by no rigid argument or analysis, 
 01 TTporepoi BtaKeKTiKr]'; ov /lereixop, but recorded the results of 
 their contemplation on the world as it passed before them ; en- 
 deavouring, by a process of reflection more religious than philo- 
 sophical, to find some law in its apparent confusion, some per- 
 manence beneath its apparently perpetual change. They were 
 all directly influenced by mythology, adapting, transmuting, and 
 allegorising those tales and legends which, springing from diflferent 
 sources, were yet mainly the spontaneous product of an epoch 
 
CONNEXION OF MYTHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 5 
 
 when the relations between man and nature, fact and fiction, 
 philosophy and religion, were unsettled and confused. This in- 
 fluence acted partly through the forms of language, in their 
 poetic imagery and personification, partly in the religious stamp 
 by which many of their conceptions were marked. A small pro- 
 portion of experiment and very little logic went, with a wide and 
 daring imagination, to make the thinker of that epoch at once 
 philosopher, preacher, and poet. It is imagination even more 
 than research which is required to enable the modern thinker to 
 realise the position of Thales or Anaximander, to understand 
 their inquiry or the solution they found for it. 
 
 It would not be difficult to bring a child, whose senses had 
 awakened to the majesty and variety of the forms assumed by 
 the element of water, into the behef that from it the whole of 
 the other manifestations of matter might be derived. Even now, 
 when we contemplate the ocean, and allow ourselves to dream 
 about its grandeur and unity, we may get for a moment into the 
 mind of Thales. It is easy to conceive how an inhabitant of 
 Miletus, living at a time when the powers of a man were united 
 with the ignorance of a child, in daily view of the JEge&n, with a 
 half-belief in the myth of Oceanus and Tethys, asking, for the 
 first time in Greece, the question of the origin of things, should 
 find it in the element which encircled the land, and built the 
 banks and battlements of cloud, and supplied to animal and plant 
 the moisture of nutriment and growth. Water thus became to 
 him the best symbol of the universal, the most elastic, the most 
 uniform, the most penetrating of material things. Add to this 
 a principle of motion, acting by condensation and rarefaction 
 (TTVKVoTTjn Koi fiavoTrjTi) , and the foundations of a possible world 
 were laid, the conditions of actual growth and change determined. 
 It is curious to note how long the same idea lingered in the region 
 of physics : no more than three hundred years ago, the Belgian 
 chemist, Van Helmont, laid down a similar theory, founded on the 
 experiment of a plant suspended in an arid soU, and supplied with 
 substantial nourishment by water alone ; and it is only one hundred 
 since Lavoisier thought the theory, worth testing by an experiment 
 of half a year's duration. 
 
 The fundamental conception of Anaximenes was reached by a 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 similar process of reflection, and supported in its turn by poetical 
 and religious traditions. The air, in a yet wider sense, is all-em- 
 bracing, all-penetrating. The winds in the ancient mythology 
 were iEolian powers. In Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, spirit is 
 synonymous with breath. It' was the Aura or mysterious effluence 
 of the god which brought prophetic rapture to the seer. All 
 nations have associated inspiration and life with air. 
 
 The system of Anaximander, more subtle in the conception of 
 an unsubstantial principle (to uTreopov), is in its account of creation 
 as closely connected as either of the above with palpable physical 
 processes. Lightness and weight, heat and cold, moisture and 
 fermentation, are among his moving powers. His assertion, that 
 the stars are gods, links itself to another part of the popidar 
 mythology — a part which was, in a modified form, transmitted side 
 by side with the new faith far into the history of modern Europe. 
 
 Those philosophers all looked upon the world as a procession of 
 perceptions. They received impressions from them, and did not 
 distinguish between the thought which immediately follows sensa- 
 tion and the thought which results in knowledge. They sought 
 for an abstraction which they failed to find, by contemplating the 
 mere external phases of nature. 
 
 b. Pythagoras turned in another direction, and looked for the 
 principle of the universe, not in the actual or apparent physical 
 elements, but in the relations of things, and found it in the per- 
 vading relation of number. 
 
 His view of the subordination of all things to laws of propor- 
 tion and harmony approaches in its widest aspect near to a 
 modern view ; but the details of his system, as the conceptions 
 of unity, duality, the triad and sacred decade, have a relation 
 to the mystic aspect of old religions. The metempsychosis 
 was the full development of an idea already present in some 
 of the Greek legends, and the Pythagorean order, with its strict 
 rules and secresy, bore some resemblance to the institution of the 
 mysteries. 
 
 Heraclitus, while waging war with the previous representations 
 of the poets, was yet largely swayed by mythical and religious 
 influences. His conception of fire, as the universal matrix and 
 
CONNEXION OF MTTHOLOQT AND PHILOSOPHY. / 
 
 recipient of change, is, unlike the elements of the Ionic philoso- 
 phers, an allegory having more relation to mythology than physics. 
 His perpetual flux was connected with the tradition of an ocean 
 stream. In illustrating the power and prevalence of law, he uses 
 language borrowed from the poets. "H\to<; yap ovk virep^rjcreTai 
 lierpa, el Se firj 'Epivvvei; fiiv Auk'T)'; eTrUovpoi i^evpijaovaiv. 
 
 Above aU, there runs through his philosophy a vein of religious 
 thought, which shews itself in his notions of destiny, of the im- 
 perfect knowledge of men, of the unseen harmony, of a meeting 
 point of life and death, and a possible passing of one into the other. 
 Man dies in his life, but in his death he has a chance of living. 
 "Ore fiev yap rjfiel^ ^wfiev rc^i •\Jri/^(z? rj/iafv Tedvdvai, Kal iv rjfiiv 
 redoApdaL, ore 8e 17/^6^9 airo6v>j<TKOfiev, ra^ ilru^a? dva^iovv km 
 
 The Eleatics were more free from the prevailing notions of 
 mythology than the previous schools, but the extent to which 
 they availed themselves of its forms, the verse in which they 
 clothed their philosophy, the figurative inethod of their illustra- 
 tions, the religious tone which pervades their writings, and the 
 degree in which, as its opponents, they were acted upon by the 
 popular belief, still mark them as having a relation to the earlier 
 period. Xenophanes buUds his metaphysic on theological con- 
 ceptions. Parmenides never entirely escapes from their influence, 
 and the machinery by which his poem is introduced is made up 
 of mythical imagery. The same holds true in a higher degree 
 of Empedocles. 
 
 c. The influence of mythology on philosophy properly ceases 
 with Empedocles. Anaxagoras was persecuted for rationizing the 
 myths. The Sophists only came in contact vdth religious con- 
 ceptions to combat them. We find little trace of them among 
 the Cynics or in the schools of Megara and Gyrene. The 
 Sdi/jLcov of Socrates, as it appears in Xenophon, was merely the 
 expression of a latent form of moral intuition. The recurrence of 
 mythical ideas in Plato is due partly to the peculiar bent of his 
 mind, partly to the efibrt, conspicuous throughout his philosophy, 
 to bring abstract speculation to bear on practical morality and 
 theories of life. 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 1. In one sense Plato was a greater poet than any of those he 
 expelled from his Eepublic. Pancy and imagination played as 
 large a part as logic in moulding his conceptions. His language 
 and imagery are more poetical than any in the earlier verse- 
 philosophies, and unlike that of any other prose. The form of his 
 argument is almost universally and vividly dramatic. The Dia- 
 logues have been aptly termed the plays of Plato. Living in sight, 
 on the one hand, of the golden age of Greece, and on the other of 
 its decline, his strong affection for the past led him to recall many 
 even of its ruder features in his social schemes, and to embody 
 its traditions in his philosophy in order to exalt them. 
 
 2. Metaphysical reasoning can proceed but a very little way 
 towards making itself widely intelligible without the use of meta- 
 phorical language. It is so much easier to extend the application 
 of words already in use than to coin new ones, that, in spite of the 
 dangers of a false analogy, terms originally applied to sensuous 
 impressions are perpetually transferred to the operations of the 
 mind. A comparison or simile is but an extended metaphor. 
 We may say that Locke resolved all our ideas into sensation and 
 reflection, or that he conceived of the mind as an empty room full 
 of mirrors — that Kant's psychology was dynamical, or that his 
 notion of the mind was that of a self-moving machine, acting on 
 the material of sense according to certain inherent laws. In both 
 cases we speak metaphorically. Plato makes constant use of similes 
 to convey a more vivid impression than any general statement or 
 form of reasoning could convey. Such figures are the com- 
 parison of the mind, in the "Theatetus," to a waxen tablet, and 
 again to a decoy, the allegory of the cave, and the image of the 
 line, in the " Eepublic." But the most striking instances of this 
 figurative representation are to be found in the myths in which 
 he blends the old beliefs about the gods, still lingering and accom- 
 panied by a vague reverence, with the most transcendental portion 
 of his own speculations. They are employed partly to add to the 
 variety of his illustrations, partly to awake investigation, and 
 shadow forth dimly what he is unable to reduce to a more definite 
 form. They seem to fill up gaps in his philosophy, to bridge the 
 chasm between the actual and the ideal world, and to express those 
 truths which lie as it were on the confines of knowledge. Tradi- 
 
CONNEXION OF MYTHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 9 
 
 tion gives them their form, Plato's own belief their substance. In 
 passing from the regions of demonstration to those of intuition and 
 hope, he uses the veil of mythology. 
 
 That which concludes the " Gorgias " is the simplest of the three 
 great myths of Plato ; its outliae wiU exemplify their ethical pur- 
 pose and general bearing on his philosophy. 
 
 Socrates tells CaUicles that he is going to give him an account 
 of the spiiit after it comes to Hades ov aii /j,ev •^•yi^aei fivdov, 0)9 
 670) olfiM, iyo) Be Xoyov. In old times, as now, there was a law 
 among the gods, that good men should reap in heaven (jiaKapwv 
 vrjcroi) the reward of their good deeds, and bad men of their evil 
 deeds, after death, in Tartarus. Of old, those judgments were 
 made unwisely. Pluto and the guardians of the blessed isles com- 
 plained that the wrong persons came to them. Jove said it was 
 because men were judged when living, and clad in the deceitful 
 dress of beauty or wealth. Witnesses came and lied to the judges, 
 and they, too, being alive, were easily deceived. Henceforth they 
 should not know when they were going to die. They must be 
 judged naked after their death ; and the judge, too, must have put 
 off the raiment of life : — 
 
 " A.VTTJ Tj 'v/'uxj/ auTj)j/ Trjv ijrvxriv Beapovvra." 
 
 He has, therefore, made new judges, Rhadamanthus, and j^acus, 
 and Minos, to revise their decision and fix the future abodes of 
 men. This, Socrates resumes, I believe to be true. Death is but 
 a separation (Boakvaif) of the soul and body ; and, as the corpse 
 retains the marks and characteristics of the body, so does the spirit 
 retain the impress of its life. Those spirits, without respect of 
 persons, Ehadamanthus judges, and sends off great kings and 
 rulers, marred and scarred by their vices, to the realms of 
 darkness. Every one so punished is justly so. Some who have 
 committed Idaifia dfiapT'^fiara are, after a long time, purged of 
 their sins ; those whose crimes are of deeper dye, €a')(^aTa 
 dhiKTjfjbara, " suffer endless anguish," yet they are a warning to 
 others — chiefly tyrants and kings — that these may shun their fate. 
 Few men in power live well. When the spirit of some great ruler 
 comes before him, Ehadamanthus most commonly sends him down 
 by the dark path ; but seeing the spirits of the just, especially that 
 of a philosopher who has lived consistently and magnanimously, 
 
10 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 he honours, and sends him to the blessed isles. So does iEacus. 
 And Minos sits apart with his golden, sceptr^. I believe in those 
 things, CaUicles, km aKoiro) ottw? aTro^vov/Mu rS Kpirfj to? 
 vyiea-TdrTjv Trjv yjrvxv^- I will Hve as I best can, and die when 
 the time comes, and to this dymv I challenge you. You think 
 this an old woman's tale ; then do you, sages of Greece, find some- 
 thing truer. I am content to learn from it the lesson, that it is 
 better to suffer than to do wrong — to be, than to seem, just. 
 
 In the " Vision of Er " other ideas, as that of choosing the lot 
 for a new cycle of life, are introduced, but its main religious 
 features are similar. The doctrines of immortality and retribution 
 are set forth in various figures, and the lesson taught is again to 
 cultivate justice and wisdom, with a belief in the infinite duration 
 of the soul, and its infinite capacity for good or evil. The myth 
 in the " Phsedrus," in some respects, corresponds to this — ^we have 
 the cycle of a thousand years, and the choice of a new era of life 
 which consummates it ; but Plato's view of a previous existence 
 appears more prominently in connexion with the dvafivrjan, and 
 the struggle of the soul, as typified in the chariot and the steeds, 
 between a higher and a lower love. Though marked by a certain 
 similarity, those myths do not fit into one another, nor are they 
 reconcilable with other portions of the Platonic writings. They 
 are not fragments of a system of theology, but figurative expres- 
 sions of hopes which had scarcely grown into beliefs. We cannot 
 say that Plato believed them in their literal sense. It is the 
 meaning beneath the form, the truth intended to be conveyed, 
 that he says is Seti/ot? fiev aTrto-TO? a6^oi,<; Se -Tricrrr]. They over- 
 hung his philosophy as with a shadow of a faith which had lost 
 its hold on men's minds, and was ready to let its forms be turned 
 to a new purpose and moulded by a new interpretation. 
 
 Parts of the myth in the " Eepublic " remind us ,of portions of 
 the " Inferno " and " Paradise." It stands in the same relation to 
 Paganism as they did to the Christianity of the Middle Ages ; and 
 Plato had, perhaps, the same sort of belief in his creation that 
 Dante had in his vision. "We may find other parallels in Milton 
 and Bunyan, and, passing from the mysteries of religion to the 
 mysticism of art, in Novalis and Gothe. 
 
II. 
 
 THE ELEATICS. 
 
 " That type of Perfect in his mind 
 In nature he can nowhere find, 
 He sows himself on every wind." 
 
 " Pure Being is Pure Nothing." — Hegel. 
 
 I. We have comparatively little trouble in realising the position of 
 the Ionic philosophers. Some of their opinions may remain unde- 
 termined, there may be difficulty in following the details of their 
 system, but its general principle is too plain and tangible to occa^ 
 sion perplexity. It may be impossible to rest content with a purely 
 material theory of nature, or a sensational analysis of knowledge ; 
 it is always easy to understand it. The more abstract and com- 
 prehensive the central idea of a philosophical scheme, the harder it 
 is to appreciate its bearing, or even to attach any distinct sense to 
 its enunciation. A mere statement of the Eleatic creed is apt to 
 excite only bewilderment. Being is, and the all is Being. We 
 seem to be driven back on a bare word. The phrase unlocks no 
 mystery, for it is a mystery itself. Parmenides reasons upon it, 
 but he scarcely half explains it. We must learn how this notion 
 of Absolute Existence grew up, and regard it in relation to earlier 
 and later views, before we can understand its position in the deve- 
 lopment of thought. In comparing different systems there is a 
 danger of drawing false analogies : we are apt to bring ideas with 
 us, and connect them too readily with others. Yet it is sometimes 
 better to find what men must unconsciously have felt than what 
 they said : thought is, after all, somewhat the same from one age 
 to another : it varies, but it varies less than language. 
 
 II. The Heraclitean philosophy is commonly opposed to the Ele- 
 atic. They are played off against each other in the " Parmenides" 
 
12 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of Plato. Yet they are more like each other than either of them 
 are to any previous school. They are like in tone of thought, 
 which is more important than mere identity of opinion. The Ele- 
 atic view includes and goes beyond the rest, but Heraclitus, Pytha- 
 goras, and the Eleatics nearly at the same time entered upon the 
 second stage of Greek speculation. The first marked a period of 
 observation with rudiments of generalisation. Man starts by con- 
 fiding in the intimations of sense, and only tries to trace their 
 external causes. Afterwards he gets to doubt these — he feels the 
 inward evidence of something different from them, and Eeason 
 tries to recognise itself in nature as it exists in the mind. We 
 grow alive to apparent contradictions in the universe, and fall back 
 on the subjective world, and try to find a law to explain them ; or 
 we project our consciousness till we form a new objective world, 
 and at last the phenomenal world and purselves are lost in thi^. 
 Thought and existence become one — the thing itself — being itself 
 — thought* itself, with itself only as an object of thought. The 
 first stage is a crude realism ; in the second, idealism contends with 
 scepticism. Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans took the first step in 
 this second stage. Dissatisfied with appearances, they sought for a 
 law to rule and reconcile them. The Eleatics went further, and 
 tried " to reach the law within the law." The difference between 
 them is essential ; but there are many points of resemblance in the 
 general view, expression, and details of their philosophy. They aU 
 started with a distrust of first impressions ; they were each charac- 
 terised by a deep vein of self-reflection. They had all a tendency 
 to symbolism. They had a common sense of radical imperfection 
 in the world, and a certain contempt for the opinions of men. 
 "Mortals are estranged from truth." -f- "Keep from that foolish 
 way along which mortals, staring around them, knowing nothing, 
 wander : they are all treading a road that will bring them back to 
 where they started from."| "Not unto all should all be made 
 known." § They draw the same contrast between divine and 
 human knowledge. They had the same notion of Dualism — it 
 appears in the contending elements of Heraclitus, the crva-roixui of 
 the Pythagoreans, and pervades what may be called the hypothetical 
 
 * The Being of the Eleatics — the Aristotelian God. 
 
 t Heraclitus. J Parmenides. § Pythagorean maxim. 
 
THE ELEATICS. 13 
 
 part of the Eleatic scheme. Each system embodies the concep- 
 tion of some unity linking contradictions — it is a law of Harmony 
 and Measure in the one case, absolute Unity in the other. All 
 give the same prominence to the symbol of fire, and the same 
 supremacy to the reason which it represents. We must compare 
 Heraclitus and the Eleatics more closely to detect the precise point 
 of their divergence. 
 
 III. They have been shortly contrasted by saying the former per- 
 ceived the non-reality of aU things separately — the latter the reality 
 of all things together. The one resolved all apparent rest into 
 motion ; the latter, again, merged all that motion into the idea of 
 ultimate rest. The world may be regarded as a succession of dissolv- 
 ing views. Its elements mix and mingle and pass into one another : 
 this much was felt by the lonians. We look abroad for a fixed 
 point, and fail to find it. There is a constant passage in everything 
 from then to now. It is one moment here, another there. All 
 appearances are processes. The seasons, and the stars, and the sun 
 revolve. Forms and colours vary with their revolution. The tides 
 which ebb and flow are emblems of the world. A better symbol is 
 the ever-restless fiire. Thought is a process, and runs away from 
 our analysis. Time its condition, and language its instrument, 
 are processes. Society presents a series of fluctuations. Laws and 
 customs change. History is a record of strife. Days and years 
 pass like a flight of arrows in the alternation of life and death. 
 Thus there are elements of change everywhere, which, reflected 
 in the mirror of the mind, may become elements of doubt. This 
 was the ground of the Heraclitean philosophy, a philosophy repre- 
 sented by a phase of thought present in all ages. These Unes of a 
 modern poet almost translate Heraclitus : — 
 
 " In the currents of life, in action's storm, 
 I float and I wave 
 With billowy motion. 
 Birth and the grave, 
 A limitless ocean, 
 A constant weaving, 
 With change still rife, 
 A restless heaving, 
 A glowing life." 
 
 We have a physical aspect of the same view in the philosophy of 
 
li ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the Atomists as represented by Lucretius : * its moral aspect is 
 prominent in the opposite school, in the writings of Marcus Aure- 
 liusf and the later Stoics. Heraclitus himself carried his notion 
 of change and opposition so far that it landed in a sort of unity. 
 The affections of sense, sweet and bitter, hard and soft, warm and 
 cold, are relative. Good and Evil, -Life and Death, are forms of 
 the same thing. Living and dying, youth and age, waking and 
 sleeping, come back again to the point from which they started, 
 like the lyre and the bow. But it was a unity of motion — iravra ph 
 — a universality of doubt. He found his only ground of rest, 
 afivKpov TL avairava-eo)^, in a dim conception of a law of change. 
 He expressed this by the harmony of contradictions — avvd-\lreiai 
 ov\a KoX ovK ovka, avfi^epofievov koI Siatpepofievov, crvpaSov koL . 
 SiaBov Kal eK •KavrSjv ev Koi i^ ei/o? -jraVTa — by a doctrine of fate 
 — the world is produced and burnt up again KaO' el/xap/iivrjv — by a 
 belief in limits controlling the sun and the sea, and by his half 
 mythological notion of fire lighting up and extinguishing the mea- 
 
 * See especially lib. ii. 316, where the poet illustrates the delusive ap- 
 pearances of rest by the aspect of sheep on a distant hill, and an army on 
 a plain : — 
 
 " Nam Bsepe in colli tondenteis pabula Issta 
 
 Lanigerse reptant pecudes, quo quamque vocanteia 
 
 Invitant herbse, gemmanteis rore recenti 
 
 Et satiatei agnei ludunt, blandeque coruscant : 
 
 Omnia quae nobis longe confusa videntur 
 
 Et veluti in viridi candor consistere colli. 
 
 Praeterea, magna legiqnes quom looa cursu 
 
 Camporum compleut, belli simulacra oienteia 
 
 Fulgur ibi ad ooalum se tollit, totaque circum 
 
 .^re renidescit tellus ; subterque virum vi 
 
 Excitur pedibus sonitus, clamoreque monteis 
 
 Ictei rejeotant voces ad sidera mondi 
 
 Et circumTolitant equites, mediosque repente 
 
 Tramittunt valido quatienteis impete campos 
 
 Et tamen est quidam locus alteis montibus, unde 
 
 Stare videntur, et in campeis consistere fulgur." 
 
 + " Of human life the duration is a point ; the substance is fleeting ; the 
 perception is dim ; the fabric of the body is corruptible, the soul is an idle 
 whirling, fortune is inscrutable, and fame beyond our judgment. In short, 
 all that there is of the body is a stream, and aU that there is of the soul is 
 a dream and a smoke. Life is a war and a lodging in a strange country ; 
 the name that we leave behind us is forgetfulness. What is there, then, 
 that can conduct us ? Philosophy alone." 
 
THE ELEATICS. 15 
 
 sures of things. He just touched on what was the centre point of 
 the system of Pythagoras. 
 
 The Eleatics were the first to ask the question — If there is a 
 law in nature, what is the ground of that law 1 It must be 
 something that exists — what exists ? They felt the distrust that 
 Heraclitus felt of the impressions of sense; but they equally 
 distrusted any explanation that could be gathered from those 
 impressions of the principle behind them. It was, after all, the 
 eye that saw motion where it had seemed to see rest. The outer 
 world could give no answer to their question. They turned 
 within to the ideas of the mind, and found in them a real unity. 
 The substratum of existence must be something in every respect uni- 
 versal — involved in every conception, woven in with every thought. 
 It could be none of the seeming multitude of separate things — of 
 several units ; it must be One in a deeper sense-^the essence of 
 all form and number — the ground of all science. What is it that 
 we must think in every thought, and express in every sentence ? 
 It is Eadstence Itself. We may say this is or that was ; we speak 
 in moods and tenses of the verb To Be. This is a symbol and a 
 starting-point from which we may stretch our thought over the 
 Universe, and it carries with it everywhere the one only truth of 
 Existence. All that we add to this is delusive, phantasmal — an un- 
 substantial pageant. We can know the world, God, aU only as Being, 
 and Thought, the essence of Being. It girds and permeates all. 
 The One is rest, and it is motion that we only seem to see. The 
 Eleatics had reached the highest point of abstraction — the ground 
 on the high hills, " edita doctrina sapientum templa serena." 
 They laid the foundations of Dialectic, and employed it to strip 
 their central conception of everything adventitious. We shall 
 now be able to trace its course, and see how it necessarily over- 
 threw the whole world of phenomena, with its conditions of space 
 and time. In passing, we may briefly contrast the three attitudes 
 of Greek philosophy up to this date. 
 
 The Ionics looked at plhenomena, and tried to connect them 
 with general laws of matter. 
 
 Heraclitus reflected on phenomena, and tried to explain them 
 by something like a mental law. 
 
 The Eleatics reflected on themselves, and denied phenomena. 
 
16 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 IV. Plato, in the "Sophist," speaks of an Eleatic doctrine 
 before the time of Xenophanes ; but it could have existed only 
 in germ. He must be regarded as the founder of the school. A 
 native of Colophon, famous as the seat of elegaic and gnomic 
 poetry, he was himself the author of elegaic and epic verses, 
 which he recited as a rhapsodist. He became an exile ; and, after 
 passing some time in Sicily, finally settled and taught at Elea. 
 He flourished B.C. 538. There are two main views in the 
 philosophy of Xenophanes and a subsidiary one. 
 
 1. The first is a Theological view of one omnipotent Deity, to 
 which he seems to have been led by a train of thought partly 
 ethical, partly metaphysical. He attacks Homer and Hesiod, and 
 the general anthropomorphism of the old religion. Men, he says, 
 make gods like themselves, just as oxen would do if they had 
 sculptors. The popular deities vary in difi'erent countries with 
 their worshippers. The real God is quite different from these — 
 
 Ely ^eis" ev re Beoidi Kai avOpamoitTL fieyiffTos 
 oil Ti de^as BvrjTo'ifTLi' ojiolos ovde vorjfia. 
 
 From the very fact of His being all-powerful. He must be the 
 sole God. If there were more, the power df the one would limit 
 that of the other. He is eternal ; for He can neither begin nor 
 cease to be. Everything coheres in Him. He is the union of 
 contradictions. Not unmoved or unlimited ; for then He would 
 not exist : not moved or limited ; for then He were more or less 
 than One. He is self-sustained, self-existent, self-moving, without 
 parts, and all alike, ruling and grasping the universe like a sphere 
 — oSXo? opa, oi>\o<; 8e voet, o5Xo9 Se t aKoveo — all eye, all ear, all 
 thought. 
 
 2. The second is a more purely Abstract conception of Being. 
 What is is, and has ever been ; what is not has never been. 
 What comes into being must come from like or unlike. From 
 like it cannot ; for the relation of like to like is constant : -nor 
 from unlike ; else, a new element of weakness or strength being 
 introduced, would bring the being from not being. The denial of 
 the possibility of this — what we would call creation — is closely 
 connected with the whole system. The rest follows from it, and 
 greatly depends on it. Being, then, is all, and cannot change 
 place or move — 
 
THE ELEATICS. 17 
 
 " ah S" ev tovtZ fievei Kiv&ujuvov ovbeii." 
 
 True knowledge — of which the wisest man has only a glimpse- 
 is to be distinguished from a Knowledge of phenomena. But we 
 must grant phenomena at least a hypothetical existence. Xeno- 
 phanes condescends to form a scheme of phenomenal knowledge — 
 
 " ravra SfSo^aorai fiiv eoiKOTa rots irifioiiri" 
 
 3. He thus presented a physical aspect, though on the mere 
 fringe of his philosophy. In this view, the earth with its four 
 elements presented the apparent grounds of appearances. Those 
 elements acted on one another by opposition. His theory of their 
 action was necessarily mechanical. Things do not really become, 
 but they pass ; man and the race of men appear and disappear. 
 Phenomena are partial revelations of the Divinity — 
 
 " dXV dirdvevde rrovoio voov (jjpevl wavra Kpaddivci." 
 
 Around us are mere visible manifestations; far above us, and 
 removed from our knowledge, is pure truth — being — God. We 
 fall back on ourselves, and make guesses, knowing not whether 
 they are right or wrong — 
 
 " Koi TO fiiv uvv <Ta<i>h ovtls avrjp IBev, ovSi ns earai 
 et§(BS, dfitjii deSiv re Kat atrcra Xeyo) Trepl ivdvraiv' 
 el yap /cat ra p,aKi.(TTa rv^ot TereXea-p-evov elirdiV, 
 ' He has not gained a real height, 
 Nor is he nearer to the light ' — 8o/c6s S' eVi ttSo-j rervKTai." 
 
 V. Parmenides came to Athens and met Socrates in his youth. 
 He is said to have studied under the Pythagoreans, and must 
 have flourished about B.C. 503. We hear of him as a lawgiver, 
 philosopher, and poet. He is selected by Plato as the representa- 
 tive of the whole Eleatic school, and always alluded to with 
 great respect. 
 
 His epic poem on nature seems to have been introduced by an 
 image of the soul drawn by steeds along an untrodden road, and 
 led by virgins to the abode of Amt), who thus addresses him : — 
 " You must leam all alike, the heart of persuasive truth and the 
 delusive opinions of men ; but though you learn, do not follow 
 these, nor let custom guide you on the beaten path to follow the 
 wandering eye," and the tongue and the ear with its din of sounds, 
 but judge by reason what wisdom speaks." Conformably with 
 
18 ANCIENT PHItOSOPHT. 
 
 this, his work is divided into two sections — in the first of which 
 he lays down, as far as he can, the truths of phUosophy ; in the 
 next he forms a theory of cosmogony adapted to the views of 
 men. 
 
 1. Xenophanes began with Theosophy, and passed from a con- 
 templation of the Divinity to the notion of the One. Parmenides 
 begins with pure abstraction. He starts from the notion of Being 
 as an imperative* of the Eeason. The truth that all is, and non- 
 existence is not, is opposed to the false — 
 
 01 Se (jiopevvTai 
 Kat(J36i ofias ru^Xot re, TedrjTrdreSj oKptTa tpiiXa 
 Ois TO TreXetv re /cal ovk €ivat ravTov vevofiLarat 
 
 Koii TaVTOV. 
 
 There is thus no escape from an implicit belief in absolute 
 Being. It is uncreated and changeless. Whence could it come ? 
 — from non-being ? That never was, and can neither be uttered 
 nor imagined. What could make being commence ? It is per- 
 fect ; what could make it wish for change ? Only Being can, come 
 from Being ; before all the worlds it was. 
 
 We pause again at the centre-point of this philosophy, and ask 
 ourselves if we really understand it. We have some notion how 
 the idea of unity originated. It suggests many things, and is 
 variously -connected with various systems. But what conception 
 did Parmenides form when he said that not Being was not ? What 
 opinion did he mean to oppose ? The phrase must have meant 
 something. Was it merely a new form of the old warning against 
 the impressions of sense? Then Heraclitus might have said as 
 much. It must have meant more than this. It meant not only 
 that material things need not exist as we see them, but that our 
 seeing them is no proof of their existing at all. It challenged 
 not merely the validity of such external impressions as shape, 
 colour, and position, but the authority of the general forms of in- 
 
 * These are expressions of Kant, who has'^iven the clearest of yet 
 existing^fornwilge for d priori laws of thought. In a strict sense, it is an 
 anachronism to apply such phrases to the ancient philosophers ; but we 
 must translate to understand them, not their words alone, but their mean- 
 ing. There are no words in the fragments of Parmenides which correspond 
 exactly to the abstract use of the words space and time, but the ideas are 
 involved in the whole argument about the non-existence of vacuum, and 
 
THE ELEATICS. 19 
 
 tuition. The Eleatics were not content with attacking the out- 
 works of sense ; they undermined the whole edifice ; the outer 
 world melted before the touch of their philosophy like the fabric 
 of a vision. If their idea of unity was opposed by the palpable 
 separation of things in space and time, they answered, How do 
 you know that SPACE or time are realities, and not mere projec- 
 tions of imagination ? they are so in dreams ; they are so in wak- 
 ing as well. They do not exist ; they are lost at once in the con- 
 ception of existence as eternal and one. Anything less than the 
 contact of all Beiug would imply a vacuum, not-being, which can- 
 not be. Things are neither scattered nor gathered together, but 
 being clings to beiug ; where all is one,?aU is full. Motion and 
 change, which have any place in space and time, are alike mere 
 forms of human opinion, as are the notions of produce and decay, 
 form and colour. The whole is perfect and at rest — " One God, 
 one law, one element " — 
 
 " KpaTfprj yap dvayKr) 
 irelpaTos iv deo'p.olo'ii' e;^ei to p^iv a/i(^lff eepyet. 
 ovvsKev ovK dreXevTrjTov to eou Befits eti/at' 
 cVri yap ovK eTrtSeue?." 
 
 (Parmenides has the same notion of the sphere* that appears in 
 Xenophanes. It is the perfect form, and that which Being natur- 
 ally takes — a notion which we can account for by our own vague 
 idea when we try to think of infinity, but which we can never 
 reconcile with a system.) Ifot Being, then, is matter, time, 
 space, all mere external things. What is Being? How do we 
 arrive at the notion of existence ? By thought ; and thought is 
 impossible without existence ; it therefore involves existence — 
 
 " TavTOV 5* etTTL voeiv re Koi ovueKev eaTi vorjfia 
 ov yap avev Tov eovTOSj iv a ireffyaTtafievov iaTLV 
 evp-fjaeis to voeiv, oiidev yap rj ktJTiV rj e&TOi 
 SKKo iraptK tov coutos." 
 
 Thought, then, belongs to Eeality; but there is only one Reality, 
 Being, All. AJl is . thought — to yap irXeov ecni, vorj/j^a. All 
 
 the continuity of substance. Without introducing them, those arguments 
 become to us at least utterly unintelUgible. 
 
 * Any other conception than that of a sphere would imply irregularity 
 — irregularity occasioned by a limit on some side — and therefore finitude. 
 
20 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 things else whicli seem to be, are names, echoes, dreams. Intelli- 
 gence is thus connected with existence as the two sides of any- 
 thing with each other. Intellectual insight is, as far as it goes, an 
 expression of what is. True knowledge is the knowledge of the 
 Eeason. 
 
 2. But when our reason fails, we are driven back to the world 
 of sense and opinion. The godlike is ever present, but, like the 
 veiled Isis, hidden in clouds, obscured by appearances. Thus 
 the Eleatics were constrained to explore phenomena, and, like the 
 denizens of Plato's cave, to guess at the reality from shadows. 
 The second part of the poem of Parmenides is historic and 
 physical, with reflections'on metaphysics. It is characterised by 
 the prevailing notion of an opposition of principles or polarity in 
 nature. Fire, the higher principle, is allied to thought and the 
 true ; night, or earth, a^avro^, to the- false. Our world is in the 
 mid region between the two realms. In imitation of real being, 
 it is a sphere, and there is a daemon who sits at the centre and 
 rules it. Every apparent change takes place from conflicting 
 elements. Love and Discord, Desire and War, Male and Female, 
 Fire and Earth, Water and Air, meet and clash, and make the 
 phases of life. On its physical side, the Eleatic philosophy is a 
 dualism ; otherwise viewed, it is monism, pantheism, and idealism 
 in their extremest forms. It reached its highest point with Par- 
 menides, and afterwards declined. 
 
 VI. His disciple, Zeno, added nothing to the system of his 
 master. He went to Athens, and distinguished himself by the 
 skill of his arguments in its favour. Aristotle calls him the in- 
 ventor of dialectics, because he was the first to dispute in the 
 dialogue. He endeavoured to refute the objections, urged against 
 the conception of unity, by shewing the contradictions involved in 
 the notion of multiplicity. He invented the sorites to shew that 
 it is impossible to conceive of an individual distinct from the 
 whole. If we trust our senses, he maintained — 
 
 1. Everything will turn out like and unlike itself. 
 
 2. Everything will turn out to be at once one and many. For 
 what is space, which alone can separate the many ? It must be 
 somewhere if it exists, and can only be in space, which must be 
 in another space, and so on ad infinitum. If things are many, 
 
THE ELEATIOS. 21 
 
 they must be finite ; for they must be just as many as they are. 
 They must also be infinite ; for there must be things between 
 them ad infinitum. Everything must be infinitely great ; for it 
 is made up of an infinite number of definite parts ; or if those 
 parts are infinitely small, the whole must be infinitely small. 
 
 3. He argued against motion by the Achilles* He also main- 
 taiaed that at every moment of time a moved body must be in 
 place, i.e., at rest ; but a succession of rests no more make motion 
 than a series of points make a line. The answer is obvious, that a 
 succession of such moments do not make time. He argued through- 
 out for the absolute by shewing the limits of the conditioned. 
 His reasoning was a sort of reductio ad ahsurdv/m of his 
 opponents — a logical challenge — a smiting of shadows with 
 shadows ; it was more like the reasoning of the schoolmen than 
 that of Parmenides. 
 
 Melissus of Samos fiourished B.C. 84, and argued on Eleatic 
 principles against the Ionic school. He followed out their negative 
 side, and arrived at nothing but negative conclusions. He says 
 men must not speak of the gods, for they know nothing about 
 them. Being has neither beginning nor end, and therefore must 
 be infinite. There is no motion, because there is no vacuum ; no 
 change, because the non-being cannot come into being. Being has 
 no parts, and therefore no body ; sight, feeling, and hearing perceive 
 change which is unreal, therefore they are unreal. Judging from 
 all we can learn of his system, it was summed in an " Everlasting 
 No." With him the Eleatic philosophy in one of its phases died 
 of scepticism.-f- Em/pedocles partially adopted its fundamental con- 
 ception ; but with him it appeared in fanciful and inconsistent 
 combination with others. 
 
 VII. Although their system was never revived precisely in its 
 original form, the Eleatics, having been the first to throw out the 
 conception of the universal dependence of matter on mind, must 
 
 * Those mathematical puzzles can perhaps only be solved by the method 
 of infinite approximation. We may reduce the distance between Achilles 
 and the tortoise till it comes as near to nothing as -9 is to 1. The riddle 
 only amounts to the declaration that space is infinitely divisible. 
 
 t " Scepticism must not be considered as a doctrine of doubt ; it is more 
 true to say that the sceptic has no doubt, but is absolutely certain of his 
 point, and that is of the nothingness of the finite." — Hegel. 
 
22 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHT. 
 
 be allowed a share in all subsequent systems of Idealism. Their 
 notion of Being reappeared in a modified form in the Ideas of 
 Plato. His doctrine of a real world, as opposed to the world of 
 sense, is similar to theirs. But in his view of motion he came 
 nearer to Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans. He did not deny its 
 reality, nor the existence of the phenomenal world, but strove to 
 connect it with the world of Ideas. The ovaia of Aristotle recalls 
 the Eleatic 6v. He approached the doctrine of Parmenides as to 
 the identity of existence and thought, (Eth. lib. ix. 9,) " to yap 
 elvai rjv to alaBdveaOai r) voelv." We need not trace the same 
 notion as it appeared in the theological mists of Neo-Platonism. 
 It was openly announced by Descartes as the ground and starting 
 point of his philosophical belief, " Cogito ergo sum ; " yet he held 
 empirically to the distinction between matter and mind. Male- 
 branche, among his followers, resolved both in the Being of God, 
 through whom directly we know all that we know. God was with 
 him, as with the Eleatics, the absolute substance, the place of 
 minds, but this conception was modified by theology. Berkeley's 
 doctrine of Ideas, his view of mind as the sole reality, and his 
 denial of material existence, represents another phase of the same 
 thought. And, following out the connexion, we are reminded of 
 the later phrase of Schelling, " Nature is a petrified intelligence." 
 The arguments regarding space and time, in the "Critick* of the 
 
 * Entering upon his analysis of our sources of knowledge, Kant assumes 
 one factor of that knowledge to be «ems«, the faculty of receiving intuitions 
 without which the conceptions of the understanding would remain empty. 
 He then asserts that there are two original forms necessary to all sensuous 
 intuition : — 
 
 a. Space, the form by which objects are given as external and separate. 
 
 b. Time, the form by which our internal life becomes an object of con- 
 
 sciousness. 
 If we abstract matter from our sensations, the residue is space, from our 
 inner sense, time. Two classes of proof estabhsh these as A priori intui- 
 tions : — 
 
 1. Metaphysical. Every external experience presupposes space. 
 
 Every experience, successive or simultaneous, presup- 
 poses time. 
 
 2. Transcendental. The truths of mathematics are intuitions d priori, 
 
 else they would lose their character of necessity 
 and universahty. 
 As thoseare subjective forms, something subjective is mingled with all 
 
THE ELEATICS. 23 
 
 Pure Keason," seem to set forth much of the unconscious reasoning 
 of the Eleatics. The two systems coincide in important deductions 
 from a common conception, but in what remains they diverge 
 widely. Though Kant, in his " Analytic," extends still further the 
 sphere of the subjective element, he admits to an equal rank among 
 his categories* conceptions on which the Eleatics based much of their 
 system, and others whose validity they altogether denied. He 
 places the idea of substance on one side, among the Antinomies 
 of his Dialectic. His " Practical Reason " introduces a train of 
 thought to which they were strangers, and gives a determination 
 to the sphere of probability. The prominence his ethical system 
 assigns to the will is opposed to the whole tenor of the Eleatic 
 philosophy. Kant's view of the ihing-in-itself remains undefined. 
 In the first edition of the " Critick" he had thrown out a suggestion 
 that the Ego and Noumenon might be "one and the same thinking 
 substance," but it was withdrawn, to be afterwards developed in 
 the more decided Idealism of Eichte. Eichte differs widely from 
 the Eleatics in his strong assertion of human personality. He 
 starts not from mind abstractly, but from the mind of the 
 individual. 
 
 We may contrast, as to a certain extent representing ancient and 
 modern thought, that passage of Aristotle in the " Ethics,'' where 
 he says there are many things greater than man, with the declara- 
 tion of Kant, " Only two things inspire me with awe, the starry 
 universe and the human mind." A tenacious grasp of personality, 
 the influence of religious ideas, and a belief f in creation as dis- 
 tinguished from evolution, combine to separate broadly most of 
 the schemes of Idealism, which have appeared in modern times, 
 from those of antiquity. There is all the difference between them 
 that there is between the "Prometheus"! o^ ^^ ancient and 
 
 our intuitions, we cannot therefore know things in themselves, but only 
 phenomena. 
 
 * Thus he ranks together totaUty, multiplicity, and unity ; reality, nega- 
 tion, and limitation. 
 
 t A belief, though we can no more conceive of it than the Eleatics 
 could. Vide Mansel, " Bampton Lectures," p. 53, and Lectiire II. passim. 
 
 J We may trust the tradition that iEschylus had given a turn to his " Pror 
 metheus Unbound" very different from that of Shelley. Shelley is intensely 
 modern in feeling even where he assumes, as he often does, a classic dress ; 
 
24 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 modern poet — life, hope, and a sense of liberty. One remarkable 
 system presents an exception to this. If we abandon the physical 
 views of the Eleatics, alter some of their forms, apply their dialectic 
 to the discussion of modern conceptions, and merge their idea of 
 mind in that of a more indeterminate substance, we have the Pan- 
 theism of Spinoza. The parallel between the systems is minute ; in 
 all their main features they are alike ; they have the same grandeur 
 and the same desolation. With Spinoza, as with the Eleatics, 
 God is the one infinite substance, to which our conceptions, whether 
 of mind or matter, are attached as attributes by the human under- 
 standing. Body and soul are one. There is no diversity, no real 
 plurality in the universe. Individuals are mere modes, changing 
 forms of the one substance, related to it as the rippling waves to 
 the sea ; or not even so related, for the finite has no actual exist- 
 ence : it is not-being — an imagination. Everything is buried in the 
 abyss of the infinite. 
 
 The substance of Spinoza has been compared to the lair of a 
 lion, which many footsteps enter, but from which none emerge. 
 We might make the same comparison about the Being of the 
 Eleatics. They felt it so themselves, and hence the gloom which 
 pervades so much of their writing. It arose from a sense of help- 
 lessness and absorption : ottttij 7ap ifibv voov eipvaMfM, some one 
 puts into the mouth of Xenophanes, et? ei; tuvto re -irav aveXvero. 
 The poem of Parmenides is more a dirge over human ignorance 
 than a psean of intellectual triumph. He speaks of birth as mourn- 
 ful, cTTvyepoM TOKov KM fjLi^io^ ^PXV> '^^^ whcu We regard his view 
 of life we cease to wonder at his decision. Man has an element of 
 fire, but it is swathed in darkness. The daemon drives him forth 
 from day to night, and back again. He knows so little and suffers 
 so much; and is so soon aU scattered to the wind, " were it not 
 
 but there are passages of his which might almost have been written by a 
 poet of the Eleatic school, as, for instance, the stanzas towards the close of 
 the '' Adonais," except the last, and the " Hymn to Intellectual Beauty." 
 
 Poetry and philosophy were still interwoven in the time of Parmenides. 
 It is strange to see how, after all the distinctions that have been made, 
 fragments of the old philosophy lurk in modern verse. There are ideas in 
 the " Faust" from Heraolitus and Pythagoras. How much latent Platonism 
 there is in Wordsworth. Something very like the feeling of the Eleatics 
 appears in much of the prose poetry of " Sartor Resartus." 
 
THE BLEATICS. 25 
 
 better not to be?" The extremes of materialism and idealism pre- 
 sent opposite aspects of the tragedy of thought : they unite in leav- 
 ing no room for the thinking spirit. " He who sets himself against 
 the pride," in Hegel's words, " gains no actuality, but abides in 
 abstraction, and darkens in his own light." Those sages of Elea 
 were crushed by the weight of their own conception. No theolo- 
 gical doctrine of destiny is so teriible as the necessity which is 
 involved in their doctrine of unity. The round ocean, and the Hving 
 air, and the mind of man, were, not parts, for it had no parts, but 
 transient phases of the same tremendous Being. It was the awful 
 myth of old reaUsed, Kronos devouring his children. They had 
 destroyed the beautiful world, and found nothing in their isolation 
 to recompense their loss. They trod the heights only to meet the 
 storm — their knowledge was increase of sorrow, and when we close 
 the record of their aspiring flight, 
 
 " There is no other thing express'd, 
 But long disquiet merged m rest." 
 
26 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 EXCURSUS ON PYTHAGORAS AND EMPEDOCLES. 
 
 Allusion has been frequently made to those philosophers in the pre- 
 ceding pages. A short sketch of the leading features in their respective 
 systems is subjoined, which may serve the purpose of filling a gap which 
 would otherwise have existed in the continuity of the narrative. In giv- 
 ing an account of Pythagoras, an attempt has been made to obviate the 
 confusion which results from viewing different sides of his system, apart 
 from the central idea in which they meet and find their reconcilement. 
 
 PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS. 
 
 Pythagoras of Samos flourished B. c. 540. He dwelt during a great paft 
 of his life at Croton, in Magna Greoia, and established there an order which 
 maintained, in a sort of secret brotherhood, his rules of education, kept up 
 an ascetic life, and perpetuated his philosophy hke a religious creed. We 
 may believe what we hear of the' comprehensive study and varied accom- 
 plishments of Pythagoras. He probably put forth his doctrines in that 
 general form in which they really foreshadowed some of the highest results 
 of modem speculation ; but they soon became involved in technical details 
 and a barren mysticism, while his life was obscured by the exaggerations of 
 fable. Like Empedocles, he was elevated after his death into a god, and his 
 memory was associated with a host of marvels. He was the son of Apollo, 
 and talked with gods and heroes who came to meet him through the air. 
 A glory shone round him wherever he went. He had a golden thigh, an 
 all-hearing ear, and an infallible utterance. Pythagoras may have travelled 
 in Egypt, but it is unnecessary to trace any of his doctrines to that source. 
 His initiation into the Pelasgian mysteries may have helped to.give a colour 
 of religious secresy to his teaching. This secresy was so well maintained, 
 that we have no written record of any of the Pythagorean views until the 
 time of Philolaus, who flourished sixty years after Pythagoras. Lysis, 
 Clinias, Eurytus, and Archytas, are mentioned as other distinguished 
 members of the sect ; but the fragments of Philolaus, with the allusions in 
 Aristotle and the " Phaedo," are our main authorities as to its principles 
 and practice. 
 
 1. Number as Totality. — Number is not a Siubstance, and we can attach 
 no meaning to that form of the Pythagorean doctrine in which it was made 
 the material of things. We may imagine what we cannot understand, but 
 we cannot understand what we cannot imagine. We can conceive of num- 
 ber only as the gi'ound of relation — the symbol or archetype of the visible 
 world. In this sense Pythagoras may have considered that he had found 
 in number the essence, principle, and law of the universe. His mathemati- 
 cal studies may have led him from considerations of matter to those of 
 form, and suggested the resolution of quality mto quantity. He saw in 
 everything the traces of proportion — in the action and reaction of forces — 
 in the regular return of the seasons — the rise and fall of tides. The notes 
 
PYTHAGORAS. 27 
 
 of music he found expressive of fixed measures — the celestial bodies went 
 on their march subject to the same decrees of order. It was natural to 
 Connect them, and fancy a music of the spheres. Everything might be 
 viewed in the light of this law, and it rose into a supreme power ; in its 
 theological aspect, as God holding the balance in which the elements were 
 weighed ; on its physical side, as the ovma of matter, the last result of 
 analysis ; the ultimate abstraction of metaphysics ; that which made every- 
 thing live, move, and have its being. All is number, was the key-note of 
 the universe. 
 
 2. Number in Dualism — the avoroi-jcia- — We do not know how much of 
 the apphcation and extension of this fundamental idea is to be attributed 
 to Pythagoras himself, how much to his followers. It has come to us 
 mixed up with a large amount of fanciful symbolism ; but it was natural 
 that in applying the principle itself to the manifestations of matter, men 
 should begin to consider the relations of separate numbers. One, the ele- 
 ment of all the odd-even, as a, totality, included imity and multiplicity, 
 one and many ; it was the ground of perfection as well as imperfection. It 
 branched off into a series of dualities — thfe oppositions of number and life. 
 Hence the conception of polarity was developed in the (rvaroixia-,* or ten 
 pairs of the Pythagorean school. Ten, for that was the sum of single 
 numbers — the ground of numeration. Mystic meanings were attached to 
 the different numbers. One, four, and ten were, from different points of 
 view, regarded as the essence of number, somewhat in the same way as we 
 select different virtues as the groxind of morality, or as being most expres- 
 sive of the divine character. The triad, too, was regarded as the great 
 number; it represented the sohd of three dimensions,t had beginning, 
 middle, and end. The influence of language had much to do with this. 
 Moral ideas were connected with the ten opposites — those on the left were 
 good, on the right bad ; together they made up the elements, not material, 
 but relational, of the universe. They came from the principle of contrast 
 in the mind, which might well be raised to the rank of a formal and uni- 
 versal law of thought, and from the observation of opposition in the world. 
 
 * Aristotle, " Met." i. 5, gives those opposite notions, and Plato in the 
 " Laws " alludes to them : — 
 
 wsgaf. 
 
 a'urii^ou. 
 
 ■mt^iSTav, 
 
 oi^ioe. 
 
 h, 
 
 xA^^o^, 
 
 le^idv, 
 
 x^iaTSQoe. 
 
 dppiv,^ 
 
 iii'Kv. 
 
 Vi^Sf/.OVV, 
 
 l(,IIIOU[ilUOll. 
 
 iv6v, 
 
 KitfivvKav. 
 
 <p^s, 
 
 OMTOg. 
 
 ayit^av. 
 
 HOtKOll. 
 
 Tir^diiyavoii, 
 
 in^ofirjKe;. 
 
 t See Plato, " Leges," x., where he fixes three dimensioiA as the first 
 stage of extension. 
 
28 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The notion 6f imperfection immanent in the limitless and infinite, of 
 somewhat irrational, unorganised, and evil, checking the progress of divine 
 perfection, which tended to bring all in order and limits, fii'st appears in 
 Pythagoras. It was developed largely by Aristotle. The Pythagoreans re- 
 solved mathematics and physics into metaphysics, by a process of anSysis. 
 Body was made of surface, surface of lines, lines of points— points were 
 units — incorporeal atoms the universal principle of limits. The unlimited 
 was made up of the intermediate spaces — intervals — ha<rr>ift,»Toi — the 
 second factor of geometrical form and music* Three limits— monads, or 
 points, fixed in space— constituted the first stage in the construction of 
 special magnitude. The interval was vacuum — void, the negative element 
 of being, which separates the numbers and determines their nature ; it 
 was, in a sense, a principle of things. There was in all this an ideal 
 tendency — a tendency to resolve mat;ter into form. 
 
 3. Origin of things. — It is difficult to come to any clear conclusion about 
 the Pythagorean conception of the origin of the world. How, from the 
 supreme principle — the primary unit — could there result a multiplicity of 
 units ? Some ancient author informs us that they did not conceive the 
 world to have any origin in time, but only in thought. But, from other 
 passages, it would appear that they denied the eternity of time. The One, 
 the even-odd, existed ; they do not investigate its "origin. " to u ftiv ovu 
 ■jre^iTTov ymiatv 6v (paatu" This one was number in another aspect as God, 
 the eternal ground of things, which approached the Eleatio view. " iini 
 y«g (pnalv 6 a,yif4.av xa,l a.^i(,aii a'aamay Hos, ii; an 'iuii, fioi/ifio;, dxiiiciTtiSt 
 aino; »vru ofioios," is a sentence of Philolaus which might have been 
 written by Xenophanes or Parmenides. 
 
 The Pythagoreans differ f imdamentally from the Eleatics, in the admission 
 of an infinite void surrounding the primal one. Monism is replaced by Dual- 
 ism. The effort of those contraries to effect a union is the source of motion, 
 life, phenomena. The void comes into the world by inspiration ; it is pas- 
 sively breathed in ; and with this breath — which Archytas called the inter- 
 val of the totality of nature — time enters the world, and the conflict of per- 
 fection with imperfection begins. Unity is separated into units, and the 
 diversified relations of things arise from the diversities of the intervals 
 between them. The opposite elements of the universe must be held 
 together by the bond of Harmony : " ItcsI Se ts aq^^ecl vTra^^coi' '>'"■ ofto^VKoi 
 iaaai, TJZvi liiiiia/rOD tis civ xal aiircu; xoafmdijfiiv, il (iii A^fioula iwtykviTO, UTIUI 
 ciy T^oVo) iyiviTO- to, [iiu uti ofiolet x«i 6ii6(pv%a, ik^ftoi/iae ouSsV l^sBeoiiTO" t« Se 
 duof^olac fivihs iaoriT^^ oti/»yica. tsc TOtotVTa x^^oi/ioc avy3t,iKKtiff^att, h fAiTiT^oi/Tt 
 il) Koafca KKTeptw^o"" Hence, in another sense, number or harmony is the 
 ground of all. 
 
 4. Physics. — ^The life of the world was then an ordered combination of 
 contraries. The phenomena of nature and life are ordered by numerical 
 relations. Certain numbers recur in nature : there are seven chords, 
 seven vowels, seven Pleiades. Numbers represent notions : there is one 
 
 * See " Excursus on Greek Music." 
 
PTTHAGOHAS. 29 
 
 corresponding to justice, another to opportunity ; one represents man, 
 another a horse. Physical qualities are grounded on mathematical and 
 geometrical relations. The symbol of earth is the cube — i. e., it is arranged 
 on a fourfold method : of fire, the pyramid — of air, the octaedron — of 
 water, the icosaedron. Of the fifth element — ^lay in sether — the dodecaedron. 
 Fire is the chief of these — the limit outwards and inwards of the world — 
 the centre, Aio; (pvXaxti, and the circumference of the system. Between 
 •those two fires revolve the celestial bodies and planets, earth, sun, moon, 
 counter-earth, and heaven with its stars. They roll in circles — ^for the 
 circle alone expresses perfect motion — and with velocity proportioned to 
 their distance. Each sends forth a tone ; and from the whole there flows 
 a harmony which is perceptible only to the divine ear. The moon is 
 inhabited by beings more beautiful than man — under it is change, abovfe 
 it order. Philolaus speaks of Olympus — of the region of fire — and separates 
 the rest of Kosmos from the earth, Uranus. The disorder of the earth 
 is the cause of accident. We see the central fire only through sun and 
 stars. The earth is itself divided into spheres of upper and under — opi- 
 nion, opportunity, injustice. It was second in remove. The Milky Way 
 was the path of the sun before the existing order of things. Life on 
 earth was only a stage. It was shared, however, in degree by all things ; 
 but man alone had reason. 
 
 5. Psychology. — The soul was a number coming into the body, or, as 
 Simmias expresses it, the harmony of the body. Incorporeal, it can only 
 appear in a corporeal relation, though some souls float about in the forms of 
 heroes or daemons — " ccpairau yap tlvcs avrav, if/vx'Tj" elvai ra cv ra aepi 
 ^vcrfiara, ol Be to ravra Kivovv^' 
 
 The Metempsychosis was naturally -connected with this. Separated souls 
 could enter into other bodies, and form with them the fitting harmony. 
 It could thus migrate from one limit to another of the animal kingdom. 
 There is a mystery thrown round the details of this doctrine : it was pro- 
 bably regarded as Httle more than a myth, or symbol of immortality. 
 The story of the shepherd at the grave of Philolaus, points to the belief 
 that indimdual souls were not lost in the general harmony after death. 
 The doctrine of retribution, which the Pythagoreans certainly held, gua- 
 rantees their faith in continued 'personality. We find in Philolaus, as in 
 Heraclitus, the notion of the body as a tomb of the soul, which is revived 
 in the " Phsedo " — " /^n^v^iouTXi he xml 0/ wxT^aiol hoKoyot n xctl (niurii;, a; 
 Zi» T/i/Off rtfiw^iatg a, i^wpc^ r^ acofioert t7Vvi^£Vx.Ta.i x»l KaScc'jrs^ h traf^ocri rovrc^ 
 TiiifTrrai'' This existence was unhappy but necessary, and having its 
 destination for good. They had a three-fold division of the soul into 
 (p^heg, vovs, and Svfto;, somewhat corresponding to Plato's, and brought 
 their theory of numbers into connexion with cognition, by attributing the 
 perception of numbers, ratio, and harmony, not to the sense, but the reason. 
 
 6. Ethics appeared in Pythagoreanism in a rudimentary form. Virtue 
 was the accordance of the rational and irrational. Justice, a similarly 
 similar number — i. e., every one should receive as he deserves. 
 
30 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 EXCURSUS ON EMPEDOCLES. 
 
 He flourished B.C. 84, and was a high priest in his native city, a law- 
 giver, a physician, a prophet, and a poet. He laid claim to superhuman 
 knowledge, and was regarded as something divine during his life, and 
 afterwards worshipped like a god. His career was consecrated by miracles, 
 and marvellous legends cluster round his death. Lucretius speaks of him 
 as the greatest among the wonders of Sicily. 
 
 He is said to have travelled in Italy and Athens, and various accounts 
 connect him with the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, and Anaxagoras. There 
 are points in Empedocles which have affinity to each of the three in tm-n : 
 but his philosophic eclectism was confined to the attempted union of the 
 Heraclitean and Eleatic views. The other aspects of his system were reli- 
 gious and physical. 
 
 1. The Doctrine of (7ree.— Unity is the fundamental conception of Empe- 
 docles. The universe is one. Truth is one, and Knowledge. 
 
 Connected with this was his conception of God, as the one true force, 
 pervading all, and from the centre ruling all. Man is a part of this whole, 
 a procession from the divine. He ought to strive after a knowledge of it, 
 though he can only attain it imperfectly. Only divine knowledge is real. 
 Man can only attain knowledge by intellect through the mediimi of the 
 senses, and it is tainted by their imperfections. Unity is known only to 
 unity. With the Eleatics he denied that anything that had not before 
 been could become, and that anything which was could cease : but he did 
 not carry out this principle to the absolute denial of the many. He 
 admitted in a sense the existence of motion, and consequently of place 
 and time. There was indeed no Birth nor DeatL 
 
 " oi'Kh.a, ^ovou ^1^1$ n "hiaTO^u^i^ r£ f^iyei/rai/ 
 EOT/, (pvffi; 3t /3^0T0(j oi/ofix^tTcii dui^uTioiaii/.^' 
 
 2. The Four Element's form the constituents of all phenomena. Fire 
 was the noble element — the essence of life — having most affinity to mind, 
 and the other three might be classed together ; but actual analysis found 
 four. 
 
 " tiaait^et ya,^ iza.nuu pi^ufictTcc vpurov aicaue, 
 vv^ xal i'Saj xa; yala.ii (8 diSi^os a.'ur'hirou vif/o;, 
 ix ya^ Tan, oaa r ^u, oaa r taairai, oaaa r 'iaaaiii." 
 
 This view connects Empedocles to some extent with the Ionic philoso- 
 phers ; but he differed from them in ascribing to the elements a change- 
 less essence. They were capable only of change of state. 
 
 3. The Two Powers.— He thus did not, like the Eleatics, deny all change, 
 nor did he, Uke Heraclitus, make it the principle of matter. To account for 
 it he was obliged to admit a moving power. Love was with Empedocles, 
 as with Parmenides, the principle of unity, almost identified with God, at 
 
BMPEDOCLBS. 31 
 
 the centre of the sphere, binding the universe together. He invented 
 another principle, Hate, (»£7»os s'x^o?, xoroj,) the Strife of Heraolitus, to 
 account for motion, change, separation, and the phenomenal world gene- 
 rally. Ethically, the powers were opposed as good and evil; physically, 
 as attraction and repulsion ; numerically, as the roots oi' one and of many. 
 We have here a dualism which connects his system at once with the 
 previous nature-philosophy and the Pythagoreans. 
 
 4. Cosmology. — There is a great similarity in most of the ancient cosmo- 
 gonies. Empedocles again recalls Anaximander. The sun, the air, the 
 sea, the earth, were original formations of, love. Out of those elements 
 the different organisms were evolved in an ascending scale : animals fol- 
 lowed plants, and man crowned the whole. He came by the action of 
 fire on the moist earth out of undeveloped shapes, " ti/to; oiXo(pve7s" which, 
 after a series of futile conjunctions, came together in the frames of men, 
 with voice and motion. It was the work of Love to superintend the right 
 mixture of the elements : it gave the impulse to perpetuate life. " Alma 
 Venus genetrix." 
 
 5. Theology and Psychological Views. — The system of Empedocles has nei- 
 ther the consistency nor the gloom of the Eleatic school. He neither sur- 
 renders everj-thing to the merely phenomenal, nor entirely merges the phe- 
 nomenal in the one. He places them side by side, and only subordinates one 
 to the other. The world in which we are is imperfect by reason of strife 
 and hate : it is separated from the world of the sphere — the world of truth, 
 perfection, miity, and rest — that is peopled with purer spirits — 
 
 " ouSs ri; ^v xtivoiaiv "A^ris hog, oiiii Kv^oifios 
 
 Poetry which again brings us back to the mythological epoch. Empedocles 
 reconciled the conditions of the two worlds by a purely theological view, 
 when he spoke of the lapse by guilt from a higher life — the doom under 
 which man had fallen — "rg/f fiv^ias Zqxs "■'"^ ftcix.d,^ai/ xT^ahYiuda,!^' and the 
 expiations {x.a,6a^fioi) by which he might hope for reunion with the divine. 
 From the perpetual conflict of the elements his view of the migration of 
 souls arose, and was thus more connected with physics than the corre- 
 sponding theory of Pythagoras. The elements constituting one body may 
 have, in the fluctuation of things, made up many — 
 
 " ^S>j yag "^OT kyu ysyof^yiv x-ov^og re xoqy} rs 
 
 He had a notion of the purification and ultimate absorption of all things 
 in the pure element of fire, when the times of strife were passed. To 
 deliver man from his exile and wandering, he advocated an ascetic mode of 
 life — abstinence from blood, and other Pythagorean rules. 
 
 The style of Empedocles is more flowing than that of the other poetic 
 philosophers ; but he lost in reasoning what he gained in art, and the ob- 
 jection of Aristotle that he gave no proof of his opinions seems to have 
 been not without foundation. 
 
32 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 EXCURSUS ON GREEK MUSIC. 
 
 The main source of difference between our musical systems and that of 
 the ancients, lies in the fact that they had no conception of instrumental 
 as distinct from vocal music. Hence it was impossible for them to have 
 anything corresponding to the more complicated arrangements of modern 
 times, or those harmonies which result from the concord of various notes. 
 The general principles on which all musical systems rest remain vmaltered. 
 The most fundamental of those are the regulation of accent or pitch, and 
 that of time. The former relates to the position which the note occupies 
 on the bar as it ascends or descends ; the latter to the amount of the bar 
 which it appropriates to itself. Time in a note is not absolute, but rela- 
 tive length. The pitch is what constitutes melody in a note ; it is deter- 
 mined by the rapidity of the vibrations produced by the sounding body, 
 and in so far rests on mathematical laws ; but the peculiar quality which 
 makes it harsh or musical, cannot be explained any more than any other 
 fundamental fact. The union of those two elements constitutes rhythm 
 in a bar of music, and metre in a verse. Melody results from the arrange- 
 ment of notes of a certain pitch in a certain time. A peculiarity of the 
 ancient measures is the fixed quantity of the syllables in Greek and Latin 
 words. There is something corresponding to this in English, but the 
 length of the syllables in our words is not so clearly determined. The 
 feet in Greek measures had a more distinct character than they have with 
 us, and hence they subordinated the music to the verse, where we subor- 
 dinate the verse to the music. Greek rhythpi is an extension of the prin- 
 ciple which balances the different parts of a foot by Arsis and Thesis to 
 the balance of one foot against another. The notes, which are all mul- 
 tiples of one another, might be arranged in the foot as 1 to 1, as in a spon- 
 dee or a dactyle (Jo-ov) ; as 2 to 1, as in a trochee or an iambus (SiTrAd- 
 (Tiov) ; or as 2 to 3 I V V u — | {f^iuoKiov). 
 
 The system of Greek music was originally that based on the tetrachord 
 scale ; its genera are determined by the relation of the intervals between 
 the different notes. Two notes, melodious in themselves, may combine so 
 as to produce a dissonance ; and when they are so related, the interval 
 between them is said to be dissonant ; if the notes will combine harmoni- 
 ously, it is consonant. The lowest note on the tetrachord scale, {mart], 
 was that on the lowest bar of the English octave ; the highest, viarq, was 
 that in the second space. The intermediate, napinaTr) and jrapavriTrj, were 
 separated from each other and from the other notes in three ways, which 
 constituted the three genera in common use in Greek music : — 
 
 1. The Diatonic, in which the intervals were ^ tone - tone - tone. 
 
 2. The Chromatic, „ „ | tone - ^ tone - IJ tone. 
 
 3. The Enharmonic, „ „ J. tone - J tone - 2 tones. 
 
 The two first intervals in the last case were said to form a nvKv6v, or con- 
 densed interval. 
 
EXCURSUS ON GREEK MUSIC. 33 
 
 When the system of the tetrachord was enlarged to an octave, other 
 intervals were added for each genus ; the diatonic, for example, became 
 ^ tone - tone - tone, ^ tone - tone - tone. The genus was determined by 
 the size of those intervals alone, but they might follow each other in 
 different orders of succession. Hence the various orders gave rise to the 
 modes related to the genera as species. Thus the intervals in the Lydian 
 mode were arranged thus : — | | i | | | ^-j while the arrangement 
 J I I J I I I marked the Mixo-Lydian. There were fifteen of those 
 modes in Greece, each distinguished by its peculiar arrangement as well 
 as by a peculiarity of pitch. The differences of pitch between the several 
 notes were fixed in each genus ; but the whole octave might be strung to 
 a higher key, as is sometimes the case with our own pianofortes. There 
 was in this way a difference of half a tone between each of the modes. 
 
 Taking the Phrygian as a standard, the Lydian was a whole tone above, 
 and the Dorian mode a whole tone below it, while the ^Eolian and Ionian 
 came between. 
 
 Those are the bare elements on which the theory of Greek music rests ; 
 its apphoation involved a number of details which introduced into the 
 subject considerable complexity. Our difficulties in imderstanding it 
 result, in part, from the confusion between the various branches of study 
 in ancient times, and especially from the peculiar relation of music to the 
 culture of the Greek mind, and its wide application in Greek philosophy. 
 Even in the times of Aristotle and Plato, the division of the arts and 
 sciences, with which we are so familiar, was only beginning to be made. 
 History and geography, politics and ethics, physics and metaphysics, 
 poetry and music, were stm treated of under one head, and with a very 
 slight consciousness of the difference between them. Hence, in applying 
 any of the results of ancient thought to our modern views, we have con- 
 stantly to distinguish what has a mere historical bearing from the real 
 discoveries or inventions of those times. The subject of music especially 
 had a far more extended apphoation in the Greek mind from that which 
 it has with us. Their notion of the order sustaining the universe was 
 that of harmony, proportion, symmetry. It not only pervaded their 
 philosophy, but it had a practical effect on their education. Music, poetry, 
 and dancing were thus fundamental parts of this education, regarded 
 not in the light of luxuries, but as contributions to the right regular 
 tion of life. Thus the early Greek philosophers, contemplating morality 
 under the aspect of the beautiful and harmonious, assigned to music and 
 the nobler arts the place which a modem poet, representing modern 
 thought, assigns to duty — " Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong." 
 
III. 
 
 ANCIENT PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 " Vere scire est per causas scire." — Aeistotelean Maxim. 
 " Inque domos superas scandere cura fuit." — Ovid. 
 
 The positive results of Greek speculation in the domain of physical 
 science may almost be recorded in a page. The laws of number 
 and form, which were taught in the schools of Pythagoras, and 
 afterwards expanded into a system which has become the basis of 
 our modern geometry, do not properly belong to physics. Astro- 
 nomy was the most ancient of the sciences. It began with the first 
 conception of times and seasons. The alternation of light and 
 darkness, sleeping and waking, marked out the division of the day. 
 It only required an exercise of memory and numeration to conceive 
 of the year. It, too, is a cycle ewavros returning into itself, and 
 marked by terrestrial changes as well as by celestial signs. The 
 phases of the moon indicated the period of the -month ; and the 
 construction of the lunisolar year presented a problem of some 
 complexity to the ingenuity of Meton and Calippus. Early obser- 
 vation began to distinguish between the motions of the planets and 
 the diurnal revolution of the constellations : their paths and dis- 
 tances began to be conjectured. The course of the sun through 
 the zodiac must have been fixed by the Egyptians as early as 2500 
 B.C. The spherical form of the earth was guessed at before the 
 time of Aristotle, and the zones marked out, which are retained in 
 the nomenclature of geography. The phenomenon of eclipses ar- 
 rested attention at a remote period ; but the predictions of Thales 
 and the Chaldeans were probably founded on a mere calculation of 
 recurrence. Anaximander made the first map ; Anaximenes the 
 first dial. Pythagoras identified Lucifer and Hesperus, and formed 
 the earliest scheme of a planetary system, establishing the principle 
 of uniform circular motion, which kept fast its hold on Astronomy 
 
ANCIENT PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 35 
 
 till the time of Kepler. It was to reconcile this principle with the 
 irregularities of planetary motion that epicycles were introduced 
 and multiplied. Eudoxus had four spheres to each planet ; Calip- 
 pus, fifty-five in aU. Hipparchus brought forward the new con- 
 ception of an eccentric — or circle which revolves round a body 
 displaced from the centre — and discovered the precession of the 
 equinoxes. Ptolemy, with whose name the early progress of astro- 
 nomy ceases, organised and seemed to verify the, theory of his pre- 
 decessor, while, by a combination of the eccentric and the epicycle, 
 he explained the ne|Wly-discovered phenomenon of the moon's 
 evection. 
 
 The story which is told of Pythagoras and the hammers and 
 weights indicates an acquaintance with the tone of certain musical 
 notes, and a disposition to apply to them the ratios of number. 
 We may believe that he discovered the relative lengths of several 
 of the chords, and established Harmonics on something like a 
 scientific basis. 
 
 Aristotle seems to have been aware of the fact that light pro- 
 ceeds in straight rays. Nothing more was known of Optics tUl the 
 time of Euclid, B.C. 300, who discovered the law of the equality of 
 the angles of incidence and reflection. 
 
 Greek Mechanics and Hydrostatics begin and end with Archi- 
 medes. He was the first to reach the conception of a centre of 
 gravity, and deduce from it the solution of the problem of the lever. 
 He established the law of hydrostatical pressure, and drew from it 
 some important practical conclusions. 
 
 The achievements of the Greeks in the so-called Mixed sciences 
 were confined to the disclosure of a few elementary facts, and the 
 enunciation of a few fundamental principles. We cannot even say 
 that the early Ionic philosophers observed nature. The very fact 
 of their attempting to discover everything was a bar to real disco- 
 very. Thales noticed the remarkable powers of the magnet, but 
 he was content with the solution that it had a living souL He 
 had a notion of the expansive quality of water, as Anaximenes had 
 of the contraction and rarefaction of air, but neither touched on 
 the properties of steam or the gases. If the " Vestiges of Crea- 
 tion " is a theory built on facts misinterpreted, Anaximander's cos- 
 mogony was a similar theory, built on ng facts at all. Heraclitus 
 
36 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 spoke of avaOv/ilaa-K;, but without any further study of the laws 
 of evaporation than guided Herodotus, when he spoke of the sun 
 drawing the waters of the Nile. Further down we find the same 
 shadowy physics and fantastic biology in some of the theories of 
 Anaxagoras, and, though in a more refined form, in the schemes of 
 the Atomists. The lonians just verged towards a study of nature : 
 they sought for the solution of secrets which baffled them, by a 
 vague glance at the world of matter. The Eleatics abandoned the 
 search as visionary, and the thought of later schools withdrew it§elf 
 almost whoUy into another domain. 
 
 How little, after all, has Greece bequeathed to modern Europe 
 in the way of physical discovery. How little has modem Europe 
 added to the pure speculation of the Greeks. There is no more 
 remarkable contrast in history than such sterility in one region 
 with such luxuriance in the other. We may, to a certain extent, 
 explain it by shewing how alien were the two lines of inquiry. We 
 may remember how the active energy of those' times was expended 
 on politics and art ; how the philosophers were aU metaphysicians. 
 If we push the question further, and ask why, during all those cen- 
 turies, there was no class of thinkers who were able to apprehend 
 and apply the principles on which a fruitful investigation of nature 
 depends, we can answer that there are eras of human thought, 
 national characteristics, and tendencies which admit of free exer- 
 cise in one direction only. We may compare the dawn of philo- 
 sophy to the early enthusiasm of a child, putting questions about 
 everything around him, the answers to which he cannot imder- 
 stand, inventing toys, and dreaming dreams : we may draw an 
 analogy between its full development in Greece and the metaphy- 
 sical epoch of youth, and compare the growth of practical science 
 with the entrance of manhood into practical life. But these are 
 vague similitudes : it is better to recall and understand the proxi- 
 mate causes of the fact which are more within our grasp. 
 
 I. Theory and practice are so connected in our minds that 
 the mention of the one suggests the other. Each in reality 
 advances the other, but on the whole Science is with us in 
 advance of Art. We can explain almost everything we do : 
 we know more than we can do : the head waits for the hands. 
 
ANCIENT PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 37 
 
 Looking at the refinement and variety of Greek Art, the mag- 
 nificence of the early architecture, the apparent subtlety of 
 many ancient inventions, we are astonished that their authors 
 scarcely arrived at the understanding of the simplest of those 
 principles of which they were so constantly and successfully avail- 
 ing themselves. There is no need to imagine a lost science in 
 order to account for this. The empirical knowledge which is 
 enough for Art is not Science, and often precedes it by centuries. 
 Modes of reckoning time were devised long anterior to the rude 
 Astronomy we have sketched. The lever and pulley were employed 
 on buildings even before the rudiments of mechanics were ascer- 
 tained. Men made wine without a chemistry of fermentation, as 
 they made language without a grammar. The principles of Art 
 are unseen guides, and only declare themselves on being questioned. 
 They stand half-way between instinct and insight — take the phe- 
 nomena of nature as they are, and involve what science evolves. 
 Science advances Art, but not essentially. The class of those who 
 discover is still somewhat distinct from that of those who apply 
 their discoveries. In ancient times the classes were quite distinct. 
 Speculation did not then, as it does now, feel honoured by being 
 put into practice. Use did not stimulate the Greek philosophers, 
 because, with few exceptions, they despised it. Modern thought 
 tends rather to exaggerate the claims of utility ; we need not go 
 further than the review of the sciences in the "Eepublic" for the 
 illustration of an opposite error. The author censures the mean 
 view of those who think pf mensuration, navigation, and agricul- 
 ture, in their pursuit of mathematics and astronomy, which ought 
 to form steps in the ascending ladder of knowledge, and lead the 
 mind to the contemplation of pure truth. In an exaggeration of 
 this spirit, he is said to have remonstrated with his friend Archytas 
 for degrading himself in making machines, as Seneca long after- 
 wards defended the memory of Democritus from the charge of 
 inventing the arch. We learn that Archimedes, inspired by what 
 Bacon would have called " deliciae et fastus mathematicorum," was 
 half ashamed of his own inventions. There is a point of view 
 from which Plato's arguments have force, but it is not that of 
 physical science. Their whole tendency was to eflect a divorce 
 between practice and theory, and they remained disunited until 
 
38 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the new philosophy came with a new aim, less lofty but wider, 
 " illustrans commoda vltse." 
 
 II. When we recall the legitimate methods of induction, and 
 contrast them with those followed by the Greeks, we have another 
 explanation of their failure in physics. The records of systematic 
 observation must be interpreted by some appropriate idea, and 
 classified with some definite design. Experiment bringing up new 
 facts, irrelevant circumstances must be eliminated, a conception 
 grasped which will reconcile the results, and a general proposition 
 established. In metaphysics we start from this general proposi- 
 tion. The elements of knowledge in the one case are internal, 
 they are causes; in the other, they are external, and eJGfects. 
 " Truth," Plato says in the " Philebus," " is a gift of the gods to man, 
 sent by some Prometheus in a blaze of light ; and the ancients, 
 more clear-sighted than we, handed down this doctrine, that what- 
 ever is said to be, comes of one and of many. We must therefore 
 endeavour to seize the one idea as the chief point." And Aristotle, 
 in the introduction to his " Physics : " — "We may proceed from what 
 is known to what is unknown, from the universal to the parti- 
 cular." Contrast those canons with the first aphorism of the 
 " Novum Organon : " — " Man, the minister and interpreter of nature, 
 does and understands, so far as he has in fact or in thought ob- ^ 
 served the course of nature ; and he cannot know or do more 
 than this ; " or with this sentence of Galileo : — " Philosophy is 
 written in that great book, I mean the Universe, which is con- 
 stantly open before our eyes ; but it cannot be understood except 
 we first know the language and learn the characters in which it 
 is written." 
 
 1. The early philosophers were impatient. They would not 
 wait for knowledge to unfold itself by degrees, or leave anything 
 for the future. Discarding experiment, they failed in testing, 
 sifting, and bracing together the necessary facts. Their ideas 
 were indistinct and ambiguous, initiate, not resultant, and research 
 was lost in generalisation before they learnt to speU in the book 
 of the universe. They had not " set limits to themselves," or tried' 
 to discriminate the separate fields of knowledge. We have seen 
 the effect of this in the speculations of the Ionic school, where 
 
ANCIENT PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 39 
 
 theological views of cosmogony mingled with chemical, mechani- 
 cal, and dynamical principles. Hence they were satisfied to derive 
 organisation and life from fluids and solids of which they did not 
 know the primary properties, and form theories of universal forces 
 without ever clearly realising the facts of either motion or inertia. 
 They either begun with an abstraction which they applied to 
 nature, like a Procrustean bed, or were carried ofi' by it after the 
 first observation. Empedocles made one step in analysis, and 
 stopped there. No sooner had the notion of the four elements 
 been started, than they were elevated into types, images, essences ; 
 or, if speculation moved further, it was to force them into one. 
 Pythagoras, having seized the idea of number, arranged his scheme 
 of the universe according to a pre-established theory of ratios. 
 There were only nine apparent heavenly bodies, but there ought 
 to be ten, hence he concluded there must be a counter earth hid- 
 den by the sun. We find a curious parallel tO' this in the reason- 
 ing by which the Italian doctors sought to prove the impossibility 
 of the facts revealed by Galileo's telescope, or in the metaphysical 
 fantasies through which Kepler toiled into the true path of 
 scientific inqmry. 
 
 2. The Greek speculators in physics had no instruments to 
 work with but language and logical forms. The counters became 
 coins, and verbal were taken for real oppositions and resemblances. 
 How many of Plato's arguments turn on words. How many more 
 of Aristotle's criticisms an these. Aristotle, who knew how to 
 collect as well as classify a treasury of facts, was constantly ham- 
 pered in his interpretation of them by the tyranny of those forms. 
 The following are specimens of his reasoning : — 
 
 " There is no void, for there is no difference of up and down in 
 nothing." " There was always motion, for it can only begin from 
 a prior change, that is, motion. Time is a numeration of motion ; 
 no time can be when motion is not. The continuous is best ; the 
 best must always be." " Each element tends by nature to its own 
 place : things generally tend to the centre. Motion along the 
 earth being violent, ceases. Motion down being natural, increases." 
 " The simple elements have simple motions : the circular motion 
 of the heavens cannot be unnatural : it must come from a fifth 
 element, the quintessence." " The earth is composed of the noblest 
 
40 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 matter, for it is a solid, which has three dimensions: three is the 
 most perfect number ; we say of it first of all, it has beginning, 
 middle, and end." " A man bends when he rises, because a right 
 angle is connected with equality and rest." " The powers of the 
 circle are wonderful ; but it is nothing absurd if something won- 
 derful is derived frpm the wonderful. The combination of oppo- 
 sites is wonderful. The circle is composed of a stationary point 
 and a moving line, of a convex and concave; these ^ are opposites 
 and wonderful." A few out of many instances of the way in which 
 technical ideas as well as technical terms intruded themselves into 
 physics, with metaphysical conceptions of proper and improper, 
 strange and common, natural and unnatural, up and down — con- 
 ceptions aUen to their sphere and fatal to their experimental 
 progress. 
 
 The Greeks had no notion of a Law of Nature arrived at through 
 induction ; they knew of law only as an idea, and thought to find 
 something external answering to it. Thus Plato sought the prin- 
 ciples of heat, cold, and motion in their respective ideas, a primum 
 calidum, primum frigidum, and primum mobile. The concep- 
 tions of the mind had a tendency to fall into a set of dualisms, as 
 Knowledge and Ignorance, Motion and Rest ; hence the universe 
 itself was split up by dichotomy into corresponding pairs — Being 
 and Not-Being, Finite and Infinite, Atoms and Vacancy, Mind 
 and Chaos, Things and Ideas. Thus what may be called the anti- 
 nomies of number were applied to the ten opposites of Pythagoras. 
 That we may neither do injustice to those conceptions, nor in- 
 vest them with an imaginary authority, we must remember that 
 they may have had a real metaphysical meaniag, while they could 
 only prove sterUe when applied to physics. But this confusion of 
 aim and indefinite use of terms make it difficult for us to appre- 
 ciate much even of the Greek metaphysics. It is owing to his 
 ignorance of the principles of physical inquiry, his mixing up what 
 we would distinguish as subject and object, facts of consciousness 
 and facts of sense, that so much of Plato's reasoning seems to us 
 to move in a circle. Without definition, real as well as verbal, 
 great questions may be started, but they remain unanswered. 
 We are carried along in many of the Dialogues by the combined 
 force of imagination and logic over a long and varied road to what 
 
ANCIENT PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 41 
 
 seems the threshold of truth, and put off at last by a word or 
 a sentence which, far from solving the enigma, itself becomes 
 another ; the curtain turns out to be the picture, and in our dis- 
 appointment we feel for a moment with the centurion of Persius, 
 " Cur quis non prandeat hoc est ? " 
 
 3. One of those errors of confusion, more widely prevalent and 
 more deeply rooted than the rest, arose from the exclusively meta- 
 physical view the Greeks took of the relation of cause and effect. 
 They imagined that an effect in nature gave the law or force in 
 kind — that the cause was of the same nature and form as the 
 effect : a principle which may involve an ultimate truth, but which 
 certainly ought to be the end or term of physical inquiry, not its 
 starting-point. The effect, as far as we see in physics, gives no 
 indication whatever of the kind or species of the law to which it 
 belongs. Causes or mental forces are the first objects of con- 
 sciousness in self -reflection, while effects alone are objects of con- 
 sciousness, or rather of observation, in the study of external nature. 
 For the first traces of this, presum,ption of resemblance, we have 
 again to revert to the Ionic school, where we find prominent the 
 idea of likeness between an element and a compound. It lies at 
 the root of the " Homoiomereia " of Anaxagoras and the \6yoi, 
 cnrepiMaTiKol of the Stoics. One of Aristotle's mistakes in optics 
 affords a good instance of this fallacy. He explained the round 
 form of a luminous spot made by the sun, by saying the sun's light 
 had a circular quality; as also his misinterpretation of the lever 
 power, on the ground that the circle with the widest radius had 
 most force. On the same principle, all fiery appearances in the 
 sky were classed together as meteors, and the scheme of the revo- 
 lution of the spheres devised. It appears in Galen's speculations 
 on atomic anatomy, when he asserts, on the authority of Hippo- 
 crates, that man must be of various elements else he would never 
 faU sick. It was revived in the chemical theories of phlogiston, 
 and still lingers in the popular notion of caloric. 
 
 III. The history of any one of the sciences demonstrates how 
 hard it is to shake off inappropriate ideas that have once become 
 attached to them. It would have required a strong impulse in a direc- 
 tion to which they never turned, to dismiss the fallacies of method 
 
42 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 and aim so firmly grafted on the whole physical speculation of the 
 Greeks. The Latin poets and Cicero unconsciously echo their 
 errors. They only commented on and imitated them. The 
 theme of their perpetual praise is the man who was able not to 
 attain a knowledge of things themselves, but rerum dignoscere 
 causas. If the Eomans added anything of their own to what they 
 inherited from the Greeks, it was a greater confidence in progress 
 — more faith in the future. There is a remarkable paragraph in 
 Seneca, which seems to promise better for an advance of science 
 than any passage of the earlier philosophers. He is speaking of 
 meteors: — "It is not yet fifteen hundred years since Greece 
 reckoned the stars, and gave them names. There are stiU many 
 nations who are acquainted with the heavens by sight only, who do 
 not know why the moon disappears. The day shaU come when the 
 labour of a maturer age shall bring to light what is yet concealed. 
 We have just begun to know how the shows of morning and even- 
 ing arise. Some one wiU hereafter demonstrate in what region the 
 comets wander. Let us not wonder that what lies so deep is 
 brought out so slowly. Many things are reserved for a time when 
 our memory shall have passed away. The world would be a smaU. 
 thing if it did not contain matter of inquiry for aU the world. 
 Eleusis reserves something for the second visit of her worshipper. 
 Nature does not at once disclose aU her mysteries. We think our- 
 selves initiated; we are but in the vestibule."* Yet science had 
 to wait other fifteen hundred years before that promise was fulfilled. 
 The same causes which retarded progress on one side during the 
 ages of antiquity, retarded it on every side during those imme- 
 diately succeeding them, in which the world seemed to act its 
 childhood over again. While in the regions of speculation men 
 were sharpening their wits in Lilliputian disputes, they spent their 
 energies in another field in quest of the elixir vitae, the universal 
 solvent, and the philosophical stone. They were confounding 
 together even the shadowy sciences, — they pursued alchemy and 
 astrology, and had found a mystic relation between gold and Apollo, 
 silver and Diana, quicksilver and Mercury, iron and Mars, lead 
 
 * I borrow the quotation from Mr Whewell's " History of the Inductive 
 Sciences," to which I have been otherwise much indebted in drawing up 
 this paper. 
 
ANCIENT PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 43 
 
 and Saturn, tin and the Devil. No wonder they only reaped the 
 air they sowed, that the most aspiring spirits* among them were 
 overwhelmed with vanity and chagrin, and that one-f- of their most 
 active thinkers recorded his despair in words like these — 
 
 " From out of nothing God fetch'd everything ; 
 But out of all poor I can nothing bring." 
 
 Yet, amid the war of words, and the confusion of theology, 
 mythology, and metaphysics, some of the conceptions were silently 
 growing up which have borne such luxuriant fruit in the last three 
 centuries ; and there were thrown forth, in the shape of vague 
 conjectures, ideas which the latest developments of science seem 
 tending to confirm. In wonder wisdom begins, in wonder it ends. 
 It has been said, and ncit without some curious evidence to support 
 the assertion, that great truths dawn upon the human mind long 
 before they can be fully understood. They are seen at first " in a 
 glass darkly." They come like a mirage that lies far off from the 
 land, and are only half interpreted. If we choose to interpret for 
 them some of the widest generalisations of the early philosophers, 
 we may say that they arrived as it were through inspiration at the 
 last truths of physics ; but it was by the wrong road, the road of 
 metaphysics. They reached the potut at which the two meet ; but 
 it was a premature anticipation, and did nothing to unfold or fer- 
 tilise the spacious' track between the starting-point and the goal of 
 discovery. 
 
 * See Browning's " Paracelsus " for a wonderful exhibition of the 
 tragedy of a great mind imposing first on itself and then on others. 
 
 + See an " Essay on the Alchemists," by the late Dr Samuel Brown, full 
 of suggestive illustration, and admirable for its appreciation of the time. 
 
IV. 
 THE POLITICS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " Es bildet sich ein Talent in der Stille, 
 Sich ein Charaokter in die Strom der Welt." — Goethe. 
 
 It has been said that there is an old war between Poetry and 
 Philosophy, and the phrase expresses the opposition between feel- 
 ing and thought, the life of sentiment and the life of reason. The 
 one is instinctive, individual, and impulsive ; the other reflective, 
 abstract, and contemplative. Yet, however marked the distinction, 
 it is a distinction within a resemblance. Both together are, in a 
 sense, subjective ; they have an end in themselves, and stand in 
 contrast to that other mood of mind which points to action, and 
 results ia an energy of the will. Perhaps the real opposition is 
 between Poetry and Politics. Presenting, as they do, the ideal and 
 the real aspect of life, they have less in common than any other 
 modes of mental activity. Philosophy may be said to stand 
 between them, and departs from the one according as it tends to 
 assume the language or the forms of the other. There is a poetic 
 philosophy and a political philosophy, but there is no poetical 
 politics ; and there is scarcely a single instance of a thinker 
 distinguished at once as a poet, philosopher, and politician. 
 Actual achievement makes too great a demand upon the energies 
 of life to leave room for a complete self-culture. The speculations 
 which are evolved ia repose slowly find their way, if they ever do 
 so, into the regions of reality. Imagination rests upon individual 
 greatness, and ill appreciates the collective power which more and 
 more asserts itself as civihsation advances. Most of aU, in later 
 ages of historical development, the poet recoils from the strife of 
 masses and the jarring of entangled interests into the woodland 
 ways of thought, and the philosopher retires from oligarchies, 
 aristocracies, and democracies to make his own mind a kingdom 
 for himself. We must bring all this before us, together with the 
 
THE POLITICS OP GEBEK PHILOSOPHY. 45 
 
 circumstances of their times, to understand the peculiar political 
 position of the two great philosophers of Greece. Plato illustrated 
 it most conspicuously ; but somewhat of the same influence is 
 traceable in the writings of Aristotle. The essential difference of 
 their mental bias is one of the main causes of the opposition 
 which exists in some of their views. The method of the one was 
 almost exclusively d, priori, and his idealism was untrammelled by 
 reference to surrounding realities. The other, even in his most 
 abstract speculations, found himself under the constant necessity 
 of verifying his results by an appeal to facts. Aiming at an ideal 
 happiness, he found the path towards it pointed by the course of 
 individual virtue. At a time when it was impossible to exhibit a 
 perfect standard of human excellence, the one abstracted the 
 notion of perfection ; the other rested on lower, but firmer ground, 
 in the appeal to what was human and attainable. Hence, while 
 Plato reaches, in bis loftiest conception, beyond the realisation 
 even of this advanced epoch of the world, Aristotle is, in the 
 main, more free from errors which were peculiarly Hellenic, and 
 his social theories have a far nearer approach to those of modem 
 times. Yet it is necessary to estimate their historical position, in 
 order to comprehend either the points on which they agreed, or 
 those on which they difiered. Both agreed in an absence of 
 sympathy for those institutions and modes of government which 
 it had been the mission of many of the Greek states to elaborate. 
 This want of sympathy amounts, in Plato, to a direct hostUity, 
 which strangely contrasts with the patriotism of the preceding 
 generation. While mentioning the gxeat men of Athens in the 
 terms which history teaches us to apply to them, he shews no dis- 
 position to seek, as we are disposed to do, a source of much of 
 that greatness in the organisation of the city itself. He sees her 
 democracy under its most unfavourable aspect, as a form of govern- 
 ment which had departed, almost as far as possible, from the ideal 
 of a state. The rule of the many is to him little better than the 
 tyranny of one. Its errors inevitably open the door to that 
 tyranny ; it is a maze of contradictions, and has already lost " self- 
 reverence, self-knowledge, seM-control," the strength of nations as 
 of individuals. 
 
 We can trace in the successive records of the rise and fall of 
 
46 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Athenian democracy — the most magnificent development of Greek 
 civilisation — a gradual decrease of political enthusiasm and con- 
 fidence. Herodotus, writing of its first and purest achievements, 
 and feeling more in the spirit of the age of which he wrote than 
 of that in which he lived, seems to regard its establishment as 
 the signal and guarantee of liberty for Greece. He had before 
 his mind the overthrow of the tyrannies ; the manifestation of free 
 spirit, which followed more rapidly than is consistent with any 
 notions of ordinary growth ; the new power and vitality, which 
 went on gathering with the force of a mountain river ; the issue of 
 the Persian war, which he regarded as the culmination of a long 
 religious strife ; and the late climax of Athenian glory. It was 
 natural for him to record those achievements with the ardour of 
 a poet rather than the zeal of a politician. In the times of 
 Thucydides the decline had just begun. He recognises the ex- 
 cellence of the Athenian constitution, but with a more dispas- 
 sionate admiration, and with a lively appreciation of its defects. 
 Already, in his chapters on the death of Pericles, we observe a 
 greater prominence given to the position of individual greatness — 
 a prominence which in most national developments marks more 
 conspicuously the stages of infancy and old age. His later history 
 is occupied with more complex interests — a war of parties, no 
 longer the struggle of a nation. He sees a law throughout the 
 whole, but it is a law of irregularities, a generalisation of human 
 caprice, which varies with the shifting of events. We have from 
 him the first scientific history, but the divine element is excluded ; 
 the ideal grandeur which his predecessor pictured is replaced by 
 a harsher reality, maxims of prudence, worldly wisdom, meaner 
 motives, and, on the whole, meaner men. The Peloponnesian war 
 destroyed the free development of the existing forms of govern- 
 ment in Greece. With the exception of the brilliant episode 
 of Epaminondas, the age succeeding was marked by nothing 
 great in Greek history. We must remember that this was the 
 age of Plato. He was born in the year when Pericles died. He 
 had seen the failure and overthrow of Athens, from an excess of 
 that lawlessness and want of definite purpose which he naturalljr 
 attributes to her form of government. His earliest memories were 
 of the Syracusan expedition. He had seen Alcibiades — " every- 
 
THE POLITICS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 47 
 
 thing by turns, and nothing long " — the model of his democratic 
 youth, and the thirty tyrants, each a model for his rvpavviico<; 
 avrjp. He had witnessed the trial and death of Socrates, the 
 standing example to the whole Socratic school of democratic 
 ingratitude. The affairs of Greece were involved in confusion, 
 which makes the annals of that period one of the most perplexing 
 in history. Successive confederacies were formed and dissolved 
 on considerations of the most temporary interest ; the diplomacy 
 and rivalry of six or seven different states were preparing the way 
 for the descent of a new power, and their best soldiers were 
 serving in foreign armies. The exercise of a sort of historic 
 imagination enables us to understand how, in such public and 
 private relations, such a mind as Plato's found its only relief in a 
 complete abstraction from the politics of reality, and the contem- 
 plation of an entirely ideal state. If we turn from the speech of 
 the greatest statesman of Greece to the speculations of her greatest 
 thinker, the opposite representations they give of the same 
 phenomenon appear to us entirely anomalous, if we fail to appre- 
 hend the gulf which separated them. It is like turning from the 
 panegyrics of Livy to the darkest pictures of the Eoman satirists. 
 
 But in another point of view, the idealism of Plato corresponds 
 more to those schemes of regeneration which, alike lofty and im- 
 practicable, have appeared at every fresh revival of religious 
 enthusiasm in more modem times. Philosophy in ancient times 
 stood in the place of those collateral agencies — religion and 
 physical science — which have at various periods exerted an in- 
 direct influence over modem poKtics. It differed from them 
 in this, that its influence was never paramount. There was no 
 league among philosophers corresponding to the organisation 
 of the Church in the middle ages ; their systems, springing sepa- 
 rately from the brain of each individual, were never harmon- 
 ised by a common enthusiasm. There was no logic of political 
 economy to regulate commercial relations — no press to popularise 
 new discoveries. It is difficult to over-estimate the change which 
 has been wrought by the invention of printing, and the increased 
 facilities of intercommunication, which tend to fuse together and 
 reconcile mental as well as material discrepancies : but there are 
 some differences so essential that even those agencies fail to sur- 
 
48 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 mount them. The speculations of the Germans on religion, philo- 
 sophy, and art continue to exhibit the presence of an element 
 which refuses to accommodate itself to the exigencies of actual life, 
 and imposes a perpetual barrier between statesmanship and trans- 
 cendental metaphysics. The schemes of Socialism which lately 
 prevailed in France, with other devices of modern theorists, are 
 marked by the same ideal features. Formerly the cleft between 
 thought and action was wider and deeper. Even in Rome, where 
 there was so little tendency to abstraction. Philosophy kept apart 
 from life. The Stoic, like the Puritan of England before and 
 after the period of his ascendancy, despised, the Epicurean ac- 
 quiesced in the world as he found it ; neither tried to mix himself 
 up with events, or to mould them : both alike " stood at gaze " 
 amid the changes of evil and good. " On the hiUs, like gods," 
 they left it for others in the dust of strife 
 
 " Certare ingenio contendere nobilitate." 
 This tone of feeling was stUl more conspicuous in Greece : from 
 the time of Anaxagoras downwards, there was a mutual jealousy 
 between politics and philosophy. It was most of all prominent 
 in Plato. "We have seen how the age in which he lived confirmed 
 the bias of his mind towards isolation. Starting from a mental 
 conception, he only employed the materials of his observation to 
 illustrate it, and interpreted events by the light of his philosophy, 
 instead of gathering his philosophy from events. Standing aloof 
 from the common sphere of HeUenic politics, Plato was yet a Greek 
 of the Greeks, and in many instances where his theories seem to 
 wander furthest from the realities of life, they merely present 
 the exaggerated results of Hellenic feeling, unchecked in its 
 course by the limitations of practice. The entire political portion 
 of the " Republic " is based upon the principle of sacrificing indivi- 
 dual prosperity to that of the commonwealth ; a view more likely 
 to find favour in the ages of antiquity than now. The ordinary 
 Greek notion of a State stood half-way between Plato's and our 
 own. He argued that the parts were made for the whole, and 
 subordinated everything to the State. We airgue that the whole is 
 made up of its parts, and make our stand-point the family, which 
 he destroys. His laws of marriage are severe, not lax ; they 
 attempt too much, not too little ; and err in their disregard of 
 
THE POLITICS OP GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 49 
 
 natural feeling, not in want of stringency. Those which relate to 
 property are open to the same sort of censure, but the tendency 
 of civilisation is towards their partial fulfilment. Some of Plato's 
 regulations, as those in reference to inter-Hellenic warfare, go 
 beyond his age, and evince an enlarged patriotism. War with 
 Greeks, he declares, is not properly war, it is a quarrel among 
 friends ; and friends grown enemies for a time should fight as if 
 they were one day to be friends again. Hellas is our common 
 mother, the seat of our common religion, we must not mangle her 
 by a ruthless war — (jnjfil yap to /Mev 'EXKtjvikov <yivoi avro avTrn 
 olicelov elvai koX ^vyyeve<;; and then, shewing the limits of Hellenic 
 brotherhood, to Se ^ap^apiKa oQveiov re koX aXKorpiov. So great 
 is the importance which Plato, in common with Aristotle, assigns 
 to education as an instrument for moulding his citizens, and such 
 is the prominence he gives to it in his exposition, that the whole 
 of the " Eepublic " may be, in one respect, regarded as an educa- 
 tional treatise. His view of education is national and liberal ; he 
 regards it as a means not so much of imparting knowledge, as of 
 cultivating the mind. Music and gymnastics, the arts and sciences, 
 are parts of a system by which the emotions, the wUl, and the 
 intellect are to be trained, strengthened, and enlarged. His error 
 is in exaggerating the power of any training, however thorough 
 and comprehensive, to overcome natural differences. B^nt on 
 making men, he forgets the frequent necessity of takiag men as 
 they are made ; and, in striving after a uniform excellence, forgets 
 the excellence of variety. The most ideal part of his educational 
 scheme is that which Plato himself regarded as its consummation. 
 As the final aim of his politics was to secure the growth and preser- 
 vation of the philosophic element in the State, the absence of which 
 he regarded as opening the door for progressive degeneracy, so 
 the final aim of his culture was to eliminate and elevate to their pro- 
 per rank those who were to be its philosophic kings. In this strain 
 he draws near the close of the seventh book of the " Eepublic : " 
 — " Let us give our young men five years to study dialectic, and 
 resign all other pursuits. This wUl test their power and steadfast- 
 ness of thought. Then, to test their character, let us send them 
 again into the Cave, to assume commands and public offices, to 
 acquire sagacity and address, and shew themselves proof against 
 
 D 
 
50 ANCIENT PHILOSOPnT. 
 
 seduction. Let this last for fifteen years. Then let us raise those 
 who have passed triumphantly through every trial to the crowning 
 task of their life. Let them lift up the eye of the soul and fix it 
 upon the centre of all light — the Idea of Good. This let them 
 take as a pattern when their turn comes, as it will come, to rule 
 the State. After death they will ' reach the blessed isles/ and we 
 shall worship them, if ApoUo permits, as gods or heroes." This 
 reads in the original like part of a fine religious poem ; but in its 
 practical bearing it is something Uke an attempt to rear a philo- 
 sopher as we rear a plant in a hothouse, to discover and complete 
 by rule that mental greatness which least of all conforms to rule. 
 Formulae will no more make a sound philosopher than they will 
 make a good poet or a good Christian. A modern writer tells us 
 that our first duty is to find our heroes, but he never tells us 
 clearly how to find them, and those ancient instructions do not 
 guide us far on the way. 
 
 Aristotle had got partly clear of Plato's utopianism. Standing, 
 as it were, at the opposite end of the philosophical arena, he 
 was familiar with the ground on which it comes into contact 
 with politics. His education, travels, and research, the pecu- 
 liar relation which he bore as a tutor at the court of Philip 
 to the new epoch of history, combined with his own practical 
 genius to give him a firmer grasp of reality than his great 
 predecessor. He wanted the deep poetic heart, the glance that 
 looks before and after, but his hold of the present was infinitely 
 more tangible. There is scarcely a single sentence of the critique 
 in the second book of the " Politics " that does not meet the 
 sympathy of the modern reader; it has left little to be added 
 as a review of the scheme it discusses. The fundamental ep'or 
 which pervades the "Eepublic" is exhibited, and its defects of 
 method and detail illustrated, very much after the manner of a 
 modem thinker arguing against the socialistic theories of the pre- 
 sent day. Plato's notion of unity was nearly equivalent to same- 
 ness. He made his State consist of different classes, but he 
 had no idea of a finely-graduated scale of ascent; and within 
 those classes there was no allowance made for distinctions. Many 
 points of his scheme, especially those regarding the relations of 
 the sexes, with an appearance of equality involve the greatest 
 
THE POLITICS OP UREEK PHILOSOPHY. 51 
 
 possible inequality. Man and woman are not with him, as with 
 us, equal powers of different quality, but unequal powers of the 
 same quality. Aristotle's method was at least partially inductive. 
 His idea of a polity was ia so far eclectic, gathered from a com- 
 parison of various governments, and blending together their most 
 fortunate features. He distinctly recognises the principle* of 
 unity in variety — the true State is a harmony {avfji<^(ovia), not a 
 unison (6fj,o<f)a)via). He admits the limitations of social law, the 
 danger of destroying true morality, by vnthholding the freedom 
 of choice, and the necessary connexion of property with private 
 interests. The prominence he assigns to the family, reminds us 
 less of Greek feeling than of that which marked the later stage of 
 civilisation in Eome. Unity, he asserts, belongs more to an 
 individual than a community, a complex machine, whose wheels 
 should work together, each within their sphere, to perform a com- 
 plex work. Men are different from each other, and make families 
 and states far superior to mere aggregates. Before you can have 
 a nation you must have a number of elements, aWa kclI i^ el'Set 
 Buupepovrtov, the one supplying the imperfections of the other, and 
 only self-sufficient (avTdpK7j<;) in conjunction. The argument in 
 the " Republic" about all saying mine and not mine, is stultified by 
 the ambiguity of the word all. If it means each severally, there 
 is nothing new in the proposal; if it is used in the collective 
 sense, such a condition of things would be undesirable, if it were 
 not impossible. Unless people had a special interest in some 
 things, they would care for nothing. Everybod/s business, every- 
 body's son is nobody's. Affection indefinitely extended is as 
 tasteless as mUk and water. Communism would not do away 
 with quarrels, it would rather increase them. The industrious 
 would complain against the indolent. If every one assumed an 
 equal right to everything, the question would remain, what was 
 equal? A reasonable regard for one's own is not selfishness. 
 There is a sense in which property should be common ; we should 
 be ready to let others have free use of it on occasion, exercising 
 of our free will those virtues of temperance and charity which an 
 arbitrary system of laws precludes. 
 
 * A principle which received its most striking embodiment in the 
 comprehensive policy pursued by Alexander in his Asiatic conquests. 
 
52 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 If we compare Aristotle with Plato, we thus find him nearer 
 to ourselves. There are some points in which his view remains 
 affected by the errors common to all abstract systems of policy. 
 He has rules regarding the number of citizens, the right and 
 wrong forms of state, the exact course of education, &c., which 
 not even his widely-extended observation could rescue from the 
 charge of arbitrariness, and which must, even in the most favour- 
 able times, have hiadered his theories passing from speculation 
 into practice. It is partly the false bias of philosophic analogies, 
 partly the narroimess of Hellenic nationalism, which supports and 
 gives its colour to his defence of slavery.* 
 
 One thing strikes us in his review of the " Republic " as peculiar. • 
 A modem critic would have been satisfied to confront a great part 
 of the Platonic scheme with the charge of absolute immorality. 
 In doing so, Aristotle might have appeared to take higher ground, 
 but his position would not have been so intelligible, nor his argu- 
 ment so strong. Asked by a Platonist to give a reason for his 
 charge, he would have been driven to assume the attitude he has 
 done — to shew that the laws of the ideal republic violate the laws 
 of nature, and would be, if practicable, productive of more harm 
 than good. This is one instance in which ancient thought is 
 clearer owing to its freedom from modem entanglements. To 
 reason conclusively in politics, we must ascend from facts of 
 practice and illustrations of detail, to higher principles, not vice 
 versa. Philosophy played the Mentor to the statesmen of Grreece 
 and Rome ; it had its part in helping to recall those truths which 
 were apt to be forgotten amid the conflict of faction and the con- 
 fusions of policy. Our politicians may well continue, amid their 
 differences, to bear in mind the higher aims in which all those 
 differences should agree — to reconcile the dissensions of party 
 spirit by an appeal to the standards of religion and morality. 
 They shine over the sea of thought the pole-stars to which our 
 compass should point ; but in guiding the vessel of the State 
 through the changes of wind and tide, we must shift the sails of 
 expediency and rely on the rudder of prudence. 
 
 * See " Excursus on Ancient Slavery." 
 
EXCURSUS ON ANCIENT SLAVERY. 53 
 
 EXCURSUS ON ANCIENT SLAVERY. 
 
 Nothing better illustrates the growth, of moral perception in history 
 than the way in which the institution of slavery has been regarded in 
 ancient and modern times. We are so accustomed to assume the universal 
 right of personal liberty, that to question it seems to imply some bias of 
 interest or distortion of view. The ancients, starting from an opposite 
 assumption, would have been surprised by the attachment of guilt to any 
 one for withholding this right. Aristotle is unfortunately distinguished 
 as the advocate of slavery, from the very fact that he is the first to ques- 
 tion its legitimacy. It appears in the early poets and historians as a 
 matter of course, acting sometimes weU, sometimes ill, as one of the 
 necessary elements of the State. Plato advances so far as to prohibit the 
 holding of Greeks as slaves ; he never thinks of questioning the general 
 validity of the system. It forms part of his ideal scheme, and his laws are 
 tainted by its inequality. Offences which in a free man are visited with a 
 fine, are capital when committed by a slave. There is a sentence in his 
 description of the timocratic youth, exhibiting what we may well call injus- 
 tice seasoned with mercy — that spirit which at once ameliorates and per- 
 petuates hardship in a period of crude morality : " kxI loixois fcsu t/j an 
 oiy^iog li'n 6 rotovra;, ov xaratp^ouZn SouXnii/^ uairiq 6 ix,ccvu( irs'irstiiivfciuos." 
 In Aristotle's hands the point of right is at least raised, and scrupulously 
 discussed. He defines the slave as an instrument, xryifmc n ei^vxcu, having 
 no will of his own, and destined simply to execute that of his master — a 
 mere animated thing, connected with society through the medium of 
 another. Persons may be unjustly enslaved who do not answer to this 
 description ; but is there not such a ipwe; SoyXof ? Aristotle answers, ex. 
 rZv ■ymoiihau, that the distinction between ruler and subject appears even 
 from birth ; though the natural relation may be occasionally reversed, it 
 does not the less hold good. There is a law of subordination running 
 through nature ; as the body is subject to the soul, the irrational to the 
 rational part of the mind, the beast to the man, the female to the male, so 
 is the inferior to the superior — not by convention, but the inherent claim 
 of the more excellent to govern the less. Might is right, and he who can 
 belong to another is a born slave. The special appeals to experience are 
 characteristic of the writer ; but the passage fairly enough represents the 
 mode of reasoning on the question which prevailed throughout the whole 
 subsequent period of classic antiquity. If the couplet which has come 
 down to us as Philemon's be a genuine relic of that poet, it is far in 
 advance of his time : — 
 
 But this must be regarded as exceptional ; for not only in Cicero and the 
 poets of the Augustan age, but till late in the era of the empire, we find 
 
54 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the practice and theory of slavery remaining unshaken and almost 
 unchallenged. 
 
 This difference of sentiment in earlier and later ages regarding the same 
 phenomenon, may be accounted for partly by change of circumstance, the 
 alteration in the elements of society, and the new influences brought to 
 bear upon them, and partly by the change in the character of the institu- 
 tion itself. Slavery is a natural result of warfare in times anterior to the 
 dawn of civilisation. It is the first substitution which occurs to nomad 
 tribes for the execution of their captives, and the earliest form of relation 
 between a conquered people and the new settlers on their soil. In Homer 
 we have frequent allusion to the purchase and emplojrment of prisoners 
 of war, and in almost all the Greek States we find slavery established at a 
 remote period. In Athens it was more a social, in Lacedemon more a 
 political institution. Without it neither the democracy of the one nor 
 the aristocracy of the other could have existed in the form they did. 
 Three-fourths of the population of Attica — most of the private servants, 
 the artisans and agricultural labourers, the workers in the mines, the 
 greater part of the crews, and, in emergencies, a large proportion of the 
 army were slaves. After the law of Solon had prohibited slavery for debt, 
 they must have been made up almost entirely of foreigners brought to 
 Athens by sea, and their descendants, who would, as free residents, have 
 ranked among, the MetcEci. Their condition was in many respects superior 
 to that of any other class we know of in a similar relation. Their daily 
 occupations brought them into familiar association with free men ; they 
 had rights guarded bylaws strictly enforced, the privilege of appeal against 
 ill-usage, and of changing masters. Their lives were under the same pro- 
 tection as those of other citizens — 
 
 '* vo^tt^ S' ill v^ly ro7s t' ihiv^i^otg iffog 
 
 A class, x"?'? oinovpTi;, lived apart from their masters, supporting them- 
 selves, and only paying a liferent. All might purchase freedom for a fixed 
 sum. We hear from Thucydides of fugitive slaves, and the danger on 
 both sides to be apprehended from deserters during the war ; but the im- 
 portance of the crisis, as at Arginusse and Chseronea, when the slaves of , 
 Athens had the safety of the city committed in great measure into their 
 hands, shews that their position could not be generally regarded as one of 
 intolerable hardship. The position of the Helots as a conquered race was 
 more unfortunate. The property of the State, they could neither be libe- 
 rated nor sold, and their duties were more severe. Most of their time was 
 spent in agricultural labour, from the produce of which they had to pay 
 to their masters a stated sum, leaving the gain or loss of a good or bad 
 season to be shared among themselves. Of their other duties, the chief - 
 were attendance as servants at the public meals, and on the field. At 
 Platsea each Spartan had seven Helots with him ; and if this is a correct 
 estimate of the proportion between the two elements of the population, 
 we can understand the watchfulness of the government against the con- 
 
EXCUESTJS ON ANCIENT SLAVERY. 55 
 
 certed action of so overwhelming and inimical a majority. The means 
 taken to prevent this on emergencies, as the massacre narrated by Thucy- 
 dides, indicate more the relentlessness of Spartan policy than the general 
 position of the Helots. 
 
 The Roman domirms had the power of life and death over his slave, and 
 the entire control over his earnings — " Quodcumque per servum acquiritur 
 id domino acquiritur." The retaining of the peculium and the purchase 
 of manumission was a favour, not a right ; yet it had become prescriptive, 
 and was the redeeming point of the system. 
 
 Roman slaves were originally composed of prisoners of war and the 
 poorer class of freemen who were thrown out of employment ; most of the 
 public lands were cultivated by them. The importation of slaves first 
 grew into a branch of commerce under the empire, when it became the 
 fashion to have enormous retinues in the houses of the nobility. Those 
 who wrought on the country estates were subject to much greater hard- 
 ship than the others, and it was almost invariably with them that the 
 servile revolts originated. The private slaves of various sorts were more 
 in the position of ordinary servants, and, though subject to the caprice of 
 overbearing masters, they found refuge from excess of cruelty in the laws 
 which were enforced against it. The class of educated slaves, as the Literati, 
 Medici, and Librarii, were peculiar to Rome, and the best of them were 
 highly esteemed. 
 
 The spread of Christianity, which first asserted the absolute principle 
 of personal freedom, and substituted for the patriotism of Greece and 
 Rome the feeling of a wider brotherhood — the Gothic spirit of individual 
 independence, which did away with the old class distinctions while substi- 
 tuting new ones of its own — the development of industrial life in the 
 towns, and the consequent conception of the dignity of labour, (a concep- 
 tion exclusively modern, and of which we find no trace in any of the 
 Greek writers,) combined, at the close of the empire, to undermine the 
 theory and practice of slavery. During the Middle Ages it passed through 
 the stages of villainage and serfdom, and was gradually extinguished. The 
 revival of the institution in the new world is the great calamity of modern 
 history, and its eradication is the problem which must pre-eminently 
 engage the attention of American statesmen during the remainder of this 
 century. As the arguments on both sides of the question have been much 
 perplexed by false analogies drawn from ancient slavery, it may be worth 
 while to note a few of the conspicuous difierences which separate it from 
 that of the United States. 
 
 1. Negro slavery is peculiar in its origin. Resulting from the importa- 
 tion of a foreign race of subjects into a country possessed by foreign 
 conquerors — a race not captured in war, but purchased or stolen for the 
 express purpose of serving in bondage — it has no excuse on the plea of 
 self-protection. 
 
 2. The principle on which it rests is pecuhar. The Greeks and Romans 
 reserved the prerogative of freedom for themselves. The Black Man is 
 enslaved by the White, on the ground of a special inferiority. It is evi- 
 
56 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHT. 
 
 dent how such a view must intensify the hostility between the two races. 
 It would be impossible to arm the mass of the inhabitants of the Southern 
 States for service either on sea or land. 
 
 3. Its removal is beset by peculiar difficulties from the position which 
 the Negroes occupy, cultivating soil in a climate which is iU suited for 
 free Anglo-Saxon labomr. 
 
 4. In a political point of view, it is sectional, and exposed as an institu- 
 tion to the hostility of a large portion of the nation in which it is rooted. 
 
 5. Its hardships are greater than those of any ancient servitude. The 
 American slaves correspond almost entirely to the most degraded class of 
 the rural slaves in Rome. They have no stake in the country, no point 
 of sympathy /with their employers, and comparatively little variety of 
 occupation. The requirements of the industrial system necessitate then- 
 frequent transference, and the violation of the ties of family and place. 
 
 6. It has fewer ameliorations. There are scarcely any laws limiting the 
 control of the American master ; none guaranteeing emancipation on terms 
 like those which opened a way for the industrious Athenian slave into the 
 class of the Metics, or for the Roman to that of the Libertini. There are 
 no customs in accordance with which the Negro may acquire for himself 
 even the smallest amoxmt of property. 
 
 7. The slavery of the United States is the only real representative of 
 modern slavery. It is an institution out of date, existing in an age which 
 has outgrown it, and from its very incongruity become more oppressive. 
 
V. 
 THE USE OF <j){iaK IN AKISTOTLE ; 
 
 AND 
 
 ARGUMENTS FROM NATURE IN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 It is needless to refine too mucli upon the various uses of the word 
 nature in the " Ethics ;" there is a point of contact uniting them, 
 and they correspond to the several applications of the same 
 English word, which may be applied to them aU ; yet it is worth 
 remarking upon the different aspects in which Aristotle obviously 
 regards the conception, with the arguments and distinctions which 
 he grounds upon it. 
 
 I. — OBJEOTIVB USE. 
 
 Sometimes ^vo-t? is employed to represent what we would call 
 external nature as a creative or regulative power — a conception 
 which belongs alike to physics and metaphysics, or rather one of 
 those which unites them. We have an instance of this, " Eth." i. 
 9, 5 : " e'iirep ra Kara <pvaiv, w? olov re KaXKitna ej^ew, ovtco 
 ireijsvKev" with which we may compare "Politics," i. 2, 10, " ^va-t<; 
 ovBev /idTTjv iroiel-" also from the same chapter, " ovdev yap rj 
 <f)vai<; iroiet towvtop olov '^(aXKorv'iToi ttjv AeX<piKr]v /u.d'^^cupav 
 Trepfxpm SXX' ev tt/jo? ev" and the remarkable sentence which 
 
 follows, "Politics," i. 6, 10, " /SovXerai, fiev ovv r) <^i/o-t9 
 
 avfi^aivei Be woXXa/ct? koI rovvavriov " in which nature is con- 
 ceived of, not so much as the cause of everything which does 
 happen, as the rule according to which events ought to be regu- 
 lated. In connexion with this is the contrast between <j)va-t<s and 
 dvar/KT), " Eth." iii. 3, " atna yap BoKovai elvai ^ucrt? Kal dvar/Kr) 
 Kol Tvxv" ^^^ ^^^ conception of nature as a cause and end, 
 " Politics," i. 2, " ri Be ^vctk reXo^ ia-riv olov yap eKocTTov icm, t?5? 
 yeveaeo)^ TeKeaOeiaTjt;, ravTr}v (pafiev Trjv (pvaiv elvai eKaarov." 
 
58 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHT. 
 
 So the adjective ^va-iKo-; is applied, in the " Ethics," to those 
 who are students of this external nature, (vi) " Bta ri Srj /j,a6r]/MaTi^ 
 «;o9 fiev TTat? yevoiT av, ao^o^ S' f) ^v(nKo<i ov" and to the problems 
 of natural philosophy, (vii. 14, 15.) " mairep koX ol t^vaiKoi, Xoyoi 
 fiaprvpovai." So (viii. 1, 7,) we have " (pva-iKo, t&v airopTjiMaTtov." 
 (See also vii. iii. 9, where (j>vaiKa)^ is used ia the same way.) 
 
 To understand the bearing of those quotations, we must endea- 
 vour to arrive at the conception on which they depend. We apply 
 the term nature, in. its outward and general sense, to the universe 
 which we apprehend by our senses ; but reflection leads us to 
 penetrate beneath this, in search of something by which we may 
 distinguish what is changeable and apparent from the real ground 
 on which it rests. One of the earliest efforts of metaphysics was 
 the process of analysis. Three courses were open to the Greek 
 philosophers in seeking to account for the phenomena of the 
 external world. They might, as the Atomists did, attribute them 
 all to the action of a sort of blind and mysterious chance, or 
 interpret them, like the Eleatics, by the operation of an equally 
 blind and mysterious necessity, or they might, with Anaxagoras 
 and the Socratic school, trace in them the workings of something 
 corresponding to what we call design. To this latter course Aris- 
 totle inclined, though without entirely dismissing the other two 
 principles. He presumes the existence of nature ; she herself leads 
 us to a knowledge of herself, (" <f)vai<; rj 'Keyoiievr] &>? yeviai'} oSos 
 ia-Tiv ek <f>va-iv") as the principle and ground of all things. 
 Matter is the substance on which she works ; but in the working 
 of this substance we see an adaptation of means in a special way, 
 and infer an end. This end is the essence of nature, " ^ Bk ^uo-t? 
 reXos Kal ov eveKa" — the final cause and the ap'^ri of existence. 
 The source of the acts of nature need not be sought for out of 
 themselves. Aristotle finds the last link of the chain of causes in 
 their last effect, and thus completes the circle by which they are 
 woven together. As we say that the motive of an act of free will 
 is the will itself, he found in nature herself the beginning and end 
 of her acts. Thus, in speaking of Tex^rj, " Eth." vL 4, 4, he defines 
 it as that cov ^ o,pyrj iv t& ttouivvtv, oKka fii) iv rm "jroLov/iiva)- 
 oine <yap twv ef avar/Kri^ 6vt(0V fj jivofiivcov r] re^vr) earlv, ovje 
 TftJi/ KaTo, <f)V(riv' iv avroi'i yhp e^pvai ravra jrjv apyriv." 
 
THE USE OF (^VO't? IN ARISTOTLE. 59 
 
 The absolute sway of this ^vai^ is limited in three ways — 
 ] . When she has set the end, the means are fixed by necessity ; 
 hence avwyKt] has a place among the atrial,. 2. There is a domain 
 of chance, of irregularity, of confusion, which embraces everything 
 out of the course of nature, and introduces a conception answering 
 to our modern difficulty of reconciling the evU of the universe with 
 its perfect laws. 3. But much the most important limitation is that 
 resulting from the individual action of man and his will, as dis- 
 tinguished from the action of the whole. The most metaphysical 
 form of the problem as to liberty and necessity appears in the 
 question, " Is man a part of nature ? " If not, what is he ? and 
 if so, how can his will be independent? and how can we account 
 for the contradictions in his nature? Aristotle cuts the knot. 
 The life of man, according to his view, is involved in the chain of 
 existence, but his reason and his will a/axi? eV •^filv are distinct 
 principles of causation. Thus he adds to the enumeration of 
 causes quoted above, "Eth." iiL 3, "in Be vov^- ical irav to hC 
 avopwirov." 
 
 II. — SUBJECTIVE USE. 
 
 This leads us to the sense of (/jvtrt? corresponding to that of 
 individual or human nature. 
 
 Considerable ambiguity is introduced into the " Ethics " by 
 modifications of this meaning, which are not always easUy distin- 
 guished. These may be generally ranged imder one of three heads. 
 ^v(Ti<s is used subjectively in the " Ethics " — 
 
 1. To express what is innate, ex natural, as opposed to what is 
 acquired or artificial. 
 
 2. To express what is universal, as opposed to what is par- 
 ticular. 
 
 3. To express what is characteristic, as opposed to what is 
 accidental. 
 
 Under the first head we may rank those instances in which 
 <j)vcri,<; stands opposed to v6fio<;. Thus, in the " Politics," we hear of 
 a natural element in society — " Bib iracra ttoXs? ^vaei ia-nv and 
 of the two sorts of slaves — " iari jap <pva-ei o Bvvdfievo<; aXKov 
 ehai. Sq of money, '' Eth." v. 5, " tovto rovvofiaex^i on 6v <jivaei 
 aXXa v&fiai ianv ; " and, in the same book, regarding the divisions 
 
60 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHr. 
 
 of political justice, "to /jlcv (^vctikov ia-ri, to Se vofitKov," where 
 that which has everywhere the same force is said to be by nature. 
 It is thus that the fjOiKM aperai are excluded from what is innate, 
 " Eth." ii. 1, 2, " ovSev <yap tuv ^vaeo ovriov aXXw? edi^erai" which 
 we may contrast with " Eth.'' v. 7 — " ^vcrei <yap r/ Se^ia Kpet,TTiov 
 KaiTOi ivSi'^eral nva^ aiM^iBe^lov<; yeveaOat," where 0v(7t? is evi- 
 dently employed less strictly to denote what is general and charac- 
 teristic. We have the more rigid application in "Eth."iii. v. 19 — 
 " e'lre By to reXog fif] <pvcrei eKacrrcp (f)avveTat oiovB^iroTe, aXKd 
 Ti Koi Trap avTov iaTiv" as also in vi. 13. 1, " Traai ryap Soxel 
 
 eKOCTTa T&v rjdSiv vTrdp')(eLV (pvcrei ttcu?- km yap SUaioi, &C 
 
 ev6v<; eK yeveTri<;" and x. 9, 6, " TiveaOai B' cuyadoii's oiovTai oi 
 fiev (pvcrei ol 8' edet dt Se BiBa')(rj." In " Eth." vii. 5. 1, we have the 
 two senses of universal and characteristic in the course of the 
 
 same sentence — " '-ETret B' ia-rlv evia fiev rjBea <f>vaei ra 
 
 B" ovK ecTTiv, aXSA to, fiev Bi^ Trr]pa)aei<;, to, Be Bi Wt) yvyyerai,, ra 
 Be Blo, /jLO')(0r]pas ^ucret?," &c. In vii. 12, we find the peculiar 
 expressions, " ivepyeiav t»j9 kuto, cfiuatv e^ew;," and " et? t^v 
 (j)vaiKr)v e^iv," which may either refer to a habit in accordance 
 with universal nature, or the particular nature of the individual. 
 In vii. 6, " a\X i^icrrrjKe Try? ^vaeai^- " " en Taii (^vaiKok /laXXov 
 crvyyvmfir] aKovkovdelv ope^ecnv" " 6v/m><; dvai/ccorepov" vii. 11, 
 " paov yap edo<i fieraKiv^crat <^vaea><;-" and in numerous other 
 passages we must clearly restrict the word to the sense of a 
 passion, habit, state of body, or frame of mind natural to the 
 individual. , 
 
 A similar ambiguity pervades more or less all those ethical 
 systems which rest their morality upon an appeal to nature, and 
 renders it diflEicult for us duly to estimate the validity of that 
 appeal. The feeling of a certain coincidence between the order 
 of the universe and the law of human life, has led, in most 
 languages, to the use of the same word for the nature which sur- 
 rounds us and that of the individual man ; but the peculiarities of 
 character, race, and education, introduce an element of uncertainty 
 which it is hard to get rid of, and which we must yet eliminate 
 before we can unfold, in any satisfactory form, a universal code of 
 morals. The Stoics were among the most conspicuous of the 
 ancient sects who encountered this difficulty. Their view of the 
 
THE USE OP ^Vai<: IN ARISTOTLE. 61 
 
 immediate dependence of all things on the divine essence did not 
 enable them to surmount it. They learnt from the daUy experi- 
 ence of the world that their inculcation of a life according to 
 nature required correction and limitation before it could be 
 accepted as a safe guide in morals. The natures of men were 
 apparently diverse, and led them to evU as well as good. We 
 must separate the real from the apparent nature, and the task 
 remained for each man to make this separation. Cleanthes 
 taught that he must follow universal, and not his special nature. 
 Life according to nature meant one in which all the elements of 
 life were in harmony. Some sense was required to discover this 
 harmony, and Reason was elevated into the test of right. To 
 establish the supremacy of reason thus became the problem of life, 
 and the law of man's being was to live in obedience to it. Hence 
 the stoical ethics were resolved into a refined theory of rational 
 motives, which led them as far as possible from the more obvious 
 meaning of the precept from which they started, without throwing 
 much real light upon the more subtle questions of morality. 
 Among the more recent systems which start from an analysis of 
 human nature as a ground of ethics, that set forth in the sermons of 
 Bishop Butler occupies the position it does, more from the general 
 fairness of its view, and the sound practical maxims which it 
 embodies, than from any clear logical method or metaphysical 
 acuteness in the work itself. Accepting human nature as he finds 
 it in the bulk of mankind, Butler proceeds to analyse it in a way 
 similar to that followed in most subsequent ethical systems; setting 
 on one side the passions and affections, to which he allows a share 
 of freedom ; and on the other, the governing principles of self-love 
 and conscience, which he places in authority over them. Certain 
 actions, he asserts, are pronounced to be unnatural — these are such 
 as reverse the scale, and disregard the higher principles ; therefore 
 those principles must have a real authority. Man's own nature 
 leads him to the greatest possible happiness for himself ; his social 
 nature, to right behaviour in society and a virtuous course of life. 
 The two are generally parallel In this view, there is no very dis- 
 tinct criterion by which we are to judge of an action's being natural 
 or unnatural, and as the authority of the governing principles rests 
 on this judgment, we require some firmer basis than that afforded 
 
62 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 by.the mere verdict of the bulk of mankind. There is no account 
 taken of exceptional cases, which are often peculiar from that very 
 disentanglement from surrounding circumstances which gives them 
 a special interest. The respective authority of the two governing 
 principles is not clearly settled, and their mutual action, where 
 they seem to interfere, very slightly discussed. What Butler 
 asserts appears to be generally correct, but he leaves the most 
 intricate problems of morality almost untouched, and betrays that 
 facility of getting over diflSculties, by setting them aside, which is 
 common to most systems founded on a reference to the external 
 phases of what is called human nature. Analyses like those of 
 Descartes and Kant, which start from fundamental laws of intui- 
 tion or reason, are not liable to this objection, nor does it apply 
 generally to the system of Aristotle. But, in his use of the terms 
 we have been discussing, there is a trace of the indefiniteness from 
 which they can hardly, perhaps, be delivered. An appeal to 
 nature has a certain meaning, as a popular argument addressed to 
 some universal sympathy ; but a philosophical theory ought to rest 
 on some firmer and more certain foundation. 
 
VI. 
 
 NOTES ON THE RELIGION OF HEEODOTUS. 
 
 It is difficult to get a clear notion of the religious belief existing 
 in the mind of any of the great authors of Greece. Living, for 
 the most part, when the polytheism of an earlier age was beginning 
 to give way before the rationising tendencies of philosophy, they 
 mingled with the popular notions a sort of vague Deism, and an 
 undefined faith in a providential order of events. The variety of 
 religious references ia Herodotus increases the difficulty in his 
 case. He was removed from the Homeric period, in which the 
 Olympic gods appeared in their anthropomorphic form, succeeding 
 to the nature-worship which is in all nations the primitive idolatry. 
 He had not reached the era during which they were agaia sym- 
 bolised in the more refined theology of the philosophers. Hence, 
 while presenting few of the abstract conceptions of this later time, 
 his own views of Divine agency in the dispensation of human 
 affairs appear side by side with the orthodox machinery of Greek 
 superstition. 
 
 I. Herodotus nowhere intimates any doubt as to the actual 
 existence and personality of the gods of Greece. Zeus, Poseidon, 
 Hera, and the whole Pantheon, were to him, as to the mass of 
 worshippers, objects of special reverence and invocation. They 
 had their favourite temples, appropriate gifts, and visible forms. 
 Homer and Hesiod were their earliest interpreters in Greece, 
 (ii. 53,) " eTTCBZ/u/ita? BovTei, Kal rifid'; koX Teyya'i Bi,eX6vTe<! koX 
 etBea avrav ar)fjLrivavre<;." There are some of their alleged inter- 
 positions and recorded acts which he is disposed to question, as 
 the descent of Jupiter into the temple at Babylon, (i. 182,) or the 
 rending of the cliffs in Thessaly by Neptune (vii. 129) ; but there 
 are other miracles which he unhesitatingly accepts, as the appear- 
 ance of Pan to Phidippides on Mount Parthenius, (vi. 105,) and 
 of Minerva before Salamis. His researches into the religions of 
 
64 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 diiferent nations afford ground for a rude comparative mythology, 
 but the result is a mere identification of foreign deities with those 
 of Greece. Thus he traces the worship of Poseidon to Libya, that 
 of Hera, Vesta, and the Dioscuri, to the Pelasgi, while Zeus, 
 Athene, and Demeter find their representatives in the Ammon, 
 Neit, and Isis of the Egyptians. Sometimes the action of the 
 deity is simply that of the natural agent which he represents. It 
 is HeHos, the Sun, who draws the waters of the Nile ; and in his 
 explanations of natural phenomena, Herodotus now and then 
 crosses the line which separates physical science from mythology. 
 This has been attributed to a latent scepticism ; but it only indi- 
 cates the original spring of Greek theogony. On other occasions, 
 the separate gods are lost sight of, or merged in the action of a 
 general Providence, 'O 0eo?, sometimes exhibited in reference to 
 apparently insignificant events : as where (iii. 108) the historian 
 tells us that a special Providence (tov @eov rj TrpovoiT)) checks the 
 increase of Uons and other noxious animals. 
 
 II. But this divine Providence most frequently appears in con- 
 nexion with his theory of the Nemesis. This, whether regarded 
 as a Distinct Power, or a Law through which Deity acts, is a prin- 
 ciple of retribution which sooner or later avenges the misdeeds 
 of men and nations. It passes from one century to another, the 
 link which unites the whole of the narrative of Herodotus, the 
 final cause of the great struggle which he records. The original 
 aggression of Asia, in the persons of the Phoenician sailors who 
 bore lo from Greece, is followed by a series of mutual retaUa- 
 tions, terminating in the invasion and defeat of Xerxes. The 
 same idea runs through all the episodes of his History, and is 
 perpetually appearing in the lives of the monarchs and statesmen 
 who are marshalled before us. Although the Nemesis has a 
 moral aspect, it is impossible to reduce it to any clear ethical 
 conception. It is Deity acting rather as a jealous than a just 
 God : the offended Majesty of heaven mysteriously but surely 
 asserting itself. It does not always fall upon the original offender, 
 visiting his sin, it may be, on distant descendants, as when the 
 guUt of Gyges is expiated by the ruin of his dynasty in the fifth 
 generation. Over-confidence is its great provocative; it shews 
 itself rather in the chastisement of presumption than the punish- 
 
THE RBLIGION OF HERODOTUS. 65 
 
 ment of crime, reminduig man, like the slave in the triumphal 
 chariot, that he is only man ; its mission is at all times " debellare 
 superbos." The fate of QEdipus is fraught with the same moral 
 as that which Solon indicated to Croesus : " Count no man happy 
 till his death." He had exasperated the gods by unwitting 
 sacrUege ; but it is the wreck of his state and pride on which 
 Sophocles most emphatically dwells — 
 
 " liloTE Siiirro!) our, ixtlunu rtju rehtmaieiv thiiv 
 ilfii^uu iiriaxoTrovinet, fitiiiii' oT^^t^uu ■jt^Iu clii 
 Tt^fia TOW filov 9r£g«(rj}, /^riisD ahyttvov TiraSau.''' 
 
 This notion of excess calling down the wrath of heaven, is 
 connected with the philosophical idea which defined the good as 
 something fixed within a limit. Within this limit was order, 
 justice, harmony ; what transgressed -it was anarchy,* injustice, 
 discord. Hence the rule fj,r]Bev Sr/av, the choice of the fiiaov 
 as a sign of excellence, and the 7repa% or boimd, beyond which 
 nothing human dare pass with impunity. The episodes of 
 Herodotus are illustrations of those conceptions appUed to history 
 in a way which is indeed arbitrary and unphilosophical, but which 
 serves to exhibit it in various lights. The first and, strangely 
 enough, the only instance in which the word Nemesis f is itself 
 employed in his History, is sufficient to Ulustrate the general appli- 
 cation of the idea : "EXa^e Ik deov ve/ieai'; fieyaXij Kpolaov' &>? 
 elicda-at, on ivofiiae ecovrov elvai dvOpmiraJv airavTcov oK^tmraTov ■ 
 (i. 34). The tragical death of his favourite son Atys taught him 
 otherwise. Polycrates, wiser than the Lydian king, feels he is 
 too happy, and thinks to appease the jealous gods by the offering 
 of a ring ; as Camillus, after the fall of Veil, took courage from 
 stumbhng on the threshold of the Capitol, as if he had thus atoned 
 for his excess of glory. Other calamities were in store for both. 
 So, after the siege of Barca, Pheritime is cruel beyond bound, and 
 comes to a cruel end. Xerxes is too great, and becomes a theme 
 for satirists to point a moral or adorn a tale. There are two 
 remarkable passages in the history of this monarch's progress, 
 where Herodotus exhibits the most gloomy view of the Nemesis. 
 The one is from the speech of Artabanus in the council, dissuading 
 
 * See " Note on the Mean in Aristotle." 
 t The general expression is (p6oi/t(6( ho;, the jealous God. 
 E 
 
66 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the king from his projected expedition, (vii. 10) — "Mark how the 
 God dashes down animals of surpassing size, and does not suffer 
 them to make a vain show of their strength, while He leaves the 
 little ones unharmed. Mark how His bolts are ever launched 
 against the largest houses and the tallest trees. God delights in 
 laying low the exalted ; and in this way many a mighty host is 
 destroyed by a few, when He in His envy has smitten them with 
 fear or His lightning, and they have perished, a reproach to them- 
 selves ; for God permits no one but Himself to deem himself great." 
 The other occurs immediately after the passage of the bridge (vii. 46) 
 — " And as he saw the Hellespont strewn with ships, and all the 
 promontories and plains swarming with men, Xerxes rejoiced in his 
 heart; and after that he wept." Then Artabanus questioned him, 
 wondering as to the cause of his grief. And the king repUed — " A 
 feeling of pity gmote me when I thought of the shortness of human 
 Hfe, and that, of all these multitudes, scarce one will pass the 
 seventieth year." But Artabanus answered — "We suffer while 
 we live heavier ills than this. Surely there is none among these, 
 or others, born so happy, that it will not occur to him many times, 
 in this brief span of life, that he had rather die than live. For 
 the calamities that befall us, and the diseases that convulse us, 
 make life, short as it is, appear too long. So that, when existence 
 is so hard to endure, this death is but the end of our labours — a 
 haven of refuge — man's greatest boon. God, who gives us a taste 
 of the sweetness of life, is found to do it with a jealous mind." 
 Insults to the majesty of the gods invariably call down the Ne- 
 mesis. Cambyses wounds the Apis, and himself perishes by a 
 similar wound. So, in selecting from among the causes assigned 
 for the madness of Cleomenes, Herodotus fixes on his impiety, in 
 having bribed the Pythia, in preference to his massacre of sis 
 hundred Argives. The practical bearing of this idea is an incul- 
 cation of temperance and humility. "Ifj^e xal KareKdfi^ave 
 a-eavTov was the advice offered in vain to another by one who had 
 learnt the lesson too late for himself. 
 
 III. The doctrine of Fatality, which holds so prominent a place 
 in Greek tragedy, is maintained by Herodotus in its ihost unre- 
 served form. His History may be compared to a great drama, in 
 which the Fates remain behind the scenes, overruling the course 
 
THE EBLIGION OP HERODOTUS. 67 
 
 of events, the careers of men, and even the will of the gods. 
 Apollo himself confesses (i. 91) that he is unable to resist their 
 decrees, he is only their iaterpreter. This mysterious notion of 
 destiny was an ultimate fact in the Greek mind, and stood apart 
 from theories of moral retribution or the reward of human effort. 
 Many passages in Herodotus illustrate this, as (ii. 133) where we 
 are told of Myceriaus that, being informed of his approaching 
 death, he upbraided the god for allowing two bad kings before 
 him to live 106 years ; but the oracle answered, that the period 
 during which Egypt had to suffer was near an end. Another is in 
 iii. 142, where it is said of Mseandrius, " t£ SiKaioraTq) avhpSiv 
 ^ovXofievtp jeveadai ovk e^eyevero." 
 
 Closely connected with this notion of fatality is the apparatus 
 of prophecies, dreams, prodigies, and oracles, which are constantly 
 introduced as the forerunners of events which they shadow forth. 
 The events are fixed ; where evil is foretold, the message is mis- 
 understood or disregarded. Croesus, Polycrates, and others, are 
 none the better of warnings which they recall and appreciate after 
 the catastrophes : their only use is to add to the dramatic effect 
 of the story. 
 
 Those are the three main elements of religious belief we trace 
 in the History of Herodotus. It were idle to attempt to combine 
 into a system ideas which were probably never harmonised in the 
 mind of the historian himself. We can only regard them as the 
 various modes which a poetic and religious thinker of that age 
 found to express his sense of a connexion between the course of 
 human events and a superhuman power. Partly the reflex of 
 Greek feeling, partly the result of individual peculiarity, they 
 exhibit all the inconsistencies of a system of theology passing from 
 one stage to another. We have at one time a show of scepticism, 
 at another, an apparent proof of extreme credulity ; in one aspect, 
 the evolution of a great moral scheme of history, in another, the 
 arbitrary whims of the pagan gods. Yet, with all their apparent 
 contradictions, those Herodote^n notions have even now, in civil- 
 ised Europe, their slightly modified representatives. Polytheism, 
 indeed, lingers only in some forms of saint-worship, but a faith 
 in Destiny exists side by side with the assertion of individual 
 responsibihty. Dreams and forebodings are still supposed to 
 
68 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 anticipate great events. We have still a superstitious dread of 
 being too fortunate ; fear of the future is the " amari aliquid " in 
 our moments of prosperity. The artistic use of Nemesis reap- 
 pears in such compositions as the tenth satire of Juvenal, and the 
 favourite antitheses of modern histories. Its ethical aspect has 
 been elevated by Christianity and a wider view of events. Na- 
 tional crimes have an outward retribution ; but we have learned 
 that the only chastisement which invariably accompanies indivi- 
 dual guilt is a moral degradation, and the infirmities which are 
 transmitted from one generation to another. 
 
 NOTE ON THE MEAN IN AEISTOTLE'S ETHICS. 
 
 Aristotle's mean is not intended to be the object of our efforts, 
 but a standard by which they may be tested. That object is the 
 reXo?, but, in following it, we necessarily move between two 
 extremes — ""Eanv dpa ^ aperrj e^K irpoaipenKr], iv p.ea-oTrjri oZaa 
 ry TT/Do? ijytta? apta/Jbevrj X6yq>, Ka\ to? av 6 ^p6vifio<i opureiev.' 
 Comparing this with an earlier passage, where this mean is 
 defined as that which, in reference to ourselves, fir^re TrXeovafet 
 firjTe iWei-jret tov 8eovTO<;, we see it is not intended as an absolute, 
 but only as a relative measure of rectitude — <]>p6vrjcrK must pro- 
 nounce on that which is Beov. The mean complies with this, and, 
 in doing so, is the sign of virtue. We do not try to act rightly that 
 we may hit the mean, we follow the mean that we may act rightly. 
 In logical phrase this quality of being half-way between two vices 
 is not the differentia, but only a proprium of virtuous action. 
 Liookiag at any series of human actions we may define virtue as a 
 mean ; but in reference to absolute right, it is an extreme. The 
 former is a practical, the latter a moral view. " A to Karh fiev 
 Tr)v ovaiav Kal tov Xoyov tov tl r)v elvai XejovTa, fieeroTi]^ icniv rj 
 apeTTj, KUTo, Se to apiaTov km to eS aKpoTTji;." Like the apex of 
 a right-angled triangle, it is essentially a mean, and as essentially 
 an extreme. One of Aristotle's own illustrations exhibits the two 
 views. If a number of archers are hitting at a target, that which 
 hits the centre is absolutely the best shot : considered with refer- 
 
NOTE ON THE MEAK IN ABISTOTLB'S ETHICS. 69 
 
 ence to the surrounding rings, it is a mean. A mean, properly so 
 called, whether arithmetical or geometrical, is exactly half-way 
 between the extremes ; but the vices which correspond to the 
 virtues of life are not so exactly related ; sometimes the greater 
 tendency is to the one side, sometimes to the other. The practi- 
 cal rule directs us to aim rather towards the extreme from which 
 we are naturally furthest removed. If one of the archers found 
 his arrow perpetually falling below the mark, he would succeed 
 best by aiming a little above it. 
 
 There is a good deal in the Aristotelean view of virtue, which 
 may be best understood by reference to previous schools of philo- 
 sophy. His doctrine of proportion as applied to morals, and the 
 relation of the irepaf and the to airet.pov, is a conception derived 
 from the Pythagoreans, through Plato ; the mean itself is an 
 adaptation of the Platonic /tter/atoTi??. But we can trace, though 
 under a modified form, a similar set of ideas in modem times. 
 Our use of words is further removed from Aristotle's than our 
 conceptions are from his. We reverse, in our philosophy, the 
 meaning which the Greeks attached to finite and infinite, but their 
 notion of the Tre/sa? in metaphysics is represented by our use of 
 law, and the avfifierpov has its equivalent in the harmony or 
 Order which some modem philosophers assume as the basis of 
 Ethics. The old verse, " icrdXot fiev yap d7rX&<; TravroBairco'i Be 
 KUKoi," is otherwise expressed under the simile of the broad and 
 narrow ways. The idea of the kuXov has given place to the con- 
 ception of duty as the rule of life, and we speak of actions being 
 good, where the Greeks have called them beautiful. Theology 
 introduces the conception of a gulf between vice and virtue — of 
 the in'econcUable nature of sin and righteousness, which seems to 
 conflict with the notion of a mean in morals, or of a gradually 
 ascending scale of excellence ; but this afi'ects the means we foUow 
 in attaining virtue, more than our judgments of men. The test of 
 the " aurea mediocritus," is perpetually recurring in aU the relations 
 of Hfe. Opinions are formed, and arguments hang upon it as 
 much as ever. Almost all discussions, whether on pohtics, art, or 
 morality, terminate in some question of degree. When the mean 
 is followed as an end, wisdom degenerates into indifference ; 
 but on either side of every right course of action there are con- 
 
70 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 trasted errors similar to those which Aristotle has sketched. 
 Stoicism, with its aTradela kuI rjpe/Mui — " a passionless peace ; '' 
 Epicureanism, with its ^lot airoXava-TiKo^ ; bigotry and apathy ; 
 scepticism and credulity ; and between them lies the truth, " turn- 
 ing to scorn the falsehood of extremes." 
 
 EXCURSUS ON THE GREEK ORACLES. 
 
 The desire to penetrate the future is as natural to the human mind as 
 the desire to know the past and comprehend the present. ' Assuming various 
 forms of manifestation, and acting in different epochs with various degrees 
 of intensity, it is not peculiar to any age or nation. Part of this is to be 
 referred to the restless curiosity which animates men at all times to search 
 into the secrets of nature, and part to that strong need of counsel and 
 guidance which meets both nations and individuals at critical periods of 
 their history, when the ordinary shifts of forethought are at fault, and 
 the mere wisdom of calculation is baffled. This same desire has given rise 
 among aU races to peculiar modes of divination and attempts at prophecy. 
 It Ues at the root of the oracles of Greece, the auguries of ancient Rome, 
 and the ordeals of the Middle Ages. It appears in the influence of the 
 Eastern seers ; it found in Astrology one of its subhmest forms ; and lingers, 
 even in the most civilised countries, in the superstitions and spells which, 
 however inconsistent with their religious behef, retain their hold over the 
 masses of the people. 
 
 In endeavouring to obtain a conception of the position of the Grepk 
 oracles, it wiU therefore be enough to ascertain the points in which they 
 differed from those other modes of divination. Perhaps the first thing 
 that strikes us is the power which they exercised as a pohtical agency, in 
 virtue of which they assumed and maintained during the most flourishing 
 period of Greece, a rank among the chief of her state institutions. From 
 the time of Croesus to the Macedonian conquest, the records we have of 
 their responses mainly relate to matters of pubhc importance and national 
 interest. A sort of Press and Church combined, they served as a meeting- 
 point and general referenpe for the States of Greece, exerting sometimes 
 a conservative, sometimes a revolutionary influence, and tending to infuse 
 into the conduct of affairs an element of reverence, and to vindicate the 
 authority of religion. If a government was to be modified, if laws were 
 to be made or a colony sent out, if war was to be declared or a peace con- 
 cluded, the sanction of one of the great oracles was considered an element 
 essential to the success of the undertaking. The messages of Croesus are 
 remarkable mainly as being witness to the authority which, at that early 
 period, the oracle of Delphi possessed over distant races. To the answers 
 of this oracle we may, in part at least, refer the expiilsion of the Persistrar 
 
EXCUBSXJS ON THE GREEK ORACLES. 71 
 
 tidae, and the consequent rise of the Athenian democracy. It was sub- 
 sequently among the promoters of Spartan ascendency ; and after it had 
 favoured in turn the most influential of the Greek States, Philip foimd 
 it worth while to secure its countenance, even when various instances 
 of marked partiality, and a growth of scepticism in that later age, had 
 withdrawn from its credit. 
 
 Traces of this scepticism are visible at an earlier period ; and it was 
 fostered by the fact of the various gods giving their utterance through 
 different oracles. The first question of Crossus was sent to eight, as a test 
 of them all, and he only got a correct answer from two. Herodotus him- 
 self indicates a want of implicit confidence in their decisions, though he 
 scruples to express it openly : Xgno^owf Ss avx, ixoi dini'hi'yiii/ a; oix, uul 
 »?n]^£E5, ov PrnvT^ofiim; huqyias TiSyourxs vti^anSai x«t«/3«X?i£/</, Ij ro/aSe 
 it^ij'/HaTii 8ff;8>i£i/^«; (viii. 77). The Spartan king, Agesipolis, sends to Delphi 
 to know if Apollo agrees with Jupiter ; Pericles opposes spurious responses 
 to the utterances of the Pythoness ; and Demosthenes plainly denounces 
 her corruption. It is difficult to make out what, even in the mind of the 
 Greeks themselves, was to be attributed to the direct agency of the deity, 
 and what to the peculiar power which they supposed to have resided in 
 certain places. The gods themselves contended for the possession of 
 Delphi ; and the oaks of Dodona, in their mysterious motion, or the voices 
 of the dove from the sacred branches, marked the immoveable seat of pro- 
 phecy. But whether the locality merely attracted the divine presence, or 
 of itself inspired the priestess with divine power, the utterances given 
 could not forestall, they merely announced the changeless decrees of fate. 
 The gifts of Crcesus only for a brief space deferred the doom which had 
 gone forth irrevocably against the ■irifiirroe dmyomg of Gyges. 
 
 " Ti)» -TCiTC^ai^ivni l^oiqau a.^vva,T» eari axoipvykiu xai h$ " (i. 91). 
 
 With which we may compare 
 
 " Ou IvuxTai TioiKhai A/ 'O'hvj/.Triov i^i'hiaaa^a.i" (vii. 141). 
 
 The oracle gives advice ; it never presents a real alternative. A favour- 
 able omen finds its fulfilment ; but a threat never warns. The wisdom 
 of the gods is exalted without adding to the security of men. They seek 
 to know what is already fixed, and only anticipate if they realise the end, 
 which no power is able to avert. 
 
 We may derive from the study of Greek antiquities a pretty accurate 
 conception of the external features of the oracles, their peculiar solemnities, 
 their modes of utterance, the comparative authority of the different gods, 
 and the rites and services connected with their worship ; but in order 
 adequately to explain or comprehend their internal action, we would re- 
 quire a knowledge of the circumstances of the times, and their history, 
 which it is, perhaps, scarcely possible for us now to attain. The canons 
 which Lord Bacon, in his essay on " Prophecy," lays down regarding pre- 
 dictions generally, though not specially applied to the heathen oracles, 
 may yet serve as a guide to interpret many of these, in common with all 
 
72 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 other divinations :— " First, that men mark when they hit, and never mark 
 when they miss ; as they do also of dreams. The second is, that probable 
 conjectures or obscure traditions many times turn themselves into pro- 
 phecies ; while the nature of man, which coveteth divination, thinks it no 
 
 peril to foretell that which they do but collect The third, and last, 
 
 which is the great one, is, that almost aU of them, being infinite in num- 
 ber, have been impostures, and, by idle and crafty brains, merely contrived 
 and feigned after the event past." We may add to those, that special sort 
 of imposture which consists in ambiguous deUverances, as exemplified in 
 the response given to Croesus, (Her. i. 53,) in the oracle about Pyrrhus and 
 the Eomans, and in others of stiU more recent date. We may lay on one 
 side all those which assume the form, as that given to Glaucus, of a mere 
 moral retort, those which are traceable to the direct political influence of 
 some faction, and those cases in which, as is frequent in prophecy, the 
 oracle led to its own fulfilment, or religious feeling marred an undertaking 
 entered into without reUgious auspices, as in the first founding of the 
 colony led by Doreus ; and yet there are authentic records remaining 
 which we cannot well bring under any of those heads. No explanation, 
 for example, at aU probable, has been given of the oracles delivered before 
 Salamis. The first, afterwards realised in all its details, was not certainly 
 one which any party in Greece could at that time have wished for, save 
 those few who might have looked forward to flight and migration as the 
 only refuge for the Athenians. The second response was only so far 
 opposed to this, as it introduced a new feature of the struggle ; but it 
 can hardly be supposed that, if dictated by Themistooles, it would have 
 left the force of his argument to depend mainly on the interpretation of 
 a single word. 
 
 An accumulation of such examples, with the fact of the reverence in 
 which those responses were held through out the ancient world, have 
 given rise to a variety of explanations, which are, on the whole, as 
 unsatisfactory as they are easy — vague surmises regarding mesmerism, 
 and definite absurdities about demoniacal possession. Devoted attention 
 to a particular line of speculation will, doubtless, in the hands of able 
 men, tend to engender a forethought which appears to the world at 
 large almost miraculous ; and as long as the course of afiairs is directed 
 through the efieot of secondary causes, comprehensive grasp of the pre- 
 sent is likely to be accompanied with a certain intuition of the future. 
 Careful collection of facts, and the means which an active organisation 
 maintains of keeping a watch over their progress, supplied the Greek 
 oracles with a great part of their wonderful knowledge. An element of 
 divination which must be pronounced inexplicable, and which, as a pecu- 
 liar power of mind, occm-s every now and then in individuals, made up 
 what was wanting to the reputation of prophecy. Such a reputation once 
 established, produces confidence, and the confidence of others reacts on 
 the mind, giving it new strength and power. Where prescience fails, 
 cunning fills its place, and a web of truth and falsehood is artfully 
 
EXCUKSUS ON THE GREEK OKACLBS. 73 
 
 As Greek civilisation faded, the responses of the gods, too, began to lose 
 their influence. Their temples remained, but they were no longer fre- 
 quented by the embassies of nations, and adorned by the gifts of kings. 
 A stray worshipper occasionally addressed them, asking about his marriage, 
 or an intended loan, or a projected voyage, and in the times of the empire 
 one day in the month was enough to satisfy all the petitioners who came 
 to the shrine of Delphi. The fires were cold on the altars, and wisdom 
 was preparing to speak through other lips. 
 
PART 11. 
 
 MODERN LITEEATUEE. 
 
' How shall we prologise, how shall we perorate ! 
 Say fit things upon art and history ; 
 Set truth at blood-heat, the false at a zero rate — 
 Make of the want of the age no mystery ! " 
 
 — Bbowning. 
 
MIGHT AND RIGHT* 
 
 A EAMBLE BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS. 
 
 " There 'b something in this world amiss 
 Shall be unriddled by and by." 
 
 It has been urged against our modem politics that they have a 
 tendency to become divorced from speculation, that the gulf 
 between men of thought and men of action is widening, and, 
 while our philosophers are dreaming dreams, our statesmen are 
 playing parts without policy or purpose, guided themselves and 
 guiding the state by the chances of the hour. There is an amount 
 of truth in this charge, and we must, in fairness, divide between 
 our actors and our thinkers the blame of an evil for which both 
 are responsible. It must be conceded, on the one hand, that the 
 present tendency of civilisation is towards utilitarianism, tempo- 
 rising, a material view of life, and a somewhat narrow view of 
 social duties ; but it is no less certain much of this is owing to 
 the inconsistent and impracticable nature of most recent theories 
 of society. The axioms of political economy only cover a few of 
 the problems with which politics, in a wider sense, ought to 
 grapple ; but if they are limited, they are, at least, sound in prin- 
 ciple, and definite in their application. The maxims of modem 
 political philosophy cannot be accepted as axioms at all, tiU they 
 have been disentangled from a variety of errors, which are 
 dangerous in proportion to the width of the field they embrace. 
 
 It would be wrong to rank Mr Carlyle among the idealists of 
 the age, the whole current of his thought is so essentially practi- 
 cal; but he is a philosopher and a theorist, and his political 
 theories challenge our attention on the threshold of any inquiry 
 into the speculative politics of the time. 
 
 * This paper, written shortly after the pubhcation of Mr Carlyle's " Life 
 of Frederic the Great," was in great measure suggested by that work. 
 
78 MODERN LITEBATUEE. 
 
 It is the misfortune of original thought that it is hardfy ever 
 put in practice by the original thinker. Words of power walk 
 forth in action, but the action is not his who first spoke the words. 
 They have already lost half their force, and more than half their 
 value, in the hands of imitators, and are emasculated at every 
 repetition. When a man of fresh and vigorous mind has cut his 
 way through the stages of neglect and ridicule to a platform 
 whence his worth and power as a teacher are recognised, he has 
 stiU a harder trial to face in the littleness which his greatness is 
 made to sustain. The passion he expressed in vivid verse is 
 simulated and echoed by those who never felt its reality; his 
 manner is aped by others, who find an easy road to fame in fol* 
 lowing a course they would, but a few years before, have been the 
 foremost to deride ; the belief he held near his heart is worn as a 
 creed, Hke a badge or ribbon ; the truth he recorded in prose is 
 repeated and transmuted. It is multiplied and distorted in a room 
 of mirrors — quantimi mutaia — half of it is a truism, the other half 
 an untruth. No wonder he is almost afraid of becoming popular, 
 and would rather hear again the hiss of dispraise than the mimicry 
 of adulation. Thus it is that truth, like love, loses purity and 
 strength in diifusion. That which began as a denunciation of tea- 
 table morality, is itself the tea-table morality of the next generation. 
 An outcry agaiast cant may become the essence of cant, a recoil from 
 formalism a new formalism, a revolt from tyranny the basis of a 
 Hew tyranny, the condemnation of sects the foundation of a new 
 sect, the proclamation of peace a bone of contention. There is an 
 ambiguity in most general maxims, and a seed of error which 
 assumes preponderance over the truth, when the interpreters of 
 the maxim are men easily led by formulae. We need not compare 
 and contrast Plato and the Platonists, Descartes and the Cartesians; 
 or revert, in another field, to Byron and the Byfonic school, 
 Wordsworth and the later naturalist poets. The relation which 
 some "of the great writers and thinkers stiU living amongst us bear 
 to their immediate followers is enough to illustrate and defend 
 our position. The philosophical principle of criticism, which Mr 
 Maurice has carried with him through history, that of interpreting 
 the thought of earlier ages by our own, has in its exaggeration 
 given rise to a series of unphilosophical blunders. The tendency 
 
MIGHT AND RIGHT. 79 
 
 to find a unity among differences, which even in his hands is apt 
 to become excessive, is surely stretched beyond reasonable bounds 
 in an attempt to prove that the methods and aims of Plato and 
 Lord Bacon were substantially identical. The teaching of Mr 
 Euskin is full of force andi meaning, in so far as it inculcates the 
 noble end after which an artist ought to labour, that of, as far 
 as possible, elevating his art into a religion : travestied into the 
 practical assertion that we should make our religion into an 
 art, it becomes either mean or meaningless. Nowhere is the same 
 sort of degeneracy more strikingly manifested than in the history 
 of some of the maxims which Mr Carlyle has either originally 
 promulgated, or adopted and enforced through his adaptation. 
 When he said silence was better than speech, he only meant to 
 inculcate patience, calm, and concentration. Always think before 
 you speak. Eather lose a little fluency than waste a number of 
 words. Never speak for the sake of speaking, nor at all unless 
 you have something to say. Leave a record in your effects, not 
 your efforts. Do not shew the spire till the scaffolding is down. 
 The best advice : but fools wiU never listen to it : thoughtful men 
 accept it, but they misapply it, and betray an important trust 
 when they sit still with much to say, and leave all the speech to 
 the fools. When Carlyle spoke against a morbid self-conscious- 
 ness, a constant reflection on self, and a comparison of self with 
 others, he struck at the root of envy, hatred, and uncharitableness. 
 But until we admit that the absence of one defect is a guarantee 
 for the possession of aU excellence, we wUl qualify our admiration 
 for some of the unconscious heroes of our modem novelists- — 
 heroes of the stamp of Tom Thumel and Tom Brown, who escape 
 the vice of self-reflection by an incapacity for reflection of any 
 kind. With aU regard for the " mens sana in corpore sano," and 
 the good that may be evolved out of what is popularly called 
 "muscular Christianity," we must remember* that the time is 
 fortunately and for ever passed when thews and sinews, mere 
 animal vigour, brute courage, and pugnacity, were prime elements 
 
 * Apart from the question of right, mere physical force cannot now 
 be identified with might : and power more and more tends to centre itseH 
 in other qualities. See an eloquent statement of this historical fact in 
 Lord Macaula/s description of the battle of Landen. 
 
80 MODERN LITEEATURE. 
 
 of greatness. We can no more become heroes by feats in the 
 gymnasium, than we can leap into heaven over a five-barred gate. 
 
 It were easy to multiply instances of truths clearly conceived at 
 first, and parodied in their promulgation : but when we have the 
 authority of the discoverer himself for their right interpretation, 
 there is always a hope of our reverting to it. The evil is compU- 
 cated when this is not the case : when we have no such distinct 
 authority to fall back upon, something like a new discovery is 
 required ; the limbs of the whole truth are yet far asunder, and it 
 is only at rare intervals that any one arises who has at once 
 patience and insight to connect them. It is thus a national 
 calamity when a great thinker misapplies the maxims of his own, 
 philosophy, or states them in such a manner that they cannot but 
 be misapplied. There are many who will yield to none in respect 
 for Mr Carlyle, who yet feel constrained to admit that he has 
 announced important political principles in a way which is liable 
 to serious exception. We distrust ourselves in dissenting from so 
 conspicuous a leader of thought, at a time when there are so few 
 to claim our allegiance ; but there is a point at which we must 
 fling off this distrust, if we would escape a relapse into that blind 
 reverence from which those whom we most reverence have helped 
 to rescue our minds. 
 
 No reader of Carlyle requires to be reminded of the qualities which 
 lead him to a strong sympathy with strength. A Titan himself, 
 he is everywhere ready to shake hands with Titans — Gothic gods, 
 burly Dantons, a gigantic Goethe. Even his critical judgment has 
 been slightly marred by an excess of this tendency. He appreciates 
 power wherever it is present, but he is not sufficiently aHve to the 
 influences of beauty, grace, and harmony, He estimates rightly 
 the force and fire which immortalise, in spite of throng of errors, 
 the verse of Byron : he misses the subtler music of SheUey, and 
 faUs to do justice to his reaUy loftier though gentler thought. It 
 is the greatness more than the sweetness of Shakspeare which 
 moves him. We can imagine his delight at hearing a park of 
 artillery: we doubt if he would sit patiently through one of 
 Mozart's operas, or a sonata of Beethoven. As critics, however, 
 we gain more by this than we lose. The comprehension of 
 strength and its virtues is more rare in art than the compre- 
 
MIGHT AND RIGHT. 81 
 
 hension of beauty. Only once or twice, in modem times, have we 
 had the perfect artist and the complete man united ; who would 
 hesitate in choosiag between them when separate ? But it is not 
 with criticism that we are at present chiefly concerned. We have 
 alluded to a peculiar characteristic of Mr Carlyle's mind, because 
 it has a close connexion with a fundamental doctrine of his 
 political philosophy. 
 
 I. Mr Carlyle has said at various times, in various senses, that 
 MIGHT IS EIGHT ; a doctrine involving a momentous truth, but in 
 its unqualified assertion iavolving an error equally momentous. 
 Even in his earliest and best use of it there are traces of a misuse 
 stuce grown more promiaent, and which has led to a practical 
 neglect in life and history of those elements of truth which the 
 maxim itself theoretically overlooks. Let us first inquire into 
 and be sure that we understand its import. Does it mean that 
 moral might is right? or that intellectual might is right? We 
 would rather charge the author with maintaining a paradox than 
 with asserting a palpable truism, or giving a vague expression to 
 a dubious doctrine. It must mean that virtue is in all cases a 
 property of strength ; that power, of whatever sort, carries with it 
 the seal and signal of its own excellence ; that what has established 
 itseK has in the very act estabhshed its right to be established. 
 We may challenge a principle by itself, or we may look for 
 its refutation to the deductions that have been drawn from it. 
 The latter method is most likely to win favour at starting; it 
 appeals to more tangible convictions, and guards us against mis- 
 understanding our author. Let us accept Aristotle's statement 
 that superior strength is in itself a good, that it always exists eV 
 virepo^ wyadoi) rivor it does not follow that there are no other 
 elements of good which do not shew themselves in excess of 
 strength, that those elements are never wrongfully though forcibly 
 repressed, or even that they have ever become extricated from 
 unjust subjection. Let us agree that might will be right in the 
 Millennium : they can only become identical by our remembering 
 that they are not yet identical. 
 
 1. Several of Mr Carlyle's conclusions seem to indicate that he 
 only acknowledges those forms of excellence that have already 
 
82 MODERN LITBRATTTEB. 
 
 shewn themselves as powers, and ignores those which still wait 
 for confirmation. This gives a partial colour to his verdict on 
 questions of history and biography. He finds excuse for all that 
 the ordinary judgment of mankind would call the tyranny of con- 
 quest, and withdraws his sympathy even from the greatness of 
 conquered nations. The fulness of his charity is reserved for the 
 errors of strength : a higher philosophy has taken compassion on 
 the failings of the weak. We may be ready to receive his declara- 
 tion that the laws of the universe are just, but we only see a part 
 of those laws, and even in history we can but imperfectly trace 
 the action of those we see. No theory of historical optimism goes 
 more than one step in explaining the overthrow of Greek civilisa- 
 tion in antiquity, the spread of the Russian power during the last 
 century, or the prevalence of military despotism in the present. 
 We should bear in mind, in applying to history the tests of suc- 
 cess and failure, that success is from its very nature conspicuous. 
 We only know that brave men have failed when they have had 
 a sacred bard to celebrate their fall. The good that is lost is 
 necessarily forgotten. The power of evil is no less a power be- 
 cause it walks in darkness. We remember the martyrs who 
 triumphed over the stake, and in their deaths drove the Inquisition 
 from England : we do not remember the many whose courage 
 quailed. It was their fate, as a recent writer finely remarks, that 
 was the tragedy. 
 
 Even in what we see more plainly, there are records of the 
 might and victory of wrong which suggest a more cautious ren- 
 dering of Mr Carlyle's maxim. We need only read it between the 
 lines of his chapter on the Eeformation to see its limitations. The 
 Inquisition, beaten from our shores, triumphed in Spain, and one 
 of the noblest races, in one of the most favoured lands of earth, 
 has for the last two centuries had no history. Italy, with all her 
 memories and aU her hopes, is where she is, a " woman country 
 wooed, not wed." The revocation of the Edict of Nantes crushed 
 for ever the France of the fourth Henry. St Bartholomew was 
 in every outward sense successful. 
 
 2. But Mr Carlyle's view of the past is comparatively a just 
 one. In long periods the laws of the universe do at least dimly 
 appear, and in the main assert their supremacy. It is when he 
 
MIGHT AND RIGHT. 83 
 
 turns to politics with the eye of an historian, and regards present 
 relations as history accomplished, instead of history lq progress, 
 that his principle leads to the most serious error. No one has a 
 deeper sense of evil, or a more withering contempt for many of its 
 forms ; but it is evU as exhibited in ' meanness, indolence, and 
 imbecUity : he cannot see it in the triumphant strong hand, and 
 refuses to hate what he is unable to despise. He wages war 
 against the palpable anarchy of passion and folly ; but he will not 
 join in rebellion against that more settled form of anarchy which 
 takes in vain the name of order. Might is right. The time has 
 come when what is uppermost should remain uppermost, when 
 that which is under foot must bear the penalty of its weakness. 
 Hence, while apprehending more than any previous writer the 
 foundations of existing greatness, it is only now and then he tries 
 to recognise what may be called the new ideas of the age. The 
 convulsive efforts of subject nations seem to him mere indications* 
 of impatience : they cannot obey, and need never hope to com- 
 mand. Because mental strength and industry — his prime tests 
 of merit — do not appear prominently in the negro race, he holds 
 that it had best remain in its present condition. He looks 
 forward with exultation to the day when a band of white buc- 
 caneers shaU land in Hayti, to undo the work which Toussant 
 L'Ouverture died to accomplish. He advises the English to 
 revoke the Liberation Act in Jamaica ; and counsels the Ameri- 
 cans to lash their slaves only so far as is necessary to get from 
 them an amount of work satisfactory to the Anglo-Saxon mind. 
 He derides in the same way aU other movements which rest their 
 sole authority on a recognition of the rights of weakness. 
 
 3. Those are some of what we may call the negative aspects of 
 Mr Carlyle's political philosophy. There are traces of it in his 
 earlier writings ; but it is only in his last, and, with all its defects, 
 his greatest work, that its positive side is at aU fully developed. 
 The application of the maxim, " might is right," to his theory of 
 government is obvious. If strength is the test of excellence, the 
 strongest government is the best. The strongest is that where the 
 greatest powers of the state are concentrated in the hands of a 
 single supreme ruler. Carlyle's idea of hero-worship here fits 
 in to his general doctrine. The first duty of a people is to find 
 
84 MODERN LITERATURE, 
 
 their chief; their second and last, to obey him. We see what 
 liberty, equality, and fraternity, ballot-boxes and universal suf- 
 frage, have brought men to. Let us abandon those dreams of 
 idealogues. Does not this view itself involve another and more 
 impracticable idealism? Theoretically, it ignores the conception 
 of collective wisdom ; yet we would not fare ill under the guid- 
 ance of our wisest men. But how many of her wisest men has 
 any nation been able to rank among her sovereign rulers ? Prac- 
 tically, it lands us in the absolutism of Caesar, Napoleon, or 
 Nicholas, whose might, it may be beneficent in times of crisis, was 
 yet only such a right as the divine right of kings. In despotic 
 governments, we have a happy hit once in the course of centuries 
 for how many unhappy misses ! It is very well to learn at a safe 
 distance what good may be associated with the evils of tyranny ; 
 but most of us would rather have borne the insolence of news- 
 
 * 
 
 paper editors, the bustle of popular elections, the delay of many 
 reforms, the narrowness of many streets, than have lived under 
 the paternal sway of the great Fritz's terrific sire, Frederic 
 Wilhelm of Prussia. 
 
 4. Mr Congreve associates Carlyle's principle of strong govern- 
 ment with the progressive views of Auguste Comte and the latest 
 theories of Communism. It is by a combination equally curious 
 that the supporters of another form of political idealism found on 
 this same principle a new argument, and, strange to say, by a 
 perfectly legitimate deduction. If might is at present right, 
 why need we murmur about the apparent injustice of existing" 
 relations? These are best as they are, or if not, whatever is 
 wrong will right itself ; we only mar the order of natwre by our 
 interference. The theory of non-intervention thus gets three 
 supports. It has a religious aspect for the religious, and a finan- 
 cial side for the majority ; it can argue, on occasion, as meta- 
 physically as its neighbours. It would not be impossible to prove 
 the policy thus advocated as unscriptural as ruinous ; its charity 
 does not only begin, it ends at home. If we accept a religion 
 which embraces aU nations, we cannot entirely dissociate our 
 interests from the interests of any. The mismanagement in the 
 method and detail of all our wars must have produced greater 
 collective evils than all the advantages that have been reaped 
 
MIGHT AND RIGHT. 85 
 
 from them, to warrant the abandonment of their principle. Many 
 of Mr Bright's arguments would lead to the conclusion that we 
 must have no bread if we have been cheated by our baker. 
 
 II. But it is time to turn from aspects of the question which, 
 however important, are aside of our immediate purpose, to examine 
 the grounds of the maxim itseK, whose fruits we have been re- 
 garding. We shall thus be able to point out among other errors, 
 those which vitiate the ethics of non-intervention. 
 
 Neither history, observation, nor self-examination seem to war- 
 rant us in asserting broadly that might is right. On the outside, 
 the phrase involves the fallacy of a false conversion. We shall 
 come nearer the truth if we alter our form of expression. Eight 
 is Might, and Wrong is Might. History is a record of the struggle 
 of the two powers, and while the battle between them remains so 
 unsettled, we cannot quantify either predicate with a universal 
 But the fallacy goes deeper than logic can foUow it. We see a 
 war of principles in the world, and at first sight draw a broad dis- 
 tinction betwixt good and evil Theology and metaphysics com- 
 bine to make us look for a meeting-point of the two. HeracUtus 
 said the changes of the world were all products of their strife 
 — 7roKefio<; Trarrjp iravToav but he also said they were substan- 
 tially the same. Our modem thought, with its new formula, 
 regards evil as a negative form of good. Pirst impressions are 
 often the best ; we return to them when we have disentangled our- 
 selves from too much speculation, and it may be questioned 
 whether this new view of evil is, in its positive results, more 
 healthy than the old one. We shall not trench on the theological 
 problem, but let us ask what is the meaning of this distinction so 
 universally applied between negative and positive. Is it anything 
 more than a distinction of terms ? It implies an opposition, but 
 the one term of the opposition is as real as the other. Negative 
 electricity is only so called from its connexion with other negative 
 series; we might reverse the whole together. Cold was first 
 thought to be a definite thing ; it was demonstrated to be only an 
 absence of heat. Heat is being analysed into motion, and motion 
 is no more real than rest ; they are different, but equal actualities 
 of body. Cold, then, might again be called positive, heat negative. 
 
86 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 So with the magnet — it has two poles, but they attract with equal 
 power. So in mathematics — we fix a quantity, and call all addi- 
 tions to it positive, all subtractions negative, but both ahke affect 
 our quantity. The notions of up and down, right and left, might 
 be everywhere transposed. It is worth noting those physical dis- 
 tinctions, for it was undoubtedly an analogy drawn from them that 
 first gave rise to the notion of sin as a negative quantity. We may 
 say vice is an absence of virtue, but we may also say virtue is an 
 absence of vice. Indolence is the opposite of activity ; both are real 
 forces in every life. Among all the, categories or universal laws of 
 thought that have been drawn out by philosophers, there is none 
 more universal than the principle of Polarity in the mind. We 
 cannot .think of any thing, quality, or idea without at the same 
 time thinking of its opposite. We have equal evidence for the 
 reality* of both. It seems that if we go to the roots of this 
 question, we shall come back to the old idea. Emerging from 
 metaphysics into daylight, does it not appear to be the best? 
 We see two powers in the world around ; we trace their action in 
 history; we feel them in ourselves. We happily feel it is our 
 duty to advance the one, and try to subdue the other. We hope 
 for the ultimate triumph of the right ; but we must not let our 
 hope forestall its realisation. It is not assertion, but action that 
 is required to identify might and right. We help to Tnake the 
 order of nature by co-operating with it. It is not a mere nega- 
 tive view of evil that will most promote our efforts, nor any form 
 of superficial optimism. Carlyle's philosophy escapes this by a for- 
 tunate inconsistency. It appears in such admired lines as these — 
 
 " All discord harmony not understood, 
 All partial evil universal good ; 
 
 * This has a critical bearing on the questio vexata of the finite and in- 
 finite. Mr Mansel, arguing on behalf of Sir William Hamilton's view, 
 maintains that a duality of terms does not imply a duaUty of conception. 
 " We speak," he says, " of the inconceivable in opposition to the con- 
 ceivable ; but we have no idea of the former.'' We answer, this is a dis- 
 tinction ipso facto verbal. Abstractly the conceivable is as much a mere 
 name as the inconceivable. We have no notion coiresponding to either 
 term, because they are both logical terms, and no more. The instance is, 
 therefore, not a fair one, and may be dismissed as irrelevant. 
 
MIGHT AND RIGHT. 87 
 
 Aiid, spite of pride, in emng reason's spite, 
 One truth is clear, whatever is is right." 
 
 It was very easy for the author to write in this comfortable 
 strain, but after all, it does not seem to have added much to the 
 placidity of his life. He saw discord enough in his friends, if not 
 in himself, which he turned to harmony in a way we cannot 
 always approve of. It is cold comfort to those who suffer under 
 the partial * evil, to tell them it is part of universal good, as if 
 they and the times of their trial were no parts of the universe. 
 Whatever is may be right, for we only see a fraction of the whole ; 
 but in what we do see there is much that is wrong, much triumph 
 of evil in the wreck of brave nations and men, which we cannot 
 explain. The stream of time rolls on fraught with new wonders, 
 but it bears away many of the old et fortia corpora volvit in 
 the Lethe of its ujireturning waves. We do poor service to the 
 cause of right in leaving it to the control of general laws ; for we 
 ourselves ought to be part of those laws. We do the least honour 
 to our conceptions of Deity when we are too eager to justify His 
 ways to men. That was a task for Pope's ingenuity. Cowper 
 said, more simply and wisely, that they were mysterious. Our 
 notions of justice are imperfectly borne out in life : we may try 
 to enlarge them, we may look beyond life for their fulfilment ; but 
 we gain nothing by proclaiming loudly that they are borne out 
 here. This modern error is the old one that made sorrow the 
 sign of sin revived in a new form. The rain falls on the just and 
 the unjust, and the seasons of the world bring to each their share 
 of prosperity and power, their summer and winter, their labours 
 and sorrows, and their common grave. We cannot test excellence 
 by outward indications, by happiness of any sort, or even by fame. 
 We cannot tell of public greatness unrecognised, for the very fact 
 of our being able to tell of it would be in itself a recognition ; 
 
 * We cannot conceive of infinite justice permitting the ultimate sacrifice 
 of one individual to the good of all the rest : that one injustice would be 
 a limit to the infinite justice of Deity. The doctrine of eternal punish- 
 ment is quite apart from this. The question is, Can one human being be 
 unjustly sacrificed for all other human beings ? Do the facts of the universe, 
 then, drive us to a denial of infinite justice ? No ; but to an acknowledge- 
 ment of a present mystery, and a hope of a future solution of it.^ 
 
88 MODERN LITBllATUEE. 
 
 but glimpses of the mere fringes of bygone lives suggest the 
 thought, that men have been forgotten utterly as good and great 
 as any of those that are remembered. The curtain which hides 
 from us the past and present, is only less dense than that which 
 veils the future. Were it lifted for a moment, how many tragedies 
 would be disclosed similar to those with which our own experience 
 has made us familiar, iu the fate of many who, from no fault of 
 their own, have been out of joint with the world ; aspiring spirits 
 fettered by disease ; minds of power and grasp enough to have 
 met in council with monarchs, full of " aU sympathising tender- 
 ness, all subtilising intellect," set by circumstance to toil at alien 
 tasks, and worn out with weariness ; baffled discoverers, frustrate 
 statesmen, and " mighty poets, in their misery dead," the fountain 
 of song choked in the ashes of the passionate heart ; a forlorn 
 hope of all grades and times, failing only because it aimed too 
 high? 
 
 " That low man seeks a little thing to do — 
 Sees it, and does it. 
 This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
 Dies ere he knows it." 
 
 Neither can we, tUl after a long cycle of events, make success a 
 test of national virtue. Power may accompany the right to con- 
 quer. They have gone together with us in India, as they went 
 with our ancestors, the Puritans, in England — but the right 
 is not derived from the power. The power to rule is a better, 
 but, still, an insufficient test. It is only the power to rule well 
 that is a warrant of just victory. Cromwell and Napoleon III. 
 both shewed the power to conquer : it has been inferred they 
 had an equal right. Inferences like this do us harm in more 
 ways than we know of, ending in a corruption of our moral 
 judgment, and a destruction of all political faith. In politics, as in 
 religion, the final issue of irrational belief is total unbelief. 
 
II. 
 
 RECENT POEMS AND PLAYS* 
 
 {Reprinted from the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1866.) 
 
 Aken to the pride men often take in their conceits and foibles, to 
 the disparagement of their real worth, is the strangef fatality by 
 which many of our best writers have longed after achievements 
 most alien to their genius ; so that we may say of none more em- 
 phatically than of the race of authors, Happy are they who at 
 once know their vocation and are enabled to foUow it. Sometimes 
 fortunate chance has restricted their performance to that work of 
 which they are truly masters, and we have been saved from 
 Ovid's Tragedies, and Pope's Epic Poem, and Coleridge's Magnum 
 Opus: but we are every now and then obliged to forgive and 
 forget much on which the author set his chiefest store. Had not 
 Goethe been better without his theory of light, Dryden and Field- 
 ing without their bad plays ? Did not Tobias Smollett write a 
 history ? and, to name a great man after a small one, have we not 
 had too many " Ecclesiastical Sonnets " from the revered poet of 
 the Lakes himself ? There is nothing in which the result of such 
 a mistaken tendency is more manifest than in the flood of Dramas 
 we have had poured upon us during the last six years, by writers 
 who, with various degrees of excellence, have shewn themselves to 
 be anything rather than dramatists. Those poets are, for the 
 most part, either didactic or lyrical, and the freest and best ex- 
 pressions of their thought are, with few exceptions, as far as pos- 
 sible removed from that which is dramatic. They paint scenery 
 with a pencil dipped in all the hues of nature ; they describe feel- 
 ing, often with exquisite truth ; but there is little or no action in 
 
 * " England in Time of War." Sydney Dobell. London : Smith, Elder, 
 & Co. 1856.— "Within and Without." A Dramatic Poem. George Mac- 
 donald. London : Longman & Co. 1855. 
 
90 MODERN LITERATUEB. 
 
 the writings of what we may call our last generation of singers. 
 Their works will live rather for the beautiful they contain than as 
 being beautiful or true themselves. So it is with " Festus," that 
 wilderness of philosophy and foam, of wisdom and absurdity — 
 the " Life Drama," with its deep passion, luxuriant colouring, and 
 occasional rant ; and so it is pre-eminently with " Balder." Mr 
 Bailey combines the descriptive with the lyrical power; witness 
 his picture of Autumn, and the qaiet thoughts it suggests ; also 
 that little love-song, " Like an Island in a Eiver," beautiful and 
 simple enough to redeem even his account of creation. Alexander 
 Smith, with less perhaps of reflective power, more rarely offends 
 against the rules of taste than his compeers of the so-called Spas- 
 modic school ; he has, of them all, the fullest melody, the most 
 concise expression; in the portraiture of nature and of passion 
 alike he has proved himself, in many notable instances, a master. 
 Mr Dobell is eminently a lyrist. Those of our readers who read 
 " The Eoman, by Sydney Yendys," when it appeared six years ago, 
 wiU recollect the happy impression it conveyed, that, after a long 
 period of barrenness, we had a new poet once more springing up 
 amongst us. The book was well received, and everywhere lauded. 
 The theme chosen was one which was in all hearts, and we were 
 ready to overlook, in our welcome — in our appreciation of its 
 beauties and harmony, the real defects of the book. These were, 
 however, too considerable long to escape notice ; the song was not, 
 after all, felt to be adequate to the. subject. Under the name of a 
 drama, it was a long monologue, redeemed from tediousness by the 
 enthusiasm of rhetoric rather than the inspiration of poetry. The 
 images were strung together too much like beads upon a thread. 
 There was little practical aim, and less positive achievement, in the 
 issue of the book. We remember it now, in connexion with one or 
 two striking descriptions — that of the Coliseum for instance — and a 
 number of melodious chants, sung by minstrels, dancers, soldiers, 
 and that indefatigable monk, the rather obtrusive hero of the piece. 
 Among those, that which opens the volume, a sweet measure " full 
 of love notes " — " There went an incense through the land that 
 night " — " Lila, round our early love '' — the War Chorus of the 
 Milanese — " Who would drone on in a dull world like this V — and 
 the warbling of the children sporting by the doorway — are fine 
 
RECENT POEMS AND PLAXS. 91 
 
 enough to make the wbole book worth reading. But there is no- 
 where action, variety, or character : where alone there is any 
 effort towards dramatic effect — in the scene between Francisca and 
 the Monk — its success is doubtful. 
 
 Four years passed before the appearance of "Balder," during 
 which time a tide set in, bringing us a whole shoal of verses, 
 good, bad, and indifferent, all marked by a strong subjective ten- 
 dency. Longfellow had given us his " Golden Legend," Frederick 
 Tennyson his "Days and Hours," and Matthew Arnold his adapta- 
 tions from the Greek. The whole Spasmodic school had sprung 
 into existence ; we had had the " Life Drama " — Gerald Massey 
 — "Night and the Soul" — Poems by QuaUon — hosts of rhapsodies, 
 as vague as dreams, and not half so natural ; plays of the new 
 order, where some one talked about his feelings and fate, through 
 scores of dreary pages, with " a pause," " a long pause," and " a 
 very long pause ;" or held parley with the most patient of beauties, 
 in most interminable dialogues, broken up by most unmeaning 
 ditties. No wonder that we were in no very favourable mood to 
 receive Mr DobeH's new volume, or that its remarkable power and 
 originality were too soon lost sight of in an exaggerated apprecia- 
 tion of its defects. Many, led by that malicious chance which 
 directs a stray reader to the worst passages, got hold of the pic- 
 tures of war and pestilence, and shut the book ; others feU asleep 
 in the middle of some speech, and forgot where to begin again ; 
 many more valiantly read and read, and " found no end in wander- 
 ing mazes lost." Yet, with aU its want of taste, nay more, of 
 common sense, " Balder " is a poem of a far higher order than 
 " The Roman ; '' it contains thoughts and feelings which belong to 
 a mind more matured, and are the result of a more subtle insight. 
 It abounds in passages where the author has touched with a 
 master hand some of the deepest chords of human nature. We 
 can never forget the suggestive description of the village bride, 
 pp. 13, 14 ; or of England and her mighty dead, pp. 92, 93. Part 
 of the sketch of Chamouni and the long glorious summer day re- 
 main fresh in our memories. That picture of Amy too, in Scene 
 xxviii., is very lovely, and we recur again and again to her dirges, 
 and feel glad, as we listen to their weary yet winning melody, that 
 we have a poet among us who can express so tenderly the mourn- 
 
92 MODEKN LITERATUEB. 
 
 ing of a woman's heart. We read " The years they come and 
 the years they go," " If thou wouldst sleep, my babe," " That I 
 might die and be at rest, God ! " " In the spring twilight," 
 with many others, and cannot deny the imagination of true 
 genius to the author of " Balder." But, as a drama, it is nothing, 
 and means nothing other than has been told, more plainly, long 
 ago. The idea from which the plot takes its rise — the desire to 
 witness death in order to paint it — is unnatural enough to have 
 provoked " FirmUian." That dread angel, ia one shape or other, 
 is surely revealed to each one of us soon enough ! The end indeed 
 rises into action, and one scene of intense emotion leaves us bewil- 
 dered on dangerous ground ; still, to attain this there is much of 
 wilderness to traverse. Balder's passion glows like the red iron, 
 but seldom rises into white heat. His meditation, sometimes pro- 
 found, is often merely fantastic, and there are long pages of it 
 which we would wiUingly exchange for a single " Ult " of Robert 
 Burns, or the " Patriot " or the " Evelyn Hope " of Eobert 
 Browning. 
 
 "England in Time of War," is a series of chants, descriptive 
 pieces, sonnets and dramatic lyrics, expressing the various hopes 
 and fears which thrilled through the heart of England, during the 
 late terrible struggle of her sons. The theme is well chosen. Here 
 is a legitimate field for the exercise of those faculties in which Mr 
 Dobell most excels. There is room for his tenderness and his 
 energy, for the eye of the artist and the insight of the man. We 
 find them all well employed ia this volume : the vigour of some 
 passages being only surpassed by the pathos of others, while the 
 beauty of his landscape rivals the truth of those more subtle pic- 
 tures of emotion which it is the special prerogative of the poet to 
 represent. Mr Dobell is no vague moralist. He has shown him- 
 self, in aU his works, as one who sympathizes with freedom every- 
 where, but keeps his warmest heart for the land in which he dwells. 
 He is generously proud of England: and so is fitted to write 
 patriotic poems. There is little of politics, in a narrow sense, in 
 this volume, or rather — except, perhaps, in the " Shower in War 
 Time," (an effort to lay the eternal peace question) — none at all. 
 He dismisses Diplomacy, in an angry sonnet, and prefers to repre- 
 sent the homely feelings and thoughts of poor soldiers and their 
 
RECKNT POEMS AND PLATS. 93 
 
 wives, to discussing the debates of courts and cabinets. And 
 it may be he is right ; — he has avoided the rock of declamation. 
 Was not Goethe's warning, "Eemember politics is not poetry?" 
 Books like this, and the thoughts they suggest, do us good, when 
 we think too much of wars as games of chess, and the men who 
 fight in them as pawns. They help us to remember that in all 
 their chequered fortune they are indeed our fellows, linked to the 
 earth by the same bonds which connect us, and having an equal 
 stake in their life and death with ourselves. We consider this Mr 
 DobeU's most successful work, both in the fuller realization of its 
 aim, and the better taste displayed in individual pieces. There is 
 less of that straining after effect, which sometimes approached near 
 to bombast in "The Eoman;" and comparatively little of that 
 wild ejaculation, which as it were made a fool of some of the finest 
 passages in " Balder." The feeling throughout is chaste, and the 
 expression generally simple. There is much of graphic portraiture, 
 touching deUneation, and comprehensive thought. Some of these 
 strains are surpassed in melody by nothing that has issued from 
 our modem Lyre. There are a few defects of method and detail 
 in the volume, which we may enumerate and then dismiss. And 
 first, though Scotch ourselves, we decidedly object to the use of 
 the Scottish dialect. None perhaps, wielded by one to whom 
 it is the language of daily life, has more of concentrated power ; 
 none is capable of more emphatic pathos ; none has more expres- 
 sive words, or is so full of quaint humour. Our rural districts live 
 in the works of Bums, with vivid reality, as they could in no other 
 language under the sun ; hardly one of his songs will endure trans- 
 lation, without losing half its force. Mr Dobell has felt this, 
 and thought to attain the Doric force of those lyrics, by adopt- 
 ing their language in those of his ballads to which he wished to 
 give a provincial tone. He has been more successful than we 
 should have expected ; more so than many natives of our northern 
 towns, who are unused to the country dialect. Some of the pieces 
 thrown into this form, as the " Mother's Lesson," are characterised 
 by an energy and suggestiveness which suit well with their dress ; 
 but, here and there, he inevitably falls into snares of false ex- 
 pression and absurd appKcation, which give the whole poem an 
 afi'ected if not a ludicrous air. 
 
94 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 Our author is fond of refrains, and sometimes manages them 
 artistically, and sometimes does not. This applies to his former 
 books, but more especially to the volume before us ; where, if there 
 are some beautiful verses that fall upon the ear ever and anon 
 like the cadence of sweet bells, there are instances, too abundant, 
 of repetitions without rhyme or reason, which entirely mar the 
 poems in which they occur. We conceive the true principle of 
 a refrain is, that it be something in itself both emphatic and 
 musical, and which has a definite relation throughout, a mellowing 
 or an arousing influence on the whole poem. Wherever they have 
 been adjudged successful, from the very earliest instances down 
 to Edgar Allen Poe's "Kaven," this rule will be found to be 
 preserved. It is so in the choruses of all our best songs, and 
 the recurring strain which winds up each verse of many of our 
 ballads. Witness, " I love but you alone," in the " Nut-Browne 
 Maid;" Campbell's chant in the "Mariners of England;" the 
 "Toll slowly," in the "Ehyme of the Duchess May;" or the carol 
 of the May Queen in Tennyson. All these are prominent in 
 meaning, as well as in position ; giving, in themselves, a summary 
 of the piece in which they are set, or a tone to its whole effect. 
 We doubt if a similar plea can be put forward for such iterations 
 as those in "Farewell," or the verses well designated "Wind." 
 There are others, which it is unnecessary to particularise, open to 
 the same objection. "How's my boy?" seems to us peculiarly 
 unnatural. Mr Dobell's insight is strangely at fault if he does 
 not know that affection is the first, and not the last, to catch at 
 the approach of evil tidings : — ^the foremost to realise the full 
 import of calamity. In some instances there is a heaping up of 
 words without adequate purpose, poems in fact which need not 
 have been written. "The Sailor's Eeturn" is rather pointless, 
 and the "Health to the Queen" a mere boisterous huzza, un- 
 relieved by any of that raciness which redeems from folly his lines 
 about a fiddlestick. Two of the longest pieces, "Rain on the 
 Roof " and a " Prayer of the Understanding," in spite of a great 
 deal that is excellent, remind us too much of the metaphysical 
 reveries of Balder ; and the " Gaberlunzie's Walk " contains 
 nothing which sufficiently compensates for its mysticism. There 
 is nothing that our author needs to bear more in mind than the 
 
RECENT POEMS AND PLATS. 95 
 
 necessity of plain speaking. It is hyper-criticism to insist on 
 every figure and phrase being self contained : still all good general 
 effect comes out of lines in which the ordinary mass of thinking 
 readers can at least see some sort of meaning. We turn to the 
 agreeable task of indicating some of the more pleasing features of 
 the volume. 
 
 In nothing has our recent poetry and romance made a greater 
 advance, as compared with that of the last generation, than in the 
 truer and better light in which it represents all the gentler features 
 of humanity : most especially in the far higher position it assigns 
 to woman and her influence. When we compare Tennyson with 
 Dryden, in this light, or the men and women of Browning with 
 those of Pope, we feel that we have abundant recompense for 
 the vagueness and want of definition of which the foUowers of the 
 old school so much complain. There is nothing more happily 
 conspicuous in Mr Dobell's poetry than the delicacy with which he 
 treats the female nature, the faith he seems to have in its omnipo- 
 tence to purify and sustain. Hence the accurate sympathy vsdth 
 which he has here sung the joys and sorrows of many a matron 
 and many a maid, as they lament the departed or welcome home 
 the wanderer. There is a tone of true heroic feeling ia the 
 "Mother's Lesson," as she teUs to her son how "his brave 
 brither fell," taking comfort in thoughts of his glory and " Auld 
 Lang Syne." " Tommy 's Dead " is among the most pathetic pic- 
 tures of the desolation of bereavement we have seen. Here is a 
 right use of a refrain ; the knell comes ia to disturb the simplest 
 duties, and darken aU thiugs with the chill of the grave. The 
 " Little Girl's Song " is beautiful How touching the address to 
 her absent father ! — 
 
 " Papa, papa, if I could but know ! 
 
 Do you think her voice was always so low ? 
 
 Did I always see what I seem to see, 
 
 When I wake up at night and her pillow is wet ? 
 
 You used to say her hair it was gold — 
 
 It looks like silver to me. 
 
 But stiU she tells the same tale that she told, 
 
 -She sings the same song when I sit on her knee ; 
 
 And the house goes on as it went long ago, 
 
 When we lived together, all three." 
 The image of the lonely child talking to her little bird as she 
 
96 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 dies, is brought very clearly before us in the mournful melody of 
 the " Orphan's Song." One of the finest poems in the book, that 
 certainly which displays the richest descriptive power, is the oft- 
 told tale " He loves and rides away." Listen to this cadence in 
 the address of the deserted one to her infant : — 
 
 " Small and fair, choice and rare, 
 Snowy pale with moonlight hair, 
 My little one blossoms and springs ! 
 Like joy with woe singing to it. 
 Like love with sorrow to woo it. 
 So my witty one, so my pretty one sings ! 
 And I see the white hawthorn tree and the bright summer bird 
 
 singing through it. 
 And my heart is prouder than kings." 
 
 The image of a lady swimming, in another stanza, almost sur- 
 passes the luxuriance of Spenser's bathing nymphs. "Lady 
 Constance" and "Home Wounded" are masterpieces, in their 
 way. Nowhere more has the poet shown his art than in this 
 exaltation of a poor crippled soldier into an object almost of our 
 envy, as a hero, with the labour of his Ufe well done, left to wear 
 out its evening in repose, amid the fragrance of the flowers. 
 Here is a landscape, seen through the mist of love, in calm 
 contentedness : — 
 
 " And she will trip hke spring by my side. 
 And he all the birds to my ear, 
 And here all three we '11 ait in the sun. 
 And see the Aprils one by one, 
 Primrosed Aprils on and on, 
 Till the floating prospect closes 
 In golden glimmers that rise and rise, 
 And perhaps are gleams of Paradise, 
 And perhaps too fair for mortal eyes, 
 New springs of fresh primroses. 
 Springs of earth's primroses. 
 Springs to be and springs for me, 
 Of distant dim primroses." 
 
 The repetition here never palls, it is the lingering of so beauti- 
 ful a note. The opening lines of " A Shower in War Time " are 
 richly melodious, especially those about the angel in the cloud ; it 
 
EBCENT POEMS AND PLAYS. 97 
 
 concludes with a touch of philosophy not inapplicable at the present 
 day. The " Young Man's Song " and " An Evening Dream " con- 
 tain much that is admirable ; so also "A Hero's Grave" and " Grass 
 from the Battlefield ; " " The German Legion " is a favourite of 
 ours ; it has the simple force of a true tale well told. We could 
 wish to quote some of its latter verses, but perhaps the gem of 
 the whole volume is the little ballad with which we must conclude 
 those extracts. While Mr DobeU writes such songs as this, Eng- 
 land will not soon let either himself or his works pass from her 
 affectionate memory : — 
 
 " Oh, happy, happy maid, 
 In the year of war and death 
 She wears no sorrow ! 
 By her face so young and fair, 
 By the happy wreath 
 That rules her happy hair. 
 She might be a bride to-morrow ! 
 She sits and sings within her moonht bower, 
 Her moonlit bower in rosy June ; 
 Yet ah, her bridal breath, 
 
 Like fragrance from some sweet night-blowing flower, 
 Moves from her moving lips in many a mournful tune ! 
 She sings no song of love's despair, 
 She sings no lover lowly laid. 
 No fond peculiar grief 
 Has ever touch'd or bud or leaf 
 Of her unblighted spring. 
 She sings because she needs must sing ; 
 She sings the sorrow of the air 
 Whereof her voice is made. 
 That night in Britain howsoe'er 
 On any chord the fingers stray'd. 
 They gave the notes of care. 
 A dim, sad legend old 
 Long since in some pale shade 
 Of some far twilight told. 
 She knows not when or where, 
 She sings with trembling hand on trembling lute-strings laid ; 
 
 The murmur of the mourning ghost 
 
 That keeps the shadowy kine ; 
 ' Oh, Keith of Ravelston, 
 
 The sorrows of thy line ! ' 
 G 
 
98 MODBEN LITEEATURE. 
 
 Kavelston, Ravelston, 
 
 The merry path that leads 
 Down the golden morning hill, 
 
 And through the silver meads ; 
 
 Ravelston, Ravelston, 
 
 The stile beneath the tree, 
 The maid that kept her mother's kine, 
 
 The song that sang she ! 
 
 She sang her song, she kept her kine, 
 
 She sat beneath the thorn 
 When Andrew Keith of Ravelston 
 
 Rode through the Monday mom. 
 
 His huntsmen sing, his hawk-bells ring, 
 
 His belted jewels shine ! 
 Oh, Keith of Ravelston, 
 
 The sorrows of thy line ! 
 
 Year after year, where Andrew came. 
 
 Comes evening down the glade. 
 And still there sits a moonshine ghost 
 
 Where sat the sunshine maid. 
 
 Her misty hair is faint ^and fair. 
 
 She keeps the shadowy kine ; 
 Oh, Keith of Ravelston, 
 
 The sorrows of thy line ! 
 
 I lay my hand upon the stile. 
 
 The stile is lone and cold. 
 The burnie that goes babbling by 
 
 Says nought that can be told. 
 
 Yet, stranger ! here, from year to year. 
 
 She keeps her shadowy kine ; 
 Oh, Keith of Ravelston, 
 
 The sorrows of thy line ! 
 
 Step out three steps, where Andrew stood ; 
 
 Why blanch thy cheeks for fear ? 
 The ancient stile is not alone, 
 
 'Tis not the burn I hear ! 
 
 She makes her immemorial moan. 
 
 She keeps her shadowy kine ; 
 Oh, Keith of Ravelston, 
 
 The sorrows of thy line ! " 
 
 Thougli there is much true portraiture in this volume, it par- 
 takes largely of the general subjective tendency of modern ima- 
 
EECENT POEMS AND PLAYS. 99 
 
 gination ; i. e., that whicli directs itself to express the opinions, 
 passions, and perplexities of the writer. Self-relinquishment has 
 become rare in oiir lyrics : there is no trace of it ia those pretended 
 plays of which we have spoken ; hence, in their perception of this 
 decay of the Drama, many are apt to doubt of the possibility of 
 its restoration. But it has not yet quite died from amongst us. 
 There are links remaining to connect the last fifty years with more 
 prolific periods. Coleridge and EUiot (in his " Bothwell ") have at 
 least done something in this direction. To Savage Landor and 
 the lamented Talfourd we owe several perfect reproductions of 
 epochs long passed from our sight, with the actors in them. If 
 the majesty of Byron's plays is half artificial, Shelley's is life-like 
 enough in its breathing horror. Out of Shakspeare, what crea- 
 tion of English tragedy is there to match with Beatrice Cenci ? 
 We have stiU some writers who can conceive the deeds and 
 thoughts of other men, and bring them before us, not as mere 
 projections of themselves, but as external realities. "Edwin the 
 Fair," the "Saints' Tragedy," and "Gregory VII." recall, with 
 characteristic distinctness, many a half-forgotten feature of the 
 Middle Ages. Ghent and Bruges, the quaint old Flemish cities, 
 with their burgesses and heroes, civil strife and wars, arise, when 
 evoked by the name of " Van Artevelde," from the dinmess of by- 
 gone centuries. Browning's " Blot on the Scutcheon " and " Pippa 
 Passes" alone would prevent us from despairing of some re- 
 vival of our Drama ; and the literature of those last few years has 
 given us no more hopeful sign of its future than this work of Mr 
 Macdonald's. Many of our late poems may be called lyrical, al- 
 though hardly fitted for a music book. Those we have just been 
 considering are chants rather than songs. There are others truly 
 dramatic, which are by no means adapted for actual representation. 
 The causes which regulate this are manifold : custom, national 
 taste, and various circumstances connected with our theatre, which 
 it might be worth while to discuss more fuUy. Suffice it mean- 
 while to admit that the prominence given to reflective emotion 
 renders it impossible for such plays as the one before us ever to 
 be so represented. A piece that will act well must have as much 
 as possible outwardly manifest. Even the expression of private 
 schemes, by means of numerous " asides," has an unnatural air : 
 
100 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 when the thought becomes abstract, or dwells on themes we dare 
 hardly evolve in human words, it can no longer be spoken before 
 large audiences. But though we do not claim for " Within and 
 Without " a place among the glories of the stage, we assert its 
 right to be called a dramatic poem, because the characters are 
 essentially real. They stand apart alike from the author and from 
 one another, acting and reacting each on each, and fulfilling a 
 plot, not the less intense because the struggle through which they 
 pass is mainly a mental one. With less perhaps of that " contem- 
 plative imagination " which transfigures nature in its relation to 
 the poet than some of his compeers, Mr Macdonald is more richly 
 gifted than they with an insight into the play of mind on mind. 
 That penetrating faculty which, forestalling years of observation, in 
 a moment discerns the innermost spirit of the character it seeks to 
 knoW, is one of the most distinctive marks of a real dramatist. 
 Our author has also a large amount of that constructive power by 
 which the artist clusters details round one great conception, and 
 elaborates a whole out of harmonious and converging parts. This 
 alone can give efi'ect to any such work, and it is here he is emi- 
 nently successful where so many have failed. His expression is at 
 once powerful and delicate, but we are more arrested by the 
 thoughts themselves. There are many beauties in the book, but 
 the book itself is more beautiful than any of them. We may read 
 the first two or three pages with pencil in hand to mark passages 
 for commendation or censure, but we presently let it fall, and are 
 carried on by the breathless interest of the tale, till we are left at 
 the end thankful for the good it has done us. It is not a poem to 
 which in any respect justice can be done by extracts ; nor is it 
 any test of the value of a work of art, that a bit can be taken out 
 of it and shewn to advantage alone. A large class of critics re- 
 mind us of the simpleton in Hierocles, who, wishing to sell a house, 
 went about with a stone as a specimen ; the most general ground 
 plan had surely been more to the purpose. A great poet should 
 be the builder of a temple, not a worker in mosaic. Were poetry 
 to be valued by the number of quotable lines it afibrds, the essays 
 of Alexander Pope would take rank vsith the " Paradise Lost," or 
 the " Inferno," or many of Shakspeare's tragedies. 
 
 Mr Macdonald has divided his poem into five parts, having a 
 
RECKNT POEMS AND PLAYS. 101 
 
 very distant affinity to the five acts of the drop curtain, but each 
 evolving some new phase, in the outward as in the spiritual his- 
 tory of his hero, and each prefaced by a sonnet, which is meant to 
 serve as a sort of prelude or overture, giving as it were the moral of 
 the successive chapters of life. There is a fine repose about them 
 all ; the first and third especially are wise and beautiful, but their 
 connexion with the main body of the work is hardly close enough. 
 The story is soon told- Julian, an Italian Count, loves LUia, 
 the daughter of a rich merchant, near his castle : some misunder- 
 standing thwarts their love, and, with his natural gloom deepened, 
 he recoils for a while from earthly things to seek repose and a 
 closer communion with the Eternal within the walls of a monastery. 
 In vain ! for he finds there, least of all, any sympathy for his daring 
 thoughts, or fellowship in his searching reverence. He feels im- 
 pelled again to seek a wider sphere for worship, in the strife of the 
 world, and suddenly abandons the disappointed monks. During 
 his absence the Count Nembroni has contrived to ruin Lilia's 
 father, and has laid a plot to become possessed of herself Julian, 
 arriving in time to frustrate this, inflicts summary justice on the 
 aggressor. He discloses himself to LOia, relieves her father, and 
 induces her to accompany him to England as his wife. Pive years 
 afterwards they are represented as living in quiet retirement in 
 London. His estates have become forfeit to the Church. She is 
 obliged to assist their income by teaching, and in this way gets in- 
 troduced to Lord Seaford. Meanwhile an estrangement has grown 
 up between her and her husband — each believing that the other's 
 love has faded. She is misled into listening with too much com- 
 placence to the flatteries of the English nobleman, till at length, on 
 a fuU declaration of his love, she is startled into a horror at herself, 
 and flies at once from his presence and from her own home. Lord 
 Seaford too leaves the country, and Julian, left alone with his child, 
 mistakes the cause of his abandonment. Love at length conquers 
 indignation, and he resolves to seek her through the world, but he 
 must first guard his little lily. Presently she dies, and, after a 
 few months more wandering, the shades of night gather around 
 him too. Meanwhile Lilia has resolved to return, and Seaford, 
 who has heard of the terrible error, hastens to repair it; her letter 
 and his message reach him in his last hours, but, in the midst of 
 
102 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 delirium, he hears and understands that she is innocent. There is 
 here material for a drama, which might be wrought into very vari- 
 ous forms. It is in his artistic and profound management of those 
 elements that our author shews his high power. The character of 
 Julian is throughout the most prominent one ; his thoughts and in- 
 ward struggle occupy so large a space of the volume that a severe 
 critic might be disposed to complain of the preponderance of mo- 
 nologue. Still the monologue is very magnificent, nor are there 
 many of those thoughts which in their clear majesty and reverence 
 we would wish to lose, the less so because Julian's soliloquy is no 
 mere egotistic chant, but is elicited, in ample variety, by the vicis- 
 situdes of an eventful life. We can only trace a few of its most 
 marked features. His picture, as given by one of his brother 
 monks, is suggestive ; — 
 
 "A tall, dark man, 
 Moody and silent, with a little stoop, 
 As 'if his eyes did pull his shoulders down, 
 And a strange look of mingled youth and age." 
 
 Just such an one as would coil his thoughts too closely round his 
 heart — a riddle hard to read; whose "Within and Without" 
 would be apt to run far apart, only to find their reconcilement, at 
 length, in the blue zenith where contradiction is solved and ro- 
 mance and reality meet. So, in this first part, he lives with the 
 monks, but apart from them ; their ways are not as his ways, nor 
 is their religion, of symbols and formulae, a thing to which he can 
 square his dim, majestic striving after communion with the In- 
 scrutable. 
 
 " Not having seen Him yet, 
 
 The light rests on me with a heaviness ; 
 
 AH beauty seems to wear a doubtful look ; 
 
 A voice is in the wind I do not know ; 
 
 A meaning on the face of the high hUls, 
 
 Whose utterance I cannot comprehend. 
 
 A something is behind them : that is God." 
 
 This was not a confession that could well adapt itself to " our Holy 
 Faith ; " — ^it transcends the comprehension of the friendly monk 
 who visits his cell. 
 
 " A good man," says Julian, 
 
 "But he has not waked, 
 And seen the sphinx's stony eyefix'd on him!' 
 
RECENT POEMS AND PLAYS. 103 
 
 How many are there who pass through Ufe unconscious of that 
 " stony eye," thinking they have solved the secrets of the universe 
 because they have never approached to an understanding of their 
 perplexity. The mass, ut semper, are wroth that he takes airs to 
 himself and despises them — he is an Atheist at least, he hath a 
 devil surely. 
 
 " Music tortures him : 
 I saw him once, during the Gloria Patri, 
 Rise slowly as in ecstaoy of pain." 
 
 His own account of this is rather different : 
 
 " I bless you, sweet sounds, for your visiting, 
 Stealing my soul with faint deliciousness." 
 
 Visions of the past and future, beckonings of the outer world, 
 come daily more and more to summon him away ; he feels that 
 cloisters " are not God's nurseries for His children." 
 
 " It boots not staying here. Thirsting desire 
 Wakens within me, like a new child heart, 
 To be abroad on the mysterious Earth, 
 Out with the moon in all the blowing winds." 
 
 His Mend Eobert, with sore misgiving, connives at his escape ; 
 he goes on " into the dark," companioned with his own glorious 
 aspirations, that wondrous 
 
 " Love of Knowledge and of Mystery, 
 Striving for ever in the heart of Man," 
 
 as he seeks the God who retires before him from peak to peak of 
 inaccessibility. It is pleasant, in a play of so serious a cast, to 
 find a description so graphic as that given here of the old monks' 
 and their Hfe. The picture of Stephen and his charitable delight 
 in what he beheves to be an unpardonable sin — " Well, one com- 
 fort is, it's damnation and no reprieve " — .shews that the author is 
 not altogether devoid of humour. The good brothers are of the 
 comfortable sort. The monastery is evidently one of those which, 
 if we can trust Mr Froude, would have stood but a poor chance in 
 Henry the Eighth's time. 
 
 Leaving that "house of foolishness," Juhan is shaken from his 
 imperial dream by the cry of wrong ; for he is to find that unfold- 
 ing of the ideal he longs for, as we aU must, by contact with the 
 
10-i MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 real. There is not mucli in the rescue from Nembroni, except the 
 flash of native ferocity that it calls forth. The action is vivid, 
 perhaps too much so. There is an abruptness, in some passages 
 here, followed by over refinement in others : as LiUa's dream of 
 heaven, too serene for the hours following such intense agitation, 
 which indicates a slight want of art ; but this soon passes, and we 
 are iaterested in the scruples she feels regarding the violation of 
 his monkish vows. The appeal of events rather than argument 
 settles the difficulty. Stephen has raised a hue-and-cry against 
 them, and they escape together from a sudden pursuit. They row 
 down a river with muffled oars, while Julian murmurs — 
 
 " Dear wiml, dear stream, dear stars, — dear heart of all, 
 White angel lying in my little boat ! 
 Strange that my boyhood's skill with sail and helm, 
 Oft steering safely 'twixt the winding banks, 
 Should make me rich with womanhood and life ! " 
 
 And then the part ends with three verses, rivalling in their tuneful 
 sweetness, the Bugle Song. Here are two of them : — 
 
 " O wind of strife ! to us a wedding wind ! 
 Oh, cover me with kisses of her mouth. 
 Blow thou our souls together, heart and mind ; 
 To narrowing northern lines, blow from the south. 
 Out to the ocean, fleet and float. 
 Blow, blow my little leaf-hke boat. 
 
 Thou hast been blowing many a drifting thing 
 
 From circhng cove down to the unshelter'd sea : 
 Thou blowest to the sea my blue sail's wing. 
 Us to a new love-lit futurity. 
 Out to the ocean, fleet and float, 
 Blow, blow my little leaf-hke boat." 
 
 It is, however, ia the succeeding portion of the volume that the 
 art of the dramatist is most eminent. The conception on which 
 the whole action is grounded is that of two natures, each with a 
 greatness of its own, drawn towards each other by real sympathy, 
 and yet estranged by a certain outward contrast. Hence doubt 
 and jealousy, and its throng of cares ; for the graceful, ardent Lilia 
 cannot understand the love hidden far in Julian's deep heart, while 
 he grows daily more mistrustful of her confidence. This is a 
 subtle plot, which might have been mismanaged in a hundred ways. 
 
RECENT POEMS AND PLATS. 105 
 
 Mr Macdonald has steered on the difficult course with the fidelity 
 of the true poet's instinct. Grant such a strange union of disposi- 
 tions, and, with one exception to be noticed, there is nothing 
 unnatural in the evolution of the issue. Julian is hard to convince 
 from the first : — 
 
 " ' But do you really love me, Lilia ? ' 
 ' Why do you make me say it so often, Julian ? ' " 
 
 Suspicion is the disease of self-consciousness, and again and again, 
 with memories of the cloister, the old doubt comes up before him : — 
 " I am afraid the thought arises still, 
 Within her heart, that she is not my wife." 
 
 Foundation enough for a world of unhappiness, even if the calami- 
 ties and privation of their mutual lot did not point the sting : — 
 
 " It is not strange that thou art glad to go 
 From this dull place, and be for some short hours 
 As if thy girlhood were restored to thee ; 
 For thou art very young for a hard life. 
 Such as a poor man's wife must undergo. 
 ***** 
 
 Then I am older much than she.'' 
 
 And again, 
 
 " I have grown common to her.'' 
 
 But he is wrong : LUia thinks little of this, — her comijlaint is only 
 that his affection has become a duty ; that he has grown cold as 
 the glacier on the mountains he loves ; that she is not enough for 
 
 him: — 
 
 " He needs 
 Some high entranced maiden, ever pure, 
 And throng'd with burning thoughts of God and him." 
 
 The lines in which, shortly after, she contrasts thek natures, exhibit 
 at once the apparent disparity between them, and two sorts of 
 beauty for which the poem is distinguished : — 
 " Yet I have thoughts 
 
 Fit to be women to his mighty men ; 
 
 And he would love them, did he lead them out. 
 
 Ah ! there they come, the visions of my land ! 
 
 The long sweep of a bay, white sands, and cliffs 
 
 Purple above the blue waves at their feet. 
 
 Down the full river comes a hght blue sail ; 
 
 And down the near hiU-side come country girls, 
 
106 MODERN LITEEATURB. 
 
 Brown, rosy, with their loads of glowing fruits ; 
 Down to the sands come ladies, young, and clad 
 For holiday ; in whose heart wonderment 
 At manhood is the upmost, deepest thought ; 
 And to their sides come stately, youthful forms, 
 Italy's youth, with burning eyes, and hearts — 
 Triumphant Love is King of the bright day. 
 Yet one heart, 'neath that little sail, would look 
 With pity on their poor contentedness ; 
 For he sits at the helm, I at his feet. 
 He sung a song, and I rephed to him. 
 His song was of the wind that blew us down 
 From sheltering hills to the unshelter'd sea. 
 Ah ! little thought my heart that the wide sea. 
 Where I should cry for comforting in vain. 
 Was the expanse of his wide awful soul, 
 To which that wind was helpless drifting me ! 
 I would he were less great and loved me more." 
 
 Thus can two minds live on, looking daily into each other's eyes 
 for years, and yet, with a mysterious bar, more powerful than 
 leagues of distance, compelhng them to live unknown, while the 
 umer and the outer life remain irreconcUeable. So Julian broods 
 and suffers, with his majestic thoughts and his devout worship, 
 whatever he reads or does or meditates bringing his heart home to 
 the same sorrow : — 
 
 " I would die for her ; 
 A little thing, but all a man can do. 
 my beloved, where the answering love 1" 
 
 So LiUa, stiU more ■vfrearily, toils on, looking at his deepening gloom 
 
 and seeing less and less beyond it : — 
 
 " He grows more moody, still more self-withdrawn ; 
 Were it not better that I went away, 
 And left him with the child ?" 
 
 Lily is one of the finest creations in the book. It augurs a 
 pure and lofty mind to present a picture of childhood so true, so 
 simple, and so touching as Mr Macdonald has given us here. To 
 her Juhan unbends from all his reserve, and she clings to him, in 
 return, with the full confidence of infancy. From her first cry, as 
 she starts from her little bed, " Oh, take me, take me,'' to the last, 
 " Kiss me harder, father, I am better now," she looks to him for 
 shelter and guidance. The whole intercourse between them is f uU 
 
BECUNT POEMS AND PLAYS. 107 
 
 of beauties. Among these, Julian's version of the parable, and 
 her prattle about it, is especially natural. His song about the 
 "little white Lily" is a rare treasure for any child. The ramble 
 by the graveyard, too, reminds us of those questions so early asked, 
 which it takes the searching of a lifetime to answer dimly. 
 
 " 'Tis where they lay them when the story 's done. 
 ' What ! lay the boys and girls 1 ' Yes, dearest child, 
 To keep them warm till it begin again." 
 
 There is perhaps something of a pretty conceit in the notion of the 
 church growing out of the tombs ; but this other allegory has a 
 sense which stretches far. Lily has got a book of verses in her 
 hand, and cannot make out what it means. She peeps into it, 
 holds it to her ear, rubs her hand over it, then puts her tongue on 
 it — it is all of no use : but Julian, in his deserted loneliaess, sees 
 here an emblem of his own vain efforts to read the inscrutable, 
 and cries bitterly, 
 
 " Father, I am thy child. Forgive me this : 
 Thy poetry is very hard to read." 
 
 The author has shewn considerable art in his management of 
 the character of Lord Seaford. His words and thoughts, his 
 songs, containing some of the most musical Unes in the volume, 
 and, above all, the energy of his remorse, at the end, indicate a 
 nature in which luxury has fostered much of self-indulgence, 
 without removing the germs of higher things. He appreciates 
 LUia's spiritual as well as her actual beauty,' and extends to all 
 her tastes and interests the fulness of his sympathy. No wonder 
 if, in the loneliness of her real and fancied exile, she finds a 
 growing pleasure in his society, and, if in answer to his love, so 
 different in the warmth of its expression from the outward cold- 
 ness of her own poor home, signs of a new fondness begin to 
 appear. She feels herself strangely confused, and does not know 
 the heart-homage by which she is guarded tUl it is suddenly 
 aroused, at the very crisis of danger, by one of those chances 
 which sway the miad aright. It were out of place in a drama 
 founded professedly on a perplexing contradiction, to press the 
 rules of ordinary probability, but we confess that the flight of 
 LLlia, which so suddenly intervenes, is hardly explained by our 
 
108 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 previous knowledge. The lines quoted above, intimating some 
 such thought, are evidently thrown in to facilitate the issue : but 
 this is not enough. Kevulsion, however strong, from her own 
 momentary faithlessness, would hardly have induced her to aban- 
 don the two she loved most to certain perplexity, and the possi- 
 bility of so dread a misunderstanding. After this the rest follows 
 naturally, and our interest throughout the remainder of the sad 
 tragedy is concentrated on the various phases of Julian's anguish. 
 There is something terrible in the intensity of passion with which 
 he first receives the announcement that his worship of purity had 
 been a delusion. Storms of fierce wrath come over him in gusts 
 now and then throughout, and he would find another use for the 
 dagger with which he killed Nembroni, when the winds mockingly 
 "howl 'Lilia' in his ear." But the beauty is to see how this 
 gradually subsides, in the triumph of an all-reconciling love, and 
 his longing, by day and night, is to search her out and bring 
 her back to his forgiveness. The child left with him is chief 
 among the influences which soften his anger and console his 
 grief. Valiantly he goes on, fighting the good fight, till at last 
 the great work is complete, in the triumph of humility, and faith, 
 and love. He is to blame, he says ; he should have descended 
 from his heights and walked in the valley with her long ago : — 
 
 " Now, now I see that often it was pride 
 That drove me from her, would not let me speak ; 
 I could not rid me of myself — " 
 
 and when Lily too leaves him, weak, and weary, and alone, his one 
 thought is, " I 'U seek for her, my wife, nntil I die." She mean- 
 while yearns to return, as the prodigal of old : — 
 
 " I think he will receive me : for he reads 
 One chapter in St Luke oftener than any." 
 
 But when the late letter comes it is only that it may rest in the 
 grave in which the mighty outworn spirit has taken up its rest. 
 It is time for him to be gone, and he departs in the hope of a 
 nobler journey than this earth's one, though not before his face, 
 in its last smUe, has been transfigured by a knowledge of her 
 stainlessness. 
 
 Such is a "bare outline of a drama which, for loftiness of 
 
EECENT POEMS AND PLATS. 109 
 
 thought and intensity of purpose, we have not often seen sur- 
 passed. Faint though this sketch be, we have left ourselves little 
 opportunity for illustrating the miaor features of the poem. Best 
 viewed as a whole, it has eminent individual beauties, in no small 
 number. Again and again, in Julian's soliloquies, we meet with 
 passages of pathos, sublimity, and passion which are enough in 
 themselves to stamp the writer with the reputation of high genius. 
 There are few pages in which something does not occur which any 
 one might have been proud to write. Here are one or two of 
 those gems taken nearly at random. 
 
 Dumb Love. 
 
 " On she came — and then 
 I was bewilder'd. Something I remember 
 Of thougftts that choked the passages of sound. 
 Hurrying forth without their pilot-words ; 
 Of agony, as when a spirit seeks 
 In, vain to hold communion with a man ; 
 A hand that would and would not stay in mine ; 
 A gleaming of her garments far away." 
 
 Supplication. 
 
 " Go thou into thy closet ; shut thy door ; 
 And pray to Him in secret : He will hear. 
 But think not thou by one wild bound to clear 
 The infinite ascensions, more and more. 
 Of starry stairs that must be dimb'd, before 
 Thou earnest to the Father's likeness near." 
 
 The Old Law and the New. 
 " Which is likest 
 God's voice ? The one is gentle, loving, kind, 
 Like Mary singing to her manger'd Child ; 
 The other like a self-restrained tempest ; 
 Like — ah, alas ! the trumpet on Mount Sinai." 
 
 Beauty Subvivlng. 
 " Thy heart must have its autumn, its pale skies, 
 Leading, mayhap, to winter's cold dismay. 
 Yet doubt not. Beauty doth not pass away ; 
 Her form departs not, though her body dies. 
 «»*♦** 
 
 Do thou thy work — be wilhng to be old : 
 
 Thy sorrow is the husk that doth unfold 
 
 A gorgeous June, for which thou needst not strive." 
 
110 modern litbeaturb. 
 
 Seaford sings — 
 
 " For now I have no soul ; a sea 
 Fills up my cavern'd brain, 
 Heaving in silent waves to thee, 
 The mistress of the main. 
 
 O Angel 1 take my hand in thine ; 
 
 Unfold thy shining silvery wings ; 
 Spread them around thy face and mine, 
 
 Close curtain'd in their murmurings. 
 
 Oh, what is God to me ? He sits apart 
 Amidst the clear stars, passionless and cold ; 
 
 Divine ! thou art enough to fill my heart ; 
 
 Oh, fold me in thy heaven, sweet love, enfold." 
 
 Landscape Painting. 
 
 " Shady woods and grass, 
 With clear streams running 'twixt the sloping banks. 
 And glimmering daylight in the cloven east ; 
 And sunbeams in the morning, building up 
 A vapoury column, 'midst the near-by trees ; 
 And spokes of the sun- wheel, that, breaking through 
 The split arch of the clouds, fall on the earth 
 And travel round, as the wind blows the clouds ; 
 The distant meadows and the gloomy river 
 Shine as the bright ray pencil sweepeth over." 
 
 Live Well. 
 
 " Better to have the poet's heart than brain. 
 To feel than write ; but better far than both 
 To be on earth a poem of God's making ; 
 To have one's soul a leaf, on which God's pen 
 In various words, as of triumphant music, 
 That mingleth joy and sorrow, setteth forth 
 That out of darkness He hath brought the Ught. 
 To such perchance the poet's voice is given 
 To tell the mighty tale to other worlds!' 
 
 But the grandest passages are those in which the magnificence 
 of thought and imagery runs on continuously. Let any one, who 
 wishes to have a better guarantee for the inspiration of the writer 
 than we have given him, read the lines which open with p. 71 ; 
 Julian's meditations in his counting-house, p. 92, where he finds a 
 gladness in his daily toil; or his hopes for Lilia, p. 142. The 
 parable which opens Part III. bears a moral that ought to be borne 
 
RECENT POEMS AKD PLATS. Ill 
 
 in mind. The poem in p. 109 is all full of melody. Nothing is 
 more after our own heart than the description of the glories of the 
 past. The pages from 97 to 100 glow with beauty ; nor is there 
 anywhere loftier imagination than the dream of fair women, p. 147 ; 
 but as we are viewing the poem mainly in its dramatic aspect, we 
 prefer to give the account of JuUan's visit to Lord Seaford, than 
 which a finer subject was never presented to a painter : — 
 
 " Just as I cross'd the hall, I heard a voice — 
 ' The Countess LambaUa — is she here to-day ? ' 
 And looHng towards the door I caught a glimp,«i' 
 Of a taU figure, gaunt and stooping, drest 
 In a blue shabby frock down to his knees, 
 And on his left arm sat a little child. 
 The porter gave short answer, with the door 
 For period to the same ; when, Hke a flash. 
 It flew wide open, and the serving man 
 Went reeling, staggering backwards to the stams, 
 'Gainst which he fell, and then roU'd down and lay. 
 In walk'd the visitor : but in the moment 
 Just measured by the closing of the door, 
 Heavens ! what a change ! He walk'd erect, as if 
 Heading a column ; with an eye and face 
 As if a fountain-shaft of blood had shot 
 Up suddenly within his wasted frame. 
 The child sat on his arm quite still and pale. 
 But with a look of triumph in her eyes. 
 Of me he took no notice ; came right on ; 
 Look'd in each room that open'd from the hall ; 
 In every motion calm as frozen waves. 
 Save, now and then, a movement, sudden, quick, 
 Of his hand towards his side, unconsciously : 
 'Twas plaiQ he had been used to carry arms. 
 
 Srd O. Did no one stop him ? 
 
 Bern. Stop him ? I 'd as soon 
 
 Have faced a tiger with bare hands. 'Tis easy 
 In passion to meet passion ; but it is 
 A daunting thing to look on, when the blood 
 Is going its wonted pace through yom- own veins. 
 Besides, this man had something in his face. 
 With its Uve eyes, close lips, nostrils distended, 
 A self-rehance, and a self-command, 
 That would go right up to its goal, in spite 
 Of any no from any man. I would 
 As soon have stopp'd a cannon-ball as him. 
 Over the porter, whom the fall had stunn'd. 
 
112 MODBEN LITEEATtTRE. 
 
 And up the stairs, he went. I heard him go — 
 Listening as it had been a ghost that walk'd 
 With paUid spectre-child upon its arm — 
 Along the corridors, and round the halls, 
 Opening and shutting doors ; until at last 
 A sudden fear lest he should find the ladj, 
 And mischief should ensue, shot me up-stau-s. 
 I met him half-way down, quiet as before ; 
 The fire had faded from his eyes ; the child 
 Held in her tiny hand a lady's glove 
 Of delicate primrose. When he reach'd the hall. 
 He turn'd him to the porter, who had scarce 
 Lifted him from the floor, and saying thus, 
 ' The Count Lamballa waited on Lord Seaford,' 
 Turn'd him again, and strode into the street." 
 
 We cannot leave this book without recording our personal ad- 
 miration of the exalted and pure theology which pervades it. The 
 whole is a grand sermon on the abundantly sustaining power of 
 confidence in one Omnipotent. Listen once more to Julian's 
 summary of life : — 
 
 " This is the first act 
 Of one of God's great dramas. Is it so ? 
 Sweep not dim, dreary thoughts across my soul 
 Of something that I knew and know not now ? 
 Of something differing from all this earth ? 
 *■**♦** 
 
 Can this be death ? for I am lifted up 
 Large-eyed into the night. All I see now 
 Is that which is, the living awful Truth." 
 
 We have not said that this is a perfect poem ; it is the high 
 promise of one who has apparently not yet reached the fulness of 
 his powers, from whom we hope for future dramas, as exalted and 
 yet more real ; with less of monologue and more of action. There 
 is an over refinement in the images here and there, which some- 
 times approaches to a conceit ; see page 1, for instance, or page 
 130, about the rains and breezes. The stage directions are not 
 well managed ; adjectives are sometimes misapplied, as -pearly and 
 opal to the night ; and there is a good deal said here and there 
 which should be left to the reader's imagination. These are small 
 matters, which, indeed, we thought little of when raised above them 
 by the interest of the book, and which we have fortunately little 
 
RECENT POEMS AND PLAYS. 113 
 
 room to dwell on now. A more serious question remains as to the 
 wisdom of the concluding scene, where the author has attempted to 
 raise the dread curtain which bounds the vision of mortals, and 
 imagined a glimpse into the realms of "a world not realised." 
 This is a daring effort, one no power could render adequate, and 
 which can only be vindicated by some great gain. Of what passes 
 on the arena of earth the insight of the poet may see more than 
 other men, but as regards the unfathomable space beyond, the 
 guesses of us all are dim. There " we cannot order speech by 
 reason of darkness," as we utter our inarticulate hopes — each 
 groping like a child : — 
 
 " An infant crying in the night, 
 And with no language but a cry." 
 
 Such dealing with the transcendent may, indeed, be defended by 
 precedent of the two greatest names of two great nations. Dante, 
 however, as yet stands alone in that dream which so gra,ndly sums 
 up the theology of those chaotic Middle Ages ; and the latter 
 part of the Faust, which will live to see the end of all its imitators, 
 is no picture of actual life, but a succession of marvellous and 
 magnificent phantasies. It is the transition from the real to the 
 ideal, from the seen to the unseen, about which we hesitate. It is 
 a transition on which our greatest dramatist never ventured, and 
 in which we do not think Mr Macdonald has been sufficiently suc- 
 cessful to justify so far a flight. Ought not the drama to have at 
 least concluded with that vision of the guardian angel and Julian's 
 rapt seraphic hymn ? 
 
 " Come away ! above the storm 
 Ever shines the blue ; 
 Come away ! beyond the form 
 Ever lies the True." 
 
 The more of the sustaining spirit of the Eternal we can realise, 
 in the affairs of common life, the better. The more the dramatist 
 can shew how the men and women who daily walk the earth, live 
 and move and have their being in the midst of immensity, the 
 worthier is he of his high calling. But be it as reverent as it 
 may, the attempt to describe the inscinitable has ever an air of pre- 
 sumption, whether in painter or poet. Then it is that words seem 
 
 H 
 
114 MODERN LITEBATUEE. 
 
 feeble, in the impotency to express the feeling of infinity in the 
 hearts of the lowliest. These are "things too wonderful for us, 
 which we know not," to be limned neither by mortal pencil nor 
 mortal pen, which eye hath not seen nor ear heard ; for which we 
 must labour and wait till the awful veil is rent in twain, and in 
 the hour of revelation 
 
 " We awake and remember, and understand." 
 
ni. 
 
 AURORA LEIGH.* 
 
 Mes Barrett Browning has won for herself the first place 
 among our female poets. Falling short of the exquisite grace 
 characterising the masterpieces of Felicia Hemans, without the 
 simplicity of L. E. L., or the variety of dramatic power which 
 distinguishes Joanna Baillie, her earlier volumes contain poems 
 evincing a depth of thought and subtlety of expression peculiarly 
 her own. The " Graves of a Household " is not more delicately 
 beautiful than those verses of "Caterina to Camoens," or more 
 passionately tender than " Isobel's Child." " The Romaunt of the 
 Page," " The Swan's Nest among the Reeds," " Lady Geraldine's 
 Courtship," "The Rhyme of the Duchess May," "The Rhapsody 
 of Life," with some of the best sonnets and the most stirring 
 lyrics in the language, give proof of poetic genius no less various 
 than powerful, and would of themselves vindicate for the authoress 
 the position we have assigned her. No one could fail, therefore, 
 to regard "Aurora Leigh" — the most mature, as well as the 
 longest of her works — that into which, she says, her " highest 
 convictions upon Life and Art have entered " — with profoundest 
 interest and sanguine expectations. 
 
 The attempt to write a novel, which shall be also a poem, is 
 a daring one. We have abandoned the absurdity of setting limits 
 to the sphere of poetry, but there is a certain incongruity between 
 the natural variety and expansion of the one, and the concentra- 
 tion required in the other. The general success of this eiFort is 
 remarkable. Few volumes of verse have such intense interest. It 
 has been found by an ingenious critic to contain more Hnes than 
 " Paradise Lost,'' or the " Odyssey," — yet there are few people who 
 do not try to read it at a sitting. Once into the vortex of the 
 
 * Reprinted from the Wettminster Review for October 1857. 
 
116 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 story, we are whirled on, forgetful of criticisna, of the authoress, 
 and of ourselves. This is a high recommendation, and has con- 
 tributed largely towards the enthusiastic reception of the work ; 
 but when one has leisure to be censorious, he is met by defects 
 equally striking. The difficulties of the design have not been 
 entirely surmounted. The authoress is given to a diffusive style ; 
 she drags us through many pages in " Aurora Leigh " which are 
 unnecessary, trifling, and wearisome. That it may become a story, 
 it sometimes ceases to be a poem. Blank verse is the most flexi- 
 ble and accommodating of all measures : it can sound, as in the 
 " Brook," like graceful conversation, or with the jEolian pulsation 
 of the " Morte d' Arthur," preserving its harmonious fulness ; but 
 in "Aurora Leigh" there are cases in which Mrs Browning has 
 broken loose altogether from the meshes of versiflcation, and run 
 riot in prose cut up iato Knes of ten syllables. Is there any sign 
 of verse, for example, in the following ? — " When he came from 
 college to the country, very often he crossed the hUls on visits to 
 my aunt, with gifts of blue grapes from the hothouses, a book in 
 one hand, — mere statistics, (if I chanced to lift the cover,) count of 
 all the goats whose beards are sprouting." Yet, with the simple 
 change of often into oft, Mrs Browning has made sis lines out of 
 it, as good as about one-third of those in the volume. There are 
 so many minor faults throughout the poem, that they cease to be 
 minor faults, and are a serious hindrance to our enjoyment of its 
 beauties. Those are not mere deviations from conventional prac- 
 tice. At the present day such deviations, in Art at least, are 
 not apt to be harshly judged. The age is past when critics pre- 
 sumed to lay down rules for poetry, strict as the dogmas of 
 heraldry, and more meaningless. The reaction against classicism 
 has reached its climax. Even the Unities have died out. "We 
 favour an artist who has ventured on a new method, or sought to 
 evolve a new design ; let him but keep within the bounds of rea- 
 son, he obtains the praise of originality. 
 
 It would be fortunate if, in revolting against restraint, we were 
 never led to transgress those laws of rhythm and construction 
 which, fixed by Nature herself, are never forgotten but with 
 offence to harmony, taste, and sense. The affectation of origin- 
 ality is the next fault to the want of it. Irregular lines, extrava- 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 117 
 
 gant metaphors, jarring combinations, are the occasional defects, 
 never the signs of genius. An ostentation of strength is the most 
 infallible proof of weakness. A profusion of words is no voucher 
 for richness of thought. Those are not the best scholars who 
 make the most numerous quotations from the Greek. We know 
 no poem so good as this, with so many glaring offences against 
 those first principles. Mrs Browning's greatest failure is in her 
 metaphors : some of them are excellent, but when they are bad — 
 and they are often bad — they are very bad. By a single ugly 
 phrase, a single hideous word, dragged in, one would think, from 
 the furthest ends of the earth, she every now and then mars the 
 harmony of a whole page of beauty. She sadly wants simplicity, 
 and the calm strength that flows from it. She writes in a high 
 fever. She is constantly introducing geographical, geological, and 
 antiquarian references, almost always out of place, and often incor- 
 rect.* Here are three wise lines of her own, which ought to have 
 preserved her from many errors : — 
 
 " We strain our natures at doing something great, 
 Far less because it 's something great to do, 
 Than, haply, that we so commend ourselves 
 As being not small." 
 
 Mrs Browning seems at once proud and ashamed of her 
 womanhood. She protests, not unjustly, agaiast the practice of 
 judging artists by their sex ; but she takes the wrong means to 
 prove her manhood. In recoil from mincing fastidiousness, she 
 now and then becomes coarse. She will not be taxed with 
 squeamishness, and introduces words unnecessarily which are 
 eschewed in the most familiar conversation. To escape the 
 imputation of over -refinement, she swears without provocation. 
 Those are grave accusations ; but the authoress would be the 
 first to disclaim the shield of that spurious gallantry which 
 accords her sex an exemption from the full severity of legiti- 
 mate censure. A few examples, taken almost at random from 
 among many, wiU vindicate the justice of our remarks. 
 
 * Is it hypercritical to advert to the fact that the main incident in 
 "Aurora Leigh" is, as Mrs Browning represents the circumstances, /)%«i(>- 
 logically impossible ? Mrs Browning ought to have known that a reversal 
 of any great law of nature is beyond poetic licence. 
 
118 MODEKN LITEBATCRB. 
 
 The description of a face that haunted Aurora's early years, 
 gives scope for a perfect shoal of mangled and pompous similes. 
 It was, she says, " by turns 
 
 " Ghost, fiend, and angel, fairy, witch, and sprite, — 
 A dauntless Muse, who eyes a dreadful Fate ; 
 A loving Psyche, who loses sight of Love ; 
 A stiU Medusa, with mild, milky brows 
 All curdled and all clothed upon with snakes. 
 Whose slime falls fast as sweat will ; or anon 
 Our Lady of the Passion, stabb'd with swords 
 Where the Babe suck'd ; or Lamia in her first 
 Moonlighted pallor, ere she shrunk and blink'd. 
 And shuddering, wriggled down to the unclean." 
 
 What a confusion of violence is the account given of London 
 streets, and the wretched beings who dwell there : — 
 
 " Faces ! phew. 
 We '11 call them vices festering to despairs^' 
 Or sorrows petrifying to vices : not 
 A finger-touch of God left whole in them ; 
 All ruin'd — lost — ^the countenance worn out 
 As the garments, the will dissolute as the acta, 
 The passions loose and draggling in the dirt 
 To trip the foot up at the first free step ! 
 Those faces ! 'twas as if you had stirr'd up hell 
 To heave its lowest dreg-fiends uppermost 
 In fiery swirls of slime," &c. 
 
 How much more fuU of meaning, to one who has seen such 
 sights, is the simple phrase of our Laureate's, in "Maud :" — 
 
 " And I loathe the squares and streets, 
 And the faces that one meets." 
 
 In another passage (p. 178) Mrs Browning designates the hard 
 heart of society as — 
 
 " This sociial Sphinx, 
 Who sits between the sepulchres and stews. 
 Makes mock and mow against the crystal heavens, 
 And buUies God." 
 
 Payne Knight (p. 186) is compared to a "mythic mountaineer," 
 
 " Who travell'd higher than he was born to live. 
 And sheVd sometimes the goitre in his throat, 
 Discoursing of an image seen through fog." 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 119 
 
 To illustrate the way in which individual words are often 
 misused, we may take the following. " My life," Romney says, 
 (p. 388) 
 
 " Scarce lack'd that thunderbolt of the fallmg beam, 
 Which nicVd me on the forehead as I pass'd." 
 
 Of Florence (p. 307) she says — 
 
 " The town, there, seems to seethe 
 In this Medsean boil-pot of the sun, 
 And aU the patient hills are bubbhng round. 
 As if a prick would leave them flat." 
 
 Of Romney Leigh excited (p. 164) — 
 
 " Was that his face I saw ? 
 
 Which toss'd a sudden horror hke a sponge 
 Into all eyes.'' 
 
 Of an angel face, that it shone in heaven in " a blotch" of light ! 
 To Lady Waldemar, Aurora writes, (p. 287,) with a strange 
 confusion of biblical reference — 
 
 " For which inheritance beyond your birth 
 You sold that poisonous porridge call'd your soul." 
 
 Those pieces of bad taste mainly arise from that straining after 
 strength which mars some of the authoress's best writings ; but 
 there are others which, in their rough treatment of themes we are 
 accustomed to see handled with reverence, are stUl more repulsive. 
 Witness the comparison of Christ to a hunter of wild beasts. 
 (P. 343.) 
 
 In the picture of London, (p. 95,) she has so overlaid her colours, 
 as quite to destroy the effect of what might have been a most im- 
 pressive sketch. Sometimes the mixture of metaphors is such as 
 to make the passage utterly unintelligible ; as, for instance, in the 
 invective against the German scholar, Wolf, who, good, unsuspect- 
 ing man, when he first ventured to criticise Homer in his study at 
 Halle, never dreamt of being called such names by an English 
 poetess. 
 
 A considerable portion of the book is devoted to a minute and 
 not very profitable analysis of the process of making verses. There 
 is surely some " playing at art " here, and science too : — 
 
 " I ripp'd my verses up. 
 And found no blood upon the rapier's point ; 
 
120 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 The heart in them was just an embryo's heart, 
 Which never yet had beat that it should die ; 
 Just gasps of make-believe galvanic life ; 
 Mere tones inorganised to any tune." — (P. 98.) 
 
 This "ripping up" does not seem to have been sufficiently 
 
 savage ; but Mrs Browning has her excuse for the jolting of her 
 
 Pegasus — 
 
 "But I felt 
 My heart's life throbbing in my verse to show 
 It lived, it also — certes incomplete — 
 Disorder'd with aU Adam in the blood, 
 But even its very tumours, warts, and wens 
 StiD organised by and implying Ufe."— (P. 101.) 
 
 Yet it is those very warts and wens that we complain of as degrad- 
 ing her best poetry from the first to the second rank. It is that 
 exaggerated mysticism and confusion of phrases that has given 
 men, who pride themselves on their common sense, a distaste to 
 metaphorical or even imaginative writing, and has done more than 
 anything else to lower the esteem in which works of art are held. 
 
 Did our survey cease here, we should not be so unfair as the 
 Saturday Reviewer; but we would give the reader only some such 
 conception of Aurora Leigh as he would have of the Ajax, from 
 the bad joke on the hero's name— of " Romeo and Juliet," from 
 the wretched puns it contains — of Byron's " Don Juan," from the 
 stanzas in which he offends against delicacy — of Wordsworth's 
 "Idylls," from Goody Blake and Hariy Gill— or of Tennyson's 
 " Maud," from the rudest of his hobbling hexameters. The worst 
 pieces are short. The poem contains passages of concentrated 
 beauty and sustained grandeur, enough to establish half a dozen 
 reputations. In the presentation alike of character and scenery 
 Mrs Browning has proved herself in every sense a master. Those 
 pictures of England and of Italy which so adorn the first and 
 seventh books are already familiar to our readers ; and they wiU 
 take a permanent rank among our best specimens of descriptive 
 poetry. Some of the portraits exhibit a fund of subtle humour. 
 Witness that oft-quoted sketch of the Aunt, a lady whose tenlper 
 is perhaps best represented in those three lines — 
 
 " And EngUsh women, she thanked God and sigh'd, 
 {Some people always sigh in thanking Ood,) 
 Were models to the universe." 
 
AUKOKA. LEIGH. 121 
 
 There are many passages which we value, as much for the truth 
 they condense as for the beauty of their language. We shall select 
 one or two of those wise sentences at a venture : — 
 
 " We get no good 
 By being ungenerous, even to a book, 
 And calculating profits — so much help 
 By so much reading. It is rather when 
 We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge 
 Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, 
 Impassion'd for its beauty and salt of truth — '■ 
 'Tis then we get the right good from a book." — (P. 26.) 
 
 " Many tender souls 
 Have strung their losses on a rhyming thread 
 As children cowslips ; — the more pains they take 
 The work more withers. Yoimg men, ay, and maids, 
 Too often sow their wild oats in tame verse, 
 Before they sit down under their own vine 
 And live for use. Alas, near all the birds 
 Win sing at dawn ; and yet we do not take 
 The chaffering swallow for the holy lark." — (P. 34.) 
 
 " The rest are like it ; those Olympian crowns 
 We run for, till we lose sight of the sun 
 in the dust of the racing chariots." — (P. 72.) 
 
 " There 's not a crime 
 But takes its proper change out still in crime, 
 If once rung on the counter of this world ; 
 Let sinners look to it."— (P. 120.) 
 
 " We are wrong always when we think too much 
 Of what we think or are ; albeit our thoughts 
 Be verily bitter as self-sacrifice. 
 We 're no less selfish."— (P. 151.) 
 
 " I 've known the pregnant thinkers of this time. 
 And stood by breathless, hanging on their lips, 
 When some chromatic sequence of fine thought. 
 In learned modulation, phrased itself 
 To an unconjeotured harmony of truth. 
 And yet I 've been more moved, more raised, I say. 
 By a simple word — a broken, easy thing, 
 A three-years' infant might say after you — 
 A look, a sigh, a touch upon the palm, 
 Which meant less than ' I love you ' . . . . than by all 
 The fuU-voiced rhetoric of those master-mouths." — (P. 174.) 
 
122 MODERN LITBBATUEB. 
 
 " The Greeks said, grandly, in their tragic phrase, 
 ' Let no one be call'd happy till his death.' 
 To which I add, — Let no one tiU his death 
 Be call'd unhappy. Measure not the work 
 Until the day 's out, and the labour done ; 
 Then bring your gauges. If the day's work's scant, 
 Why, call it scant ; affect no compromise ; 
 And, in that we have nobly striven, at least 
 Deal with us nobly, women though we he, 
 And honour us with truth, if not with praise" — (P. 183.) 
 
 It is, however, to the general management of the poem that 
 we must look for its main excellences, as well as for its gravest 
 defects. The outHne of the story is well known. The writer — 
 whose sentiments and opinions we cannot avoid identifying to a 
 large extent with those of the authoress — is a Tuscan girl, left 
 from her birth alone with an English father, to grow up, at once 
 shy and impetuous, under Italian skies. He dies in her thirteenth 
 year, leaving her to be conveyed by strangers to a strange land, 
 under the charge of his sister. This lady has harboured a long 
 hatred against Aurora's mother, who bewitched the stiff English 
 gentleman from his home, his duties, and his estate. She receives 
 the child with aU the chUl kindness of an unsympathetic guardian. 
 Under her the wild girl has to become tame — to grow in the pre- 
 scribed way to the prescribed end. And so she shoots up into 
 womanhood in outward conformity, yet fluttering more and more 
 against her cage, seeking a solace from the weariness of her tasks 
 in the land of thought and fancy : — 
 
 " I was not, therefore, sad ; 
 My soul was singing at a work apart. 
 Behind the wall of sense, as safe from harm 
 As sings the lark when suck'd up out of sight. 
 In vortices of glory and blue air." 
 
 Gradually she grows to learn the beauty of that England which 
 at first seemed cold and repulsive. Here is introduced that ex- 
 quisite landscape-painting to which we have referred. (See 
 pp. 39-4<].) Then comes the crisis of her life — the scene with 
 her cousin Eomney. He has lived near them, and seen Aurora 
 daily, and grown to love her. She, too, loves him, unconsciously 
 to herself, plainly enough to the reader ; but they have their own 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 123 
 
 distinct views of life. He is a poet in action — she in verse. His 
 soul is " gray with poring over the long sum of ill" — of wretched- 
 ness, and poverty, and vice in the world around him : he has, with 
 all the foolish enthusiasm of youth, resolved to devote his fortune 
 and his life to lessen this ill. One fine morning he comes to seek 
 a helpmate in his career of beneficence. But she is twining wreaths 
 around her brow, dreaming of Dante, and Florentine bays. Their 
 interview has been compared to that famous one between Jane 
 Eyre and St John. There is some show of resemblance between 
 them ; but the difierence as to the essential question is infinite. 
 St John thought of Jane as a mere missionary; he would as 
 wiUiagly have had her go with him as a sister, were it not for 
 public opinion. Romney loves Aiirora far more deeply than she 
 deserved : and he shews this, by tone, and look, and gesture, 
 throughout the whole coUoquy. He talks too much, perhaps, of 
 his philanthropy, his schemes — some foolish, some as wise as any 
 yet devised — for reforming the world ; but he is diverted from 
 superfluous display of tenderness by the noblest thoughts of others 
 and their welfare — 
 
 " Thinking love 's best proved unsaid, 
 
 And by words the dignity 
 Of true feeling's often lost, 
 
 He was voVd to life's broad duty, 
 Man's great business uppermost 
 
 In his mind — not woman's beauty." 
 
 She, on the other hand, turns from him, because she thinks too 
 much of herself. Because he will not protest that she is bom to 
 be a poet, she distrusts and rejects his love with a most magnilo- 
 quent disdain : — 
 
 " ' Now,' I said, ' may God 
 Be witness 'twixt us two ! ' and with the word 
 Meseem'd I floated into a sudden light 
 Above his stature, — am I proved too weak 
 To stand alone, yet strong enough to bear 
 Such leaners on my shoulder ? poor to think, 
 Yet rich enough to sjrmpathise with thought ? — 
 Incompetent to sing, as blackbirds can, 
 Yet competent to love like Him ? I paused : 
 Perhaps I darken'd; as the lighthouse will, 
 That turns upon the sea.'' 
 
124 MODERN LITBttATURE. 
 
 He writes next day, renewing the assurance of his affection ; 
 but the aunt, in her indignation, has let out the secret that Aurora, 
 by her father's foreign marriage, is left undowered, and Eomney 
 the sole heir. Interpreting his offer as an act of charity, her pride 
 revolts still more. Shortly after, her aunt dies, holding in her 
 hand a letter, with a transfer of a large portion of Romney's estate 
 to her, and so, by inheritance, to Aurora. Unfortunately it is 
 found unopened, and the heroine tears it up with infinite grandeur. 
 " Penthesilea mediis in armis ;" or, as she modestly expresses it, 
 like the whirlwind on Valdarno. The cousins separate — she to 
 the central seat of English life, to work out her independence ; he 
 to forget his own great sorrow in the activity of a greater mission. 
 Seven years after, she writes the first part of this history from her 
 room, three storeys high, in Kensington, where she has found for 
 herself a sphere of action, and a taste of her much-coveted fame. 
 Yet the memory of that morning in the summer garden haunts 
 her still : — 
 
 " He bears down on me through the slanting years, 
 The stronger for the distance." 
 
 The account of her London career gives occasion for a good 
 deal of humorous satire on the fashionable life and talk of the 
 metropolis. We find nothing, indeed, to rival the cunning disclo- 
 sures of Thackeray ; but in the fourth and fifth books there is a 
 large amount of vivid characterisation. Some of the minor dra- 
 matis personse are drawn with great power ; — such as the good 
 Lord Howe, the cautious philanthropist, never out of his depth, 
 never honest ; clever Mister Smith ; and Sir Blaise Delorme — 
 
 " with quiet, priest-Kke voice, 
 Too used to syllable damnations round 
 To make a natural emphasis worth while ; " 
 
 and above all, Lady Waldemar — the rich, the beautiful, the fasci- 
 nating, the hateful Lady Waldemar, who, herself in love with 
 Eomney, comes to ask Aurora's aid in averting a marriage which, 
 in practical illustration of his communism, he is about to contract 
 with a daughter of the people — a poor girl who has lived pure in 
 the midst of horror and penury and crime, whom he has saved 
 from death, or worse than death, and whom he is resolved in front 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 125 
 
 of all the world to make his wife. The lady fails in her mis- 
 sion : — 
 
 " 'You take it so,' 
 She said ; ' farewell, then. "Write your books in peace. 
 As far as may be, for some secret stir 
 Now obvious to me, — for, most obviously, 
 In coming hither I mistook the way.' 
 Whereat she touch'd my hand, and bent her head, 
 And floated from me like a silent cloud 
 That leaves the sense of thunder." — (P. 115.) 
 
 Henceforth we are seized upon by a new interest, which makes 
 us hurry over everything else. Stately Aurora Leigh, her 
 theories, her speculations, and her pride, — the London life, the 
 balls, the gossip of ladies in rustling silks, the talk of artists and 
 old rakes and embryo philosophers, amusing and graphic as they 
 are, are cast into the shade by the apparition and the tragedy of 
 Marian Erie. Aurora goes to see her, and finds in the midst of 
 one of the wretched streets in London " an ineffable white face," 
 which we get to think more beautiful than any other in the 
 book — 
 
 " She was not white or brown. 
 But could look either like a mist that changed 
 According to being shone on more or less." 
 
 She tells her sad story with irresistible pathos — how, born in a 
 miserable hut, she led a hard hfe with cruel parents, driven from 
 place to place, and set to all mean tasks, yet consoled by the 
 beauty around, which from nature and stray books she draws to 
 herself by some inborn instinct. At last her wretched mother 
 offers to seU her to a rich squire in the neighbourhood. She 
 tears herself from their hands and escapes. The account of her 
 flight (p. 1 27) is a wonderful piece of writing. We read it with 
 the breathless haste which it describes, in sympathy with the 
 passion of fear that gave wings to the fugitive. She is found 
 by Eomney in an hospital to which she has been conveyed. He 
 addresses her in kind words, which she never forgets — 
 
 " since, in any doubt or dark, 
 They came out like the stars, and shone on her 
 AVith just their comfort ; " 
 
126 MODERN J^ITEBATCRE. 
 
 and in tones of music that haunt her still in the London jpil- 
 liner's, where he sent her to work and hope : — 
 
 " Then she drew 
 
 The stitch, and mused how Romney's face would look, 
 
 And if 'twere likely he 'c? remember hers 
 
 When they two had their meeting after death." 
 
 He meets her again when she has left her position to nurse a 
 sick companion, and after a time seeks in her the fit associate 
 for his task. The day is fixed for the marriage. There is an 
 extraordinary meeting of rags and sUks to solemnise the cement- 
 ing of social distinctions which Romney desires to symbolise in 
 this ceremony — 
 
 "Half St Giles' in frieze 
 Was bidden to meet St James' in cloth of gold." 
 
 All is ready, but the bride has disappeared. He seeks her 
 east, he seeks her west, but no trace is to be found ; nothing for 
 love or money but a mysterious letter from Marian, decHniag 
 marriage, yet shewing her love, evidently concealing more than it 
 reveals : — 
 
 " Very kind, 
 
 I pray you mark, was Lady Waldemar, 
 
 She came to see me nine times, rather ten ; — 
 
 So beautiful, she hurts me like the day 
 
 Let suddenly on sick eyes." 
 
 Time passes. We have a great deal about London society, and 
 profuse speculation on art and artists. Meantime, the report 
 grows that Romney is affianced to Lady Waldemar. We hear no 
 more until, a year or so after, on her route towards Italy, Aurora 
 meets Marian accidentally in the streets of Paris, with a child in 
 her arms. Borne off in the crowd, she is again found by chance, 
 after a long, fruitless search, and this time Aurora succeeds in 
 tracking her to a retreat in the suburbs "scarce larger than a 
 grave," where she lives with her infant. There is nothing more 
 exquisite in the poem than some of the lines which refer to this 
 infant : — 
 
 " While we stood there dumb, — 
 For oh, that it should take such innocence 
 To prove just guilt, I thought, and stood there dumb ; 
 The light upon his eyelids prick'd them wide, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 127 
 
 And staring out at as with all their blue, 
 
 As half perplex'd between the angelhood 
 
 He had been away to visit in his sleep, 
 
 And our most mortal presence, — gradually 
 
 He saw his mother's face, accepting it 
 
 In change for heaven itself, with such a smile 
 
 As might have well been learnt there, — never moved, 
 
 But smiled on, in a drowse of ecstasy. 
 
 So happy, (half with her and half with heaveu,) 
 
 He could not have the trouble to be stirr'd. 
 
 But smiled and lay there. Like a rose, I said, 
 
 As red and still indeed as any rose, 
 
 That blows in all the silence of its leaves, 
 
 Content, in blowing, to fulfil its life."— (P. 250.) 
 
 But it is difficult to select ; the whole of the succeeding 
 pages, as also that passage in pp. 288, 289, present a picture of 
 innocence and maternal fondness such as perhaps has never before 
 been realised in verse, and which reminds one more than any- 
 thing else of the masterpieces of Raphael We confess to enter- 
 tain very different sentiments regarding the two heroines of this 
 poem. Aurora's self- consciousness repels — her speculations do 
 not much interest us ; her genuine human feeling is reserved for 
 the closing scene. There is something about Marian, on the 
 other hand, that is especially attractive. All the little incidents 
 of her early life, the court in London, the flowers, the way she 
 tells her tale, with the exception of one or two misplaced scien- 
 tific phrases, so artless and natural, — the shrinking, clinging, half 
 reverence, half love she feels for Eomney, combiae to exhibit a 
 winning beauty and grace. But nothing in the book is so grand 
 as the revelation to Aurora of her dreadful secret — ^how, beguiled 
 by the serpent kindness of the Lady Waldemar to believe herself 
 an obstacle to Eomney's happiness, committed to the charge of 
 some female fiend, and lured into a home of horror in France, she 
 " feU unaware, and came to butchery," doomed to live ever after 
 subject to that law — 
 
 " The common law by which the poor and weak 
 Are trodden under foot by vicious men, 
 And loathed for ever after by the good." 
 
 The tale has too deep a pathos to be expressed in any partial 
 transcription. It is indeed a tragedy too terrible for tears. 
 
128 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 There is something almost superhuman in the awe of those con- 
 cluding lines in which Marian describes her wanderings. We 
 read them with a sort of breathless fear and wonder : — 
 
 " Up and down 
 
 I went by road and village, over tracts 
 
 Of open foreign country, large and strange, 
 
 Cross'd everywhere by long, thin poplar-lines 
 
 Like fingers of some ghastly skeleton hand. 
 
 Through sunlight and through moonlight, evermore 
 
 Push'd out from hell itself to pluck me back. 
 
 And resolute to get me, slow and sure ; 
 
 While every roadside Christ upon His cross 
 
 Hung reddening through His gory wounds at me. 
 ***** 
 
 Brutal men 
 
 Stopp'd short. Miss Leigh, in insult, when they had seen 
 
 My face, — I must have had an awful look. 
 
 And so I lived : the weeks pass'd on, — I lived, 
 
 'Twas Kving my old tramp-life o'er again, 
 
 But this time in a dream, and haunted round 
 
 By some prodigious Dream-fear at my back. 
 
 Which ended, yet : my brain clear'd presently, 
 
 And there I sate one evening, by the road, 
 
 /, Marian Erie, myself alone, undone, 
 
 Pacing a sunset low upon the flats, 
 
 As if it were the finish of all time, — 
 
 The great red stone upon my sepulchre. 
 
 Which angels were too vjeak to roll away." 
 
 The rest is soon told. Aurora, Marian, and the child go 
 
 together to Italy, a report having previously reached them that 
 
 Romney and Lady Waldemar have been married. One glorious 
 
 evening he himself appears before them, to announce the error of 
 
 this report, the ruin of all his schemes, the conflagration of the 
 
 old hall which he had turned into a phalanstery for wretches who 
 
 brought it down over his head, and his intention to claim Marian 
 
 still as his wife. She appears herself to address him — 
 
 " ' Eomney,' she began, 
 ' My great, good angel, Romney.' Then at first 
 I knew that Marian Erie was beautiful. 
 She stood there, stiU and pallid as a saint. 
 Dilated like a saint in ecstasy, 
 As if the floating moonshine interposed 
 Betwixt her foot and the earth, and raised her up 
 To float upon it. ' I had left my child. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 129 
 
 Who sleeps,' she said, ' and having drawn this way, 
 
 I heard you speaking. Friend ! confirm me now. 
 
 You take this Marian, such as wicked men 
 
 Have made her, for your honourable wife ? ' 
 
 The thrilling, solemn, proud, pathetic voice. 
 
 He stretoh'd his arms out toward the thrilling voice. 
 
 As if to draw it on to his embrace. 
 
 ' I take her, as God made her, and as men 
 
 Must fail to unmake her, for my honour'd wife.' " 
 
 Aurora, too, confirms this, and Marian's answer illustrates the 
 nature of her devotion : — 
 
 " ' Thanks, 
 My great Aiu'ora.' Forward then she sprang. 
 And dropping her impassion'd spaniel head. 
 With all its broad abandonment of curls, 
 On Romne/s feet, we heard the kisses drawn 
 Through sobs upon the foot, upon the ground — 
 ' O Eomney ! O my angel ! O unchanged ! 
 Though, since we 've parted, I have pass'd the grave ; 
 But death itself could only better thee, 
 Not change thee ! Thee I do not thank at all ; 
 I but thank God who made thee what thou art, 
 So wholly godlike.' " 
 
 Yet she tells him — ■ 
 
 « ' You and I 
 Must never, never, never join hands so,' " — 
 
 and abides by her resolve to live apart, and consecrate the rest 
 of her dim life to the care of her child. Romney announces to 
 Aurora his penitence for self-confidence in his schemes, his tardy 
 appreciation of her genius, and the calamity which has overtaken 
 him of incurable blindness. This mutilation (which we consider 
 ill every point of view offensive) enables Aurora to confide the 
 secret of her own attachment to him, and the poem concludes 
 with the magnificent verses expressing the triumph of love, which 
 are already familiar to most readers. 
 
 In an artistic point of view, this work has all the defects and 
 all the excellences of the authoress's style. Those excellences 
 more than counterbalance the defects. But it is a work written 
 with an evident purpose, and it openly challenges criticism 
 ethically. We cannot give a favourable verdict. Romney telLs 
 Aurora, in that early scene, that women never estimate principles, 
 
 I 
 
130 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 but only persons. Mrs Browning has done her best to estabUsh 
 the truth of this dictum. If, as she herself declares, "wrong 
 thoughts make wrong poems," there is much to censure in this 
 one. The estimate she gives of the French, and the eulogy of 
 Louis Napoleon which follows it, is a glaring evidence of a judg- 
 ment easily misled by the outward shows of things, and arrested 
 by the semblance of Power. 
 
 We do not intend to diverge into the field of politics to point 
 out in what manner their " twice absolute " Emperor represents 
 this " poet of the nations," or how " his purple is lined with the 
 democracy." It is more within the scope of our purpose to con- 
 tend with those peculiar views of reform and social philosophy 
 which this volume has for its text. There is a wide-spread and 
 growing error to which its success has given a new impulse — 
 an error founded in a truth perhaps, but none the less fatal. We 
 allude to the mistake of exaggerating the effect of Art — whether 
 as exhibited through Music, Painting, or Poetry — in ameliorating 
 or elevating the condition of the masses of the people in any age 
 or country. It probably results from a transference of the feel- 
 ings and sympathies which arise from or are possible only under 
 a certain degree of culture, to spheres where that culture does not 
 exist. But, however originating, History and our everyday ex- 
 perience combine to demonstrate the error. Art and the per- 
 fection of the poetic sentiments follow, or are contemporaneous 
 with an age of prosperity. They do not constitute, nor can they 
 supply the place of material comforts and free institutions. 
 Artistic culture, far from standing in the place of philanthropic 
 effort, depends upon the success of that effort for its own per- 
 manence. Men must be fed, clothed, and washed, ere ever " the 
 essential prophet's word comes in power " to awaken, elevate, and 
 sustain their nobler energies. Mr Ruskin, among many lasting 
 obligations conferred on Art, has yet done something to adorn 
 this error ; and his agreement with the general drift of this poem 
 may account for the exaggerated estimate of it which he has just 
 recorded.* He has found in the higher classes of our society, 
 already disposed to extend beyond its due limits the domain of 
 Taste, a wide sympathy with his eloquent exposition of the laws,- 
 * See Appendix to " The Elements of Drawing." 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 131 
 
 even when he most misconceives their application. But in a 
 more stirring time, it was a similar, though far grander Art- 
 worship, a like contempt of material wants and depreciation of 
 political struggles, that withheld many of the noblest minds of 
 Europe from a comprehension of the great head, or a fuU sym- 
 pathy with the greater heart, of the gigantic Goethe. 
 
 An attentive examination of the latter books of Mrs Browning's 
 poem will convince any one that we are not unjust in charging her 
 with comparative contempt for the material agencies of civilisation, 
 and disparagement, through precept and example, of philanthropic 
 effort. Here are some of the passages in which the moral of the 
 whole book is, as it were, summed up : — 
 
 " I walked on, musing with myself 
 On life and art, and whether, after all, 
 A larger metaphysics might not help 
 Om- physics, a completer poetry 
 Adjust our daily life and vulgar wants 
 More fully than the special outside plans. 
 Phalansteries and material institutes, 
 The civil conscriptions and lay monasteries 
 Preferr'd by modern thinkers, as they thought 
 The bread of man indeed made all his life. 
 And washing seven times in the ' People's baths ' 
 Were sovereign for a people's leprosy." 
 
 " What we are, imports us more 
 
 Than what we eat ; and life, you 've granted me, 
 Develops from within." — (P. 344.) 
 
 Yet our physics must be seen to first. A truckle-bed is after 
 all a narrow study for a metaphysician. It is but poor comfort to 
 a starving wretch to tell him that it imports him more what he is 
 than what he eats. It must be a complete poetry indeed that wiU 
 undertake the work of Mr Mayhew among the criminals, or solve 
 the problem of female labour in our large cities. There is some 
 poetry that is really a power among the better portion of the 
 labouring classes of a nation: but neither Bums nor Schiller pene- 
 trate to those depths where the zeal of a philanthropist is most 
 beneficent. We require something more tangible to touch the 
 under-current masses : the means of daUy bread and the fijst 
 rudiments of knowledge. Poetry about poetry is the last thing to 
 descend to the people. We suspect the large sale of "Aurora 
 
132 MODERN LITBRATUEE. 
 
 Leigh" has done but little to renovate or purify the alleys of 
 London. We doubt not the good effect of the Manchester Exhibi- 
 tion, the Handel and Haydn festivals, on many even of our common 
 workmen ; but their influence is insignificant compared with the 
 benefit that would result to England from a good system of Secular 
 Education. The new Venetian lecture-room at Dublin, and the 
 hints from Mr Euskin which have been acted on in its construc- 
 tion, must have gone far to elevate the taste of the masonic craft, 
 but we suspect that the Northumberland baths and the National 
 School have done still more for the morals and health of the city. 
 In the wilder districts of England, in the moors of Ireland, in 
 Connemara or Cahirseveenj this romance of art appears in its fuU 
 absurdity. You must drain those waste lands, put windows into 
 those mud cabins, and teach their ragged inmates to read and to 
 work, else the " prophet and the poet " will only " thunder down " 
 in the guise of some wide-mouthed agitator preying on the passions 
 and ignorance around him. It is well to know that man develops 
 from within, that outward schemes are but imperfect methods, and 
 that we ought not to sever poetry from the actual world. But if we 
 doubt too much of our powers for doing good — of the possibility 
 of lessening by enduring effort the iUs around us, we faU into a 
 profitless despair or a false content, more truly named indifference. 
 " Though we fail indeed," our authoress tells us — 
 
 " You — I — a score of such weak workers — He 
 Fails never. If He cannot work, by us 
 He will work over us. Does He want a man, 
 Much less a woman, think you ? Every time 
 The stars wink there, so many souls are born, 
 Who all shall work too. Let our own be calm : 
 We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars 
 Impatient that we 're nothing." 
 
 Ashamed ? no ; proud rather, that we feel so deeply the great- 
 ness of each atom of God's work. There is here, and in the 
 magnificent poetry at the conclusion of the book, too much of the 
 spirit of the Lotos-Eaters — the most fatal, because the most fasci- 
 nating form of the laissez faire — an acquiescence in the " Ever- 
 lasting No ! " The world would come right, we are told, if we 
 leave it to God. It won't. Is it not one of the truisms of our 
 morality, that where evil is active, good must be strenuous on all 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 133 
 
 sides, or the fair fabric will go to ruin while the ministers He sent 
 to keep it sound are singing hymns ? 
 
 Eomney Leigh himself seems to be treated no less unfairly than 
 the cause he represents. There are absurd philanthropies in 
 abundance, pretentious schemes with no heart in them, false and 
 idle. Had the hero of this poem advocated the most impracticable 
 of these, his pimishment had been too severe. Let us see how Mr 
 Stephens, of the " Cambridge Essays," would phrase it. Eomney 
 Leigh for being a philanthropist — to be rejected and lectured by 
 his mistress — to have his intended wife stolen from him — to try 
 everything, to succeed in nothing — to be laughed at by everybody 
 — to lose his money — to have his house burned about his ears — 
 to get both his eyes knocked out — to beg pardon of his old 
 mistress at last, and confess that she was all right and he was all 
 wrong — to have her to take charge of him afterwards in his 
 mutilated state ! ! ! 
 
 But Eomney's schemes were not so impracticable ; he was too 
 good and too great a man to devote his whole life and energy 
 to an honest cause without some beneficent result. He did 
 more holy work in his tender care and reformation of those poor 
 girls in London, than his cousin's poems could effect, were they 
 much better than we can imagine them to have been. If he 
 erred, it was through excess of faith and hope and charity ; by 
 trusting too much to the effect of kindness in remoulding rough 
 natures ; by a want of practical distrust. " Dear Eomney, you 're 
 the poet," Aurora says herself ; and some one well sings — 
 
 " To have the deep poetic heart 
 Is more than all poetic fame." 
 
 We do not blame Mrs Browning for not doing what she does 
 not profess to do, — she has, indeed, professed too much, — but for 
 doing wrongly part of what she does. The work — full of beauty, 
 large-heartedness, and valour, though it be — has artistic defects 
 .sufficient to render it unworthy the place assigned to it by a great 
 critic, as the greatest poem of the century : it would have had a 
 more prominent position in the first rank had it taught a truer 
 and a nobler lesson. 
 
 Perhaps the worst efiect of exaggeration is that it excites the 
 
134 MODERN LITBRATTJRE. 
 
 opposite extreme. When Art is advocated by the depreciation of 
 the other influences for the elevation of mankind, it receives the 
 deepest injury. They who ignore its real glory and grandeur 
 retaliate by a corresponding depreciation. The great agencies for 
 harmonising and adorning life should go hand in hand. The 
 world prospers then, when " the poet and the philanthropist stand 
 side by side " in grand equality ; and its rough labour is most 
 ennobled when music and poetry accompany and complement the 
 worker's toil. 
 
IV. 
 
 MEROPE.* 
 
 In some season of drouth there arose a great inventor, whose 
 ingenuity hit upon a new way of compounding nourishing stimu- 
 lants. His receipt for the manufacture of brandy-punch was at 
 once simple, original, and cheap. He laid down rules for the 
 quantity of sugar, of lemon juice, of limes and hot water to be 
 introduced into the mixture, for the right method of combining 
 them, and the temperature at which they ought to be drunk. The 
 economy of his plan was attractive, and puzzled many; till at 
 last the secret came out that in his reckoning he had entirely 
 omitted the brandy. Professor Arnold has given us a receipt for 
 the production of good poems. He appears as the deliverer of the 
 age from the faults of florid imagery, false method, weakness, and 
 general inadequacy, which, according to his view, pervade our 
 verses and vitiate our taste. He lays down rules for the drama 
 after the fashion of the ancients, expounding the right sort of 
 versification, the proper relation of parts, the duties of the chorus, 
 the management of the catastrophe, and the spirit in which the 
 whole should be read. He has embodied those rules in practice, 
 in presenting us with what is in form and feature a wonderfully 
 close reproduction of an old Greek play. It is the right length, 
 and involves the proper number of actors. The chorus breaks in 
 just when it should, talking of ancient cities and impressing in 
 antique song the moralities of ancient times. Aristotle's rules are 
 nowhere contravened. The due proportion of storm and calm is 
 preserved. The messenger rushes in at the right moment. The 
 bloodshed all takes place behind the scenes. The unities are 
 scrupulously observed. The theme is authorised by tradition and 
 frequent use. The poem is throughout orderly, and correct, and 
 
 * Merope, a Tragedy. By Matthew Arnold. London, 1858. Longman, 
 Green, & Co. 
 
136 MODKKN LITKRATUKE. 
 
 regular ; only, by some unfortunate accident, Mr Arnold has 
 omitted the poetry. Outline and feature are there, but the 
 animating spirit that should inform the whole, the passion that is 
 the soul of genius, the Promethean spark, is wanting. It has 
 some of the forms of a noble structure, but it is a palace of ice. 
 We do not remember of ever having read a play with less emotion 
 or with feelings of greater indifference. If there is nothing absurd 
 or incongruous to excite ridicule, it contains few of those higher 
 elements which call forth admiration. The coldness which is the 
 main defect of the author, is here intensified. What Mr Arnold's 
 minor verses are to the poems of the Spasmodic school, '' Merope " 
 is to his own previous writings. Recast from the dramas of So- 
 phocles without any of the expression, variety, and power which 
 animate those great originals, it retains the mere form of the 
 Greek. There is no trace of a hand like that which moulded the 
 CEdipus, with its solemn terrors, and little of the heart which 
 realised the sorrow of the Antigone, or beat with the fierce pulses 
 of the Ajax. Nothing either in the conception of the whole or 
 the arrangement of its parts betrays the mind of a master. The 
 several scenes are mere faint Sophoclean echoes; they may be 
 read for a time from a certain curiosity, but in an age which is 
 weary and intolerant of imitations, we cannot fail to anticipate for 
 this one that ultimate verdict of failure which the concluding page 
 of the preface somewhat childishly deprecates. 
 
 The outline of the story of " Merope " as handled by Mr Arnold 
 is as follows. Cresphontes having secured by lot the kingdom of 
 Messenia, married Merope, daughter of Cypselus. In the govern- 
 ment of his country he favoured the Messenians, and so excited 
 dissatisfaction among his Dorian subjects, who rose against him 
 under the Heracleid Polyphontes. This chief overthrew and 
 killed Cresphontes with two of his sons. The third, ^pytus, was 
 rescue^ by his mother and sent off to Arcadia, while she remaiued 
 at the Messenian capital, Stenyclaros. Twenty years have elapsed 
 since those events, when the scene opens in front of the royal 
 palace. .lEpytus is returning unknown, along with his uncle 
 Laias, to reclaim his rights and revenge his wrongs. The two 
 discourse for some time on the beauties of Messenia and their 
 chances of success ; when the chorus enters — 
 
MEROPE. 137 
 
 " Sad chanting maidens clad in mourning robes, 
 With pitchers in their hands, and fresh-pull'd flowers ; " 
 
 and afterwards Merope, " severer, paler, statelier than them all," 
 with Polyphontes following her. Laias, before retiriag, warns 
 ^pytus not to discover himself, but to stand aside ; and bids him 
 on the first opportunity offer some locks of his hair on his father's 
 tomb, which stands in front of the stage. Polyphontes then 
 comes forward addressing Merope. He adjures her to cease from 
 demonstrations of mourning which kept up the remembrance of 
 old feuds ; to forget the source of their quarrel, and consent to 
 share his throne. The sentence ia which he makes this proposal 
 is more Greek than English : but his speech ends with one of 
 those fine passages which relieve the dead level of the play : — 
 
 " O Merope, how many noble thoughts, 
 How many precious feelings of man's heart. 
 How many loves, how many gratitudes 
 Do twenty years wear out, and see expire ! 
 Shall they not wear one hatred out as well ?" 
 
 Merope, however, is inflexible : there is blood between them, 
 and their enmity is irreconcilable. The king defends his acts on 
 the ground of state policy, while she, vindicating the memory of 
 her husband, upbraids Polyphontes with his death and stiU more 
 bitterly with that of her sons. The piece of dialogue which 
 follows is a specimen of that verbal reflection of the Greek style in 
 •which Mr Arnold is so successful. 
 
 " M. Such chance as kill'd the father, kill'd the sons. 
 P. One son at least I spared, for still he lives. 
 M. Tyrants think him they murder not they spare. 
 P. Not much a tyrant thy free speech displays me. 
 M. Thy shame secures my freedom, not thy wiU. 
 P. Shame rarely checks the genuine tyrant's will. 
 M. One merit then thou hast : esidt in that. 
 P. Thou standest out, I see, repeUest peace. 
 M. Thy sword repell'd it long ago, not I. 
 P. Doubtless thou reckonest on the help of friends. 
 M. No help' of man, although perhaps of Gods. 
 P. What Gods ? the Gods of concord, civil weal ? 
 M. No, the avenging Gods who punish crime." 
 
 One is reminded at every turn of the retorts in the CEdipus and 
 
138 MODERN LITEttATURE. 
 
 Antigone. The particles /m€v and Se seem to be almost wanting 
 to complete the lines ; they will often be set for an easy translation 
 into iambics. Polyphontes, denouncing the turbulence of faction, 
 withdraws to his palace, while Merope joins the "sad chanting 
 maidens" in choral strain. After celebrating the woes of the 
 Heraclidae, with other "great old houses and fights fought long 
 ago," they conclude in words of comfort. The following is one of 
 their strophes : — 
 
 " Give not thy heart to despair, 
 No lamentation can loose 
 Prisoners of death from the grave : 
 But Zeus, who accounteth thy quarrel his own. 
 Still rules, still watches and numbers the hours, 
 Till the sinner, the vengeance be ripe. 
 Still by Acheron stream 
 Terrible Deities throned, 
 Sit and make ready the serpent, the scourge ; 
 Still, stiU the Dorian boy 
 Exiled remembers his home." 
 
 Merope invokes the sun to summon her child to assert his 
 claims, and calls on her dead husband for aid. She then goes to 
 receive her old servant Areas, who has brought his yearly news 
 from Arcadia. The chorus sings the depth of man's heart and the 
 vain excuses of despotic power, when j3Epytus comes forward asking 
 for the king. At this moment Polyphontes appears, and is out- 
 witted by a false account of the young prince's death. The de- 
 scription of this imaginary death, extending from p. 50 to p. 54, is, 
 on the whole, the best sustained piece of writing in the volume, 
 but only here and there are there lines which rise into poetry. 
 
 The king is evidently well pleased with the intelligence; he 
 orders the bearer of the news, ^pytus himself, to be treated with 
 all attention, and goes out, like Joseph Surface, with a sentiment — 
 " A private loss here founds a nation's peace." 
 
 The chorus takes up this last word, and echoes the praises of 
 peace in strophes adapted from a fragment of the original Greek 
 " Merope." They possess some interest on that account, but hardly 
 merit quotation. After this the queen appears again, and meeting 
 Areas, hears from him a different account of her son's death. He 
 had been murdered by an agent of Polyphontes, who brought a 
 
MBROPE. 139 
 
 feigned story to hide his guilt. Merope vows a terrible revenge, 
 bidding her friends of the chorus keep silence, "and mark what 
 one weak woman can achieve alone : " but in the course of the 
 next chant they let out the secret that the supposed murderer is 
 within the palace. She then takes the sacrificial axe, and advances 
 towards -iEpytus, who is disclosed sleeping in the guest-chamber. 
 Her hand is only arrested by Areas announcing that the man she 
 is about to slay is her son. Whereupon she swoons, and iEpytus 
 awakening recognises his mother. Their meeting, which afforded 
 ample opportunity for the exhibition of dramatic power, is tame 
 and spiritless. Merope's fervour seems to have evaporated with 
 her first resolve : she dissuades her son from the prosecution of 
 his scheme, enforces at length the perils of bloodshed, and especially 
 conjures h*m not to attempt the life of the king. Laias, on the 
 other hand, advocates perseverance and promptitude. 
 
 " For to live disobedient to those two, 
 Justice and wisdom, is no life at all." 
 
 The chorus, as usual wavering and perplexed, breaks in at this 
 stage with a song about Areas and Callisto. On its conclusion 
 Polyphontes re-enters ; Merope warns him of some approaching 
 danger, urging him to forsake his throne and flee to 
 
 " Some rock more lonely than that Lemnian isle, 
 Where Philootetes pined." 
 
 The king concludes that she is out of her senses : he not unna- 
 turally rejects her advice, and retires with a resolve to maintain 
 alone the power she will not consent to share. The chorus chants 
 the changeless decrees of destiny, pointing its moral with the fate 
 of Hercules, and concluding with a stanza which again reminds us 
 of Greek originals : — 
 
 " Unknowing, unknowing, 
 Thinking atoned for 
 Deeds unatonable, 
 Thinking appeased 
 Gods unappeasable, 
 Lo, the ill-fated one, 
 Standing for harbour, 
 Right at the harbour mouth, 
 
140 MODERN LITBEATURE. 
 
 Strikes, witli all sail set, 
 Full on the sharp-pointed 
 Needle of ruin ! " 
 
 The messenger then enters and tells how at a great public 
 sacrifice the king instead of the ox had been struck on the head by 
 ^pytus. The Messenians applaud the deed ; the rightful heir is 
 restored to the throne, and all terminates happily. 
 
 The features of a great work of art are ill represented by a mere 
 enumeration of its contents, but in the above sketch we have done 
 no injustice to Mr Arnold's tragedy. The passages quoted are at 
 least fair specimens of its execution. There are many which in 
 style and thought fall far below them. The measure is stiff at the 
 best, and sometimes it runs into sheer prose. What is the use, for 
 instance, of printing the following sentences in lines : — 
 
 " O brother of my mother, guardian true, 
 And second father, from the hour when first 
 My mother's faithful servant laid me down, 
 An infant at the hearth of Cypselus, 
 My grandfather, the good Arcadian king — 
 Thy part it were to advise and mine to obey. 
 But let us keep that purpose, which, at home, 
 We judged the best." 
 
 Verses frequently occur disfigured by peculiar awkwardness. 
 In some of them a straining after grandeur and simplicity has 
 only produced a ludicrous effect ; others are infected with that 
 vice of inflated metaphor which the author himself, in his capacity 
 of critic, so severely censures. A few instances will suffice to 
 illustrate all those errors ; the italics are ours : — 
 
 " Infirm protectors, dubious oracles 
 Construed awry, misplann'd in various — nsed 
 Two generations of his offspring wp" 
 
 " And iinaUy, this land, then half-subdued. 
 He pareeWd out in five confederate states." 
 
 " Let these Messenian maidens mark 
 The fear'd and blacken' d ruler of their race, 
 Albeit with lips unapt to self-excuse. 
 Blow off the spot of murder from his name!' 
 
MBROPE. 141 
 
 " But the signal example of invariahleness of justice, 
 Our glorious founder Hercules gave us, 
 Son loved of Zeus his father, for he erred." 
 
 " Ye witness'd ye mountain lawns, 
 When the shirt-wrapt, poison-bUster'd hero 
 Ascended with undaunted heart. 
 Living, his own funeral pUe, 
 And stood shoviing for a funeral torchV 
 
 " Thou confessest the prize 
 In the rushing, thundering-mad, 
 Oloud-enveloped, obscure, 
 Unapplauded, unsung 
 Race of calamity, mine ?" 
 
 It is perhaps hypercriticism to object to the use of Greek forms 
 in a play professedly founded on Greek models, but if Mr Arnold 
 wiU. coin double adjectives, he should coin them better. This 
 little volume swarms with phrases like " the all-wept way,'' " snow- 
 filled hollow," "guard-watched bear," "labour-released hero," 
 "fiercely-required victim." English hterature will not gain much 
 by their iutroduction. Those minor defects are not enough in 
 themselves to condemn the poem, and they are partly redeemed by 
 minor merits. We have referred to the well-written passage 
 about the death of ^pytus. There is another where Merope first 
 conceives her project of revenge, pp. 68-70. The beginning of 
 the chorus in p. 41, and the whole of that about Callisto, are above 
 the average. This is from the latter : it contains a good image. 
 
 " Once, 'mid the gorges, 
 Spray-drizzled, lonely 
 Unclimb'd by man. 
 O'er whOi-je cliffs the townsmen 
 Of crag-perohed Nonacris, 
 Behold in summer 
 The slender torrent 
 Of Styx come dancing, 
 A wind-Mown thread." 
 
 The misfortune is, that where " Merope " is best it only serves to 
 recall something better. If we compare the most musical of those 
 choruses with Shelley's "Arethusa," the chants in "HeUas," or 
 even with the songs in Byron's worst plays, we are struck with the 
 contrast between forced adaptations from a foreign literature and 
 
142 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 the natural melodies of our own tongue. But the grand fault of 
 " Merope " is its want of life. It has no fulness of soul to com- 
 pensate for absence of colour. We may lay down the book at 
 any page with the same equanimity, and only resume it from a 
 sense of duty. The characters have no clear features to distin- 
 guish them. They are known to us only by name, and their parts 
 might be played by moving statutes. This is a defect quite fatal 
 to a drama, and its presence seems to indicate that dramatic com- 
 position is not that in which the author is most qualified to excel 
 His own previous performances point to the same conclusion. 
 The most successful of them — as "Balder Dead," "Yseult of 
 Britanny," the choral parts of " Empedocles," and the best of his 
 minor poems — are marked by a sort of dreamy and refined beauty 
 which evaporates when brought into contact with action. It 
 needs passion to animate a play as surely as it requires heat to 
 kindle a fire, and passion is what Mr Arnold wants. Mere study 
 of the great masters wiU not supply this : exclusive study of the 
 Greek models will rather tend to exclude it. The extreme rev- 
 erence for the literature of Athens, which is fostered at our 
 Universities, is apt, if carried with him into later life, to remove 
 the poet from the range of modern interests, and to weaken his 
 power of influencing our times. Authors little and great have 
 sufi'ered from false theories, and the author of " Merope " has one 
 which he advocates in prose with more ability than he displays in 
 his poetical illustration of it. Those readers who skip the pre- 
 face will miss the best part of this volume. One half of this 
 preface is occupied with an interesting account of the various 
 ways in which the plot of " Merope " has been handled by previous 
 writers, and an amusing detail of Voltaire's relations to MafFei. 
 With this portion of it we have no fault to find, save that it almost 
 impresses us with the conviction that the plot in question has, to 
 borrow a phrase from Polyphonies, been pretty well " used up " 
 already. But in the other half, devoted to a eulogy of the Greek 
 forms of representation, we are arrested by a good deal that calls 
 for criticism. There is a curious law of alternation in literary taste, 
 in obedience to which during the last century successive standards 
 have been elevated and depressed, and difierent schools of poetry 
 have been unduly admired and depreciated. First, there was the 
 
MEROPE. 143 
 
 crusade headed by Cowper against the lifeless copyists of Pope and 
 Dryden, and the affected rigidity of the reigning fashion. Then 
 succeeded the supremacy of Byron, giving way to that of the Lakers, 
 Lastly, the later forms of romanticism, represented by various fol- 
 lowers of Keats, Shelley, and Tennyson. Now a new tide appears 
 to be setting in. In reaction against their errors two schools of 
 revivalists have sprung up, which are beginning to exercise a con- 
 siderable influence on our literature ; the one inviting it to an 
 imitation of the forms and thoughts of Mediaeval Europe ; the other 
 to those of Classical antiquity. Both have done good service, in a 
 historical point of view, by recalling our attention to the grandeur 
 and simplicity of those old times ; but both seem to err in shirking 
 the question as to how far their thought and expression is adapted 
 to meet the wants of the present age. It would require a long 
 investigation to enable us to discuss the merits of the former of 
 those schools. Mr Arnold may be taken as a worthy representative 
 of the latter. We shall mainly confine ourselves to an examination 
 of his advocacy of the ancient drama, as presented in this preface ; 
 though the question on which it turns merges itself into one much 
 wider. He admits, with Aristotle, that all the possible varieties of 
 tragedy may not be exhausted by one phrase, but asserts that the 
 Greek forms "satisfy in the most perfect manner some of the 
 most urgent demands of the human spirit : " neglecting the truth, 
 as it appears to us, that those demands vary in different eras, and 
 among different races. The central idea of ancient tragedy, that of 
 " acquiescence in the course of fate,'' is well contrasted by Mr De 
 Qnincey, in one of his most eloquent essays, with the conception of 
 freedom and the independence of human action which pervades our 
 own. The severe rules of the Greek stage have never been accept- 
 able among Teutonic nations, animated by a spirit opposed in so 
 many respects to that of the Hellenic races. Those rules have been 
 observed in modem times most closely by the French school, with 
 what amount of success Mr Arnold very well appreciates. Shak- 
 speare and the early English dramatists were the leaders of the great 
 reaction against classical formalism, which in a clime so evidently 
 unsuited to it was ever prone to degenerate into formality. Goethe, 
 whom our author rather unfairly adduces in support of his theory, 
 was, among the poets of the continent, one of the first to recognise 
 
] 44 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 the supremacy of those masters, and in this lay part of the secret 
 of his power. His own great drama is, if possible, further removed 
 than those of Schiller from an approach to the classic forms. Mr 
 Lewes is right in admiring the " Iphigenia " rather as a philosophic 
 poem than as a play, but even there, working on Greek matter, 
 Goethe has felt the necessity of infusing German thought, and 
 rendering the whole " in a manner of his own : " — the same neces- 
 sity which has guided Tennyson in his dealing with the heroic 
 legends of our own mythical period. To enter fully into the spirit 
 of a poem, we must find in it some points of contact with our- 
 selves. 
 
 Mr Arnold's argument concerning the lyrical element in a 
 drama is very weak. Fortifying himself under a remark of Cole- 
 ridge, he accuses Shakspeare of buffoonery, and says that "the 
 finer feeling of the Greeks" found the relief which his lighter 
 scenes supply, in lyric song. Coleridge does not use the word 
 bufibonery in this disparaging sense, in which it ill applies to those 
 wonderful sublimities of humour. We do not want Shakspeare 
 criticisms from any one : least of all from a critic who might be 
 disposed to identify Lear's fool with an ordinary bufibon. But it 
 would be interesting to know whether Mr Arnold's opinion as to 
 the lyrical element being an element of relaxation is at all preva- 
 lent. It seems to us, oh the contrary, that it is an element of the 
 most intense excitement. Certainly it is so on the English stage : 
 it may be a relief to the actors to give vent to their passion in 
 song, but it strains to the utmost the sympathy of the listeners, 
 and it is the love of this excitement that " renders so universal the 
 popularity of the Opera." The choruses are the most stimulating 
 portions of the Greek plays. They are, as it were, at a higher 
 temperature than the rest of the drama, and the pulse beats 
 quicker as we read them. To draw a parallel or contrast between 
 those choruses and the humorous scenes of modern dramatists, is 
 a vagary which the example of Aristophanes and the comic writers 
 of antiquity might have repressed. But whatever be the place of 
 lyrical effusions on the stage, there is one requisite which attaches 
 to them above all other sorts of composition ; they must be natu- 
 ral. To be so they must be written, said, or sung in the verse 
 natural to the language in which they are expressed. Translation 
 
MEEOPE. 145 
 
 is not the mere transference of words from one tongue to another : 
 a good translation is one which produces the same effect on the 
 reader as that which is produced by the original. Measures as 
 well as words are in so far matters of language, and vary in their 
 effect according as they are married to Greek, Latia, or English 
 verse. Hexameters, for instance, have a heroic march in Greek : 
 in English they are for the most part, idyllic. Elegiacs are not 
 properly represented with us by the stanza of Ovid. Iambics and 
 the more irregular Hellenic metres do not exist in our tongue. 
 Mr Arnold has done well to adopt blank verse both in " Balder," 
 and " Merope " as his heroic Hne ; he has faUed in his adaptations 
 of the chorus. He has quoted some stanzas to illustrate the 
 difficulty of getting a suitable rhythm of home growth which are 
 sufficiently " horrible : " but they are perversely chosen from Pope, 
 who was great as a wit alone, and could never write a lyric strain 
 in his life. If he had sought for models in " Comus " or the 
 "Arcades'' of MUton, in the "Prometheus Unbound," or even among 
 the more rapid measures of CoEins and Gray, he would have found 
 enough for his purpose. Shelley's " Hymn of Pan " was originally 
 written for insertion in a drama on the subject of Midas. It is 
 worth setting against Mr Arnold's quotation as a specimen of the 
 music which may be wrought out of themes similar to those 
 handled in the chants of Merope. 
 
 " From the forests and highlands 
 
 We come, we come ; 
 From the river girt islands, 
 
 "Where loud waves are dumb 
 
 Listening to my sweet pipings. 
 The wind in the reeds and rushes, 
 
 The bees on the bells of thyme, 
 The birds on the myrtle bushes. 
 
 The oicale above in the lime, 
 
 And the lizards below in the grass, 
 Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, 
 
 Listening to my sweet pipings. 
 
 " Liquid Peneus was flowing, 
 Aiid all dark Tempe lay 
 In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing 
 The light of the dying day. 
 K 
 
146 MODBliN LITBEATUEE. 
 
 Speeded with my sweet pipings, 
 The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, 
 
 And the nymphs of the woods and waves, 
 To the edge of the moist river-lawns. 
 
 And the brink of the dewy caves. 
 And all that did them attend and follow 
 Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo, 
 
 With envy of my sweet pipings. 
 
 " I sang of the dancing stars ; 
 I sang of the daedal earth. 
 And of Heaven — and the giant wars. 
 And Love, and Death, and Birth, 
 And then I changed my pipings." 
 
 How blind the search which passes by examples like this to find 
 a subject of ridicule in the absurd stanzas of St Cecilia's day ! 
 
 Turning from Mr Arnold's claims for the form of Greek repre- 
 sentation to his advocacy of its matter, we are dismissed with one 
 of those sentences which are marked by much greater smartness 
 than profoundity. "The Athenians fined Phrynichus for repre- 
 senting to them their own sufferings : there are critics who would 
 fine us for representing to them anything else." It might suffice 
 to reply that we are not Athenians, but the sophism implied does 
 not go so deep as this. Phr3michus was fined for bringing on the 
 stage of Athens a play on the fall of Miletus, which grated too 
 harshly upon a recent sorrow. When M. Jullien advertised the 
 Delhi polka, while the tidings of those terrible atrocities were yet 
 fresh in our ears, he ofi"ended English feeling and was greeted by 
 a well-merited burst of indignation. Not only the plays of Phry- 
 nichus but all the Greek dramas we can remember bore in some 
 way or other on the events of Greek legend or history. We are 
 in this respect, from circumstance and temper, much more catholic 
 than the Greeks, and are willing to accept materials even from re- 
 mote times and nations, only providing that we must be allowed 
 to treat them in our own way, in the forms and with the feel- 
 ing which we can appreciate and understand. Great examples 
 abundantly demonstrate the feasibility of such treatment. It is 
 in this way that Dante, Shakspeare, and Goethe dealt with classic 
 themes ; each in his day and country penetrating them with the 
 spirit under the influence of which he lived. So Wordsworth 
 
MBROPE. 147 
 
 wrote his " Dion," and " Laodamia," and Keats, that gentlest of 
 sweet singers, contrived to talk about the gods in a style pecu- 
 liar to himself, and which had only a certain majesty in common 
 with the old legends. Shelley, a student of the classics, was 
 more deeply pervaded with their spirit than any of our poets 
 since Milton ; yet he ever made them subservient to his own 
 originality and the inspirations of his time. He belonged to the 
 present more than to the past, and most of all to the future. 
 England has learnt too much from the past to ignore its greatness 
 or refuse to read its lessons. One of the chief advantages of 
 civilisation is the long memory which it half creates. A literature 
 preserved through centuries and diffused among our people keeps 
 ahve the recollection of much that, in ruder stages of national 
 progress, soon passes into forgetfulness. Greek literature and 
 Greek art will in this way continue to occupy a prominent place 
 among the influences which elevate and refine the tone of modern 
 thought. It is well that it should be brought conspicuously for- 
 ward, to withdraw us ever and anon from the " ebb and flow " of 
 our thronging streets, to the streams and isles of Hellas and the 
 early prime. But we can get no deliverance from the difficulties 
 amid which we move by relapse into a bygone age, by a forced 
 adoption of its forms, or an unnatural assumption of its thought. 
 There is a gulf between the Greek mind and ours which it is im- 
 possible for us to recross. The difference of language is the least 
 of the discrepancies between us. We regard some of the most 
 momentous relations of life from a point of view quite oppos'^ to 
 that of the Greeks. Their manners, institutions, and histori^l 
 traditions were difierent from ours. Physical science has disclosed 
 laws and developed forces of which they were ignorant. Our 
 religion has reve'aled an aspect of reality which they never con- 
 templated. Oar Ethical philosophy rests on another basis. Our 
 aspirations point toward other aims. Our energies are spent in 
 other channels ; our whole civilisation set in other courses. It is 
 inevitable that our forms of art should be difl'erent too. The 
 notions of limit and order from which they statrted have given 
 place to those of freedom, variety, and progress. Hence a contrast 
 conspicuous alike in Architecture, Music, Painting and Poetry. 
 On the one hand, there is symmetry, regularity, equipoise, self- 
 
148 MODERN LITEEATrRE. 
 
 satisfied perfection ; on the other, diversity, riches, harmony strug- 
 gling to evolve itself out of confusion — 
 
 " Infinite passion and the pain 
 Of finite hearts that yearn." 
 
 And who that has read history aright, or has a vestige of faith in 
 the growth of the world, would wish to exchange those germs of 
 greater things for the maturity of ancient times ? We compare 
 the Parthenon with the Cathedral of Cologne, a strain of Phrygian 
 melody with a sonata of Beethoven, the Apollo Belvidere with a 
 Madonna of Eaphael, any play of Sophocles with Hamlet, or Faust, 
 or the Cenci, and recognise " our glorious gains." But those are 
 contrasts that might occur to any school-boy set to write on the 
 difference between ancient and modern thought. We shall answer 
 Professor Arnold best in the words of another poet — a poet of a 
 different order — who makes his reply " to cries of Greek art, and 
 what more wish you?" in a couple of stanzas which grasp and 
 sum the whole question : — 
 
 " Growth came when, looking your last on them all, 
 
 You turn'd your eyes inwardly one fine day, 
 And cried with a start — what if we so small 
 
 Are greater, ay, greater the while than they ! 
 Are they perfect of Uneament, perfect of stature ? 
 
 In both of such lower types are we, 
 Precisely because of our wider nature : 
 
 For time, theirs, ours for eternity. 
 
 To-day's brief passion limits their range. 
 
 It seethes with the morrow for us and more. 
 They are perfect — ^how else ? they shall never change : 
 
 We are faulty — why not 1 we have time in store. 
 The Artificer's hand is not arrested 
 
 With us — we are rough-hewn, nowise pohsh'd. 
 They stand for our copy, and once invested 
 
 With all they can teach, we shall see them abolish'd. 
 
 Let Mr Arnold abandon the effort to put new wine into old 
 bottles, he will but do violence to his genius and fail as he has 
 failed here. Let him again give us the results of his own fine 
 feeling in his own natural words ; or if he is bent upon assuming 
 the buskin of Sophocles, let him follow his first impulse and he 
 may do for that poet even more than Professor Blackie has already 
 done for his great rival. 
 
V. 
 
 TENNYSON'S IDYLLS OF THE KING* 
 
 Since the days of Scott and Byron, when the literary world stood 
 on tiptoe at the announcement of a new lay of the minstrel, or a 
 fresh canto from the pilgrim, few volumes of verse have been 
 looked forward to so anxiously as the last of the Laureate's. Pro- 
 claimed and expected for more than a year previous to its publica- 
 tion, it is regarded by most readers as in part the fulfilment of a 
 much older promise. The earlier series of Mr Tennyson's poems 
 indicated, through the variety of their subjects, a sort of double 
 bent in the poet's mind. Many of the poems in that series, as 
 the fancy sketches which make up his gallery of beauty, his son- 
 nets, his odes, and addresses — the " Two Marianas," " The Miller's 
 Daughter," " Lady Clara," and the " May Queen," were pictures of 
 modern English life, the Life of the midland counties, the scenery 
 of the fens coloured by the thought and passion of an English 
 poet engaged in its contemplation. Others, on the contrary, were 
 revivals, more or less successful, of the past, draughts of memory 
 mainly from the fountain of classical and Eastern association — 
 " Eecollections of the Arabian Nights," visions of "Troas and 
 Ilion's columned citadel," echoes of the Lotus Eater's song. The 
 appearance of the "Morte d' Arthur" in 18-12, with the verses on 
 Sir Galahad, shewed that the author had been digging deeper in 
 the same mine of early English romance from which he had pre- 
 viously drawn the groundwork of the " Lady of Shalot." In the 
 grasp of its conception, the grouping of gorgeous imagery around 
 the close of the great epos, and the strong majesty of the verse, it 
 surpassed all the poet's earlier efforts, and took rank with the 
 foremost of those maturer products of his art, along with which it 
 appeared. The manner in which it was given forth, as a specimen 
 
 * Reprinted from the Wextmiiuter lieviev: for October 1859. 
 
150 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 or foretaste of a longer poem, seemed to indicate the poet's inten- 
 tion, as it gave a sufficient proof of his capacity, to illustrate and 
 recall more of the great features of the legend to which it belonged. 
 After a lapse of years, during which his genius has manifested 
 in other paths what we are still incHned to consider its highest 
 power, Mr Tennyson's lyre is again tuned to heroic notes, and he 
 has redeemed his former pledge as far as we need expect, or even 
 wish for it to be redeemed. 
 
 The "Idylls of the King" may be regarded as a new set of 
 extracts from the same unwritten epic in which the "Morte 
 d'Arthur " is ranked as the eleventh book. They are not Idylls 
 in the sense in which the word was originally applied to the 
 pastorals of Theocritu.s, nor in the sense in which the " Gardener's 
 Daughter," and "Dora," and " The Talking Oak," and "Edward 
 Gray," and "Lady Clara," and "The Brook," are English Idylls 
 — that is, ideal sketches of rural life, of the fields and the manners, 
 the romance and the loves of the country. They have a claim to 
 the title only in so far as they are not reflective or allegorical 
 poems, but pictures, in the composition of which description and 
 scenery play a considerable part. Their distinguishing feature is 
 their flow of narrative, and reaching their highest point in the 
 exhibition of the intensest life and passion of an imaginary heroic 
 age, they are fragments more properly dramatic or epic than 
 idyUic. 
 
 On entering upon a critical review of the volume, we are first 
 arrested by the excellences of its execution. Various readers 
 will form various judgments regarding the design with which the 
 poet has undertaken his work, and the degree in which he has 
 succeeded in carrying out his intention ; but there can be little 
 difference of opinion as to the skill which the poems themselves 
 display. There is no carelessness in their detail, no incongruity 
 in their structure, nothing spasmodic in their fervour, or exagge- 
 rated in their finish. Tennyson's blank verse, which so many imi- 
 tate and so few are able to reproduce, is itself moulded upon no 
 earlier model. It is not weighted with the almost oppressive 
 majesty of Milton's, nor does it in general give the massive im- 
 pression of Shakspeare's, or advance with the sweep of " Marlowe's 
 mighty line," but it has a power and sweetness of its own. " Mov- 
 
Tennyson's idylls of the king. 151 
 
 ing in the main gracefully along pleasant lanes and hedgerows, it 
 takes ever and anon an ampler range, and then sinks to rest again 
 after a rounded cadence, leaving in the reader's ear a sense of 
 harmony which is richer than that of the old decasyllabic rhymes 
 in proportion as the music is extended over half a page, instead of 
 being closed within a single stanza. This verse appears in perfec- 
 tion in the volume before us, where the poet has displayed the full 
 flexibility of its resources. There are passages in the Idylls which 
 flow on in as quiet and gentle a stream as "The Gardener's 
 Daughter," and others where the sound and sense are as deep and 
 tender as in the poem on " Love and Duty." The verse in others, 
 has the martial ring of the lines in " Ulysses," but its prevailing 
 characteristic is a perfect naturalness and ease. If it were neces- 
 sary we might point to instances in which this peculiarity shews 
 itself rather in excess, and the poems, falling in love with sim- 
 plicity, afifect too closely the style of prose, but those are trifling 
 exceptions to their general melody. The careful reader will note the 
 fact that this volume is very sparingly furnished with images ; the 
 descriptions it contains are rendered vivid by a judicious combina- 
 tion of attributes at once forcible and familiar, while the highest 
 poetry of the book is involved in the direct association of the 
 narrative. In none of the four IdyUs, however, will he fail to 
 find striking beauties of imageiy, some in the form of clear, 
 glittering, and pointed metaphor, while others appear as more 
 elaborately sustained comparisons. The following specimens will 
 serve as a sufficient indication of those gems, which, however, lose 
 more than half their beauty when detached from their setting. 
 
 MORXLN'G. 
 
 " And Enid listen'd brightening as she lay ; 
 Then, as the white and glittering star of morn 
 Parts from a bank of snow, and by and by 
 Slips into golden cloud, the maiden rose, 
 And left her maiden couch, and robed herself." — (P. 39.) 
 
 An Onset. 
 
 " Wild Limours, 
 Borne on a black horse, like a thunder-cloud 
 Whose skirts are loosen'd by the breaking storm, 
 Half ridden off with by the thing he rode. 
 And all in passion uttering a dry shriek, 
 Dashed on Geraint." — (P. 70.) 
 
152 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 A Court Dress. 
 " A splendid silk of foreign loom, 
 Where, like a shoaling sea, the lovely blue 
 Play'd into green, and thicker down the front 
 With jewels than the sward with drops of dew. 
 When all night long a cloud clings to the hill. 
 And with the dawn ascending, lets the day 
 Strike where it clung ; so thickly shone the gems." — (P. 82.) 
 
 Scattered Music. 
 
 " This rhyme 
 Is like the fair pearl necklace of the Queen, 
 That burst in dancing, and the pearls were spilt ; 
 Some lost, some stolen, some as relics kept. 
 But nevermore the same two sister pearls 
 Ran down the silken thread to kiss each other 
 On her white neck — so is it with this rhyme : 
 It lives dispersedly in many hands. 
 And every minstrel sings it differently." — (P. 117.) 
 
 A Revelation. 
 " As when a painter, poring on a face. 
 Divinely through all hindrance finds the man 
 Behind it, and so paints him that his face. 
 The shape and colour of a mind and life. 
 Lives for his children, ever at its best 
 And fullest ; so the face before her lived. 
 Dark — splendid, speaking in the silence, full 
 Of noble things, and held her from her sleep." — (P. 164.) 
 
 Note also the Homeric simile of the breaking wave, p. 165; the 
 image, p. 201 , illustrating the strangeness of familiar things, the 
 imagery in Vivien's song, &c. &c. The seeming absence of effort 
 which characterises this volume, is nowhere more conspicuous than 
 in the levis jv/nctura of the narrative. That is all art which shews 
 no art at all. Whatever we may think of his choice of themes, 
 we must acknowledge that the poet has managed them wonder- 
 fully. Nothing jars in the progress of the stories ; there are no 
 abrupt transitions, no gaps or jerks, or awkward joinings to arrest 
 the most sensitive nail ; nothing is stilted or overdrawn. One 
 circumstance arises out of another naturally, and we are able to 
 realise them all without any formal introduction behind the scenes. 
 The strangest events are made to appear familiar, and the most 
 forcible contrasts do not strike us as being exaggerated with a 
 
TENNYSON S IDYLLS OP THE KING. 153 
 
 view to heighten the effect. The poet scarcely ever addresses us 
 LQ his own person, but leaves the poem to speak for itself. He 
 has withdrawn himself from his work as from a creation to which 
 he has imparted an individual life ; and we appreciate his power 
 the more, that we forget the artist in his art, and become for a 
 time oblivious of his presence. 
 
 In making a separate survey of those Idylls, " Enid," the first 
 of the series, and the longest, will detain us least, as it is the least 
 impressive, and, on the whole, the least successful of the four. 
 The incidents on which it is founded belong not to the main epic 
 of the '' Mort d'Arthure," but to the " Maginugion," one of the 
 old Welsh legends relating to the same epoch. The story — one 
 of knightly jealousy and womanly endurance, bearing in many of 
 its features a strong resemblance to that of the Patient Griselda, — 
 is deficient in variety of interest. It drags along rather heavily 
 through the same round of adventures ; the digressions are tire- 
 some, because their subjects are comparatively trivial, and some 
 of the main characters are to our minds essentially repulsive. 
 We cannot feel any amount of admiration for Geraint, whom we 
 must consider the hero of the tale ; nor do we feel grateful to the 
 poet for having brought us into closer acquaintance with so boor- 
 ish a knight. Undoubtedly he is well endowed with physical 
 courage and strength of limb. He has a keen, flashing eye, a smile 
 like a stormy sunset, a great gruff voice, and an enormous appetite. 
 Eobbers and giants fall like so many ninepins beneath the slashing 
 stroke of his right arm, or fly before him like shoals of fish ; when 
 he is really angry, his sword shears off a huge earl's head like a 
 thistle. But he is utterly devoid of those nobler qualities which, 
 with few exceptions, distinguish the great knights of the " Mort 
 d'Arthure." He has none of the courtesy of Launcelot, the en- 
 during devotion of Tristram, the ardour of Lamorake, the deftness 
 and grace of Sir Palomides, or the fieiy family zeal of Sir Gawaine. 
 The single trait of generosity he exhibits is forbearing on one 
 occasion to " abolish " a dwarf who has offended him. His love 
 is as selfish as his mistrust is frivolous. He suspects his bride 
 before marriage ; the poem is occupied with a narrative of her 
 sufferings in consequence of a still more foolish suspicion ; and we 
 feel, in spite of the poet's assurance when it is done, that any 
 
154 MODERN LITERATtTRE. 
 
 fragment of a speech that may again fall on his ear, as he wakes 
 from slumber, wiU subject her to a renewal of the old doubts 
 and the same tyranny. Geraint's favourite way of looking at his 
 wife — if we may rely on an image which twice intrudes itself into 
 this poem, " as careful robins eye the delver's toil " (a line, by the 
 way, which those critics who feel with EUesmere, in Mr Helps' 
 dialogue, about the dulness of praise, wiU be inclined to make 
 themselves merry with) — gives us a vivid, if somewhat ridiculous 
 impression of the suspicion which is the key to this unpleasant 
 character. Surely the new law of divorce would be stretched to 
 afford relief to any lady who could prove such an offence against 
 her husband. Poor Enid, meek, devoted, gentle, in her constancy 
 bearing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things, is the 
 redeeming attraction of the poem. The descriptions of her beauty 
 engage its finest pages. Here is one : — 
 
 " But never light and shade 
 Coursed one another more on open ground 
 Beneath a trouhled heaven, than red and pale 
 Across the face of Enid hearing her ; 
 While slowly falling as a scale that falls, 
 When weight is added only grain by grain, 
 Sank her sweet head upon her gentle breast ; 
 Nor did she lift an eye nor speak a word, 
 Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it ; 
 So moving without answer to her rest 
 She found no rest, and ever faiVd to d/raw 
 The quiet night into her blood, but lay 
 Contemplating her own unworthiness." 
 
 The love she inspires is more that which is akin to pity than to 
 passion. From the time when she first comes before us dressed 
 in her faded silk, and singing, in her father's ruined halls, with 
 " the sweet voice of a bird," her song of fortune and its wheel, we 
 regard her with a compassion which deepens as the tale proceeds, 
 and does not leave us when we leave her at last in the fickle con- 
 fidence of her surly mate. This Idyll abounds with indications of 
 quiet strength, and masterpieces of description. The single com- 
 bats which are scattered thickly through it, are narrated with a 
 vigour only paralleled by similar narrations in the romances them- 
 selves. The ride of Enid and Geraint, through swamps and pools, 
 and gem-like meadows, by castles, archways, and little towns with 
 
Tennyson's idylls op the king. 155 
 
 towers, brings graphically before us a whole series of pictures of 
 England in the olden time ; that of Earl Doorm's hall, with the 
 bandits at dinner, " feeding like horses when you hear them feed," 
 is a striking instance of rough power. Yet we are at a loss to 
 understand on what principle Mr Tennyson has selected a subject 
 comparatively so tame, in preference to many others in the same 
 stock as rich as any he has handled in materials for dramatic 
 illustration. It has little connexion with the rest of the book — 
 the only link being in the references to the love of Launcelot and 
 the Queen, which is the main theme of the last act of the " Mort 
 d'Arthure ; " the characters about which it is employed are at 
 any rate among the least interesting types of their age, and we 
 regret that the curtain only closes upon them when more than a 
 third of the volume is over. It rises again, in the second Idyll, on 
 another scene, and other actors : — 
 
 " A storm was coming, but the winds were still, 
 And in the old woods of Brooeliande, 
 Before an oak, so hoUow, huge, and old, 
 It looked a tower of ruin'd mason-work. 
 At Merlin's feet the wily Vivien lay." 
 
 Here in a few words is the prelude to a game of craft and 
 passion ; the cunning wisdom matched against the cunning beauty 
 of the time. In his treatment of this legend, Mr Tennyson has 
 departed in two respects from his authorities. In the first place, 
 the majority of his allusions are anachronisms (if we may apply 
 chronology at all to such subjects) : the event here recorded took 
 place at a period previous to that when those allusions would 
 have been intelligible. Next, in reference to his female character. 
 The fairy Vivien in the French romance tries a fatal charm upon 
 her lover, but with a mere desire to prove its power, and laments 
 that she is unable to undo her work. The lady of the lake, 
 Nimue, who ultimately rescues herself from the amorous perse- 
 cutions of Merlin, by enticing him under a rock, plays the part of 
 a beneficient genius throughout the " Mort d'Arthure ; " she be- 
 comes the bride of Sir Pelleas, twice rescues the King himself 
 from destruction, and along with the three "weeping queens," 
 receives him in the barge after the battle in which he meets with 
 his mortal wound. The Vivien of the poet is, therefore, in great 
 
156 MODERN LITEBATUEE. 
 
 measure a creation of his own, and one which, perhaps, more than 
 any other exhibits the triumph of his art. Leaving the court in 
 disgust after failing to beguile the blameless king, that /SacrtXeu? 
 afjivfiwv of chivalry, she has followed Merlin, " the great enchanter 
 of the time," the founder of Arthur's dynasty, and the guide of 
 his counsels, not so much to win his love as to elicit the secret of 
 a spell which would place him for ever in her power : — 
 
 " As fancying that her glory would be great 
 According to his greatness whom she quench'd." 
 
 The art with which she beguiles Merlin is exquisite. The 
 description of her beauty and wanton wiles is to the last degree 
 luxuriant. She seems to lie before us, beneath the sage's feet, 
 with the gold round her hair ; " her lissome limbs," half concealed 
 and half revealed by the satin shining robe, like a rich spotted 
 snake, at once repulsive and fascinating. Her flattery, the ser- 
 vices she renders him, her own allusions to them, the excuse she gives 
 for her desire, her solemn vows of fidelity, are all in perfect keep- 
 ing with her character as the genius of seduction. What witch- 
 craft there is in the music of " her tender rhyme ! " — 
 
 " In love, if love be love, if love be ours, 
 Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers : 
 Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. 
 
 " It is the little rift within the lute, 
 That by and by will make the music mute, 
 And, ever widening, slowly silence all. 
 
 " The little rift within the lover's lute, 
 Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit. 
 That rotting inward slowly moulders all. 
 
 " It is not worth the keeping : let it go : 
 But shall it 1 — answer, darling ; answer, no ! 
 And trust me not at all, or all in all." 
 
 Merlin is oppressed by forebodings of danger, the softness of 
 her song itself alarms him when contrasted with the memory of a 
 more stining strain he heard from one of Arthur's knio-hts on a 
 great day of hunting in the woods — 
 
 " We could not keep him silent, out he flash'd, 
 And into such a song, such fire for fame, 
 Such trumpet blowings in it, coming down 
 To such a stern and iron-clashing close. 
 
Tennyson's idylls of the king. 157 
 
 That when we stopt we long'd to hurl together, 
 And should have done it ; but the beauteous beast, 
 Scared by the noise, upstarted at our feet, 
 And, like a silver shadow, slipt away 
 Thr6 the dim land ; and all day long we rode 
 Thro' the dim land against a rushing wind. 
 That glorious roundel echoing in our ears, 
 And chased the flashes of his golden horns.'' 
 
 He, too, has Ms fame to guard. But what is fame, cries Vivien, 
 but a name — a mirage of the future, while love is of the present ; 
 haK dis-fame at best ? To which Merlin answers, in lines which 
 tower above the fear of calunmy, less impressive in their sound 
 than their pregnant sense : — 
 
 " Fame with men 
 Being but ampler means to serve mankind, 
 Should have small rest or pleasure in herself, 
 But work as vassal to the larger love, 
 That dwarfs the petty love of one to one. 
 Use gave me Fame at first, and Fame again 
 Increasing gave me use. Lo, there my boon ! 
 What other ? for men sought to prove me vile, 
 Because I wished to give them greater minds" 
 
 He will keep the secret, but in return for her rhyme he will 
 tell the legend of those who first wrought the charm. Here are 
 some grand lines : — 
 
 "There lived a king in the most eastern east, 
 Less old than I, yet older, for my blood 
 Hath earnest in it of far springs to be. 
 A tawny pirate anchor'd in his port. 
 Whose bark had plunder'd twenty nameless isles ; 
 And passing one, at the high peep of dawn. 
 He saw two cities in a thousand boats, 
 All fighting for a looman on the sea. 
 And pushing his black craft among them all. 
 He lightly scatter'd theirs, and brought her off 
 With loss of half his people arrow-slain ; 
 A maid so smooth, so white, so wonderful. 
 They said a light came from her when she moved." 
 
 This lady being made queen, bewitched all the youth of the 
 realm, tUl the king offered half his wealth for a charm to over- 
 master her. This charm, brought by an old man to that kingdom, 
 has come down to Merlin, so subtle and mysterious, and so hard 
 
158 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 to read, that he fears none of Vivien's threats to discover it ; and 
 even were her oath of secrecy sure, has resolved to guard her foes 
 at court against a mah'gnant use of the spell. On the mention of 
 Arthur and his knights, the syren loses temper, and breaks into a 
 storm of accusation, letting her tongue "rage like a fire among 
 the noblest names. " The passage in which she pours forth her 
 spleen is the only one which in our judgment gives any coun- 
 tenance to the censure which this volume has met with on the 
 ground of immorality, or, more properly, of indelicacy. The form 
 in which those scandals are recounted, is not in every instance so 
 tasteful as might have been desired. Losing the simplicity with 
 which they are clothed in the legend, they lose in their poetic 
 form more than half of their innocence, and the details in some of 
 them are altered for the worse. The temptation and triumph of 
 Sir Percival make up a fine story in the " Mort d'Arthure ;" here it 
 is merely and unnecessarily revolting. It may be that such hand- 
 ling of such themes is in keeping with Vivien's character, but that 
 is otherwise sufficiently defined. Merlin's muttered indignation 
 leads us for a moment to believe that her false move has ruined 
 her game, but she has stiU a powerful card to play. His anger 
 overreaches itself in harsh words, and she seizes the strong 
 position of one who has been wronged. After the first burst of 
 passion which threatens to betray her real nature, she falls to 
 weeping like a child, and then reproaches him with cruelly 
 misconceiving a love which .sought to depreciate others only to 
 exalt him the more : — 
 
 " She paused, she turn'd away, she hung her head, 
 The snake of gold shd from her hair, the braid 
 Shpt and uncoil'd itself, she wept afresh, 
 And the dark wood grew darker toward the storm 
 In silence, while his anger slowly died 
 Within him, till he let his wisdom go 
 For ease of heart, and half believed her true." 
 
 Called from the storm, she comes " to her old perch back," and 
 the wizard shields her with his arm. One stroke more and 
 her victory is complete. Suddenly she leaps from him with the 
 majesty of innocence. He doubts her faith ; their love is at an 
 end ; she must leave him for ever. Only one thing she exclaim.s. 
 
Tennyson's idylls op the king. 159 
 
 as if incidentally, could make her stay, that proof of trust she 
 asked for ; and then, as if allured by the hope of reconciliation, 
 she urges the request, praying that if she lies at heart the darken- 
 ing heavens may send a flash to strike her down. Then follows a 
 wonderful passage : — 
 
 " Scarce had she ceased, when out of heaven a bolt 
 (For now the storm was close above them) struck, 
 Furrowing a giant oak, and javelining 
 With darted spikes and splinters of the wood 
 The dark earth round. He raised his eyes and saw 
 The tree that shone white-listed through the gloom. 
 But Vivien, fearing Heaven had heard her oath, 
 And dazzled by the livid-flickering fork, 
 And deafen'd with the stammering cracks and claps 
 That foUow'd, flying back and crying out, 
 ' O Merhn ! tho' you do not love me, save. 
 Yet save me ! ' Clung to him, and hugged him close ; 
 ****** 
 
 The pale blood of the wizard at her touch 
 
 Took gayer colours, like an opal warmed. 
 
 She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales : 
 
 She shook from fear, and for her fault she wciit 
 
 Of petulancy ; she call'd him lord and liege, 
 
 Her seer, her bard, her silver star of eve, 
 
 Her God, her Merlin, the one passionate love 
 
 Of her whole life ; and ever overhead 
 
 Bellovi'd the tempest, and the rotten branch 
 
 Swept in the rushing of the river rain 
 
 Above them ; and in change of glare and gloom, 
 
 Her eyes and neck glittering went and came, 
 
 TiU now the storm, its burst of passion spent, 
 
 Moaning and calling out of other lands. 
 
 Had left the ravaged woodland yet once more 
 
 To peace ; and what should not have been had been, 
 
 For Merlin, overtalk'd and overworn, 
 
 Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept." 
 
 For mere gorgeous writing, there is nothing to equal this in the 
 volume. The lightning seems to kindle the verse itself, and the 
 tempest roars and rattles in our ears as we close the book. The 
 only description we know to compare with it in recent poetry 
 is that of the storm which breaks over Sebald and Ottima in 
 Browning's " Pippa Passes." 
 
 We can understand why this poem has been called immoral 
 
160 MODERN LITEBATUEB. 
 
 without concurring in the verdict. The morality of a story is 
 determined by the impression which it leaves as a whole on the 
 reader's mind, and not by shades of expression ; and surely a 
 poem is not necessarily immoral, because it does not deal exclu- 
 sively with noble motives and pure actors. As it seems to us Vivien 
 is neither moral nor immoral, but a masterpiece of simple art, 
 luxuriant in its colour, thrilling in its action. It has a mere 
 incidental connexion with mediaeval legend. It is a splendid 
 pagan comment on the old heathen text — 
 
 xctl 9r3g »«?i^ Ti; oi/ffa." 
 
 The story of Elaine le Blaunch, the maid of Astolat, and her 
 hapless love, is one of the most touching episodes which adorn the 
 close of the " Mort d'Arthure." Mr Tennyson, in again returning to 
 the subject, to which he had given a somewhat shadowy treatment in 
 one of his earher poems, has handled this story in a manner which 
 at once brings it more within the range of our sympathies, and is in 
 closer conformity with the original legend. The gathering sus- 
 picion in Arthur's court regarding his queen's infidelity, her con- 
 versation with Sir Launcelot, his resolution to enter the Hsts in 
 disguise, his visit to Astolat and reception there, as weU as the 
 conception of the heroine of the tale, are nearly identical in the 
 two versions. Elaine has no more resemblance to the mystic and 
 metaphysical Lady of Shalot than she has to Vivien or Guinevere. 
 Judged not by the code of modern times, or the manners of a 
 formed society, but as a child of nature in an age which has been 
 invested by the imagination with many of the features of child- 
 hood, the lily maid is one of the sweetest of all ideal creations. 
 There is a saintly simplicity about her whole fate and character 
 and an ethereal grace which recall " Undine." Her tragedy is thus 
 summed by the romancer, when she is first introduced to us in her 
 father's castle : — " This old baron had a daughter that time that 
 was called the fair maid of Astolat, and ever she beheld Sir 
 Launcelot wonderfully ; and she cast a love unto Sir Launcelot 
 that she could not withdraw her love, whereof she died." The 
 passage in which the poet has expanded this will give a fair speci- 
 men of the style of his embellishments : — 
 
Tennyson's idylls of the king. ]61 
 
 " He spoke and ceased : the lily maid, Elaine, 
 Won by the mellow voice before she look'd, 
 Lifted her eyes, and read his lineaments. 
 The great and guilty love he hare the quern, 
 In battle with the love he hare his lord, 
 Had marr'd his face, and mark'd it ere his time. 
 Another sinning on such heights with one 
 The flower of all the west, and aU the world, 
 Had been the sleeker for it ; but in him 
 His mood was often like a fiend, and rose 
 And drove him into wastes and solitudes 
 For agony, who was yet a living soul. 
 Marr'd as he was, he seem'd the goodliest man 
 That ever among ladies ate in hall. 
 And noblest, when she lifted up her eyes. 
 However marr'd, of more than twice her years, 
 Seam'd with an ancient sword-cut on the cheek, 
 And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes 
 And loved him with that love which was her doom." 
 
 The next few sentences give the argument of several pages of 
 the poem : — 
 
 " So then, as she came to and fro, she was so hot in her love that she 
 besought Sir Launcelot to wear upon him at the justs a token of hers. 
 ' Faire damosell,' said Sir Launcelot, ' and if I graunt you that, yee may 
 say I doe more for your love than ever I did for lady or damosell.' Then 
 he remembered him that he would ride into the justs disguised, and for 
 because he had never before that time borne no manner of token of no 
 damosell, then he bethought him that he would beare one of hers that 
 none of his blood might know him. And then he said, ' Faire damosell, I 
 will graunt you to weare a token of yours upon my helmet, and, therefore, 
 what it is shew me.' ' Sir,' said she, ' it is a red sleeve of mine of scarlet, 
 well embroidered with great pearles.' And so she brought it him." 
 
 Wearing this token, he enters upon the battle of the lists, into 
 the description of which the poet has thrown even more than his 
 usual vigour. Set upon by his OTvn kinsmen, he retires, though 
 victorious, severely wounded, into the country, where, after a time, 
 Elaine comes to present him with the prize which has been in- 
 trusted to her care, and to nurse him in his sickness. The circum- 
 stances of her visit, the blush which revealed her sad secret, and 
 her passing " in either twilight, ghost-like, to and fro," between 
 her home and his cave, are most touchingly told. Launcelot, his 
 life saved by her fine care, feels towards her all a brother's 
 affection : — 
 
 L 
 
162 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 " And peradveuture had he seen her first, 
 She might have made this and that other world 
 Another world for the sick man ; but now 
 The shackles of an old love straiten'd him, 
 His honour rooted in dishonour stood, 
 And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true!' 
 
 Meanvchile, the old love, the grand haughty queen, the gorgeous 
 Gruinevere, who stands out in contrast to Elaine as the fuU moon 
 of autumn to the evening star, hears of Launcelot wearing the 
 sleeve. " Goodly hopes are mine," says Arthur, bearing the news, 
 " that Launcelot is no more a lonely heart : " — 
 
 " ' Yea, loi'd,' she said, 
 ' Your hopes are mine,' and saying that she choked 
 And sharply turn'd about to hide her face. 
 Moved to her chamber and there flung herself 
 Down on the great King's couch, and writhed upon it. 
 And clench'd her fingers till they bit the pahn, 
 And shriek'd out ' traitor ' to the unhearing wall. 
 Then flash'd into wild tears and rose again 
 And moved about her palace proud and pale." 
 
 What a picture of jealous rage ! It is that of a Medea or a 
 Mary Stuart. It almost awes us out of our condemnation, as it 
 half enlists our sympathies. But poor Elaine, "her guiltless 
 rival," is waking slowly to the fatal knowledge of unrequited 
 love ; and yet against hope she hopes, till, on the morning of his 
 departure, Launcelot desires her to ask from him whatever is 
 nearest her heart, and fearing to " die for want of one bold word," 
 suddenly and wildly .she asks him for his love. Too bold a word 
 is a favourite and not unnatural criticism : in an age when the 
 noblest natures are more apt to err on the side of over-restraint, 
 we love those most who never tell their love ; but viewed, as it 
 claims to be, in connexion with the character and the time, it 
 surely does not involve any essential immodesty. Launcelot can 
 grant all but this. She will have no other gift, " her good days 
 are done." The knight rides off sadly without bidding farewell. 
 The maiden sits alone in her bower waiting her end : — 
 
 " And in those days she made a little song. 
 And call'd her song ' The Song of Love and Death,' 
 And sang it : sweetly could she make and sing. 
 
Tennyson's idylls op the king. 163 
 
 " Sweet is true love, though given in vain, in vain ; 
 
 And sweet is death who puts an end to pain ; 
 
 I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 
 " Love, ait thou sweet ? then bitter death must be. 
 
 Love, thou art bitter ; sweet is death to me. 
 
 love, if death be sweeter, let me die. 
 
 " Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away, 
 Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay, 
 
 1 know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 
 
 " I fain would follow love, if that could be ; 
 I needs must follow death, who calls for me ; 
 Call and I follow, I follow ! let me die." 
 
 We will tell the rest of lier story in the words of the romance. 
 If the reader compares it with the poem, he will find beauties 
 peculiar to each. 
 
 "So when she had thus endured about ten days, that she felt that 
 she must needs passe out of this world, then she shrove her cleane and 
 received her Creatour, and ever shee complained still upon Sir Launoelot. 
 Then her ghostly father bade her leave such thoughts. Then said shee, 
 ' Why should I leave such thoughts 1 am I not an earthly woman ? and all 
 the while the breath is in my body I may complaine ; for my beleeve is 
 that I doe none offence, though I love an earthly man, and I take God 
 unto my record I never loved non but Sir Launcelot du Lake, nor never 
 shall ; and a cleane maiden I am for him and for all other ; and seth it is 
 the suiFrance of God that I shall die for the love of so noble a knight, 
 I beseech the high Father of heaven for to have mercy upon my soule, 
 and that mine innumerable pains which I suffer may be allegiance of part 
 of my sinnes. For, our swete Saviour Jesu Christ,' said the maiden, 
 ' I take thee to record I was never greater offender against thy lawes, 
 but that I loved this noble' knight Sir Launoelot out of all measure ; 
 and of my selfe, good Lord, I might not withstand the fervent love 
 wherefore I have my death.' And then she called her father Sir 
 Bernard, and her brother Sir Tirre, and heartely she praied her father 
 that her brother might write a letter like as she would endite it. And so 
 her father graunted her. And when the letter was written word by word 
 like as she had devised, then she prayed her father that she might be 
 watched untill she were dead. ' And while my body is whole let this 
 letter be put into my right hand, and my hand bound fast with the letter 
 untill that I be cold, and let me be put in a fair bed with all the richest 
 clothes that I have about me, and so let my bed and all my rich clothes 
 be laide with me in a chariot to the next place where as the Thamse is, 
 and there let me bee put in a barge, and but one man with me, such as 
 yee trust, to stere me thither ; and that my barge be covered with black 
 samite over and over. Thus, father, I beseech you let me be done.' So 
 her father graunted her faithfully that all this thing should be done like 
 as she had devised." 
 
164 MODERN LITEEA.TURE. 
 
 Meanwhile, " all in an oriel in the summer side " of Arthur's 
 palace, Launcelot comes to present the diamonds he had fought 
 for and won in nine great jousts to the queen. Their meeting 
 gives rise to another magnificent scene. Guinevere breaks into a 
 tempest of wrath and scorn, and after bidding the knight add his 
 diamonds to the pearls of his new love, suddenly exclaims : — 
 
 " Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself, 
 Or hers, or mine, — mine now to work my will, 
 She shall not have them. Saying which she seized. 
 And through the casement, standing wide for heat. 
 Flung them, and down they flash'd and smote the stream. 
 Then from the smitten surface flash'd, as it were. 
 Diamonds to meet them, and they pass'd away. 
 Then while Sir Lancelot leant in half disgust 
 At love, life, all things, on the window-ledge, 
 Close underneath his eyes, and right across 
 Where these had fallen, slowly passed the barge 
 Whereon the lily maid of Astolat 
 Lay smiling, like a, star in blackest night." 
 
 The power and beauty of this contrast is Tennyson's own. It 
 comes upon us, on a first reading, like a shock, as we are arrested 
 by its full force. Little remains to conclude the last act of the 
 tragedy. The king, queen, and lords of the court come to see 
 the barge where the dead maiden " lay as tho' she smiled," and 
 read her confession of unrequited love, and grant her prayer for 
 mass and burial : — 
 
 " Then Arthur spake among them, — ' Let her tomb 
 Be costly, and her image thereupon ; 
 And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet 
 Be carven, and her lily in her hand.' " 
 
 Requiescat in pace. 
 
 In Mr Tennyson's softened version the tragedy of Guinevere is 
 brought near to that of Francesca da Rimini, for whom the sternest 
 of poets, and the world with him, has more of pity than condem- 
 nation. He puts into the mouth of Merlin a palliation of her 
 crime : — 
 
 " Sir Lancelot went ambassador at first 
 To fetch her, and she took him for the king, 
 So fix'd her fancy on him." 
 
Tennyson's idtlls op the king. 165 
 
 This is not the most important point in which his account is 
 peculiar. That the reader may judge how much he has refined 
 and modernised the original story, we shall set down the main 
 events of the "Mort d'Arthure," which occupy the place of his 
 fourth Idyll. As in the poem, so in the romance, Launcelot and 
 the queen are trapped by the contrivance of Sir Modred, who 
 accompanies a band of followers to surround the palace. Launce- 
 lot's prowess dissipates them, and he escapes. But Guinevere, con- 
 victed of treason, is arrested and condemned to the stake. Eescued 
 at the last, she rides off with her lover to his own castle of Joyous 
 Guard, and there, aided by his knights against the royal forces for 
 good part of a year, he keeps her, tiU the Pope, resolving to recon- 
 cile them, commands the king to receive back his wife ; and 
 Launcelot reconducts her to the court. Banished from England, 
 he crosses the sea with half the fellowship of the Eound Table. 
 The king pursues him with a host, and war rages tUl news arrives 
 of Modred's usurpation. Guinevere, evading a demand made by 
 the prince for her hand, is guarding against him the Tower of 
 London, when Arthur returns to gain two victories over his rebel 
 son, and receive in the last his mortal wound. After this the 
 queen steals away to a nunnery at Almesbury. One of the latest 
 events in the book is a visit she receives, shortly before her own 
 decease, from Sir Launcelot ; it ends with his death and the dis- 
 solution of the Round Table. Mr Tennyson opens his " Guine- 
 vere " with the queen at Almesbury. Returning, after his wont, to 
 explain her presence there, he narrates in his own way the detec- 
 tion of her guilt, followed, in his version of the story, by an 
 immediate flight to the nunnery. By far the finest passage in this 
 early portion of the poem is an account of her remorse previous 
 to her exposure, for which again we are indebted to the poet's 
 imagination : — 
 
 " Many a time for hours, 
 Beside the placid breathings of the King, 
 In the dead night, grim faces came and went 
 Before her, or a vague spiritual fear — 
 Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors, 
 Heard by the watcher in a haunted house, 
 That keeps the rust of murder on the walls — 
 Held her awake : or if she slept, she dream'd 
 
166 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 An awful dream ; for tlien slie seem'd to stand 
 On some vast plain before a setting sun, 
 And from the sun there swiftly made at her 
 A ghastly something, and its shadow flew 
 Before it, till it touch'd her, and she turn'd — 
 When lo ! her own, that broadening from her feet, 
 And blackening, swaUow'd all the land, and in it 
 Far cities burnt, and with a cry she woke. 
 ■ And all this trouble did not pass but grew ; 
 Till even the clear face of the guileless King, 
 And trustful courtesies of household life, 
 Became her bane." 
 
 Introduced unknown into the convent, the queen is attended 
 by a little novice, whose present prattle helps at first to relieve 
 her weariness ; but news arriving of Modred's revolt, she sets to 
 talk of the king's wrongs, and express in heedless innocence her 
 indignation ; so that she, 
 
 " Like many another babbler, hurt 
 Whom she would soothe, and harm'd where she would heal." 
 
 Her unconscious offence and Guinevere's angry distress are skilfully 
 portrayed, but up to this point the poem is on the whole inferior 
 to the two preceding Idylls. Here it takes a new turn, and on the 
 arrival of Arthur, who has sought out and found his wife, it rises 
 to a height of moral grandeur unapproached by any of the others : — 
 
 " A murmuring whisper through the nunnery ran. 
 Then on a sudden a cry, ' The King.' She sat 
 Stiff-strioken, listening ; but when armed feet 
 Thro' the long gallery from the outer doors 
 Rang coming, prone from off her seat she feU, 
 And grovell'd with her face against the floor : 
 There with her milk-white arms and shadoviy hair 
 She made her face a darkness from the King, 
 And in the darkness heard his armed feet 
 Pause by her ; then came silence, then a voice 
 Monotonoiis and hollow, like a ghosts 
 Denouncing judgment, but though changed, the King's." 
 
 Perhaps there is nothing of equal extent in English poetry 
 
 which, for sustained majesty of thought, ineffable solemnity, and 
 
 pathos, can be well compared with the speech that follows : — 
 
 " ' Liest thou here so low, the child of one 
 I honour'd, happy, dead before thy shame ? 
 Well is it that no child is born of thee. 
 
Tennyson's idylls op the king. 167 
 
 The children bom of thee are sword and fire, 
 Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws, 
 The craft of kindred, and the godless hosts 
 Of heathen swarming over the Northern sea, 
 Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my right arm. 
 The mightiest of my knights abode with me. 
 Have everywhere about this land of Christ 
 In twelve great battles ruining overthrown.^ " 
 
 Then he tells how she has disorganised the realm, rent aU his 
 princely fellowship of knights, corrupted by the example of her 
 crime, spoilt the whole purpose of his Ufe, and left him desolate in 
 his lonely haUs : — 
 
 " ' For which of us who might be left could speak 
 
 Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at thee ? 
 
 And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Ush, 
 
 Thy shadow still would glide from room to room, 
 
 And I should evermore he vext with thee 
 
 In hanging robe or vacant ornament. 
 
 Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair. 
 
 For think not, though thou couldst not love thy lord. 
 
 Thy lord hast whoUy lost his love for thee. 
 
 I am not made of so slight elements. 
 
 He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch 
 
 Nearer, and laid her hand about his feet. 
 ****** 
 
 ' I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere, 
 I, whose vast pity almost makes me die 
 To see thee, laying there thy golden head. 
 My pride in happier summers, at my feet. 
 ****** 
 
 ' Lo ! I forgive thee as eternal God 
 
 Forgives ; do thou for thy own soul the rest ; 
 
 But how to take last leave of aU I loved, 
 
 golden hair with which I used to play, 
 
 Xot knowing ! O imperial moulded form, 
 
 And beauty such as never woman wore, 
 
 Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee. 
 ****** 
 
 ' Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul. 
 
 And so thou lean on our fair father, Christ, 
 
 Hereafter in that world where all are pure. 
 
 We two may meet before high God, and thou 
 
 Wilt spring on me, and claim me thine, and know 
 
 1 am thy husband — not a smaller soul. 
 Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that, 
 
 I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence. 
 
168 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 Through the thick night I hear the trumpet blow ; 
 
 They summon me their king to lead mine hosts 
 
 Far down to that great battle in the west. 
 ***** * 
 
 ' Farewell ! ' And while she grovell'd at his feet, 
 
 She felt the king's breath wander o'er her neck, 
 
 And in the darkness o'er her fallen head 
 
 Perceived the waving of his hands that blest." 
 
 Writing like this, and that which concludes the poem, carries 
 us beyond the region of criticism and praise. He who reads it 
 well, will read it alone in silence, with a sense of awe, and thoughts 
 that lie deeper than tears. 
 
 On completing our survey of the artistic structure of those 
 Idylls, which, with the addition of his "Mort d'Arthure," "Sir 
 Galahad," and the detached verses on " Sir Launcelot and Queen 
 Guinevere," make up the list of Mr Tennyson's efforts in this 
 direction, we are naturally led to inquire into the motive which 
 has swayed him in the choice of his work : — 
 
 " I see in part 
 That all, as in some work of art, 
 Is toil co-operant to an end." 
 
 What is the end which the poet has proposed to himself, beyond 
 that which is purely artistic, in his dealing with those legendai-y 
 themes? Essentially fragments, they have in their vague con- 
 nexion neither the unity nor the grasp which is necessary to an 
 epic. We must ask how far, viewed as isolated pictures, they 
 present us with real features of a former period. In answering 
 this, we ought to remember how little there is in the old romances 
 themselves which can in any sense be considered as history. The 
 " Mort d'Arthure " has been called an English Homer, and there 
 are points of resemblance which in some degree justify the 
 appellation ; but the contrasts which the comparison suggests 
 are yet more numerous and important. The events which form 
 the theme of the Arthurian legend bear a still remoter relation 
 to any probable reality than those of the Trojan war. The very 
 existence of Arthur himself, in spite of the vehement asseveration 
 of the writer of the preface to the edition of 1621, is called in 
 question by Milton — ^not a very sceptical critic — ^in his early 
 history of Britain. The solitary fact on which the historian seems 
 to rest is that, at one period of the Saxon conquest, about a.d. 527, 
 
tektjyson's idtli.s of the king. 169 
 
 Kedric, the founder of Wessex, was arrested in his progress by 
 a defeat sustained at Badon Hill. It is conjectured that King 
 Arthur may have, on this occasion, led the victorious Britons, and 
 the battle may have been the last of twelve won against the same 
 invaders. But the details of his birth, life, and achievements 
 appear as a mere superstructui-e of imagination and fable. What- 
 ever date we may assign to the composition of the Homeric 
 poems, or whatever theory we may form of their compilation, 
 they certainly became current in Greece at a time when the 
 Greeks were interested in the same struggle of which the poems 
 celebrate the mythical origin Six himdred years had elapsed 
 since the supposed death of the hero, when Geoffrey of Mon- 
 mouth, A.D. 1147, first gave forth the story which formed the 
 ground of the Arthurian legends ; and it was not until the latter 
 half of the same century, that the five Anglo-Norman romances 
 were produced from which, with others belonging to a later 
 period, Malory, in 1469, compiled the "Mort dArthure" in the 
 English prose form in which it is most familiar to us. However 
 much of the " Iliad " and " Odyssey " we may attribute to the mere 
 imagination of the poet, they undoubtedly present in their leading 
 details the reflection of a real Homeric age. The Greeks to a 
 large extent regarded them, and Mr Gladstone has shewn how far, 
 in this point of view, we may continue to regard them, as history. 
 There is not the same gTOund for the belief in an Arthurian age 
 in England. The poets who first celebrated it in prose or 
 verse, were inspired at the dawn of civUisation by the desire of 
 preserving the records of the prior age of chivalry. They attached 
 themselves naturally to the vague traditions of a vanquished 
 race, and interweaving with them the religion and sentiment of a 
 more refined period, threw the lustre of memory over the last 
 efforts of the British kings. Their romances reflect more closely 
 the features of society under the early Plantagenets than the 
 Saxon conquerors ; they are traditions of the era of Charlemagne 
 revived by the contemporaries of Chaucer. A better national 
 parallel to the Homeric poems is to be found in the "Border 
 Ballads,'' which, although presenting pictures of a later time, are 
 really more ancient, as the period in which their authors lived 
 was nearer to that of which they wrote. 
 
170 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 But if the knights of the "Mort d'Arthure" are not refil 
 portraitures of the barbaric chiefs who fought at Badon Hill, 
 Mr Tennyson's knights are still further removed, and in the 
 same direction, from their actual prototypes. The Idylls cannot 
 properly be said to be close reproductions of the legends. We 
 have seen how far they depart from them in regard to some of 
 their leading events ; they bear in their details still more distinct 
 traces of change and modification. The characters are more re- 
 fined ; their motives more complex, their passion, abrupt as it 
 appears in comparison with that of the present time, is softened 
 down from the abruptness of the original. The speeches in 
 " Guinevere," the song in " Elaine," and the whole of " Vivien," 
 are essentially modern. Those poems of Mr Tennyson's stand 
 in a class "by themselves. Distinct in kind from the luxuriant 
 imaginations of the "Fairy Queen," or the graceful fantasies of 
 Ariosto, they are not like the "Seasons" of Fouque, simple 
 sketches of chivalry, half allegorical and half ideal ; still less are 
 they really mediaeval in the sense in which some of Browning's 
 poems, and the wonderful reproductions of the German Meinhold 
 (the author of " Sidonia " and the " Amber Witch,") are mediaeval, 
 recalling with historical exactness the modes of action, belief, 
 and feeling in the middle ages. Tennyson has neither approached 
 this exactness, nor is it his desire to do so. His object is 
 manifestly, as expressed in his own lines, to steal "fire from the 
 fountains of the past to glorify the present," and he effects, in 
 striving to attain it, a sort of compromise between the two epochs. 
 In the epilogue to his first epical fragment, he makes it his 
 apology for reverting to the " style of those heroic times," that he 
 has connected them with traces of the life around him. 
 
 " Perhaps some modern touches here and there 
 Redeemed it from the charge of nothingness." 
 
 And again in the Idylls he recalls and brings before us 
 
 " King Arthur, hke a modern gentleman 
 Of stateheat port." 
 
 The basis of their incidents, certain traits of character, and some 
 details of scenery, are all these poems have in common with the 
 period to which they relate. Dismissing, therefore, all notion of 
 
Tennyson's idylls of thk king. 171 
 
 their historical value, it is easier to guess what was the temptation 
 which led the poet to the choice of their subjects, than to see 
 what they gain from this choice in their power of impressing 
 the reader. The past has been a favourite with artists in all ages. 
 The old man and the poet are alike laudatores temporis acti. 
 It allures the one with the fascinations of his childhood, the other 
 with the romance of his imagination. A golden age, when men 
 were at once simpler and greater, more gentle and more brave, 
 has been the mirage of every real age in the world's history. 
 The later Greeks reverted with longing to the majesty of the 
 days of Pericles ; the Athenian of that time regretted the glories 
 of the Homeric era, while Homer himself laments the degeneracy 
 of his own generation. Our modern historians love to throw an 
 imaginary grandeur round the Tudors and Plantagenets. The 
 romancer who lived under the earliest of those reigns looks back 
 for that grandeur to a remoter epoch. " We hear of our barbarian 
 ancestors," says Mr Froude; "yet if they were like the images on 
 their tombs, more majestic forms were never worn by humanity." 
 We look back four centuries and find Sir Thomas Malory writing 
 in the same strain, " Hasty heat soon cooleth, right so fareth love 
 now a days, soon hot, soon cold ; there is no stability. But the 
 old love was not so ; then was love, truth, and faithfulness." In 
 an age of overwrought activity, when the elements adapted for the 
 pui-poses of imagination are hidden beneath the dust of the strife, 
 we are strongly impelled to revert to our memories of a time 
 before the rivers were poisoned and the fields charred by furnaces, 
 when the manners of men were more frank if less refined, and the 
 social rules which bound them less inquisitive. As far as this 
 impulse has a tendency to free us from the restrictions of our own 
 conventionality, it is a beneficent one ; but its good effect is 
 marred when it results ia a mere reaction to earlier forms, in 
 themselves as irrational and yet more rigid in their application. 
 In proportion to the contrast between two ages we must be 
 careful to defme the degree in which the one can be legitimately 
 held up as a model to the other. It is well that the past should 
 be brought back before us with its grander features, softened 
 and solemnised by time, to counteract our errors, to recall those 
 truths which do not " look freshest in the fashion of the day," to 
 
172 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 check our frivolity by the images of its mighty dead, to temper 
 down our restlessness, and withdraw our minds, "in seasons of 
 calm weather," from the ebb and flow of streets to the islands 
 of its rest. But there is a danger of its alluring us into mere 
 luxurious contemplation of a greatness which exists, after all, 
 mainly in our own imaginations. Our poets and painters are 
 then, like the minstrel maiden in Heine's satire, singing songs of 
 Paradise to conceal from us the duty of remedying the evils of 
 earth. There is something of this error in Mr Euskin's teaching, 
 and in the work of that school of artists who have endeavoured to 
 act on his advice. It is prominent in the theory and practice of 
 those who refer us for instruction in life and art exclusively to the 
 models of classical antiquity. The Medisevalism which is creeping, 
 under various disguises, into some important branches of our 
 literature, recalls us to a period which has in some respects more 
 afiinity to our own, and being less complete is more capable of 
 expansion. Yet there can scarcely be a greater contrast than that 
 which exists between the times in which we live and those which 
 are brought before us in the legends of knight-errantry. In pass- 
 ing from the one to the other we turn from a complex society 
 ruled by complex motives — an era of manifold knowledge — a maze 
 of conflicting interests, of varied forms of labour, in which vast 
 material forces are ruled by intellectual power, to that old age 
 which is the youth of the world, when all might was in the strong 
 arm and all wonder in a fair face — an era of simple forces aiming 
 at simple ends, out-sjDOken more from its simplicity than its sin- 
 cerity, deriving half its boldness from its rudeness, and nobler 
 than ours in so far as it had fewer temptations to be mean. We 
 may repaint the pictures of the Middle Age, imitate the archi- 
 tecture of its cathedrals, and set to modem music the ideals of its 
 life ; but we cannot bring back either its religion or its morality. 
 We may be foolish enough to don the dress of the knights and 
 mimic their jousts, but we shall strive in vain to reassume either 
 their virtues or their vices until we revive the thousand conditions 
 which made them what they were, and which are so different 
 from our own that all we can do is to understand them. We may 
 adore the poet's Arthur, the faultless king, admire Sir Launcelot, 
 "peerless of all knights," and revere the virgin Galahad, the 
 
tknnyson's idylls op the king. 173 
 
 Migiion of romance ; but the loyal worship, the unabashed love of 
 chivalry, and the Quest of the St Graal belong to days that have 
 for ever passed. The " Mort d'Arthure " reveals to us not so much 
 another epoch as another world. With all its occasional solem- 
 nity, it is, after all, a fairy tale ; and the actors in it move almost 
 as much in fairy-land as the heroes of Spenser's allegory. Our 
 feeling towards it alters with our mood of mind. We fall upon 
 some of the more prosaic passages of the romance in. a surly 
 humour, and the life of those old knights seems to us rude and 
 bare. They prance about through green fields and by castle walls, 
 knocldng down and maiming with long spears most of the people 
 they meet ; " and what they kUl each other for, we cannot well 
 make out." When they leave for a time the round of their mono- 
 tonous adventures, it is to fight with their comrades or fall in love 
 with the wives of their masters. We turn to their history again 
 in a more congenial temper, and feel an interest in their hot 
 encounters and marvellous esc'apes. We respect their noble pur- 
 pose as they "ride abroad redressing human wrongs ;' we admire 
 their courtesy and grace, their steadfastness and daring, their self- 
 sacrifice and devotion. But in no mood can we apply to ourselves 
 their sense of duty or their manner of fulfilling it. We redress 
 our wrongs, not on horseback, but in courts of law ; we no longer 
 make love in groves and grottoes ; we exercise our patience, not in 
 bearing blows, but enduring the frustration of our plans, the rup- 
 ture of our friendships, the jealousy of our rivals, the waste of our 
 time ; in submitting, when needful, to bad lodging, bad food, and 
 bad health. We shew our courage in being never worn out by those 
 disasters, in surmounting them and forgetting them, and setting 
 down doggedly to our day's work. We have seen how Mr Tenny- 
 son, by adopting a middle course in his treatment of the legends 
 he has selected for illustration, neither altogether abandoning nor 
 altogether adhering to the forms of the older society, has done so 
 much to bridge the, gulf which separates it from ours. But it is 
 still an open question — and we may surely start it without being 
 charged with failing to appreciate the subtilty of his delineations 
 — whether he might not have applied the same delicate skill and 
 high imagination with fuller effect in another direction. " Vivien " 
 is not a better theme for the artistic exhibition of seductive power, 
 
174 MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 nor " Elaine " a tale of purer passion, nor is the fate of " Guinevere " 
 better fitted to suggest the solemn thoughts of the poet, than many 
 of the episodes that are constantly appearing in modern life. There 
 is, indeed, an inducement for an artist to gather his materials from 
 the past in addition to those we have recorded. He finds them 
 there most readily. The past lies plainly before us because it 
 alone is complete. It is solid, and we have only to " carve a por- 
 tion " out of it. The present is essentially fluctuating ; we must 
 analyse before we fuUy realise it. When its motion calms down 
 into repose, it has ceased to be the present and become the crystal- 
 lised result of its former self. Our knowledge of the past is more 
 accurate than our knowledge of the present, in the sense in which 
 anatomy is a more exact science than physiology ; but the parallel 
 holds good still further ; it is only from observation of life that 
 we can understand its instruments : unless they are illustrated and 
 enlivened by the thoughts of the living present, 
 
 " Die Zeiten der Vergangenheit 
 Sind uns ein Buoh mit sieben Siegeln." 
 
 The new life which the poet has thrown iato his version of the 
 romances, while it detracts from their historical correctness, does 
 not prevent our regarding them, iii some degree, as exquisitely 
 beautiful fossils. They do not touch us so nearly as they should 
 do, because they bear about them an air of distance. Hence it is 
 that, though Mr Tennyson has in this his latest volume even 
 surpassed himself as an artist, we revert with more afi'ection to 
 some of his earlier eiforts, where, moving in a path we beUeve to 
 be more perfectly suited to his genius, he has given us the results 
 of his own thought and passion in the reflections of his own expe- 
 rience. His masterpieces are still his contemplative poems, those 
 which have most deeply moved and will continue most widely to 
 iafluence his age. If we had to choose between them, we should 
 unhesitatingly, though with a heavy heart, resign the " Idylls of 
 the King '' to reserve " The Two Voices " and " In Memoriam." 
 Notwithstanding his descriptive powers, Mr. Tennyson is a poet of 
 thought more than of action, and his love of "great old houses and 
 fights fought long ago " is only another proof of this. Thought 
 establishes itself upon the ruins of action, The deeds of the past 
 are the dreams of the present. Memory is itself a sort of abstrac- 
 
Tennyson's idylls op the king. 175 
 
 tion. There is a metaphysics of history as well as a history of 
 metaphysics. We speak of retiring into the past, retiring into 
 the country, retiring into our own thoughts, for refuge- and repose. 
 We desire and seek the three together. The secret link which 
 unites the apparently double bent of the poet's mind is to be 
 found in his own line, 
 
 " Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways." 
 
 Wordsworth, who might have applied it to himself, became, as was 
 fit, the high-priest of the hUls, among which he found the silence 
 and solitude congenial to his nature. The bard who can sing the 
 town, he and he alone will set to music the action of the present, 
 and do for his age and clime what Shakspeare, and Goethe, and 
 Dante did for theirs. There is a poetry of the past, of the moun- 
 tains, seas, and stars ; but a great city, seen aright, is tenfold more 
 poetical than them all. Surely, beneath its repulsive exterior, 
 amidst the turmoil and confusion, the myriad sights and sounds 
 which make up its glare and gloom, lie richly scattered the yet un- 
 wrought materials for modern tragedy. It is there that all the 
 energies of the time are concentrated ; there society unfolds its 
 many-coloured Ufe, while the war of ranks and the conflict of 
 opinions, political, social, and religious, are perpetually renewed. 
 It is in London itself that English thought shows itself most in- 
 tensely, and passion is pent up into fiercer fire, and reason and 
 faith, prudence and the affections wrestle together as they adjust 
 their claims ; there all the perplexities of thought are ravelled 
 and unravelled, and all the possibilities of human joy and sorrow 
 are evolved. Only a few and the most trivial characteristics of 
 this complex life crop up from time to time on our comic stage. 
 Its tragic elements have been almost entirely left to the treatment 
 of novelists, and in some of their hands it has fared not unfor- 
 tunately ; but there remains much that can only be discovered by 
 the penetration and well revealed by the power of the poet, whether 
 it be Mr. Tennyson or another who will undertake the task of 
 illustrating a greater and more impressive epos than was ever acted 
 by Arthur's knights, and setting forth a fuller image of the mighty 
 world than Merlin ever made "rapt in his fancy of the Table 
 Round." 
 
PART III. 
 BIOGKAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 M 
 
" Ubi sunt, qui ante nos in mundo fuere ? ' 
 
CICERO'S CHARACTEE. 
 
 If we only know of some great works to which they have given 
 their name, our estimate of great men is unhesitating and perma- 
 nent ; but in proportion as we become acquainted with the minutiae 
 of their Uves, conflicting proofs of magnanimity and meanness, of 
 inconsistent defects and excellencies, are unveUed before us, and 
 this estimate grows difficult and uncertain. " Until the time of 
 my youth," says Niebuhr, "Cicero was ever revered as a great 
 name, like a God before whom one bows the knees, albeit a Oeot; 
 dyvtoTOf." The reverence of the middle ages contemplated the 
 orator mainly as the first of Roman authors : the more critical 
 spirit of recent years, regarding him as a political leader and 
 statesman, has pronounced on his memory a harsher verdict. As 
 with others wh& have many sides to their character, we cannot 
 judge Cicero fairly from one point of view ; we must survey him 
 in different aspects, and be content to acknowledge without at- 
 tempting to reconcile the contradictions of his career. His prime 
 misfortune was, that he attempted too much and failed, as all men 
 do who strive beyond their strength. The same ambition was the 
 source of his fame and his calamities, — on the one hand it stimu- 
 lated his genius into action, on the other it engaged him in a 
 perpetual and fruitless struggle for a position which he was incap- 
 able of maintaining. Not the least among the bars to his success 
 was the self-confidence which, concealing from himself his own 
 defects, made them only more repulsive to others, who, in many 
 respects immeasurably his inferiors, availed themselves of his 
 weakness to exclude him from their counsel. The first trium- 
 virate, the oligarchs, the democrats, the conspirators, the second 
 triumvirate, the parties of Caesar, of Pompey, of Octavius, were 
 willing to employ the eloquence and listen to the advice of Cicero ; 
 but they generally formed their designs, and always carried them 
 
1 80 tilOGHAPHlCAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 into effect without his co-operation or partnership. An exclusion 
 so universal, on the part of politicians of theory and practice so 
 various, must have proceeded from some general and well-founded 
 want of confidence. There are minor vices which unfit a man 
 more for effective public action than greater ones. Cicero's 
 irresolute and wavering will did more to incapacitate him from 
 wielding the forces of the state than the molish mismanagement 
 of Pompey, the meanness of Crassus, or the sensuality of Antony. 
 He wanted the courage to lead, and leant first on one support, and 
 then another, which gave way beneath him. In turn the friend, 
 the foe, and the dupe of almost every successful aspirate to poli- 
 tical eminence, he lost himself in oscUlation between rival powers. 
 He was born when the times were out of joint — when the institu- 
 tions, and laws, and government which he revered, which it had 
 been the pride of great Eomans in past ages to maintain, were 
 crumbling down; and he was not born to set them right. By 
 birth, and sympathy, and choice allied to the Optimates, he could 
 do nothing to uphold a cause which grew more hopeless every 
 year. We do not blame him that he failed to see his way amid 
 so tangled a maze of parties, opinions, and combinations : we only 
 regret that the meaner part of his ambition led him to act so 
 weakly and so foolishly ; that self-interest made him forget self- 
 respect ; that the political dependant has cast a slur on the name 
 of the orator ; and that the eloquence which has immortalised the 
 innocence of Roscius and the graces of Archias should have been 
 polluted by the dictated defence of men on whom he had heaped 
 every term of abuse that a language prolific in such terms would 
 afford. We recoil from the patronage of Catiline volunteered by 
 his denouncer, from the panegyrics of Pompey, of Csesar, and of 
 Caesar's assassins, in close succession — from the praises and the 
 imprecations which were heaped on Dolabella. Such were the 
 sins of irresolution in an age when the first requisite was to be 
 resolute. When, as Goethe says, " one had either to be anvil or 
 hammer," Caesar's choice was soon made, and Cicero's fate was 
 soon fixed. A morbid sensibility to the "sermo hominum" — a 
 lust of fame in its narrow sense — a passion to be called great took 
 most from his greatness. "Nothing would have disgraced me 
 more in the eyes of the world," is his sole expressed reason for 
 
CICERO's CHARACTER. 181 
 
 rejecting an ignominious proposal. " Give a grand account of my 
 consulship, even though you should go a little beyond the truth," 
 he writes to the historian Lucceius. Hence his desire to keep on 
 good terms v^ith aU parties ; his misery when they aU deserted 
 him. Like most men who have wrought for gratitude, he missed 
 that for which he wrought ; and men forgot the grandeur of the 
 year when he crushed the foes and reconciled the friends of Rome, 
 because he was so eager to remind them of it. He was proud 
 in prosperity ; in misfortune beyond measure depressed. " Con- 
 stantia desideratur," says Suetonius ; and Livy sums up yet more 
 severely — " He bore none of his misfortunes as a man should, 
 except his death." But we cannot think of that death without 
 thankfully remembering the years which preceded it, in which 
 despair lent him a nobler courage, and, relinquishing his hopes of 
 glory, he made himself most truly glorious. Like the sun, he set 
 among clouds which he illumined in his fall But at all periods 
 of his career, the man, and not the politician, arrests our admi- 
 ration. If he fell behind the sterner virtues of his age, he had 
 virtues of a gentler mould, which surpassed the appreciation of 
 those discordant times, and bring him into closer contact than 
 any other Roman with the spirit and the religion of modem Europe. 
 His pure domestic ties, the beauty of his friendships, and the 
 refinement of his tastes, endear him to our hearts, while they 
 reveal the warmth of his affection and the grace of his intellect. 
 If he bore misfortune unlike a hero, he wisely employed the 
 enforced leisure of retirement. Driven from the cares of public 
 life, he built up, Uke our own immortal Bacon in his hours of 
 solitude, some of the most enduring monuments of his fame ; and 
 whUe we look elsewhere for the original stores of philosophic 
 thought, the records of his pure and simple ethical teaching are 
 a source of comfort even to those who live in the light of a 
 clearer faith. 
 
ri. 
 
 ESTIMATE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 LiTERAKY men are immortalised for two kinds of excellence. The 
 genius which intuitively lights on some new truth, or expresses it 
 in some new and wonderful way, is distinct from the general sound 
 judgment and energy of intellect which constitute the other sort of 
 eminence. Men possessing both qualities in a high degree, appear 
 rarely in the course of centuries : they are the Shakspeares, the 
 Goethes, the Miltons, and the Bacons of the world. We estimate 
 them at once by the grandeur of their isolated thoughts, and their 
 grasp of the men and things around them ; they are remembered 
 by their great words as well as their great lives. The majority or 
 those whose fame has come down to us, belong rather to the for- 
 mer of those two classes. Most of bur poets and artists, many of 
 our historians, have been celebrated more for the beauty of their 
 views, than for their comprehensiveness. Such were Burns and 
 Chatterton, Shelley and Keats, Sterne and Goldsmith. They live 
 in their works, not their deeds; their insight, rather than their 
 wisdom ; their lives are interesting to us from what we know of 
 their writings, not their writings because of their lives. Johnson 
 was emphatically a representative of the other class. Among his 
 voluminous works there is comparatively little we care to remem- 
 ber ; of all his careful sentences there are few we care to quote ; 
 his ethics and verses contain much that is true and forcible, but 
 little that is inspired ; his critiques in the main, nothing of either. 
 We cherish few of his opinions, but his character has left a stamp 
 upon our nation which will endure as long as our language. 
 Hence it is, that we look to Johnson's biography more than to any 
 of his compositions, to form an estimate of the position he holds in 
 the history of English literature. It is in his dealings with men in 
 the intercourse of daily life, — his early struggles, his victory and 
 
ESTIMATE OF JOHNSON. 183 
 
 his manner of enjoying it, that we learn to regard him as one of 
 the most interesting and instructive studies that can be presented 
 to us. 
 
 Few men could have stood the ordeal to which Johnson has been 
 subjected. The most inquisitive of biographers has taken nothing 
 from his greatness, and our two chief living reviewers,* opposite 
 alike in manner and thought, concur in rendering their tribute to 
 the same grand features which first won for him admiration and 
 respect. Foremost among those was the noble hardihood which 
 bore him alike above penury, and the servile means men took in 
 those days to escape it. By dint of sheer dauntless energy, he 
 raised himself from the utmost obscurity, to be the chief literary 
 authority of England in his generation. He had no starting point 
 of peculiar advantage — few friends to encourage, and no patrons to 
 assist his progress. No flash of genius brought him suddenly into 
 notice — no political partizanship made easy his ascent. Step by 
 step, hampered by disease and poverty, without one act of subser- 
 viency or favom' of fortune, he attained his high position. It is 
 unfortunate that we possess so meagre a notice of those years 
 during which that character was formed, which we have displayed 
 in detail in the daguerreotype of his later conversations ; but even 
 the little we know, helps us to explain many of its apparent ano- 
 malies. Endurance of hardship had confirmed his virtues, till many 
 of them became cross-grained, and were exaggerated into their cor- 
 responding vices. The spirit of independence had grown into a 
 spirit of contradiction, the scorn of servility into a dislike of reason- 
 able acquiescence. Continual wrestling with the world had made 
 him so contentious, that when his enemies were vanquished he 
 fought with his friends. When they wished him to say yes, they 
 were sure to accomplish their wish by themselves saying no. (See 
 the story of his first meeting with Wilkes.) Rudeness, carried far 
 beyond the licence of English bluntness, was the reverse side of his 
 courage. Boswell is happily unconscious of the insults he records, 
 but Johnson frequently addressed Goldsmith and others in a strain 
 which must have alienated their affection, if not their esteem. An 
 intense self-confidence led him into most amusing inconsistencies : 
 at one time arguing as if for his life about a trifle ; at another, 
 
 • VVritten three yeai-s ago. 
 
184 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 settling momentous questions by dicta, whose absoluteness bore 
 no fixed proportion to their wisdom. The thoughts of a dialectic 
 defeat made his very dreams miserable. He had never, in his 
 own phrase, succeeded in clearing his mind of cant. His stock 
 of prejudices was larger than that of most Englishmen, and he 
 clung to them with a tenacity almost unparalleled. Yet so up- 
 right and loyal was the whole tenor of his conduct, that we feel 
 no difficulty in giving him credit for the hatred of falsehood 
 which he professed. If his sincerity was apt to degenerate into 
 bigotry, it gave him a firmer faith in the midst of a sceptical age. 
 This old Tory thought that it was a privilege to lift his hat to 
 a church-door, that a Presbyterian was as bad as a Pope, and the 
 first Whig was the devil. But Avhen the courtly philosophers of 
 the time were pronouncing their verdict on human existence as a 
 mockery, Johnson, with a burden they knew little of, declared it 
 to be a season of trial, in which there was little to be known, but 
 much to do ; and this view of life he aimed to realise, He must 
 have loved various information : there is hardly any branch of 
 knowledge which does not afford a theme for discussion in his 
 conversations. On questions of religion, morals, science, art, and 
 manners, he has arguments and apothegms innumerable, many of 
 them characterised by the best common sense in England in the 
 eighteenth century. He saw clearly within the range of his sight ; 
 but he despised travel, and had no power to guess what he had 
 not seen. Beyond the boundary of London life, Johnson's igno- 
 rance was profound. In all that related to foreign countries, or 
 even the remoter regions and rarer occurrences of his own, he 
 presents us with a mixture of credulity and scepticism. He gave 
 a man the lie who told him of a waterspout, but had no hesita- 
 tion in swallowing a ghost story. His reviews of the Scotch and 
 Erench will cease to irritate by their injustice long before they 
 cease to amuse by their absurdity. In matters of which he knew 
 nothing, and these were many, dogmatism and prejudice went 
 hand in hand. He knew nothing of physics or physiology; he 
 cared little for history or abstract speculation. Of the higher 
 sorts of poetry he understood absolutely nothing. His critiques 
 on Lycidas and Cymbeline would have ruined a dozen inferior 
 leputations. But it is unfair to regard Johnson mainly in an 
 
ESTIMATE OF JOHNSON. 185 
 
 intellectual point of view. It is in liia moral nature that he is 
 great. His integrity, courage, and fidelity, make us proud of 
 him ia spite of aU his weakness and malformation. We turn 
 from some ridiculous review to scenes in which his overflowing 
 humanity is displayed, and feel how kind, and good, and forbear- 
 ing a heart beat beneath that rude exterior. Johnson flinging 
 away those shoes — Johnson carrying home the poor outcast on 
 his shoulders — Johnson doing penance in the Uttoxeter market, 
 is the man whom we love and honour, our uncouth hero. 
 
III. 
 
 WYCLIFFK* 
 
 The life and struggle of the men who, in the age before the Reformation, 
 opposed to the arrogance of temporal and spiritual dominion, enthusiasm, 
 resolution, and self-sacrifice, present a series of episodes unsurpassed in 
 interest by any in history. We find, succeeding each other or in conjoint 
 operation, influences of various nature, tinged by the surrounding circum- 
 stances, and bearing the stamp of difierent national character. The 
 emphatic and ill-starred revolt of Arnold of Brescia following the intel- 
 lectual protest of Anselm and Abelard, the peaceful secession of the 
 Waldenses, and the terrible tragedy of the Val de Sesia, Dante's immortal 
 invectives, and the brief ascendancy of the Tribune Kienzi, all point to a 
 recognition even then of the necessity for some reform in the moral and 
 social organisation of the Catholic Church. Against the same evils we 
 have a later period the appeal of the German mystics, Tauler, Groot, John 
 of Goch, and Wessel, with the more active crusade of the Italian Savona- 
 rola. But, among all those reactionary and regenerating movements, that 
 most nearly anticipated the work of after-times, which, deriving its source 
 from the writing and preaching of John Wycliffe, and perpetuated in our 
 country through the Lollards, culminated abroad in the martyrdom of 
 Huss and the Bohemian war. 
 
 I. The Reformers of Religion have been ranged in two classes, — ^those 
 vsrho have wrought out, in compai-ative seclusion, a purer scheme of life ; 
 and others who have, from a more conspicious stage, assailed more palpable 
 abuses. To judge "Wycliffe fully, we must contemplate him in both aspects 
 — as the retired scholar, giving forth from the professor's chair and rector's 
 pulpit his new and startling views of Christian faith, and as the public 
 advocate of Anglican independence. The record of the struggle between 
 the ecclesiastical and secular power, is more than one half of early European 
 history. From the time of Gregory the Great, the Bishop of Rome began 
 to assume temporal as well as spiritual authority. Charlemagne left his 
 authority strengthened, without bequeathing his own genius to restrain it. 
 The prerogative of arbitration between monarchs, of confirming or can- 
 celling the judgment of nations, was successfully maintained. There were 
 never wanting elements of dissent in the political world, by means of which 
 a well-compacted central jurisdiction kept in check established potentates ; 
 
 * Reprinted from the Oxford Undergraduate Papers, 1858. 
 
WYCLIFFE. 187 
 
 and the hold that the i,'hurch had on every country, by the network of her 
 priesthood, invested her with a sway over the hearts of the people often 
 beneficent and always powerful. In England, among all the states of 
 Christendom, Papal supremacy was most strenuously resisted and soonest 
 subjected to important limitations. This arose partly from our happy 
 isolation : still more from the free temper of our people and their conse- 
 quent histoi-y. While the Sovereign remained nearly absolute, the Church 
 fomid in the sympathies of the nobles and commonalty a source of opposi- 
 tion to his authority. To conquer by aiding the weak was not the only 
 maxim she had inherited from the seven hills. During the reign of John, 
 the exercise of this power reached its climax in the humiliation of that 
 monarch, and the pledge of tribute exacted by Innocent III. The King 
 threw himself into the arms of the Church, and brought to a head the 
 reaction which, in the succeeding year, laid down at Runnymede the first 
 charter of our liberty. A hundred and fifty years passed, during which 
 the national animus steadily increased. It was the period of England's 
 most brilliant victories ; her pride was at its height, and the hostile 
 attitude she bore towards France went far to diminish her reverence for 
 a Chiu-ch which held its court at Avignon. The ill-timed demand of 
 Urban V. for a renewal of the long discontinued tribute was met with a 
 prompt refusal, and the most able refutation of the Papal claims enlisted 
 on behalf of its author a large and immediate share of public sympathy. 
 Wycliffe was at this time (a.d. 1366) King's Chaplain. As Such he was 
 challenged to defend the decision of the Court. After an enumeration of 
 the reasons given at a meeting of the Barons for rejecting the demand, his 
 own arguments enter into the broad question regarding the tenure of 
 Church Property. He plainly pronounces it subordinate to the will of 
 the state : declaring the goods of the Clergy to be alienable, and their 
 persons, like those of other subjects, at the disposal of the temporal 
 prince. Some years after (a.d. 1374) Wycliffe was employed on a mission 
 to Bruges, to negotiate regarding the sale of benefices. The Pope 
 had claimed the right to nominate to all the higher offices of the 
 English Church : the temporalities, though dispensed by the Sovereign, 
 fell, as a matter of course, to the nominee of his Holiness. The field 
 thus afforded for bribery and extortion was not neglected, and it proved a 
 fertile * one. The embassy which had selected so able a spokesman had 
 in view to reclaim the disposal of such appointments, and check the inter- 
 ference of foreign collectors. The concessions obtained appear to have 
 been evasive, and the event is chiefly interesting as having helped to 
 secure for our Reformer the friendship and protection of the most influen- 
 tial prince of the realm, John of Gaunt. Luther's pilgrimage to Rome was 
 the turning-point of the Reformation. This journey of Wycliffe's may have 
 gone far to confirm his new views of Church policy. In both Reformers 
 
 * So fertile, indeed, that it was publicly asserted that the Pope received 
 from first-fruits, tithes, and other levies five times more than was paid to 
 the King from the whole produce of the realm. 
 
188 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES 
 
 we remark, among the main springs of their action, an intense nationality. 
 Luther is never so fervent as when he speaks as a German, and no man 
 ever had a larger share of English character and English patriotism than 
 his great forermmer. 
 
 II. Political controversy thus brought Wycliffe into wider celebrity, but 
 he had previously become known by his attacks on some of the more 
 obvious corruptions which had crept in among the servants of the Church. 
 Monasteries, with their quiet life and hospitality, had degenerated into 
 cells of luxui'ious indolence. Their inmates, dependent on the support of 
 superstition, exercised all the extortion of an isolated priesthood : until, 
 in the thirteenth century, a large portion of the lands of England had 
 passed into the hands of lazy monks. The Friars revived the old theories 
 of self-denial, and from their superior learning, more rigid discipline, and 
 energetic services as preachers, rapidly became popular. But ere long, 
 they too degenerated. Becoming rich, they violated the spirit, and even 
 transgressed the letter of their vows. They trafficked in the powers of 
 absolution, and went about the country, with their relics and buUs, like a 
 swarm of Tetzels. Against those orders Wycliffe, in 1360, (being then 
 fellow of Merton,) fulminated his "Objections to Friars," a tractate marked 
 by all the virulence and much of the acuteness of his style, and inaugurating 
 a warfare which only ceased with the close of his career. He charges the 
 whole society of Friars with greed, hypocrisy, and arrogance, and de- 
 nounces their institution as an apostasy, which had obscured, by absurd 
 and narrow regulations, the faith of Christ. It is curious that, amid the 
 growth of other and more important speculations, Wycliffe maintains a 
 peculiarly bitter feeling towards his old opponents. He never neglects an 
 opportunity to have a hard hit at their folly and presumption. Their 
 name is inseparably connected with a well-known crisis of his life. What 
 would we not have given to have seen the scared look of those rich men- 
 dicants, who came to " croak and whine " around the deathbed of their 
 long-dreaded adversary, when, instead of the contrition they hoped for, 
 they were saluted with his memorable words ? We can imagine yet that 
 worn form raised from the bed of pain, and that clear cut face, with its 
 stem far-seeing eyes lit up by the energy of a prophetic wiU, as he ex- 
 claimed, " I shall not die, but live and again declare the evil deeds of the 
 Friars." 
 
 III. Reformers have more than once been startled, by an insight of 
 corrupt life, into examination of corrupt doctrine. It was during the 
 ten years following his first defence of the Crown (a.d. 1366) that 
 Wycliffe passed from assailing the institutions of the Hierarchy to 
 question the authority on which they rested. On behalf of the civil 
 power, he had denied the temporal supremacy of the Pope, and expressed 
 opinions regarding the relationship of Church and State which, in much 
 later times, would have been called Erastian. Already he had ventured 
 to suggest limitations to his spiritual headship, and in asserting the 
 sufficiency of Scripture, and the right of private judgment, had uncon- 
 sciously announced the ground principles of Protestantism. His was 
 
WTCLIFFE. 189 
 
 too logical a mind to rest ia an inconsistent position, and we can trace in 
 hia successive tractates an increasing dissent from the doctrine of an in- 
 fallible pontiff, attaining at the last a virulence of expression only sur- 
 passed by the astounding invectives of Luther himself. It is one thing to 
 censure and correct faulty details, another to discern and denounce an 
 erroneous principle. The avarice and profligacy of the priesthood had 
 been assailed by wise and good men ere WycUffe's time ; they were the 
 objects of indignant reproof and pointed satire throughout succeeding 
 generations ; but never before, and not till long after again, were the 
 sources of the evil so sternly arraigned. The Pope had replied, with the 
 sanction of centuries, to aU doubters, " I am Lord of the Church and judge 
 all others." Wycliffe first ventured to answer, " You are the servant of the 
 Church, and are with others accountable for your hire." The spell was 
 broken when he had challenged the dictum of authority : and in the re- 
 fusal to accept that as final, he had taken rank with those mightiest spirits 
 of all time, who appear ever and anon to overthrow the bondage of ages. 
 
 The Church had become secularised. As the number and pomp of her 
 rites increased. Religion became a code of laws, a system of services, of 
 rewards and punishments, of numerous gods. Regard was paid to doctrine, 
 and Faith was forgotten ; men looked to the quantity of their good works, 
 less and less to the quality of their internal life. Against ceremonialism, 
 on behalf of spiritualism, the early Reformers, and WycUffe in their van, 
 made their appeal. They took refuge, from the complexity of tradition, 
 the dead weight of formality, in the few fundamental canons, reasserted at 
 every genuine revival of religious life : " Spiritual power does not rest with 
 man but with God." " He only can forgive sin." " We may do nothing 
 but by His power." " We can have no merit but through His grace." 
 " Know the gospel ; it alone telleth the belief of Christ. " He is the only 
 Head." " God bindeth not men to believe anything that they may not 
 understand." Those great principles laid down, Wycliffe proceeded to 
 apply them. Gradually, before his penetrating gaze the mists of mediseval 
 theology cleared away, and left behind, in their disentangled simplicity, 
 the primal truths of Christian faith. His determination to suffer no in- 
 trusion of any human authority between man and his Maker, led him to re- 
 ject as idolatry the whole scheme of masses and penance on which the 
 pi-i«sthood relied. Other rites, which had been superstitiously adminis- 
 tered and received, he retained as mere forms of worship. With regard 
 to many of the ordinances which still constitute part of our English ser- 
 vice, as of Baptism, Confirmation, and Ordination, he held views similar to 
 those which now characterise the extreme section of the Low Church ; 
 denying any virtue to those acts in themselves, except in so far as they 
 were performed by worthy ministers. To one of the received dogmas of 
 that time he devoted more especial attention. It is difficult for some of us 
 now to conceive of such a doctrine as that of Transubstaniiaiion, still more 
 to understand how, in every period of controversy, it has risen up as the 
 great crux of disputation, and in all days of persecution been made the 
 test for judging heresy. There must have been some basis for a oonvic- 
 
190 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 tion so intense, deeper than the dreams of schoolmen : may we not trace 
 in it another form of the old Pagan idea of S9,crifice ? The gods of my- 
 thology required some tangible gift at their altars ; poets, indeed, and 
 philosophers even then taught that a grain of salt with a pure heart was 
 enough ; but the mass had more faith in burnt-offerings. The same con- 
 ceptions of Deity, in the Middle Ages, led to the strange belief that the 
 actual body and blood of Christ were offered up, by the priests, at every 
 consecration of the host. Wycliffe's views* regarding the Eucharist have 
 been the theme of much controversy. There is no point of speculative 
 theology 'into which he enters with such detail, or in which his exposition 
 is so involved in scholastic subtilty. Amid the mass of arguments with 
 which they are surrounded, his precise opinions are somewhat difficult to 
 determine : he appears to vary f in his feeling regarding the efficacy of 
 the service ; but, even when he makes use of the most orthodox termi- 
 nology, he arrives at a conclusion quite opposed to the established belief. 
 He takes up the assertion that the bread and wine of the Sacrament were 
 entirely changed, and appealing at once to Scripture and common sense, 
 endeavours to expose its absurdity. He quotes the words of our Lord, 
 " This is my body," to shew the figurative sense in which alone the terms 
 can be applied. The bread he asserts remains bread, the potency of 
 Christ's influence is something superadded, as shape to matter, civil 
 dignity to man. Hlustrations significant enough to shew that, beyond 
 that idol worship in the name of which some of the noblest of our 
 earth were immolated at the shrine of an imaginary Moloch, he saw 
 the true spiritual meaning of the divinely instituted service, by which 
 the mystery of that redeeming Life and Death is symboled forth, and 
 through the medium of transient forms the mind is brought into re- 
 newed contact with the Spirit of a God of love. The opinions held 
 by Wycliffe regarding the mystery of the Godhead, and other enigmas 
 which perplex theologians in every age, do not strictly affect his posi- 
 tion as a Reformer. Some of his tenets, as that concerning the com- 
 ponent parts of the Church, differ more in words than in reality from 
 those commonly held. His conclusions regarding Free-will and Predesti- 
 
 * Those views were first promulgated from the divinity chair of the 
 imiversity of Oxford, during a period of three years, extending from 1378 
 till their suppression by the Chancellor in 1381. They were afterwards 
 published in a tract entitled "The Wyckett," and in his more important 
 work "The Trialogus," and again maintained before the Convocation in 1382. 
 
 t Mr Froude, who has prefixed to his admirable chapter on the early 
 Protestants what we cannot but regard as a very inadequate sketch of 
 Wycliffe, says " he had entangled himself in doubtful metaphysics, on a 
 subject where no middle course is possible." Between the Roman Catholic 
 doctrine of Transubstantiation and that which regards the sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper as a mere commemorative act, there surely is a middle 
 course, that advocated by Wycliffe and now held by the gi-eat portion of 
 the Church of England. 
 
WYCLIFFE. 191 
 
 nation are tinctured with a stern Calvinism. Like Luther, he pushed the 
 doctrine of grace to the verge of Antinomianism, and he shared the pre- 
 sentiments, common to almost all enthusiastic reviewers of Christian faith, 
 regarding the approaching end of the kingdoms of the earth. 
 
 IV. Asceticism is a natural reaction from the spirit of indulgence, which 
 so soon intrudes into the most self-renouncing institutions. It kept pure 
 the first missionaries of the truth, amid the gross sensualities of declining 
 heathenism. It was against the luxury and indolence of the higher orders 
 that the early monks and friars made their protest. To them, in their 
 turn corrupt, Wyclifife and his poor priests opposed a new austerity. 
 When riches were sought and used as they were in those days, no wonder 
 if, to the eyes of our Reformer, in his constant study of the Saviour's self- 
 denying poverty, wealth itself came to be regarded as sinful, and a rigid 
 life the sole remedy for the disorders around him. He had the warrant of 
 the gospel itself to beware of the good things of the world and the pride of 
 abundance, and the example of centuries of degeneracy to verify that warn- 
 ing. Hence his stern economics, his harsh laws of abstinence, and his pro- 
 clamation, in the face of that long line of haughty potentates, that " CTirist's 
 vicar should be the poorest and meekest of men." Poverty being elevated 
 into a virtue, an opening was afforded for the peculiar views propounded 
 by WyclifFe regarding the tenure of temporal possessions ; — views which 
 fuUy carried out woidd have materially affected the whole framework of 
 society. We infer this, not merely from isolated passages which may 
 admit of modified interpretation, but from his frequent reiteration of his 
 fundamental dogmas, that " property is held by grace, to be forfeited by 
 sin," " that God cannot give man civil possessions for ever ; " from the 
 general spirit of much of his teaching ; and in a lesser degree from the pre- 
 valent opinion connecting his name with the revolutionary feeling which 
 then broke forth in England. That Wyoliffe, or even the more noted of 
 his successors, were responsible for those outbreaks is improbable : they 
 can be traced to other causes than religious excitement ; but the accusation 
 brought against him derived force from the sentiments he held in common 
 with the insurgents. The efforts of the Lollards,* indeed, shared in that 
 convulsive nature which marks most of the movements of the early re- 
 formers. Differences of opinion, in those days, were, throughout Europe, 
 the watchwords of contending races. Feudalism was unstable ; every social 
 disturbance set the ill-assorted elements at war ; and those extreme views, 
 which lie hid in quiet times, then came uppermost. Something of the sort 
 occurred in England, after WycHflfe's death : still more glaring instances 
 were afterwards afforded by Sickengen's revolt, the Peasant and Suabian 
 
 * Contrast Mr Fronde's account of the LoUai-d movement with that given 
 by Lord Brougham in his introduction to the " History of the House of Lan- 
 caster." The latter maintains with considerable plausibility, that the per- 
 secution against the Lollards was instigated solely by their religious 
 heresies. His account of Oldcastle should be set against the depreciatory 
 sketch of him given by the historian of Henry VIII. 
 
192 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 wars, and the Anabaptism of the days of Luther. Yet we want some 
 further explanation of the remarkable fact, that, at every fresh revival of 
 religious life in modern times, fresh theories of socialism have sprung up 
 and found footing. Perhaps there can never be a new enthusiastic impulse 
 without a grain of fanaticism. Such a spirit knows not of limitations^ 
 considerations of expediency, or historical fitness. They who sought to 
 bring back Christian life to its primal integrity endeavoured to revive to 
 the letter the life of the apostles, as described in the New Testament. 
 They read there of the equality of men, of the glory of humihty, of the 
 duty of mutual service, and were ready to leave all behind them to follow 
 the very words of those precepts they really believed to be divine, and 
 wait for the dissolution of the kingdoms of the earth, which they all be- 
 lieved to be near. This was the ground of the republicanism of Arnold, 
 the levelling crusade of Savonarola,* the communism of Fra Dolcino, the 
 Brethren of the Common Lot, and the Lollards. May we not add, that in 
 the case of some of those men, the fervid contemplation of supernal truth 
 led them away from regard of the things of earth — that a pervading sense 
 of the infinite rendered them too careless of finite distinctions ? Every- 
 where our great countryman preaches the insignificance of human in- 
 terests, the equal accountability of high and low before a judgment-seat 
 above all thrones, and while he taught that " Dominion of man cannot 
 endure for ever," that " charters of perpetual inheritance are impossible," 
 he was reiterating, in a higher sense than the old Latin poet dreamed of, 
 " Vitaque manciple nuUi datur omnibus usu." 
 
 V. Wycliffe was, in some respects, the representative of two periods. 
 More perhaps than any other man, he combined the metaphysical aoute- 
 ness of the scholastic age with the practical sense of the English nation 
 and modern times. Supreme as the Doctor Evangehcus of the school, 
 confounding with their own weapons the logic and the learning of his 
 opponents, he was equally pre-eminent as the preacher, bringing home to 
 the hearts of common men and women the simple truths obscured so 
 long. Familiar with every form of syllogistic subtilty, with the lore of 
 antiquity upon his lips, he was better content to appeal, through " the 
 subterfuge" (as his enemies called it) of that native tongue he wielded so 
 well, to the broad sense of his hearers, and rebutted many an absurd 
 assumption with his phrase of honest scorn — '' men may trowe it if they 
 will." Great in his crusade against theological error and moral corruption, 
 he was greater as the assertor of a primitive and more spiritual Chris- 
 tianity : — ^the man who broke down the barrier of centuries, delivering 
 the fettered reason of mankind, reiterating the command of the apostle 
 to search the Scriptures, and unfolding to the gaze of the unlettered mul- 
 titude those sacred volumes, which had hitherto been the private property 
 of refined scholars and haughty ecclesiastics.t 
 
 * One of the most vivid accounts of Savonarola's teaching we have met 
 is in Rio's admirable little lecture on Christian art. 
 
 t " The gospels which Christ gave the clergy that they might dole out 
 
WYCLIPFE. 193 
 
 If we turn from his teaching to the reports of his chequered career, 
 we discover a consistency rare in men who have been exposed to the ordeal 
 of so trying a criticism. The fiercest of his contemporary assailants, amid 
 the bitterest invectives against Wyoliffe's heresy, are constrained to bear 
 tribute alike to the eminence of 'his talent and the spotless purity of his 
 life. He has fared worse at the hands of later writers, whose views have 
 been warped by party zeal or the spirit of indifierence. The ingenuity 
 and dexterity of his reasoning, on each of his three famous citations for 
 heresy, have brought upon Wycliffe the charge of recantation ; yet it is 
 impossible to point to a single tenet from which he shrank on any of those 
 occasions, or which he aftenvards suppressed. His defence, indeed, was 
 not couched in the form of deiiance, as was often the case with Luther. He 
 wishes to conciUate — to set the truth in its most gracious light ; but from 
 his original position he never recedes. He recoiled from needless enmity ; 
 yet went on boldly, foreseeing the danger which he announced in the 
 spirit of prophecy : — " We have only to declare with constancy the law of 
 God before Caesarian prelates, and straightway the flower of martyrdom 
 will be at hand." Happily that flower did not bloom for him ; and well 
 for the fame of England, her great Reformer was allowed to die in peace. 
 He lay down to rest in the quiet churchyard of Lutterworth, where the 
 marble still keeps alive the remembrance of a wasted form that " had suf- 
 fering, not bliss, with it" in the battle of life. 
 
 Wycliffe's honest prudence, the sympathy of important national parties, 
 and the shelter of the university of Oxford, were among the causes which, 
 during his lifetime, deferred the outpouring of latent persecution. The 
 vehemence vrith which it soon broke forth, while presenting us with one 
 of the saddest among the perplexing relapses of history, explains the failure 
 of this early reform. The times were not yet ripe — ^the main tide of human 
 thought had not advanced — ^it was but a high wave, that soon roUed back 
 again. The rivalry between our princes which arose at the end of 
 Richard's miserable reign gave fatal opportunity for intervention, of which 
 the Romish Church, again united under one head, was not slow to take 
 advantage. The act "De heretico comburendo" found its first victim in 
 poor old Sautree, and soon after, one more illustrious in the person of the 
 heroic Cobham ; and henceforth, ever and anon in England, those accursed 
 but futile fires were kindled, by which the old principle sought in vain to 
 repress the new. Huss and Jerome had nobly worn the crown their pre- 
 cursor had foretold, with his name among the latest of their inspired 
 words* — bearing with them, from the lessons he had taught, the seed 
 
 portions according to the wants of the lay folk, Wycliffe rendered from 
 the Latin into the Anglican, not the angelic tongue : making every layman 
 and even woman (!) that could read more knowing than educated clerks 
 themselves : thus casting the evangelical pearl before swine, and turning 
 the gem of the priest into a sport for the people." — Canon of Leicester. 
 
 • " I trust Wyclyfle will be saved : but could I think he would be 
 damned, I would my soul were with his." — J. Huss. 
 
194 BIOGRAPHIflAL AND CRITICAL SKKTCHES. 
 
 which Luther himself declares " was to be buried in the earth and die, in 
 order to revive and grow with force." The immortal part of Wycliffe was 
 beyond the rage of men ; their malice took an impotent revenge on the 
 blameless remains of the mortal. They crumbled into dust and were 
 wafted over the waves ; but his name went forth as an indestructible 
 power, to reign, in its transmitted influence, over the earth for ages. 
 
 At length, with the dawn of the sixteenth century, the tide had ad- 
 vanced ; new discoveries and a new impulse swayed the heart of Europe. 
 Columbus had set foot on the Western "World, revealing nations, civilisa- 
 tions, and religions previously unimagined — linking the hemispheres by a 
 chain of ships. Vasco de Gama had rounded the storm cape, and reached 
 Cathay. In a remote corner of Poland, the immortal Copernicus had 
 achieved, in yet more arduous fields, a conquest yet more lustrous, and in 
 the overthrow of immemorial error, first laid bare the simplicity of nature. 
 The time had come to proclaim truths more momentous still, when Luther 
 and the German princes burst asunder the shackles of spiritual thraldom. 
 But it was much for men, in those remoter times, to have marked out the 
 path by which others were to reach the goal. Undazzled by the triumph 
 of that deliverance. History points back to those who lived and died in 
 the struggle through which it was silently prepared. The leaders in that 
 struggle appeal for grateful remembrance to us, who owe to their clear 
 thought and fearless accents the greatest of all boons — the first assertion 
 of religious liberty. They stand out, a line of monarchs, with a weight 
 heavier than the weight of empire on their brows — ^the responsibility of 
 announcing new principles to guide mankind. And, chief among the chief 
 of those, the austere shade of the great Master of Balliol, with his keen 
 eye and homely voice, claims our reverence. He first among the divines 
 of England spoke out loud and bold, denouncing wrong in high places, 
 revoking the reaUty of a simple faith, unclasping the hidden treasures of 
 God. He first heralded the dawn in the darkness of dim centuries, and 
 won for himself the title of " The Morning Star." 
 
 " I am resolved to maintain the tenets of Wyclyfie and of John Huss to 
 death, believing them to be the true and pure doctrine of the gospel, even 
 as their lives were blameless and holy." — Jerome. 
 
IV. 
 
 ASP ASIA— THE HET^RA* 
 
 Among the accounts that have come down to us of Aspasia, daughter of 
 Axiochus, we have no certain intelligence of the dates of her birth or 
 death. She belonged to a family of some note in Miletus, and was early 
 distinguished for the graces of her mind and person. She came to Athens 
 with the tide of Asiatic immigration, which marked the era in Greece suc- 
 ceeding the Persian war, and by her beauty and accomplishments soon at- 
 tracted the attention of the leading men in that city. She engaged the 
 affections of Pericles, and he is said to have divorced his former wife in 
 order to marry her. Their union was harmonious throughout : he pre- 
 served for her to the end of his life the same tenderness : she remained 
 the confidant of the statesman's schemes and the sharer of his troubles. 
 Their house was the resort of the wisdom and wit of Athens. Orators, 
 poets, and philosophers came to listen to the eloquence of Aspasia ; and 
 in their conversation, which turned upon the politics, literature, and meta- 
 physics of the age, they paid deference to her authority. We hear from 
 Plato, who offers a high tribute to her genius, that she formed the best 
 speakers of her time, and chief among them, Pericles himself. The sage 
 Socrates was a frequent visitor at her saloon, drawn thither, it is insinu- 
 ated, by the double attraction of eloquence and beauty. Anaxagoras, 
 Phidias, and the restless Alcibiades were numbered among her admirers, 
 and we may credit the imagination of Savage Landor for a successful re- 
 vival of the other names which adorned that illustrious circle. The envy 
 which assailed the administration of Pericles, was unsparing in its attacks 
 pn his mistress. Jealousy of foreigners and dislike of female influence 
 combined to offend the prejudices of the mass. Her fearless speculation 
 aroused their superstitious zeal. She shared the impeachment, and nar- 
 rowly escaped the fate, of her friend Anaxagoras. She was accused by 
 HSrmippus of disloyalty to the gods, and of introducing free women into 
 her house, to gratify the impure tastes of Pericles. He himself pleaded 
 her cause, and, on this occasion alone, he is said to have abandoned his 
 accustomed majesty of demeanour, and burst into tears before the as- 
 sembled populace. The passionate appeal was triumphant, and Aspasia 
 was acquitted. But she was still at the mercy of the comedians. All 
 manner of nicknames were invented to suit her relationship with the 
 Athenian Jove, — and all manner of tales were told of her intriguing spirit 
 
 * This and the following notices are reprinted from Mr Mackenzie's 
 Biographical Dictionary. 
 
196 BIOGRAPHTCAL AKD CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 and corrupt morals. Those lampoons are preserved for us in some of tlie 
 verses of Aristophanes, and the gossip of later writers. She is charged 
 with inducing Pericles to undertake the war against Samos, in order to 
 befriend Miletus, her native city, and with obtaining the decree against 
 the Megareans, to avenge the abduction of two light girls in her train. 
 This latter statement rests for its sole authority on two hues of the 
 Acharnanians, in which there is a joke on the word da-Trda-ias, but no 
 amount of similar authority could justify such an interpretation of Greek 
 history. Aspasia is also accused of filling Greece with courtesans, and of 
 corrupting the morals of Athens, by giving in her own life a conspicuous ex- 
 ample of licence. To explain the origin of those reports, we need but refer to 
 the state of female society at that time in Attica. The regular wives of 
 Athenian citizens were kept from interference with public life with a 
 rigour only less strict than that of an Eastern harem. They lived in secluded 
 apartments at home, and had little knowledge of social affairs or general 
 interests. The Hetseree, among less honourable distinctions, had the ad- 
 vantages of vivacity, freedom of thought, and a considerable degree of 
 mental culture. Their society was undoubtedly more attractive and more 
 ' sought after by many of the distinguished men of the time. " The wife 
 for our house and home," says Demosthenes ; " the Hetsera for our solace and 
 delight." We have in the table-talk of Athenaeus abundant specimens of 
 the wit and the manners of this class of women ; and we see from his ac- 
 count the wide range of character and position which their common name 
 included. Her free and various conversation — her talents and ambitious 
 spirit, with the variety of those admitted to her social circle, led Aspasia 
 to be classed with the Hetserse ; but we have no reliable evidence of any 
 moral infidelity on her part, either before or after her union with Pericles. 
 If we admit Athenseus and the comedians as authorities on which to 
 found our judgment of character, we must immensely lower our estimate 
 of Socrates, and the noblest names of Greece. If not, neither can we take 
 their account of Aspasia as historical. It is unfair to estimate the morals 
 of one age by the highest standard of another ; but it is still more unfair 
 to take our impression of the great politicians of any age or coxmtry from 
 the writers of political squibs. Aspasia had one son, named after his 
 father, Pericles : he was made a citizen of Athens on the abrogation of the 
 old law, which withheld from political rights the children of aliens. She 
 survived Pericles by some years, and is reported to have married an ob- 
 scure Athenian, Lysicles, whom she raised by her example and precept to 
 be one of the leaders of the republic. We have a doubtful fragment of 
 her poetry, quoted by Athenseus, and the oration in the Menexenus is at- 
 tributed to her dictation. We cannot, however, draw from this any cer- 
 tain conclusion as to its authenticity. The authorities regarding Aspasia 
 are fuUy collected in Bayle ; but the best historical account of her is to 
 be fovmd in the sixth volume of Grote. Among more imaginative sketches 
 we may refer to Miss Lynn's "Amymone," for a glowing picture of the 
 union of beauty and wisdom with nobility of soul which characterised the 
 great Ionian, 
 
V. 
 
 ALEXANDEE— THE KING. 
 
 Alexander III., surnamed The Great, son of Olympias and Philip II., the 
 eighteenth king of Macedou ; was born at Pella 356 B.C. ; died 323 B.C. He 
 lived thirty-two years. Our space forbids our attempting anything beyond 
 a delineation of the main features of so gigantic a form. — His career may 
 be conveniently divided into three epochs ; the first including the period 
 previous to his invasion of Asia, the second the whole of his outward 
 march, and the third, the interval between his return from the Hyphasis 
 and his death. 
 
 I. Alexander early evinced remarkable powers, and a keen consciousness 
 of the dignity of his station. The anecdotes of his boyhood — as the tam- 
 ing of Bucephalus, his interrogation of the Persian ambassadors, and his 
 jealousy of Philip's victories — manifest a spirit of daring and restless 
 ambition. He was well trained in horsemanship and manly sports, and 
 we hear from jEschines of his skiU on the lyre. He combined his father's 
 prudence, fortitude, and ingenuity, with the ardent temper of Olympias ; 
 and his education served to foster both those elements of future greatness. 
 His first guardians were Leonidas, a relation of his mother, and the 
 Achamanian Lysimachus. The former, of stern and rigid disposition, 
 endeavoured to train his pupil to the endurance of toil and hardship. 
 Coimected with the latter, were those Homeric studies which so soon 
 impressed a romantic stamp upon Alexander's exploits : the tutor assumed 
 the name of Phoenix, and the prince was pleased to be addressed as 
 Achilles, his boasted ancestor and pattern hero. But Philip had designed 
 for him a more famous teacher ; for in 342 B.C. he invited Aristotle to 
 undertake the education of his son. Thus, in Alexander's thirteenth year, 
 began a connexion such as has never been renewed in history — ^between 
 the great Actor and the great Thinker of the age. Philip displayed a 
 generous respect for his guest, and restored his native town of Stagira. 
 Here, for a space of four years, the philosopher's instructions ranged over 
 the wide fields of poetry, rhetoric, and science. He revised, for the use of his 
 pupil, a copy of the lUad, and wrote for him a treatise on Government. To 
 his incitement we may trace in part that varied knowledge and enthusiasm 
 for discovery which so distinguished the Conqueror. It is pleasant to hear 
 of the warm personal attachment which existed between those two illus- 
 trious men. Phihp himself had trained his son in the art of war and 
 state-craft, and on the occasion of his march against Byzantium, 340 B.C., 
 he committed Macedonia to his charge. Some letters to Ai'istotle are the 
 only records we have of this administration. Two years afterwards, before 
 
198 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 Chseronea, we hear of Alexander urging his father to a decisive engage- 
 ment ; and his own impetuous charge on that eventful day decided the 
 fortune of the field. Philip's marriage with Cleopatra introduced dissen- 
 sion into the royal house ; and strife came between the father and son. 
 The prince violently resented an insult offered to him at the nuptial ban- 
 quet, and retired with his mother from the court. Shortly afterwards, on 
 Philip's negotiating a union between his half-brother Aridaeus and a 
 daughter of Piiodarus of Caria, he imagined the scheme a step to supplant 
 his succession, and himself sent proposals for the hand of the lady. Oh 
 discovering this, Philip imprisoned the ambassador, and banished other 
 five of Alexander's friends. Such was the state of things when Philip — on 
 the eve of his projected invasion of Asia — was cut off by the dagger of 
 Pausanias (336 b.c.) The suspicions attached to Olympias of being an 
 accomplice in the murder do not seriously affect Alexander. Suddenly 
 called upon to assume the vacant throne, he found himself — in his 
 twentieth year — surrounded by difficulties. The architect was removed, 
 and the fabric he had scarcely consolidated was in danger of falling to 
 pieces. Beset by rival claimants for the kingdom, threatened by a new 
 Hellenic alliance, and the hostility of the northern barbarians, Alexander, 
 nevertheless, proved himself equal to the crisis. He vigorously suppressed 
 the first ebullitions of domestic tresison, and a few of the leaders suspected 
 of conspiracy were put to death. Demosthenes, organising a revolt in the 
 south, had opened a correspondence with Attains, who had raised the 
 standard of revolt in Asia : this general was arrested and killed, and the 
 movements of the Greeks were disconcerted by the young king suddenly 
 appearing with his army at Thermopylse. He rapidly won favour by in- 
 spiring fear. He had been appointed head of the Thessalian confe- 
 deracy ; the Amphictyonic council at the straits chose him as their chief; 
 and he was elected by the Greeks assembled at Corinth to the leadership 
 of the war against Persia ; — the Lacedaemonians alone withheld them- 
 selves. Thebes and Athens, which had begun to shew signs of disaffection, 
 were awed into acquiescence ; and in the spring of 335 B.c. Alexander 
 found himself at liberty to march into Thrace, and prosecute a campaign 
 against the TribaJli. Passing the Hsamus, he vanquished that tribe, and 
 carried his arms among the Getse, on the further shore of the Danube. 
 The Taulantii and lUyrians had leagued against him, and he was engaged 
 in subjugating them, when news of the revolt of Thebes induced him to 
 hasten towards Greece. A report of his death had revived the anti- 
 Macedonian party in that city. They had initiated an insurrection by the 
 massacre of two officers of the garrison, before they heard of Alexander's 
 return ; and feeling themselves compromised, shut the gates against him. 
 He offered lenient terms, but when they were rejected, prepared for an 
 assault : the town was taken by storm, and a terrible retribution awaited 
 it. The populace were exposed to an indiscriminate slaughter ; six thou- 
 sand fell ; the prisoners numbered thirty thousand. The troops who had 
 been drafted into Alexander's army from the surrounding Boeotian states, 
 the Thespians, Plataeaus, and Orchomenians, were foremost in the massacre, 
 
ALEXANDER THE KING. 199 
 
 and when the fate of the city itself was submitted to their arbitration, the 
 memory of old feuds sealed its doom. Thebes was razed to the ground ; 
 the temples alone and the Cadmea were left standing. One house was 
 honourably exempted — the house of the poet Pindar. Thebes had more 
 than once betrayed the interests of Hellenic freedom, and her fall was the 
 less pitied ; but the example was none the less striking, and her name 
 remained as a terror and a warning in the mouth of all Greeks. 
 
 II. Hostilities, open or covert, between Persia and Macedon had been in 
 progress during the former reign ; and in his assumed character of cham- 
 pion of the Greeks, Alexander became the minister of the Nemesis which 
 had been hanging over Asia ever since the invasion of Xerxes. The power 
 of the " Great King " was not to be estimated by the numbers who paid 
 homage to his name. His vast dominion was made up of various races, 
 held together by the loose bond of a weak despotism, and disjointed tribes 
 whose satraps exercised all the freedom of independent princes. The 
 cumbrous mass was already tottering, and so little reliance could be placed 
 even upon those chiefs who were nominally faithful, that the chief support 
 of the throne lay in the Greek mercenaries of Darius. Alexander was at 
 the head of an army which it had been one of the great triumphs of Philip 
 to organise — the phalanx which had proved invincible against the finest 
 armies of Greece, and the unrivalled cavalry of Thessaly and Thrace. Early 
 in 334 B.C., having committed the government to the hands of Antipater, 
 he sailed from Sestus with an army of 30,000 infantry and 5000 horse. 
 Before going, he distributed his lands and houses among his friends, 
 leaving for himself, with magnanimous confidence, " his hopes." One of his 
 first acts on landing in Asia, after sacrificing to the gods, was to visit the 
 legendary tombs on the plain of Troy. There he reahsed the scenes on 
 which he had long feasted his imagination, and won a new stimulus from 
 the theatre of great deeds. He proceeded with his army to the Granicus, 
 which flows into the Propontis near Cyzicus. On the opposite bank of 
 this stream, an army of 20,000 Greek mercenaries and as many native 
 cavalry was posted under two of the Persian satraps. Memuon of Rhodes, 
 one of the ablest advisers of Darius, counselled the leaders to retreat and 
 lay waste the country ; but, relying on the advantages of the ground, they 
 resolved to oppose the passage. Alexander at once led his forces to the 
 attack, and an obstinate conflict followed, during which he conspicuously 
 displayed his valour, and was only saved from a Persian cimeter by the 
 prompt intervention of his friend Cleitus. The invaders were victorious ; 
 the cavalry were put to flight, and the mercenaries surrounded. Only 2000 
 fell aUve into the hands of their enemies ; these Alexander sent in chains 
 to Macedon. He treated his Asiatic prisoners on this and all occasions 
 with marked clemency ; but with Greeks taken in arms against him he 
 dealt more severely. The result of this battle secured the submission of 
 the colonies on the .lEgean ; Sardis and Ephesus threw open their gates 
 on his approach: Magnesia and Tralles gave in their allegiance. The 
 partisans of the opposite party were expelled, and Alexander restored the 
 democracy, acting on the rule which he observed throughout, that each 
 
200 BIOGtBAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 state and city under his control should be governed according to its own 
 laws. The first opposition he encountered on his march along the coast 
 was at Miletus. The Persian fleet of 400 sail anchored outside the har- 
 bour, and, with only 160 galleys, he did not think fit to risk an engage- 
 ment ; but he efiected a breach in the wall, and the city was taken by 
 storm. A more serious detention awaited him before Hahcarnassus. 
 Memnon had concentrated there the whole of his available force, and made 
 preparations for a resolute defence. The city was guarded towards the 
 sea by the fleet ; a deep ditch, high walls, and two citadels protected it on 
 the land side. Alexander flUed up the ditch, and battered the walls. After 
 futile attempts to destroy his engines, the Persian governors, giving up the 
 defence in despair, made their escape, and the Macedonians entered the 
 city. Memnon, acting as admiral, proceeded to reduce several of the 
 islands in the .^gean ; but in the following year Alexander profited by the 
 death of his formidable opponent. From Halicarnassus the army advanced 
 through Caria and Lycia, investing, by the way, the most important towns. 
 Leaving PhaseUs, two roads lay before them. A strong south wind dashing 
 the waves against the shore made the near path by the beach almost im- 
 practicable. Alexander, however, sending his main force by a circuitous 
 route, resolved with a few followers to attempt the passage. The wind 
 changed to the north, and the event by which he was enabled to skirt the 
 cliff's in safety was exaggerated into a miracle like that of the Red Sea. He 
 met his troops at Perge, and proceeded through Pisidia and Phrygia. His 
 arrival at Gordium is marked by the famous cutting of the knot which 
 tied the waggon of Midas. It was received as a warrant for his sovereignty 
 over Asia, and is perpetuated in a modern phrase. Thence, 333 B.C., he 
 marched through Cappadocia, across the range of Taurus, to Tarsus in 
 Cilicia. The satrap Arsames had deserted that city, and he entered it 
 without a contest. He was detained here by a severe fever, brought on 
 by plunging when violently heated into the chill stream of the Cydnus. 
 (The story which Plutarch tells of the physician Philippus is too ostenta- 
 tiously characteristic to be reliable.) On his recovery, he advanced by 
 way of Anohialus and Soli to Mallus, where he received inteUigence of the 
 advance of Darius at the head of a huge army. The Persian king lay at 
 Solchi, on the borders of a great plain above the hills which environ the 
 gulf of Issus. He was surrounded by the same pomp, and confided in the 
 same parade of power which Xerxes had found so useless. But he had a 
 force of about 600,000 men, and had he followed the advice of Amyntus, 
 to remain in a position where he could have full advantage of his numbers, 
 the issue might have been doubtful. Alexander, who had passed the un- 
 guarded gates of Cilicia, lay at Myriandrus, detained by stress of weather. 
 Darius, in the belief that his enemies were scared at his approach, descended 
 from his vantage ground toward Issus, and encamped in a narrow plain on 
 the right bank of the Pinarus. The exultation of the Macedonians may be 
 compared to that of Cromwell's Ironsides when the Scottish army came 
 down from the heights at Dunbar. Alexander marched quickly to the 
 attack, and after a tremendous struggle, the compact strength of the 
 
AXEXANDBE THE KING. 201 
 
 phalanx broke the huddled masses of the Persians. Their king fled before 
 the contest was well decided, abandoning the royal tent, with his wife and 
 mother, to the mercy of the conqueror. They were treated by Alexander 
 with that consideration and respect which from first to last marked his 
 dealings with female captives. He determined next to conduct his army 
 through Phoenicia, as from that coast and from Egypt the fleet which 
 harassed his early course had been mainly supphed. His general, Parmenio, 
 was sent forward to seize Damascus, where Darius had deposited a portion 
 of his treasure. He himself was welcomed as a deliverer by several of the 
 maritime cities. Aradus, Byblus, and Sidon wUhngly received him, and 
 the Tyrians sent an embassy with oflers of obedience. But it was implied 
 that those ofiers did not extend to absolute submission, and Alexander 
 returned a polite answer to their evasion. He was anxious to sacrifice to 
 Melcart — ^the Phoenician Hercules — and would for that purpose cross over 
 to their island. The envoys replied that he might have access to the 
 temple on the mainland, but that they could not admit any stranger within 
 their walls. The issue between Europe and Asia was yet unsettled, and 
 they wished to retain the power of arbitration. They may have also felt 
 a certain pride in refusing to open their gates to a conqueror. Tyre was 
 one of the oldest cities of the ancient world. Her traditions went back for 
 twenty-four centuries, a period surpassing that which has elapsed since 
 the times of Alexander. The queen of merchant cities, and the parent of 
 powerful races, she had sustained sieges from armies many times out- 
 numbering his, when her site gave less encouragement to defiance. BuUt 
 on a storm-beaten clifi", separated from the shore by a channel of half a 
 mile in breadth, and siu'rounded by a wall 150 feet high, she was safe, if 
 any city could be safe, from attacks by land, and aU but impregnable by 
 sea. There was enough here to have daunted any ordinary captain ; but 
 it was Alexander's rule never to yield to any surmountable obstacle, and 
 to him no obstacle appeared insurmountable. He resolved on a method 
 of attack which has left its impress on the topography of the coast. From 
 the dismantled buildings of old Tyre and the neighbouring forests of 
 Libanus, he reared a gigantic mole, which was slowly built out into the chan- 
 nel, and threatened to convert the island into a peninsula ; at the end of 
 this mole two wooden towers were stationed, at once to protect the work- 
 men and annoy the Tyrians by showers of missiles. The latter, however 
 succeeded in setting fire to the towers and loosening the mound, thus 
 beginning a destruction which a storm shortly afterwards completed. 
 With dauntless patience, Alexander set his soldiers to renew the laborious 
 construction, while he went himself to Sidon and the other towns of 
 Phoenicia to collect a fleet. The mound was at length finished, and the 
 city was assailed on both sides ; and it was from the sea that a breach was 
 first made in the walls. After a siege of seven months — one of the most 
 memorable of antiquity — Tyre fell into the hands of the Macedonians, 
 332 B.C. Exasperated by the long resistance, the rage of the soldiery knew 
 no bounds. The town was fired, and 8000 of the inhabitants massacred. 
 The remainder, numbering about 30,000, were sold as slaves ; while, in 
 
202 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 revenge for the death of certain prisoners slain on the ramparts, 2000 were 
 conspicuously crucified. The old prophecies seemed to be again fulfilled 
 against the beautiful city. She was made desolate, and the " isles shook at 
 the sound of her fall." About this time Alexander received and rejected 
 conciliatory overtures from Darius. Marching southward along the coast 
 of Palestine, he was arrested by the resistance of Gaza. Her walls were of 
 immense height, and Batis, the commander, maintained with his garrison 
 a desperate defence, fighting when the fortress was taken till the last was 
 slain. During the progress of this siege Alexander was severely wounded. 
 The Jewish legends tell that he was diverted from an attack on Jerusalem 
 by a dream, which had inspired him with reverence for their priest, but it 
 is uncertain whether he ever visited that city. His march lay onwards 
 toward Egypt, and at Pelusium he met his fleet, which sailed up the Nile 
 to Memphis, while he arrived at the same point by marching across the 
 desert. He encountered no opposition from the Egyptians, who were 
 ready to consider him as the enemy of their old oppressors. The Persians 
 had trampled upon their national customs and rites, whereas the policy of 
 Alexander was to respect the altars of the gods in whatever country he 
 fixed his dominion. In pursuance of this plan, and partly impelled by 
 curiosity to see one of the most celebrated shrines in the world, he made 
 a pilgrimage to the oasis of Ammon. The priests were flattered by his 
 visit ; he was saluted as the son of Jove, and received from the oracle a 
 response according to his desires. But the event which chiefly comme- 
 morates this campaign took place at the beginning of 331 B.C. Navigating 
 the western branch of the Delta, Alexander was struck by the situation of 
 a strip of land which separates the lake Mareotis from the sea, and is pro- 
 tected from storms by the Pharos rock. The thought resulted in the 
 foundation of Alexandria — a city, in its magnificence, duration, and influ- 
 ence on the civilisation of mankind, destined to surpass even the hopes of 
 the founder. In the same year he returned to Tyre, and marched to 
 Thapsacus, a distance of 800 miles, before the end of August. Thence he 
 proceeded without interruption through Mesopotamia to the banks of the 
 Tigris. 
 
 Darius had assembled the whole force of his kingdom, and in a wide 
 plain near the village of Gaugamela prepared for a last trial of strength. 
 The vicissitudes of Issus were repeated on a grander scale. Elephants, 
 scythed chariots, cumbrous instruments of terror, and countless hosts 
 were found unequal to resist the stern onset of the phalanx and the shock 
 of Alexander's cavalry. A second time the king set the example of flight, 
 and the pursuit continued with great slaughter as far as Arbela, a town 
 which has given its name to the battle. Instead of tracking Darius to 
 Ecbatana, the victor marched southward, and made a triumphal entry into 
 Babylon. Here too, as in Egypt, he found the people willing to accept his 
 rule in exchange for the intolerant tyranny of the Achsemenides. He re- 
 stored the temples of the old Chaldean religion, and sacrificed to their 
 tutelar god, Belus. The civil oflSces of the city he apportioned among 
 some of his own captains. The army rested for a time in the enjoyment 
 
AiKXANDKR THE KING. 203 
 
 of the surrounding luxury, and, in the midst of the splendours of Babylon, 
 Alexander began to assume the outward signs of Oriental power. Towards 
 the end of the year he set out for Susa, and foimd there 50,000 talents of 
 gold and silver. He was joined at this point by reinforcements from 
 Greece, about 13,500 foot, and 1480 horse. Moving eastward from the 
 acquired territory to the original seat of the Persian dynasty, he had to 
 pass two defiles, and encounter a vigorous resistance from the mountain 
 tribes of the Uxians and the satrap Ariobarzanes. He overcame their 
 opposition by skilful strategetics, and Tiridates the governor dehvered 
 Persepolis into his hands. There the army found a treasure richer than 
 any they had yet secured. It was the storehouse of the plunder of cen- 
 turies — the sacred city of the ancient kings — like the Indian Delhi, the 
 seat and sign of empire. In the midst of a feast Alexander fired the royal 
 palace ; whether in a fit of drunken passion or moved by some reason of 
 more deliberate policy, is uncertain. He may have wished to revenge the 
 old burning of Athens, or to render it impossible that a Persian prince 
 should again sit on the throne of his ancestors. The fire spread rapidly, 
 and a considerable portion of the city was consumed. The white marble 
 columns that rise from the platform of Persepolis still attest its ancient 
 magnificence. At Pasargadse, Alexander visited the tomb of Cyrus. In 
 the spring of 330 B.C. he directed his course northward in pursuit of 
 Darius. He passed through Ecbatana to Rhagae, and found that the king 
 had fled through the Caspian gates towards Bactri. Darius fell a 
 victim to the treason of Bessus, satrap of that province, who had over- 
 powered and thrown him into chains. Alexander pressed after them to 
 the borders of Parthia, and found the corpse of the king, who had been 
 murdered by the conspirators. He sent it to be buried in state at Per- 
 sepolis, and himself encamped at Hecatompylus. Here he dismissed a 
 number of his Greek auxiliaries who desired to return home, and with his 
 Macedonian troops marched into Hyrcania, a wild and rugged district to 
 the south-east of the Caspian. Having subdued the Mardians and other 
 hostile tribes, he entered the capital, Zandracarta, where the mercenaries 
 who had fought against him surrendered. The Athenians and Spartans 
 were subjected to a temporary confinement ; the rest he forgave, and they 
 were set at hberty or incorporated into his army. 
 
 The subjugation of Persia proper completed, we enter upon a new career 
 of conquest, where one is more astounded by the vastness and variety of 
 the regions traversed, than by the number and magnitude of Alexander's pre- 
 vious victories. His Eastern marches realise for the first time in authentic 
 history, the fabled wanderings of the heroes, and conduct us through 
 realms yet untraversed by a European army. We are confused by the 
 mere names of the cities, nations, and tribes he visited. The course of 
 those marvellous marches will never perhaps be exactly determined, and a 
 bare outline of their results is all that can be offered here. — Alexander left 
 Zandracarta after a sojourn of fifteen days, and passing through Aria, 
 where he founded the city of Herat, penetrated southwards into Drangiana. 
 He rested for some time at Prophthasia, the capital of that district, and 
 
204 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 the scene of one of the three tragedies which have left a stain upon his 
 glory. We will anticipate a little in order to review them together. In 
 adapting himself to the manners of his new subjects, the conqueror had 
 assumed, with the tiara, much of the absolutism of an Asiatic despot. He 
 claimed a divine right for his sovereignty, he paraded the response of the 
 oracle of Ammon, and, too readily accustomed to the servile homage of 
 the East, could not brook the censure which his arrogance excited among 
 his old captains. Chief of these was Parmenio ; his son Philotas was bound 
 to the monarch by the ties of a long friendship. He presumed upon this 
 to speak freely of Alexander's excesses ; whether there was deeper ground 
 for suspicion against him is unknown, but he had enemies in the camp 
 who took advantage of a plot, formed by one of the minor of&cers, to accuse 
 Philotas. He was arrested, tried, and condemned on very insufficient 
 evidence. A confession was wrested from him by tortui-e, implicating 
 Parmenio, and while the son was executed on the spot, a messenger was 
 sent to have the father cut off in Media. Similar was the fate of Calis- 
 thenes, the kinsman of Aristotle, and litterateur of the army. When (in 
 328 B.C.) Alexander was in Bactria, a conspiracy formed against his life by 
 the royal pages was detected. They were executed, and the philosopher, 
 who had offended the king by his cynical manners, was involved in the 
 charge. There was no proof of his guilt, but he was imprisoned, and seven 
 months after died in chains. The well-known assassination of Cleitus, 
 which took place during the previous winter, was a sudden crime repented 
 of as soon as it was committed ; but it illustrates the fits of fury, aggra- 
 vated by intemperance, to which Alexander was occasionally subject. — 
 From Prophthasia the conqueror marched (330 b.c.) through the territory 
 of the Ariaspians, and up the banks of the Etymander. Passing into 
 Archosia, he founded another city on the site of the modern Oandahar, 
 and directing his course eastward, arrived at the pass by which he was to 
 cross the Indian Caucasus. Having surmounted this lofty range, he halted 
 for a few days at Drapsaca, a strongly fortified town on the highlands of 
 the northern slope. Hence, after a tiresome march he reached the Oxus, 
 and consumed six days in the passage of that river. Bessus had fled 
 before him into Sogdiana, but he was overtaken by his own treachery. 
 Two of his followers, Spitamenes and Dataph ernes, delivered him up to 
 the conqueror. He was conveyed to Zariaspa, the capital where Oleitus 
 was killed, and put to death in the following year after a cruel mutilation. 
 It was a part of Alexander's policy to visit with severity all offences 
 against the royal dignity. Meanwhile, he proceeded through the rich 
 country which surrounds Samaroand, and reaching the northern limit of 
 his course on the shores of the Jaxartes, founded there a distant Alexan- 
 dria. Remote Scythian races sent him embassies. He was pleased to 
 accept their friendship, and retrace his steps. Spitamenes had a second 
 time turned traitor, and roused the Sogdiaus to revolt. The reconquest of 
 the country was only accomplished after two years' hard fighting. On one 
 occasion, a large detachment of Macedonian troops was entirely cut to 
 pieces, and Alexander, in revenge, perpetrated a cruel massacre in the vale 
 
ALEXAS'DBB THE KIXG. 205 
 
 of the Polytimus. The year 328 B.C. was marked by the capture of the 
 Sogdian rock, an insulated precipice crested by a strong fortification. 
 Here Roxana, daughter of the chief Oxyartes, was taken, and, won by her 
 beauty, the victor made her his wife. This alliance secured the goodwill of 
 some of the native rulers ; yet many more battles followed with Spita- 
 menes, till at length the most persevering enemy Alexander had found in 
 Asia was overwhelmed and slain. It was his desire to extend his empire 
 on every side to the extreme limits of the old dominion of Cyrus. He 
 was encouraged in his purpose of invading India by a visit which he re- 
 ceived from Taxiles, ruler of an extensive district between the Indus and 
 the Hydaspes, at war with neighbouring princes, and anxious to secure a 
 formidable ally. Alexander left Zariaspa in 327 B.C., at the head of an 
 army of 120,000 foot and 15,000 horse, largely recruited from the Asiatic 
 tribes. He crossed the Caucasus, and in the same summer reached the 
 site of Cabul. Skirting the mountains to the north of the Cophea river, he 
 defeated the inhabitants and captured the cities on his route. On the 
 banks of the Indus he came before the stronghold Aornus, the most cele- 
 brated of the rock fortresses, whose threatening aspect invariably provoked 
 his attack. Hercules, it was fabled, was, ages before, baffled before this 
 fastness ; it was the more worthy prey for his successor. A select body 
 of troops succeeded in scaling a rock, separated from the citadel by a wide 
 gorge. Alexander carried a mound over this, and the place was captured. 
 Early in 326 B.C. he crossed the Indus by a bridge of boats, and after being 
 entertained by Taxiles in the capital which bore his name, marched with- 
 out opposition to the Hydaspes. Porus, sovereign of the district south of 
 that stream, had collected an immense army on the opposite bank, fronted 
 by an imposing array of some three hundred elephants. Many days 
 passed, during which Alexander sought to deceive Porus as to his real 
 intentions. At length in a stormy night a large division of his army 
 crossed in a secluded part of the river. A fierce battle followed, in which 
 the valour of the Indian king so commended itself to the conqueror, that he 
 consented to govern the country indirectly, and left Porus with a nominal 
 independence, annexing to his dominions a portion of the neighbouring 
 territory. On opposite banks of the Hydaspes Alexander founded two 
 cities, Nicaea, and Bucephala the grave and memorial of his famous steed. 
 He easily subdued the unwarlike Clausians who lay to the west of the 
 Acesines, and passing that river, took possession of the country which had 
 been resigned by the flight of another Porus, an enemy to the first prince 
 of that name. South of the Hydraotes, the CathEei, and their capital San- 
 gala, (Lahore,) opposed an obstinate resistance. The city was at length 
 taken and razed ; seventeen thousand of the barbarians were slain during 
 the war. The conquest of the Punjaub was complete, and the victor arrived 
 at the banks of the Hyphasis. 
 
 III. Here, in the ninth year of his reign, Alexander had reached the 
 limits of the known world and the goal of his conquests. His own restless 
 spirit was unbroken. Beyond that river lay new empires, the pathway to 
 future triumphs. But the army was indisposed to enter on a fresh train 
 
206 BIOGEAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 of indefinite and perilous adventures. His old Macedonian warriors, " souls 
 that had wrought, and fought, and toiled with him," were at last grown 
 weary of wars and wanderings. They recoiled from the immensity of the 
 Indian plains — the rivers and nations, and citadels of hostile men : the 
 Ganges was in a land of exile, and the distant ocean they heard of 
 
 " Far, far away did seem to moan and rave 
 On alien shores." 
 
 They resolved to advance no further. Alexander shut himself up for three 
 days in sullen silence, mourning their weak hearts. But the determination 
 of his soldiers was inflexible. Twelve great altars were reared to mark the 
 term of their triumphs, and they once more turned towards the West. 
 Alexander had fitted out a fleet on the Hydaspes. He himself in one of 
 the ships sailed with it down the river, while the main body of the army, 
 under the command of his favourite Hephsestion, marched along the eastern 
 bank. The martial tribes of the MaUi and Oxydracae were only subdued after 
 a succession of fierce battles. On one occasion Alexander having rashly ex- 
 posed himself alone among a host of enemies, was very near losing his life. 
 He was only rescued after he had received a severe wound, which detained 
 him for some time near the mouth of the Hydraotes. He descended the 
 Acesines to its confluence with the Indus, and sent a division of the army, 
 under Craterus, to Carmania, by way of the Drangse, while he proceeded 
 southward through the territories of Musicanus. At Pattala he founded a 
 city and harbour. The fleet was enlarged and given in charge to Nearchus 
 to conduct to the Persian Gulf, while he himself determined to lead the 
 rest of the army along the coast. Before setting out, he explored the 
 Delta of the Indus and sailed some short distance into the Indian Ocean. 
 It was his last backward look towards those regions from which he was 
 wrested. In passing through the hot, sandy desert of Gedrosia the army 
 sufiered severely from thirst. An anecdote is related of Alexander which 
 recalls our own Sidney. A helmet full of water had been procured, and it 
 was presented to his parched lips, but he threw the draught to the ground 
 untasted, and shared the common lot. He rested a short time at Pura, 
 and in Carmania was joined by Craterus, and shortly after by Nearchus, 
 whom he had been anxiously expecting. The admiral proceeded up the 
 Persian Gulf. Hephsestion, with the main body of the troops, moved 
 along the shore, and the king himself, with the rest, took the upper road 
 to Pasargadae and Persepolis. They met at Susa 324 b.o. 
 
 The task yet remained to Alexander to link together the disconnected 
 masses of his vast dominion, and he found himself called upon to exchange 
 the warrior for the statesman and the judge. Left in the midst of a con- 
 quered people, the officers whom he had appointed to preside over the 
 various provinces had been guilty of acts of extortion and tyranny which 
 demanded redress. He set himself to remove the most conspicuous offend- 
 ers. In some instances his justice was swift and summary ; in others it 
 was delayed by feelings of friendship. Thus, Oleander, Heraco, and SitaJces, 
 governors of the force in Media, had been put to death ; while Harpalus, 
 
ALEXANDER THE KING. 207 
 
 who had ruled with despotic oppression over the satrapy of Babylon, was 
 allowed to escape with his plunder, and rouse a new opposition in Athens. 
 The amalgamation of two nations, distinct in their race as in their civiHsa- 
 tion, was an arduous effort. It was mainly with a view to this end that 
 Alexander celebrated his nuptials at Susa with Statira, daughter of Darius. 
 To Hephsestion was allotted her youngest sister, Drypetis ; Craterus 
 espoused a niece of the deceased monarch ; and wives from among the 
 ladies of rank in the Persian court were assigned to eighty of the other 
 officers. Ten thousand of the soldiery followed the example of their chiefs, 
 and to each a dowry was granted from the royal treasury. Another act of 
 public generosity was the payment of the debts of all such as chose to 
 register their names. Meanwhile, Alexander disbanded the Greek mer- 
 cenaries throughout the kingdom, and drafted among his troops a large 
 number of Asiatic youths trained to the European arms. This was the 
 occasion of bitter jealousy among the Macedonians, who conceived that 
 their posts of honour were being usurped by a barbaric race. Alexander 
 had improved the navigation of the Tigris and Euphrates, and he sailed 
 up to Opis to a great meeting of the army. An offer to release from ser- 
 vice those of his old soldiers who wished to return home, gave additional 
 offence, and a mutiny broke out, which it required all his energy and 
 eloquence to quell. At last he succeeded in subduing their pride ; a recon- 
 ciliation was affected, and 10,000 veterans accompanied Craterus to Mace- 
 donia. About this time he proceeded to Ecbatana, and celebrated there 
 one of the most magnificent of his festivals. The rejoicings were inter- 
 rupted by the death of Hephaestion. Alexander's grief on this event mani- 
 fested itself with the vehemence that belonged to him. The walls of 
 Ecbatana were dismantled, and the fire quenched in all her sanctuaries. 
 A pile, such as no monarch had ever seen before, was reared for the corpse 
 of the favourite, and his name was enrolled among the demi-gods of Greece. 
 After a short expedition, in which he subdued the rebel tribes of the 
 Cosssei, the king marched to Babylon. In this gorgeous city which he had 
 selected for his capital, he resolved to celebrate the obsequies of his friend. 
 Here, too, a magnificent harbour was constructed, and hither (323 b.o.) 
 embassies from all quarters of the habitable globe, Celts, Ethiopians, 
 Carthaginians, Libyans, Italians, and envoys from the future mistress of 
 the world came to offer tribute, or crowns, or congratulations to the con- 
 queror of Asia. But there was a double gloom over the pomp and splend- 
 our of the times. Omens of death had been partially fulfilled, and uneasy 
 forebodings haunted Alexander. The Chaldeans had warned him from 
 Babylon. On a voyage down the Euphrates, a gust of wind carried off his 
 tiara, and it fell among the tombs of the old kings. A stranger came and 
 seated himself on his vacant throne. One dark sign confirmed another. 
 Patroclus had fallen, and Achilles was to survive but for a brief space. 
 Yet the mind of the king was busied to the last on majestic designs. 
 North and south he stretched his plans for discovery and his hopes of 
 power. He had sent three admirals to survey the coasts of Arabia, an- 
 other to navigate the Caspian Sea ; he was on the eve of setting out him- 
 
208 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 self on a career of western conquest. A sacrifice was instituted for its 
 success, which ended in a banquet. The festivities of that evening only 
 augmented the fever which had already claimed its victim. From day to 
 day the expedition was postponed, till, on the sixth, Alexander felt that he 
 would no more march at the head of his armies. His generals, too, were 
 seized with despair, and eager to behold again their great commander, were 
 permitted to pass one by one through his chamber. He lay there yet 
 alive, but the vital spark was rapidly expiring. A grasp of the hand and 
 an expressive glance, was all that he could vouchsafe to the mourners in 
 that solemn procession. He gave his ring to Perdiccas, and thus Alex- 
 ander bade farewell to his old guard. The god Serapis was asked whether 
 he should be brought into the temple, but a voice from the adytum 
 replied, that he was better where he was. The great spirit had passed 
 away. Demosthenes would not at first credit the report of his death ; had 
 it been true, he said, the whole earth would have smelt of his corpse. His 
 remains were embalmed, and the sarcophagus rested in his city by the 
 Nile. Three centuries afterward the Kd of that sepulchre was raised, and 
 the features of the greatest conqueror of ancient times were scanned by 
 the first of the Roman emperors. 
 
 Among the soldiers of antiquity, Alexander finds a rival in Hannibal 
 alone. More perhaps than any other commander he combined the chivalry 
 of the heroic age, and the more careful strategetics of later times. His 
 career is equally calculated to excite romantic enthusiasm and thoughtful 
 study. He was at once the AchiUes and the Agamemnon of his army ; 
 and if ferocity led Tiim at times rashly to risk his life, his ingenuity cut out 
 a way from difficulties which would have overwhelmed any other mortal. 
 But we must grant to Alexander more than the praise of the warrior. His 
 zeal for discovery, love of knowledge, and varied accomplishments, would 
 alone have made him remarkable. His life became an epoch in the world's 
 history as much by pohcy as by arms. Bringing, for the first time, the 
 East and West into close contact, he acted on the only principle by which 
 races can be moulded together, and, in his perception of harmony in 
 diversity, shewed that he had not sat at the feet of Aristotle in vain. He 
 had scarcely begun to be a lawgiver ; but his course, so rapid that he might 
 well be said to overrun a great portion of his empire, was everywhere 
 marked by more than ruin. Everywhere he diffused some of the blessings 
 of Greek civilisation, opened up new possibilities of progress, and scattered 
 .seeds far and wide, to spring up with various degrees of influence over the 
 destinies of mankind. His impress on Greece itself was less beneficent ; 
 but Greek freedom was already doomed ; and of the jarring fragments into 
 which, on his premature death, his unwieldy empire fell, each was more 
 prosperous because of his reign. He pointed many paths which no succes- 
 sor was found great enough to follow, and India had to wait two thousand 
 years before culture again came with conquest to her shores. Wrath, 
 intemperance, and pride, mar the symmetry of Alexander's story: but 
 those are the common vices of conquerors ; he had virtues of chastity, 
 self-denial, and generous magnanimity shared by few. He was a good son, 
 
ALEXANDER THE KING. 209 
 
 an afi'ectionate pupil, and a wavm friend. The tribute of Arrian is just — 
 " such a mau would never have been bom without a special providence," 
 nor is there in the list of the world's heroes a name roore sublime than 
 his. 
 
 Plutarch, Curtius, and Arrian are the ancient authorities for Alexander's 
 life. The best English account of his campaigns is that given in the 6th 
 and nh volumes of Bishop Thirlwall's History. With reference to Mr 
 Grote's 12th volume, see a very able article in the National Review, No. V. 
 
VI. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES— THE ORATOR. 
 
 Demosthenes : born in the deme of Pteania, according to the most 
 probable account, in the year 382 B.C., the greatest orator of Athens, was 
 junior by one year to Philip of Macedon, and two years younger than 
 Aristotle. He died at the same date as that philosopher, after having lived 
 through the period of the Theban supremacy, the subversion of Greek 
 independence, and the conquests of Alexander. The main facts of his 
 life arrange themselves naturally in three epochs. 
 
 I. The son of Demosthenes, a cabinet and sword manufacturer of wealth 
 and station, and Cleobule, the daughter of an Athenian exile, Demosthenes 
 inherited, on the death of his father, b.c. 375, a considerable fortune. 
 Por ten years this remained in the hands of three guardians, who were 
 called to account for neglect of trust when the heir, at the age of eighteen, 
 attained his majority. The litigation in which he was then involved first 
 called into action the oratorical powers of the young pleader. But if we 
 may rely on an anecdote of Plutarch, which has a greater air of likelihood 
 than the similar story regarding Thucydides, his ambition to excel in this 
 direction was kindled at an earlier period, when he was admitted as a boy 
 to witness one of the triumphs of Calisthenes, and fired with the applause 
 of the multitude, resolved to devote himself to the study of eloquence. 
 Demosthenes himself contrasts the advantages he received from a syste- 
 matic education with the mean condition of his rival, Jisohines. Various 
 preceptors in the art of rhetoric have been assigned to him, and the desire 
 to link great names together has connected his with the most famous 
 of his own and the preceding age. Among these, that of Aristotle is 
 decidedly out of place, nor have we good reason to suppose that he 
 profited by the oral instruction, though he may have studied the writ- 
 ings, and sometimes emulated the style of Plato. There are passages in 
 some of his speeches which recall the flowing periods of Isocrates, but 
 their prevalent manner was as distinct as their policy, and the allusions 
 of Demosthenes to the elder orator almost preclude the idea of their 
 having ever stood to each other in the relation of teacher and pupU. The 
 account of his being trained by Iseeus is more reliable. In the conduct of 
 his private suit he certainly profited by the assistance of that eminent 
 lawyer, and he must have for a considerable period attended his school, if 
 he did not, as is reported, entirely monopolise his tuition. We learn that 
 he inade the historian Thucydides his great model in literature — copying 
 his whole work eight times over, till at last he was able to repeat it. On 
 the other hand, he appears to have neglected that part of education which 
 
DKMOSTHENES THE ORATOR. 211 
 
 the Greeks called Gymnastic, to the injury of a constitution already 
 delicate. His feeble frame, weak voice, general want of vigour, and awk- 
 ward delivery, were fatal to his success on his first appearance as a public 
 speaker. He failed, and failed again. His carefully prepared harangues 
 only earned him nicknames and ridicule. "Without a little timely encou- 
 ragement Athens might have lost her greatest orator ; but as he was 
 about to retire in despondency, his friend Eunomus and the actor Satyrus 
 succeeded in persuading him that the causes of his failure were such as 
 might be surmounted. The matter of his speeches, they said, was like the 
 speech of Pericles : he only required his power of expression to become 
 his successor. Thus reassured, he bent all his mental energies to over- 
 come his physical defects, set to remedy the weakness of his chest by 
 exercise, and strove to attain by sedulous practice a better enunciation, a 
 more graceful action, and greater fluency of speech. The various accounts 
 of the methods he employed to secure this end — talking with pebbles in 
 his mouth, toning his voice by the sea-shore, haranguing daily before a 
 mirror, and living for three months underground, are perhaps exaggera- 
 tions ; but the triumph of his perseverance was conspicuous in the issue, 
 and his fame as an orator came to rest as much on the manner as the 
 matter of his orations. " How much more would you have said had you 
 heai'd himself deliver it," was the generous remark of jEsohines when his 
 pupils in after-years applauded the speech of his rival above his own. On 
 again emerging from his self-imposed retirement, Demosthenes won the 
 favour of the people, and rose in their esteem till he surpassed his com- 
 petitors ; but he had still to struggle with opponents whom personal 
 enmity or pohtical differences set in his way. There is an oration extant 
 which was written (353 B.C.) in consequence of his being publicly assaulted, 
 while serving as choregus at the Dionysia, by Meidias, a friend of one of 
 his guardians ; but he withdrew the accusation on the receipt of a solatium 
 of thirty minse. After becoming deeply involved in public affairs, Demos- 
 thenes ceased to appear as a pleader in private causes, and only continued 
 his practice as a lawyer by composing, for a fair remuneration, speeches 
 which were probably delivered by other advocates. He held in the course 
 of his career several important offices besides that of choregus. He was a 
 trierarch shortly after his majority. In 354 B.C. he was elected among the 
 ^ovKevTai. In the following year he was appointed chief conductor of the 
 theoria to the Nemean festival. On another occasion he held the post of 
 commissioner for the public works of the city. He served in many of the 
 campaigns, and was employed in most of the important state embassies 
 which were sent out from Athens during his lifetime. 
 
 II. At the time when Demosthenes entered upon his career as a states- 
 man, there was. a party in Greece, represented in Athens by the orator 
 Isocrates, who, holding by the traditions of a former age, kept still fore- 
 most in their fears the power of the Persian court. It was on occasion of 
 a panic excited, 354 B.C., by the warlike preparations of Artaxerxes, that 
 he delivered his first public address, remarkable for the practical wisdom 
 and grasp of mind which it displays ; representing that the safety of 
 
212 BIOGKAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHKS. 
 
 Greece miist depend on the conjoint action of the various states, and 
 advising the Athenians not to provoke an attack, which they might be 
 left to resist alone. In the following year he came forward with his 
 advice on a question of inter-Hellenic policy. The Lacedsemonians, 
 desiring to profit by the Phocian war to recover Messene and reverse the 
 organisation of Epaminondas in Arcadia, sent envoys to Athens to solicit 
 her support. Demosthenes threw his weight mainly on the side of the 
 question represented by the rival embassy from Megalopolis, but advised 
 the Athenians to substitute their own influence in the Peloponnesus for 
 that of the Thebans. It was not until 352 B.C. that he began to offer that 
 consistent opposition to the encroachments of the Macedonian power to 
 which he consecrated the best years of his life. The disorganised condi- 
 tion of Greece, the decline of her vigour, the substitution in most of the 
 states of mercenaries for citizen soldiers, their mutual jealousies, the want 
 of foresight in their counsels, or of any leader to direct effectively their 
 military resources, afforded an opportunity for the advancement of a young 
 and warlike tribe upon the ruins of the old civilisation, which was sure not 
 to be neglected by a prince so enterprising and ambitious as PhiUp. Com- 
 mencing his career of aggression by an attack upon some of the border 
 towns and outposts of Hellas, he found an early occasion to interfere in 
 her internal affairs. The seizure of Amphipolis in 558 B.C., was followed by 
 the capture of Pydna, Potidsea, Methone. He espoused the cause of the 
 Thebans in the Phocian war ; and after some vicissitudes, confirmed his 
 influence in central Greece by the victory of 353 B.C. In the same year 
 he completed the conquest of Thessaly, and was preparing to carrj' the 
 war beyond Thermopylae, when the Athenians, at last awakened to their 
 danger, sent out an expedition to oppose his passage. The success of this 
 effort served to encourage a fatal confidence. The Athenians were no 
 longer the restlessly ambitious and enterprising race which they had been 
 in the days of Pericles. Content to live in peace in the midst of their 
 speculative or mercantile pursuits, to enjoy domestic comforts, and amuse 
 themselves at the pubUc games, they were not easily induced to undergo 
 the hardships of distant service, or even to take the initiative of defence. 
 Most of their leading advisers — some, like Phocion, from a conscientious 
 but mistaken policy, others from more interested motives ; some because 
 they were blind to danger, others because they despaired of surmounting 
 it — combined to foster this habit of mind. Demosthenes alone among 
 them saw from the first the full extent of the hazard, conceived the hope 
 of retrieving it, and energetically devoted himself to that end. The 
 object of his first Philippic, delivered 352 B.C., was to arouse the Atheni^ins 
 to a sense of their position, to expose the insufficiency of their half 
 measures, the f oUy of disunion in the face of a watchful enemy, and to 
 shew the necessity of each individually undertaking a portion of the toil 
 and expense of defending themselves. Philip's attack on Olynthus, 360 
 B.C., and the alliance of that city with Athens, called forth the three 
 Olynthiac orations of Demosthenes, urging the immediate duty of rescuing 
 so important a post. Meanwhile a revolt had broken out in Euboea. An 
 
DEMOSTHESES — THE OKATOK. 213 
 
 army was sent out under Phooion, which obtained a victory ; a second 
 expedition followed, in which Demosthenes took part, and, in accordance 
 with his advice, part of the theoric fund was devoted to the pay of the 
 soldiers ; but the war was still lingering, when news arrived of the fall of 
 Olynthus— an event which completed the ruin of the Chalcidio cities and 
 spread dismay over Greece. Even the orators who had hitherto upheld 
 the cause of Philip, were constrained to denounce him ; and, in the 
 spring of 347, jEschines himself was sent to stir up a coalition in the 
 Peloponnesus against the common enemy. But the Peloponnesians, wholly 
 absorbed in their miserable rivalries, were immoveable. Overtures for 
 peace were set on foot, and an embassy was sent out to arrange the basis 
 of an agi-eement. We have to rely on the authority of jEschines for our 
 information regarding this embassy, which met Philip at Pella early in 
 346 B.C. According to his account he himself played the foremost part in 
 the negotiations, while his fellow-ambassador Demosthenes, overtaken by 
 an unwonted confusion in presence of the king, broke down in the midst 
 of an oration which he had elaboi'ately prepared. Philij), after some dis- 
 cussion, offered to conclude a peace on the terms of " Uti possidetis." 
 The proceedings at Athens on the return of the envoys are involved in 
 confusion. Amid the contradictory reports that have come down to us, 
 we can only guess at the main facts ; two assemblies were held, in which 
 several of the allies of Athens were present ; a motion of Philocrates to 
 conclude an alliance between Philip and his allies on one side, Athens and 
 her alHes on the other, was carried. No representative of the Phocians 
 was present, and the ambassadors of Philip protested against their being 
 included. Demosthenes shared in the general mistake, and did not at the 
 time protest against their exclusion. The oaths of conformity to the 
 treaty were administered at once in Athens, but they had to be taken by 
 the king ; and Demosthenes was again appointed, along with iEschines, to 
 serve in this mission. The ambasssadors delayed in starting, loitered on 
 their march, and reached Philip at Pella fifty days after they had set out, 
 when he had completed the conquest of Thrace, and reduced another ally 
 of Athens. Even then they delayed administering the oath for twenty 
 days longer, when he had reached Pherse, and threatened Thermopylae. 
 This course, adhered to in spite of the incessant remonstrances of Demos- 
 thenes, suggests treachery on the part of the other envoys, and the 
 further conduct of Philocrates and JSschines confirms the suspicion. 
 They agreed at Phera3 to exclude the Phocians from all beneiit of the 
 treaty. They asserted at Athens, that Philip had occupied ThermoplysB to 
 assist the Phocians against Thebes, and succeeded in deceiving the people 
 till news an-ived that he had passed the straits unchallenged, formed an 
 alliance with Thebes, received the surrender of all the Phocian towns, and 
 terminated the sacred war. This cowp-dSetat filled Athens with dismay, 
 and jireparations were made to put the city in a posture of defence ; but 
 presently a conciliatory letter arrived from Philip, who was not yet pre- 
 pared for the iinal stroke. The Athenians were obliged to accept with a 
 good grace an offer of friendship which they daied neither trust nor. 
 
214 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 reject. At this moment the king's power in the north of Greece wa.s 
 overwhelming. The Thebans, Thessalians, Argeians, Messenians, and 
 Arcadians, deceived by his promises, and jealous of their Greek rivals, 
 were ready to bestow on him the Amphictyonio suffrage, which gave him 
 a legal right to interfere in their affairs. When hia envoys arrived to 
 .solicit the concurrence of Athens in this vote, Demosthenes did not 
 think it prudent to oppose the demand. He had resisted every step, but 
 one, of that fatal policy which had brought matters into a position in 
 which further resistance would have been folly. The anger of the 
 Athenians expending itself in the condemnation of Philocrates, the imme- 
 diate author of the peace, .Machines escaped in spite of the attempt of 
 Demosthenes, 343 B.C., in hia oration, nepi irapairpfa^has, to shew his 
 complicity in the whole fraud. The treaty thus concluded, 346 B.C., lasted 
 formally till 340 B.C. ; but the intervening period was one of smouldering 
 war — of aggressions on the one side ; remonstrances, embassies, and de- 
 fensive preparations on the other. Philip was stealthily advancing, 
 detaching one by one the limbs of Greece, before he ventured to aim a 
 blow at her heart. His paramount object was to prevent the formation of 
 a Greek confederacy, and thwart that united action of the states which 
 was the turning point of all the exhortations of the orator. Those two 
 great men at this period completely represent the opposite forces of 
 history ; the one acts, the other tries to react. Every move of Philip is 
 met by a counter move of his adversary. When the former sends his 
 despatches to foment discord in the Peloponneaua, the latter sets on foot 
 an embassy to organise a league, or arrange a congress. The one accuses ; 
 the other defends. In Ms second Philippic, delivered about the end of 
 344 B.C., Demosthenes renewed his old watchwords with an energy which 
 called forth a letter from the king charging the orator with calumny. 
 Meanwhile, he had strengthened his navy, and was steadily extending his 
 poweralong the north of the jEgean. His capture of Halonnesus at one time 
 threatened to bring matters to an issue ; but the dispute, after calling 
 forth another speech from Demosthenes, ended in mutual reprisals. An 
 attack on the Chersonese alarmed the Athenians as to the safety of their 
 own supplies, which came for the most part from that region, and led to 
 the oration — wep\ touv iv Xeppovrja-m, and a third Philippic, urging an imme- 
 diate declaration of war. It was through the influence of the orator, which 
 gradually gained ground at this period, that an expedition was sent to 
 Euboea ; and the tyrants established through Macedonian influence in 
 some of the cities were deposed. Despatched in the spring of 340 as 
 envoy to Byzantium, which was threatened by the enemy, he succeeded in 
 bringing it into alliance with Athens ; and when shortly afterwards Philip 
 attacked Perinthua, hostilities were openly renewed on both sides. The 
 Athenian army under Phooion relieved the siege of that town and of 
 Byzantium, so that Philip met with a decided check, and was driven to 
 conclude a peace, the whole credit of which was given by the inhabitants, 
 as it was due, to the exhortations and energies of Demosthenes. In the 
 same year he succeeded in persuading the people to apply the whole of the 
 
DEMOSTHENES THE OBATOK. 215 
 
 theoric fund to military purposes, and passed his law reforming the trier- 
 archy. The next stage of the history begins with a new complexity. 
 Philip, employed in wars with his northern neighbours, had left his emis- 
 saries to work for him in Greece. At a meeting of the Amphictyones held 
 in the spring of 340 B.C. at Delphi, iEschines, in the capacity of Pylagoras, 
 got a decree passed to expel the Locrians of Amphissa from certain lands 
 said to be sacred to the god. Their resistance led to a war, which resulted 
 in the appointment of Philip as leader of the Amphictyonic forces. 
 Demosthenes, at every stage of this calamitous afiair, foretold the ruin in 
 which it was sure to end ; but his words, like those of Cassandra, were 
 doomed to be at once prophetic and fruitless. Philip had got the pretext 
 for intervention which he so much desired, and again passing the straits 
 of Thermopylae, and turning aside from his march towards Delphi, threw 
 off the mask and seized upon the stronghold of Elatea. When the tidings 
 of this unexpected event reached Athens, the agora was iilled with tumult 
 and confusion. Only Demosthenes, who had foreseen the danger, ventured 
 to suggest the means yet remaining to avert it. His advice determined 
 the Athenians to forget theii- old hostilities, and form an alliance with 
 Thebes; his conduct as ambassador to that city carried the design into 
 execution ; and, from this time tUl the end of the war, he directed all the 
 councils of the allies. In two minor engagements they were successful ; 
 their hopes revived. Philip again held out proposals of peace ;'but De- 
 mosthenes, judging rightly that the enemy could only gain by delay, 
 urged on an engagement. The fatal result of Chseronea which, 338 B.C., 
 decided the struggle, was owing more to the want of consummate general- 
 ship on the side of the Greeks, than their inferiority in numbers. They 
 were at least overmastei-ed by open force ; it was better to fall before 
 the Macedonian phalanx and Alexander's cavalry, than be tricked out of 
 independence by the wiles of diplomacy. What statesmanship could 
 do for liberty had been done by Demosthenes ; and Philip is said to have 
 expressed his wonder at the one man, who forced him to risk his whole for- 
 tune on the event of one day. The orator himself was engaged in the battle, 
 and was not the last of the fugitives. He lost his shield and ran — a fact 
 which was most unfairly made a handle against him by his enemies. 
 " Cedunt arma togae " is no more true in the forum than its converse on 
 the field. The Athenians could hardly have thought that Demosthenes 
 had disgraced himself, for they appointed him to pronounce the funeral 
 oration over those who had fallen fighting, and acted under his direction 
 in preparing so vigorously for a defence, that Philip, who had treated the 
 Thebans with great severity, sent proposals to Athens too liberal to be 
 refused. Peace was concluded, and she retained under his patronage a 
 shadow of her old independence. 
 
 III. During the two years succeeding this disaster Demosthenes re- 
 mained at Athens, exposed to the aspersions of his personal and political 
 opponents. Fortunately, he was enabled to refute their vexatious charges, 
 but on Ctesiphon proposing to present him with a crown in token of the 
 admiration and respect of his countrymen, his motion was assailed by 
 
216 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CEITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 iEschines on the ground of illegality, and the settlement of the question 
 was delayed for some years. Meanwhile, in 366 B.C., tidings of Philip's 
 assassination inspired the Greeks with a renewed hope of recovering their 
 independence. Our modern sentiments are inclined to be shocked at de- 
 monstrations of joy on the death of an enemy ; but it is the privilege of 
 posterity to be calm spectators of events which call forth the passions as 
 well as the energies of the actors in them ; and we need not wonder that 
 Demosthenes threw off for a time the burden of domestic sorrow to offer 
 thanksgiving on the altars of the gods for the deliverance of his country. 
 Those hopes were doomed to be speedily dissipated. Philip had left a 
 successor who was more than able to maintain his conquests. Alexander 
 suddenly appeared with an army ready to assert his dominion ; and the 
 Athenians were obliged to send him an embassy to sue for peace. Demos- 
 thenes was appointed one of the ambassadors ; but he turned back, when 
 he had gone half-way to meet the prince, impelled either by a noble shame 
 or a justifiable apprehension. Alexander's campaign in the north at the 
 close of the year afforded another opportunity for revolt, of which some 
 of the states unfortunately availed themselves. The conqueror soon re- 
 turned to reconquer ; and Thebes, which was foremost in the revolt, was 
 erased from the list of Greek cities. Demosthenes, who saw that the want 
 of prompt execution alone had interfered with the success of his warlike 
 policy in the former reign, was naturally blind to the fact that the time 
 for warlike policy was past. He had encouraged the Thebans, and Alexan- 
 der was only deterred by the submission and entreaty of his countrymen 
 from insisting upon his surrender. In 330 B.C., two years after the invasion 
 of Persia, the question regarding the crown was revived ; and the rival 
 speeches, which have come down to us as masterpieces of ancient eloquence, 
 were delivered before the Athenian people. The " De Corona," in which 
 we admire more the noble sentiment and the high-minded confidence than 
 the art of the speaker, is one of the most magnificent vindications in the 
 annals of oratory. The result was a most triumphant one. .lEschines 
 failed to obtain a fifth part of the votes of the assembly, and retired in 
 disgrace from Athens ; while Demosthenes, acquitted, crowned, and honoured 
 by an overwhelming majority, attained the climax of his reputation. Five 
 years after this his fortune was unexpectedly clouded by his alleged com- 
 plicity with Harpagus, a revolted officer of Alexander, who had deserted 
 his post at Babylon, and come to Athens to employ the treasures which 
 had been intrusted to him in winning over the leading citizens to join in 
 his rebellion. After some negotiations his overtures were rejected, and 
 his wealth confiscated ; but on Antipater's demanding the surrender of his 
 person he was allowed to escape. Some of the talents he confessed to 
 having brought with him were found wanting ; and Demosthenes was 
 charged with having shared the spoil. "We have, to say the least, no 
 evidence to prove the truth of this charge. If Demosthenes was bribed 
 he certainly was not bought by Harpagus, for he opposed his admission 
 into the city and supported the proposition for his ejectment. Neverthe- 
 less, he was put on his trial before the Areopagus, found guilty, and con- 
 
DEMOSTHENES — THE ORATOB. 21 7 
 
 demned. Escapiag from imprisonment, he left Attica, and dwelling for 
 two years at Troezen and ^giua, had a daily view of those shores, which 
 he is said to have reproached in a moment of bitterness for imrturing 
 three strange monsters, the owl, the snake, and the people. But if they 
 were ungrateful for his services, the Athenians did not forget his ability ; 
 and when, at the death of Alexander, 323 B.C., a chance seemed open for 
 a last effort to throw off the Macedonian yoke, embassies were sent out to 
 consult with Demosthenes, and his recall from exile decreed. The modern 
 reader cannot help comparing the triumph of his return with that which, 
 in a later age, welcomed back Cicero to the walls of Rome. It was the 
 glory of sunset. The Lamian war, after holding out for a time a fair pro- 
 spect to the Greeks, resulted as disastrously as their other unhappy efibrts. 
 Leosthenes had fallen ; the decisive battle of Cranon was fought, when 
 Antipater marched against Athens. Demosthenes fled to Calauria; and 
 sentence of death was passed upon him in his absence. Hunted and 
 tracked by the traitor Archias to the temple of Poseidon, where he had 
 taken refuge, and summoned to follow him to Antipater, he asked for a 
 few minutes' respite to write a letter, and bit the end of a reed, in which 
 he had concealed a deadly poison. He was found according to one account 
 dying in the shrine ; but others did not hesitate to declare, that not the 
 "saevus exitus" of the satirist, but the god himself had silently rescued 
 the soul of the orator from the rage of his enemies. He was entombed 
 amid national lamentation and national honours^ The misfortune of those 
 who betrayed him were attributed to the divine vengeance. A decree was 
 passed that the eldest of his family should be entertained in the Prytaneum ; 
 and a brazen statue, erected over his remains, bore an inscription, express- 
 ing the feehng of his own and later generations : — " If his body had been 
 as great as his mind, he would have saved his country." 
 
 As an orator Demosthenes stands on a pedestal of his own. His name 
 became a synonym for eloquence among those who had to pronounce upon 
 his fossil speech bereft of the living fire, which in the estimate of those 
 who beheld him with wonder "torrentem et pleni moderantem frena 
 theatri," was its greatest element of power. His style, less terse than 
 that of Thucydides, surpassed in subtilty by that of the dialogues of 
 Plato, was better adapted than either to address a popular assembly. He 
 was not less remarkable for the skill with which he ordered his arguments, 
 the telling humour and vivacity which gave them point, than for the 
 majesty of his more impassioned appeals. Cicero, Quintilian, Longinus — 
 all the best critics of the ancient world — combine with the foremost poets 
 and orators of modern times to hold him forth as an almost faultless ex- 
 ample of excellence. If we consider the total amount and compass of his 
 speeches, we are at a loss whether to wonder more at the industry which 
 made him master of so wide a range of subjects, or the genius which in- 
 spired his handling of them all. As a Greek statesman he is second only 
 to Pericles and Epaminondas, who united to equal constancy and sagacity 
 still greater powers of action ; and when we place him after these, wc must 
 recollect the happier times in which they lived. In contemplating from a 
 
218 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CKITICAL SKKTCHBS. 
 
 distance the game of history, we are wont to exaggerate the merit of the 
 players who win, and under-estimate the greatness of those who lose. 
 Success is elevated above the virtues ; and failure degraded below the 
 crimes. The unfairness of this view has never been so well exposed as by 
 Demosthenes himself in his own immortal defence ; the events of the first 
 part of the struggle justified his boast, that wherever his advice prevailed 
 his country's ruin was averted ; he might well declare that he was only 
 responsible for that over which he had control ; he had no control over 
 fortune, or the follies of his age. He did what he could to enlighten it ; 
 and even if we assume that the great results of history are for the best, 
 and that Greece had reached the natural term, of her power, we must re- 
 member that the efibrts of the brave men who fail, have yet their influence 
 on those great results, and, if undertaken from high motives, their place 
 among the agencies for good. The great orator shared, perhaps, too 
 largely in that infirmity which last besets noble minds, but his policy 
 seems to have been dictated throughout by the purest patriotism. It is 
 in view of his constancy, his devotedness, and the single eye with which 
 he piirsued the great purpose of his life, that Niebuhr has called him a 
 saint. He was a hero in no contracted sense, and none the less a martyr, 
 that he died faithful to a cause which had become hopeless. 
 
VII. 
 
 DIOGENES— THE CYNIC. 
 
 Diogenes, the Cynic, was born at Sinope in Pontus, 412 B.C. Early in life, 
 in consequence of some discreditable transactions in which his family 
 became involved, he left his native town, and went to Athens. After 
 passing some years in the dissipation of the city, he was led by the 
 reaction which often follows on such a course, to become a convert to the 
 ascetic philosophy of Antisthenes, and outstripped his preceptor in the 
 inculcation and practice of a rigid austerity. He resorted to the most 
 extravagant practices to mortify his body — dressed in rags, fed on raw 
 flesh, rolled himself in the summer's sand and the winter's snow, and 
 slept by doorways in the street. The celebrated story of the tub is pro- 
 bably an exaggeration, but it illustrates the common feeling regarding his 
 mode of life. A ship in which he was sailing, bound for .^Egina, having 
 been captured by pirates, Diogenes was conveyed to Crete, and sold as a 
 slave. When some one asked the prisoner what he knew, his answer was 
 — " How to command men ; sell me to some one who wishes a ruler." He 
 was ultimately bought by Xeniades of Corinth, and passed the rest of his 
 life consulted and esteemed by his master, and intrusted with the care of 
 his children. His famous interview with Alexander, if anything more 
 than imaginary, must be referred to this period. " I am Alexander," said 
 the king ; and " I am Diogenes," replied the philosopher. " Can I do any- 
 thing for you ? " was the gracious rejoinder — met by the surly sentence, 
 " Yes ; you can stand out of my light." The ethics of Socrates taught 
 that we must at once make the best of the life around us, and strive to 
 become as far as possible independent of circumstances. The schools 
 which followed him, each taking a partial view of his teaching, developed 
 the two views of the truth into opposite and exclusive exaggerations — 
 Aristippus and the Cyrenaics, on the one side, advocating a crude Epi- 
 cureanism, in abandonment to the enjoyments of the hour ; Antisthenes, 
 on the other, preaching a crude Stoicism in his doctrine of isolation and 
 overstrained self-denial. The Cynics caricatured at once the more com- 
 plete philosophy which preceded, and that of the Stoics who came after 
 them. Diogenes caricatured the Cynics, and his practice approached to 
 a practical illustration of Rousseau's paradox, that the nearer our life is 
 brought to that of the brutes the better. He cannot be said to have had 
 a philosophy. His teaching was purely practical, calling on men to want 
 nothing, not by gratifying their desires, but by having no wants ; to 
 despise luxury, and elevate themselves above circumstances by isolation. 
 
220 BIOGaAPHICAL AND CUITICAL SKl!TCHE-i. 
 
 He ridiculed all speoiilation which did not result in some tangible good ; 
 and constituting himself a sort of universal critic during the time of his so- 
 journ in Athens, was feared and respected as a universal railer. He laughed 
 at many bad and some good developments of his age. Poets, musicians, 
 orators, men of science, alike came under the lash of his indiscriminate 
 and snarling sarcasm. He was of use in perpetually recalling them from 
 their abstractions and artistic refinements to the evils which lay around 
 them, and their daily duty. Half Mentor, half Thersites, Diogenes was a 
 maimed imitation of Socrates — what he added to the ethics of his master 
 detracted from their truth. But he had the merit of consummate con- 
 sistency ; and the records which have come down to us, of the purity of 
 his life help to reconcile us to its eccentricity. " When Diogenes knocked 
 at my door,'' said Xeniades, " I knew a good geniiis was coming into my 
 house." Almost the only speculative doctrine attributed to him is that 
 more properly belonging to his namesake of ApoUonia, that minds are 
 made of air variously deteriorated by various proportions of moisture. 
 Diogenes lived ninety years, and his death, in 323 B.C., coincided with the 
 arrival of Epicurus at Athens. 
 
VIII. 
 
 DEMOCRITUS— THE ATOMIST. 
 
 Democritus, the main founder of the atomistic phOosophy, was born at 
 Abdera in Thrace, 460 B.C. His father was a citizen of that town, in tlie 
 possession of a fortiino so considerable, that he is said to have entertained 
 the army of Xerxes on its route towards Greece. Democritus inherited 
 this fortune, and consiuned the greater portion of it in a long course of 
 extensive travels. The same thirst for knowledge led him in its pursuit 
 over climates and countries as many and various as those traversed about 
 the same period by the historian Herodotus ; and, in some of his frag- 
 ments which have been preserved, he declares ore rotundo how much he 
 had seen and known. After visiting Egypt and Asia, and penetrating, ac- 
 cording to some accounts, as far as India, he returned, rich in the results of 
 his research, to devote himself in his native land to the study of natural 
 history and philosophy. He had a high character for modesty and simpli- 
 city, as well as integrity of life ; and seems to have attained a cheerful 
 wisdom and a complacent view of men and things, which won for him the 
 name of the Laughing Philosopher. His countrymen regarded him as a 
 sort of oracle : things happened, they said, as Democritus foretold to them. 
 He died at a great age, leaving no fortune behind him but renown. His 
 love of knowledge remained intense throughout his life ; he would rather, 
 he declared, discover one new truth, than rule over all the Persians. His 
 fame in the generation which succeeded him surpassed that of Empedocles 
 or Heraclitus. He was regarded as one of the most learned of philosophers 
 before Aristotle ; and the list of his books preserved by Diogenes Laertius, 
 bears testimony to an industry at least equal to that of the Stagyrite. 
 These works were written in Ionic Greek, in a style which Cicero praises 
 as rivalling that of Plato himself. " Urguentur longa nocte," only a few 
 scattered fragments remain, and we have to form our notions of his philo- 
 sophy from the reports and adaptations of his successors. The atomistic 
 philosophy, first advanced by Leucippus, adopted and developed by Demo- 
 critus, formed in after-times the theoretical basis of the system of Epicurus. 
 In common with most of the earlier schemes of nature, it originated in a 
 desire to reduce to some primal luiity the multiplex phenomena of the 
 universe. A rudimentary analysis of nature shewed that a variety of ap- 
 pearances resulted from different combinations of the same elements. The 
 question naturally arose. Might not those elements themselves be further 
 reduced ? Modern chemistry laboriously seeks for a demonstration of the 
 same proposition which ancient philosophy guessed at and prematurely 
 asserted. Nature, it said, is One, a Unity manifesting itself in -i-arious 
 
222 BioenAPHicAL and cbitical sketches. 
 
 forms. The early Ionic philosophers differed as to the nature of this 
 unity. They asserted in turn that all things might be analysed into water, 
 into air, into fire. The atomists, rejecting these solutions, assumed, as 
 the ground of existence, an infinite nvimber of Primaeval Atoms, invisible, 
 impenetrable, and indestructible. To such atoms they assigned certain 
 powers of motion and combination, rendered possible by the postulate of 
 a Void or empty space, in which, revolving and meeting and cohering, 
 they made up the various visible forms of the universe. All apparent 
 varieties of quality were thus reduced to varieties of quantity and form. 
 Bodies differ according as the atoms composing them are loosely — as in 
 fire and water — or densely packed together, as in stone and metal ; or ac- 
 cording as those atoms themselves are sharp or blunt, hooked or round. 
 All differences of taste, colour, smell, were referred to the same source of 
 variation. In asserting that mind was merely a fine form of matter, the 
 atomists only followed out consistently the train of thought suggested by 
 the Ionic school. Their reasoning is merely repeated in all systems of 
 materialism. The soul was with them a body within the body, made of 
 more delicate atoms, and endowed with subtler senses. Thought, giving a 
 knowledge more true than ordinary sensation, was itself but a more re- 
 fined and pure sensation. All force was matter in motion. Democntus 
 disclosed the weak point of his system in meeting the question as to the 
 origin of this motion. He could not, without going beyond his hypothesis, 
 attribute it to the impulse of an ultimate reason acting on the atoms, and 
 had to rest on the final ground of an ultimate Necessity in the atoms 
 themselves, called rixv in opposition to the voiis of Anaxagoras. Infinite 
 particles, floating, as chance directed, in infinite space, and forming infinite 
 worlds, was the cosmological conception of the atomists. In this infinity 
 there was no creation, no destruction, but constant change — "Omnia 
 mutantur, nihil interit." Man was a complex agglomeration of particles, 
 having the finer enclosed and protected by the more dense — the soul within 
 the body. His duty was to live so as to gratify the higher and inner 
 nature. The ethics of Democritus inculcated moderation in all things, 
 comparative abstinence from sensual pleasures, and a concentration of the 
 mind on those more properly its own, the acquisition of knowledge, and 
 the contemplation of nature. The crown of life was eiBvfila, tranquillity, 
 freedom from passion and fear, the joy of a good conscience, and a clear 
 understanding. 
 
L\. 
 
 DIODORUS AND EUCLID— THE LOGICIANS. 
 
 DiODORDS Chronus flourished about 300 b.c. ; a citizen of lasus in Caria ; 
 a friend of Ptolemy Soter, wlio is reported to have given him his surname 
 on occasion of his hesitation when called upon to solve some of the riddles 
 of Stilpo. His death is attributed to his vexation at his defeat. Accord- 
 ing to another account, he himseK adopted the name of Chronus from that 
 of his teacher Apollonius. Diodorus was one of those philosophers who 
 combined the Eleatic metaphysics with the dialectics of the Megarean 
 school. He himself dealt more with logical forms than the A priori prin- 
 ciples on which they were founded, and has handed down the results of 
 his speculation in a set of argumentative dicta, which find their common 
 ground and connexion ia the abstract conception of Absolute Unity. 
 Regarding the imiverse not as the manifestation of physical relations, but 
 the visible record of the laws of thought, he was led to attribute to it the 
 same rigid necessity which characterises them. Hence his identification 
 of the real with the possible expressed in the " argumentum dominans." 
 " Nothing," he held, " is possible which neither is nor will be true," be- 
 cause the necessity of the past implies the necessity of the future. Past 
 and future are parts of one scheme. In the same light we must regard 
 his view of the reciprocal connexion of the two members of a hypothetical 
 proposition. He maintained that the antecedent depended upon the con- 
 sequent as much as the consequent on the antecedent, because, in the 
 universe, every event was dependent on every other. He denied the 
 divisibility of space and the reality of motion ; making use of Zeno's 
 argument, that at any given moment a body said to be in motion is at 
 rest, and that a succession of rests no more make up motion than a series 
 of points make up a line. The obvious answer to this has been often 
 missed. We only assert motion in time, and time is not made up of a 
 succession of infinitesimal, but of definite moments. HerophUus the sur- 
 geon tried to answer Diodorus in another way, less logical but more 
 forcible, when he refused to complete the setting of the philosopher's dis- 
 located shoulder, on the ground that he was convinced by this reasoning 
 that he could not move it. In so far as his speculations assumed a phy- 
 sical form, they approached those of Democritus. WhUe affirming that 
 the universe was one whole, he yet admitted that it was made up of a 
 number of invisible atoms, ruled by unchangeable laws. His great fame 
 was as a logician ; Cicero styles him " valens dialeoticus," and Sextus 
 praises still more highly his subtlety in argument. He is one of those 
 
224 BIOGRAPHICAL AKD OKITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 thiukers whose thought we study as an exercise of our own, and not to 
 learn anything positive from its results. 
 
 Euclid of Megara, born, according to one account, in the Sicihan Gela, re- 
 moved at an early period to the Greek city, which gave the name to that sect 
 of which he was the founder. A disciple of Socrates, he remained, while his 
 master lived, a devoted student of his philosophy, and one of the most 
 zealous of his personal friends. On the death of Socrates, 399 B.C., Euchd 
 returned to Megara, where he opened an asylum for his brother dis- 
 ciples, and established a school of his own. Euclid was partly an Eclectic ; 
 partly he partook of the spirit of the Sophists. The philosophers of Megara 
 approached the Eleatics in the fundamental principle of their metaphysics, 
 while in the subtleties of their logical exposition, they anticipated the 
 epoch of the school-men. Reversing the dictum of Socrates, "Virtue is 
 knowledge," they asserted that knowledge was virtue, and their one-sided 
 view, which made speculation the end of life, is controverted by Plato in 
 the " Philebus." Asserting that the imiverse, as a whole, is identical with 
 the supreme Good, they denied the separate existence of Evil. The vari- 
 ous forms of virtue are merely phases of this universal good, and the ap- 
 parent manifestations of vice are merely degrees of its privation. Laer- 
 tius preserves an anecdote, in which Socrates is made to accuse his 
 pupil of knowing how to debate with Sophists and not with men, which, 
 along with Timon's reference to the "vreangling Euclid, who infected all 
 Megara with a mania for disputation," illustrates the reputation which 
 his sect enjoyed for arguments more intricate in their form than profound 
 in their matter. The details of those arguments are for the most part un- 
 known to us ; we have only a few isolated specimens to indicate their 
 tenor. We are told that Euclid was wont to assail not the premises, but 
 the conclusions of his opponent, and that he rejected all reasoning from 
 analogy. If the objects compared were unlike, he said the analogy was 
 necessarily fallacious ; if like, we must know them to be so from a 
 knowledge of both, and had best examine the objects themselves — an 
 argument which well represents the tendency to svibordinate the discovery 
 of truth to the elaboration of ingenious dilemmas which characterised 
 throughout the shallow and brilliant dialectic of the Megarean school. 
 
CLEANTHES— THE STOIC. 
 
 Cleanthes : the second in order of the philosophers of the Porch. Bom 
 at Assos in the Troad, about 300 B.C., he came to Athens in his manhood, 
 and listened for fifteen years to the instructions of Zeno. When he began 
 his studies he had in his possession only four drachmae. He was not gifted 
 with the faculty of quick apprehension, and his steady industry at first 
 only served to excite the laughter of his fellows. But neither toil, poverty, 
 nor ridicule could damp his zeal, or check his daimtless pursuit of know- 
 ledge. In the expressive words of Laertiua, " he took to philosophy bravely." 
 Unable to purchase paper to make notes on Zeno's lectures, he scrawled 
 them on bits of potsherd and ox-bones. The spectacle of a man in his 
 station and circumstances devoting his entire time to speculative studies 
 attracted the attention of the Areopagus, and in the exercise of an old 
 right they called on him to give an account of his mode of Mfe. It came 
 out that he earned subsistence by drawing water for a gardener during 
 the night, and was thus enabled to surrender his days to the search after 
 wisdom. Struck with admiration for his industry, the judges offered him 
 ten minse, but the proffered gift was refused in the true spirit of a Stoic. 
 When the witty disciples of the Porch applied to Cleanthes the nickname 
 of the Ass, he said mildly, " That implied that his back was strong enough 
 to bear whatever Zeno put upon it " — a remark confirmed by the result of 
 after-years when he taught in his master's chair, and the same indefati- 
 gable perseverance had won for him the more flattering title of the second 
 Hercules. He was distinguished at all times by the composure with which 
 he bore attack. On one occasion when he was satirised on the stage by 
 Sositheus, he looked so calm and dignified that the satirist was hissed off 
 the stage by the spectators. He succeeded Zeno in 263 B.C., and continued 
 to teach his doctrines with his faculties unimpaired to the age of eighty 
 years. Cleanthes has no place among the great intellects of Greece, but 
 he had acquired in a pre-eminent degree that grasp of the guiding prin- 
 ciples of life which crowns an earnest and self-denying career. His writings 
 manifest that loftiness which springs from purity of thought. He struck 
 out no new path of speculation, but his sympathy with the difficulties of 
 the mass of mankind, his own struggle and triimiph, together with a vein 
 of genuine religious feeling, fitted him to be one of the leaders of the Stoic 
 philosophy on its most important — its practical side. He is the author of 
 a hymn to Jove, which has been justly characterised as the most devotional 
 fragment of antiquity. It is to this hymn that St Paul refers in hi,^ 
 address at Athens^—" As certain of your own poets have said, toC yap koi 
 
226 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 ycVof ea-fiev." It is pervaded by the sense of a personal God having relation 
 to the individual spirit of man. Another fragment of Cleanthes finely 
 expresses the Stoic view of fate — " Lead me, Zeus, and thou Destiny ; 
 whithersoever I am by you appointed, I wiU follow not reluctant ; but 
 even though I am unwilling, through badness, I shall follow none the less." 
 Several of his detached sayings remain to indicate his observance and 
 inculcation of plain hving and philosophic contentment, as when asked 
 what is the best way to be rich, he answered, "To be poor in desires." 
 The Stoic satirist of Rome refers to him as presenting the best pattern of 
 a life according to the ascetic rules of his school. 
 
 " Cultor enim juvenum purgatas inseris aures 
 Fruge Cleanthea." 
 
 Of the future he taught that all souls are immortal, but that the inten- 
 sity of existence after death would vary according to the strength or 
 weakness of the soul in life — a view capable of translation into the lan- 
 guage of Christian faith. His own decease was another instance of the 
 resignation produced by his philosophy. Having fasted for two days by 
 order of the physician to cure himself of an ulcer, Cleanthes said when 
 asked to take food, he had gone so far on the road, he was unwilling to 
 turn back again, and of his free will finished the journey. 
 
XI. 
 CATULLUS— THE POET. 
 
 Caius Vaiehids Catullus, one of the two poets of the repubhc whose 
 genius still shines with a lustre unobscured by the brilliancy of the Augustan 
 age. Old pohties often pass away in a blaze of light. The sunset of Greek 
 liberty was the meridian of Greek speculation. The last days of free Eome 
 were pecuharly rich in the display of literary eminence, and illuminated by 
 a whole cluster of great names. The earlier poets were rivalled, if not 
 surpassed, in the graces of refinement and fluency by those who, in the 
 succeeding epoch, adorned the imperial court ; but they had on their side 
 all the advantage of greater freshness and greater freedom. They were at 
 least imitators at first hand ; their language and imagery were new in 
 Latin speech, while those who followed in their track frequently present 
 only the reflection of a reflection. This freshness is a distinguishing feature 
 of the poems of Catullus. He was a keen student of her literature, and 
 adopted many of his measures, thoughts, and expressions from the lyrists 
 of Greece. Some of his verses are direct translations ; others in their 
 metaphors, phrases, and subject-matter, vividly recall Greek models. But 
 those phrases and expressions had not become the common stock of poetry, 
 and he applied them with all the vigour of an original mind to the pur- 
 poses of his own inspiration. He Hved before the times of patronage and 
 dictation, with a large share of that daring spirit which belongs more to an 
 ideal than an actual republic. He wrote to please himself, his mistress, 
 and his friends, because he chose and as he chose, and this gives his verses 
 the fascination of freedom which we sometimes miss in Horace, and look 
 for vainly in Virgil. The personal career of the poet was that of most 
 youths of fortune in his age. He was born at Verona about 87 B.C. His 
 father, Valerius, held a good station in society, and was known as the 
 friend and occasional host of Cassar. Catullus himself must have enjoyed 
 a comfortable independence. Besides the family residence on a promon- 
 tory of the Lago de Garda, he had a villa near Tibur, celebrated in another 
 of his songs. He came to Rome early in youth — " venustus et dicax et 
 urbanus'' — and became a favourite with the wits and ladies of the city. 
 Cicero, C. Nepos, Asinius PoUio, Varus, and Calvus were among his friends ; 
 to the first he ofiers one of his most comphmentary addresses ; the last is 
 the theme of one of his lighter satires. Having wasted his means by a 
 somewhat reckless pursuit of pleasure, Catullus waa pestered by duns, and 
 accompanied the prsetor Memmius to Bithynia, with a view of reinstating 
 his fortune. Disappointed in his hopes of the expedition, he has recorded 
 his chagrin in verses which allude to " Memmii clara propaga " in terms 
 
228 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHKS. 
 
 strangely contrasting with the eulogy of his more philosophic admirer. 
 The " Dedioatio Phaseh," and the exquisite lines in praise of Sirmio, refer 
 to the poet's return. The death of his brother in the Troad, which called 
 forth some of the most touching expressions of fraternal affection, pro- 
 bably occurred at a later period. The exact term of his own career is 
 unknown ; it is only evident from Carmen 52, that he must have seen 
 Vatinius consul, in 47 B.C. He appears to have divided the latter years of 
 his life between his northern viUa and the capital. 
 
 The poems of Catullus which have come down to us are derived from a 
 MS. discovered at Verona early in the fourteenth century. They consist of 
 one hundred and sixteen pieces, a large proportion of which record the 
 shifting moods of the poet's impulsive nature. The most ardent of lovers, 
 a warm friend, a good hater, he has given expression to all forms of passion, 
 with an equal disregard of restraint. His amatory verses are, in their 
 grace, sweetness, and simplicity, gems of art, but they owe their special 
 charms to an air of genuineness. Rich in the most playful fancies, none 
 of them seem to have been written as mere exercises of the imagination. 
 Catullus found in song the natural vent for strong feeling. Whoever 
 Lesbia or Clodia may have been, some living and breathing beauty must 
 have set the poet's heart on fire. His epigrams sparkle with wit, sprightly 
 or spiteful as they serve to preserve a jest or perpetuate sincere indigna- 
 tion. Their scurrility must be explained by the taint of coarseness which 
 pervaded the literature of the time. Three of the most virulent are aimed 
 at Csesar himself. There is a story told, that on reading one of them, he 
 threw it into the fire, and invited the writer to dinner on the same after- 
 noon, which, if true, places in a conspicuous light the magnanimity of the 
 great Julius. Among the finest of those fugitive pieces are " Ad Passerem ; " 
 " Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire ; " " Furi et Aureli comites CatulH ; " " Ad 
 Dianam ; " " De Acme et Septimio ; " " Ad Pocillatorem,'' &c. The three 
 elegies "Ad Hortalum," "Ad Manlium," and the "Inferi» ad Fratris 
 Tumulum," are interesting memorials of the author's life, and express with 
 delicate pathos the sorrows of his bereavement. Of the poet's longer per- 
 formances, the most remarkable are the two odes written for the nuptials 
 of Julia and Manlius, the "Kpithalamium Pelei et Thetidis," and the 
 " Atys." The first are for passionate depth of conception, beauty of ex- 
 pression, and choice profusion of imagery unrivalled among the love songs 
 of classical antiquity. The exquisite stanza about the young Torquatus 
 has tried and baffled a host of copyists, while the similes of the flower and 
 the vine in the Carmen have provoked more imitations than any other in 
 the range of Latin poetry. The hexameters in the Peleus and Thetis have 
 a greater majesty and flow than are to be found in the verses of the Augustan 
 age. The picture of Ariadne's solitude, and the description of " Bacchus 
 and his crew," are in the highest degree dramatic ; in richness of colouring 
 they are equal to the best passages of Keats. The' " Atys," both in its 
 tone and rhythm, bears trace's of a Greek origin. It is unlike any modem 
 production, and can hardly be appreciated in a northern country. It is 
 properly a birth of the East, a wonderful representation of a wonderful 
 
CATULLUS THE POKT. 229 
 
 worship. Its wild intensity seems to suit the rehgion of Cybele. The 
 dithyrambs, which now hurry along with the fire of a maddening frenzy, 
 now break into the passion of remorse, and again die away in a wail of 
 despair, are inspired by the very spirit of the Msenad. Catullus is the 
 most versatile of the Latin poets ; he touched almost every theme of 
 poetry, and adorned all he touched. Lucretius surpassed him in subhmity ; 
 Horace in the melody and refinement of his lyric strains ; Ovid was the 
 greater master of elegy ; the epigrams of Martial have a keener sting ; but 
 Catullus was excellent in all, and only second in any of those lines of effort. 
 He held a high place in the esteem of his contemporaries. Among his 
 successors, Ovid speaks of him as the glory of Verona, and feigns to have 
 met his shade among the foremost of the blessed bards. Propertius declares 
 that Lesbia has, through her Roman lover's praise, outstripped the fame 
 of Helen herself ; and Martial, in reference to the earlier poets, says, with 
 a mixture of modesty and confidence, " uno sed tibi sim minor CatuUo." 
 The epithet doctus so frequently applied to him, may refer to his intimate 
 acquaintance with Greek literature ; but it is more likely used in the sense 
 of callidus, to express the skill and subtlety of his own language. One 
 of our living classics has called Catullus " the most elegant of all poets in 
 all ages.'' We do not know that he belonged to any philosophical sect, 
 but his writings are those of an Epicurean. Oppressed by a prevailing 
 sense of the shadows that close round the sunshine of Ufe, he seeks and 
 finds refuge in the joys of the hour. His morality was that most prevalent 
 in his agC' — Ilii/e koL nai^e, BvqTos 6 jSi'os' " Let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die." The same strain of thought is common in the odes of 
 Horace ; it appears in the poetry of all nations, from a sort of beauty in 
 the contrast between gaiety and gloom on which it rests. " Death is the 
 end of Ufe ; ah, why should life all labour be ? " Catullus wrote in thirteen 
 varieties of metre. His text is very corrupt. The best restoration of it 
 is Lachmann's. Dunlop gives a fair selection of imitations of his most 
 famous passages ; but the most adequate criticism of him that has yet 
 appeared is Landor's. There have been many versions of his poems ; few 
 of them are very successful. It requires a poet to translate a poet — a 
 poet, a lover, and a man of fashion to translate Catullus. 
 
XII. 
 DE QUINCE Y- THE LITTERATEUR. 
 
 Thomas De Quincey : In those autobiographic sketches where he has 
 woven together, in an attractive web of fact and fiction, the main incidents 
 of his early life, Mr De Quincey has marked the day, but nowhere the pre- 
 cise year, of his birth. From collateral evidence, we infer that that event 
 must have occurred on the ]5th of August, 1785. He was the son of a 
 Manchester merchant, who left a moderate fortune to be divided among a 
 family of six children — a fortune which was, however, much impaired by 
 the mismanagement of the guardians appointed to superintend it. The 
 account he gives of the impression made upon him by the death of his 
 eldest sister in his sixth year, presents the young De Quincey as a remark- 
 ably sensitive and precocious child. On his father's death in 1792, the 
 family house at Rusholme was sold, and he went to reside with his mother 
 at Bath. After distinguishing himself as a promising pupil at the grammar- 
 school of that city, he concluded the first period of his hfe as a scholar in a 
 similar seminary at Winkfield in Wiltshire. In 1800 he went to Eton to 
 join a youthful friend. Lord Westport, in an excursion to Ireland. Mr De 
 Quincey dates at this point his introduction to the world ; and the account 
 he has given of his journey indicates a mind prematurely open to lively 
 impressions of men and manners, as well as of natural scenery. In the 
 autumn of the same year he recrossed the Channel, and proceeded through 
 Birmingham to Laxton in Northamptonshire, the residence of Lady Car- 
 bery, an old friend of the family, who, by her mental energy and accom- 
 plishments, appears to have played an important part in stimulating the 
 growth of his intellectual activities. On leaving Laxton he was sent to 
 study for three years at the Manchester grammar-school, with the view of 
 obtaining a bursary which might enable him the more easily to carry on 
 his future studies at the University of Oxford. He has given a vivid de- 
 scription of the depression which weighed upon him, on being thrown back 
 from the society of congenial minds, to mingle with schoolboys and share 
 their drudgery. A nervous illness that overtook him at this period ren- 
 dered the restraint more oppressive ; and at the end of the first year after 
 entering it, he adopted the resolution of suddenly leaving the school. He 
 had quarrelled with his guardians, and, unknown to them, he determined 
 to make for himself a way in the world. After rambling for some time 
 among the Welsh mountains, he went to London, and there encountered 
 those romantic adventures which are preserved in the glowing colours of 
 his " Confessions." Rescued by the intervention of some friends from the 
 
DE QTJINCEY THE LITTEKATEUE. 231 
 
 poverty and misfortune wMch gathered round him in the great city, he re- 
 turned to St John's Priory, near Chester, at that time the residence of his 
 mother and one of his uncles. In 1803 he was entered at Oxford, and 
 studied there intermittently for the space of five years. It was on the 
 occasion of a third visit to London in 1804, that he was first led into the 
 temptation of tasting opium, entering within a bondage which, with its 
 varied pleasures and pains, became a part of his entire after-life. Towards 
 the close of his university career, he made that acquaintance with several 
 of his distinguished contemporaries, which he memorialises in the notices 
 of them he has left to his readers. Coleridge he first saw at Bristol in 1807. 
 In the course of the same year he visited Wordsworth and Southey at their 
 seats in the lake country. In 1808 he himself became for ten or eleven 
 years a permanent resident in the same neighbourhood. A gap occurs 
 here in his personal history, which we have no means of filling up. Later 
 in life he came to Scotland, and fixed his head-quarters at Edinburgh, 
 near which city he still resides.* 
 
 Mr De Quincey became widely known as the author of the " Confessions 
 of an English Opium-Eater," originally published in 1821. The pecuUarity 
 of the theme, and the deep interest of the narrative, brought it into gene- 
 ral notice, and the passionate eloquence by which it is frequently marked 
 attracted universal admiration. In the thirty or forty volumes of similar 
 size which the author has since produced, there are few passages which 
 equal, and none that surpass, the best of those in this his earhest pubhcation. 
 A refined scholar, and a keen student of most modem languages, ilr De 
 Quincey led the way, as a reviewer of German literature, on a field where 
 he was soon after eclipsed by a j)rofounder critia He executed several 
 translations from Eichter and Lessing for Blackwood and the London 
 Magazine. He availed himself of Carlyle's translation of " Wilhelm Meister " 
 to make a virulent and somewhat ridiculous attack on its author, which 
 appeared in the latter journal in 1824. During a series of years he con- 
 tributed to the former a number of miscellaneous, critical, and historical 
 essays. Other articles of his appeared in the " EncyclopEedia Britannica.'' 
 His autobiographical sketches were contributed at a later period to Taifs 
 Magazine. An edition of his collected essays was published several years 
 ago in Boston ; but the one now in course of publication by Messrs Hogg, 
 alone has received the authority of his revisal. It is entitled " Selections 
 Grave and Gay," and has already attained to a thirteenth volume. 
 
 Among voluminous writers, few have undertaken to illustrate a greater 
 number of subjects than Mr De Quincey, but he has carried with him 
 through all the same pecuharities of style and treatment, and whatever 
 theme he handles gains or loses by his marked excellences and defects. 
 The two transcendent powers of his mind are imagination and ingenuity. 
 His purely imaginative writings take rank among the highest of their 
 kind, as specimens from the border-land of poetry and prose. They 
 have a claim to this position from their depth of conception, the inten- 
 
 * August 18.59. Avarus Acheron! 
 
232 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 sity of realisation which they manifest, and from the richness of their ex- 
 pression. De Quincey's best prose will bear comparison with the prose of 
 Milton, Taylor, or Hooker ; it has the same gorgeous roU in its music — ^the 
 same passionate abundance of thought. Among his triumphs in this direc- 
 tion are the first chapters of the " Autobiography ; " the earlier " Sus- 
 piria;" "The English MaU Coach;" "The Three Madonnas;" "The 
 Sphinx ; " and pieces of criticism on Qieek tragedy. He is the master- 
 builder of dreams ; the finest section of the " Confessions " is the last, 
 where he recalls and reconstructs, as with an enchanter's wand, the array 
 of fantastic phantoms which passed before him in his opium trances. It 
 has the same mysterious beauty in prose thp,t " Kubla Khan " possesses in 
 verse. Some of the later " Suspiria," as also the conclusion of "Joan of 
 Arc," and other rhapsodies, indicate the decline of this power, where the 
 love of effect is divorced from sincerity of feeling, and the writing tends to 
 degenerate into an artificial mosaic of melodious words. His creative in- 
 genuity is prominent in his account of the " Mar Murders," and in that 
 wonderful piece of imaginary history the "Tartar Revolt." There is a 
 combination of humour with an air of intense reality in the former, which 
 recalls De Foe ; while there are scenes in the latter only to be paralleled 
 in the Syracusan chapters of Thucydides. This same faculty appears in 
 a more exclusively analytic form in some of his speculative papers, and in 
 his various criticisms. (See the paper on " Murder as a Fine Art ; " that 
 on " Secret Societies," his theory of the Essenes, and his interpretation of 
 the puzzle regarding jElius Lamia.) His strength consists in the perfec- 
 tion of those two faculties — imagination and ingenuity ; his weakness in 
 their excess ; where they require to be corrected by a love of truth, and 
 balanced by an equal mind, he is apt to fail conspicuously. He has neither 
 the candour nor the methodical accuracy which are essential to the just 
 comprehension of history. He is wanting in grasp and power of abstrac- 
 tion — qualities inseparable from a genuine philosopher. Mr De Quincey 
 has the taint of self-consciousness more deeply perhaps than any other 
 writer of the present day. He never forgets himself in any subject ; 
 the critic, not the thing criticised, is ever foremost in his pages ; he adapts, 
 not himself to his theme, but the theme to himself, and often forms and 
 pronounces his judgment in a way more calculated to arrest the attention 
 of the reader than to forward the interests of truth. A love of aggressive 
 paradox mars the integrity of his verdicts, and inoHnes him to reverse, 
 from the mere spirit of opposition, the general decisions of the world. 
 He has assailed the fame of Cicero, Josephus, Klant, Goethe, and Plato, 
 with the same animus with which he defends the memory of Judas 
 Iscariot. Mere differences of opinion regarding acknowledged facts must 
 rest on individual differences of taste ; but Mr De Quincey cannot, in all 
 the instances of his eager iconoclasm, be cleared from the charge of 
 confounding the facts themselves with his own misinterpretations of them. 
 In the case of an author who travels over so wide a field, with the same 
 pretension of extensive and profound research, it is impossible everywhere 
 to test the accuracy of his statements without an amount of information 
 
DB QDINCEY THE LITTERATEUR. 233 
 
 on all conceivable subjects, which, few critics would venture to claim, and 
 which few authora, on examination, are found to possess ; but in various 
 instances, where remarkable statements have been made by Mr De Quincey 
 with more than usual confidence, we have to choose between his own 
 confident assertion and a mass of evidence pointing to conclusions directly 
 the reverse. He has nowhere, for example, substantiated the charges 
 which he has brought against the philosopher Kant ; and few who are 
 acquainted with the life and works of that great leader of modem thought, 
 win be disposed to give absolute credit to a mere dogmatic impeachment 
 of his intellectual honesty. Some of the results of Mr De Quinoey's 
 studies in the region of Greek speculation will meet with still less favour 
 in the eyes of any student of Hellenic Uterature ; nor can his so-called 
 review of Plato's "Repubhc" be read by any one who is famihar with the 
 majestic original without a feeUng somewhat akin to indignation. It 
 would require a distinct essay to expose the misrepresentations which 
 abound in this paradoxical sketch. The critic seems to have utterly misap- 
 prehended the mere ethical purpose of the work. He treats the commun- 
 istic scheme given in the fifth book, avowedly a digression, as if it were 
 the root and centre of the whole dialogue ; and, by ignoring the historical 
 view, through which alone it becomes intelligible, he refuses to treat even 
 that section with ordinary equity. It is much to be regretted that this 
 foolish diatribe should have been reprinted in the collected edition of his 
 works, for it wants even that display of ingenuity which, in most of 
 his essays, at least afibrds amusement to his readers. Our author's justice, 
 or at least his generosity, fails him again in treating of several of his 
 distinguished contemporaries. His open depreciation of Keats and Shelley 
 is less offensive. The cast of his mind is not that which is best fitted to 
 appreciate the former, while his large participation in the odium theo- 
 logicum incapacitates him from dealing fairly with the latter; but the 
 biographical notices of his own familiars and compeers in the struggle of 
 life — ^Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey — which, while professedly rever- 
 ential, are artfully calculated to lower our reverence for those great writers, 
 leave an impression very far from satisfactory. With regard to others, as 
 Lamb and Landor, and some of our older classics, as Goldsmith, Pope, and 
 Milton, where his judgment is unbiased by any prejudice or perversity^ 
 his natural subtlety and discrimination come into play with remarkable 
 success. His criticisms have always the interest of originahty ; and, by 
 some new explanation or unexpected illustration, he often throws a hght 
 on facts which have eluded, and difficulties which have bafSed all earlier 
 commentators. In this way he has added to our pleasures by increasing 
 our power of enjoyment, and conferred many obUgations on the student of 
 ancient as well as modem history. We have characterised his best style 
 as afibrding some of the purest specimens of eloquence in the language ; 
 the ordinary level of his writing is unusually classic and graceful ; apt 
 sometimes to err on the side of over-refinement. It is wanting in direct- 
 ness • his humour constantly runs away with him, and in general he 
 chooses the longest road to his end. His digressions every now and then 
 
234 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 swallow up his main subject. We pursue an event through his pages and 
 find it involved in "snowy mazes," interminable as those which, in his 
 own anecdote, the elder Coleridge had to unfold. When he promises to 
 teU a story we expect another King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles, 
 and, in following the detail of his reasons for some new conviction, we are 
 driven to forget the main fact of the author's own belief With all his 
 defects, Mr De Quincey is one of the men of his time who will live beyond 
 it. The records of his learning and controversial power may pass with 
 other curiosities of a critical age ; but his picture of the outcast Ann on 
 the London streets, the dreams and fantasies he has connected with that 
 whole epoch of his life, the most solemn of his rhapsodies, the simple 
 pathos of his best sketches, and the bright flashes of his humour, are 
 imperishable memorials of an impassioned and peculiar genius. 
 
XIII. 
 CAELYLE— THE MODERN CENSOR. 
 
 Thomas Caeltle was born at his father's farm, near Ecclefechan in Dum- 
 friesshire, in 1795 ; and after some years of training in his own parish, 
 went to the grammar-school of Annan to prepare for a course at the uni- 
 versity. He became a student at Edinburgh in 1809, and remained there 
 during seven sessions. Not much is known of his college life : we may in- 
 fer from the hints we have, that he lived mainly with his own thoughts, 
 and owed comparatively Uttle to the system under which he was reared. 
 Yet he distinguished himself as a pupil of Leslie, in the pursuit of mathe- 
 matics. For some years after leaving the university, he was engaged as a 
 teacher of this science at a school in Fifeshire, and in 1823 he became 
 tutor to the late Mr Buller. Carlyle had been originally destined for the 
 Scottish nainistry ; but during his course of study his views regarding 
 the church had become modified, and his thoughts were already turn- 
 ing towards a Hterary life. He commenced his career as a writer, by 
 the contribution of articles to Brewster's Edinburgh Cyclopaedia on Mon- 
 tesquieu, Montaigne, Nelson, and the two Pitts ; articles not republished 
 in his collected works. About this time he translated Legendre, and pre- 
 fixed to his translation an original essay " On Proportion." The first part 
 of his "Life of SchiUer" appeared in the London Magazine, in 1823 ; it 
 was completed in the following year, and published in 1825 in a separate 
 form. Among other encouraging signs, a German version of this biography 
 was introduced by a favourable preface from Goethe himself, whose works 
 had already begun to exercise a paramount influence over the mind of 
 the rising author. Carlyle's translation of " WUhelm Meister's Apprentice- 
 ship " was published in 1824. It was attacked in the London Magazine by 
 a celebrated writer, who has made himself, on various occasions, notorious 
 for the injustice of his criticism ; but, on the whole, it met with a cordial 
 reception. Even Jeffrey, in his absurd review of the book itseK, speaks 
 in high terms of the talent and skill displayed by the translator. The 
 " Wanderjahre," which now composes the third volume of the English 
 edition of Meister, first appeared as the last of four volumes of German 
 romance, published in 1827. Carlyle married in 1826, and about the same 
 time retired to his country farm of Craigenputtoch in Dumfriesshire, 
 where he remained for several J^ears to cultivate, undisturbed, his own line 
 of Uterature and contemplation. There is an interesting reference to his 
 abode and manner of life in one of his letters to Goethe, with whom he at 
 this period maintained a friendly correspondence : — " Here Rousseau would 
 have been as happy as on his island of Saint Pierre. My town friends, 
 
236 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CEITICAL SKE I'CHES. 
 
 indeed, ascribe my sojourn here to a similar disposition, and forbode me 
 no good result. But I came here solely with the design to simplify my 
 way of life, and to secure the independence through which I could be en- 
 abled to remain true to myself. This bit of earth is our own ; here we 
 can live, write, and think as best pleases ourselves, even though Zoilus 
 himself were to be crowned the monarch of hterature. . . . From some of 
 our heights I can descry, about a day's journey to the west, the hill where 
 Agricola and the Romans left a camp behind them. At the foot of it I was 
 born, and there both father and mother still live to love me. . . . The only 
 piece of any importance that I have written since I came here, is an 
 'Essay on Burns.'" Besides this (1828), he had contributed to the Edin- 
 burgh Review his first article on Richter and a survey of German hterature 
 (1827). From that date till 1844 he continued to write at intervals, for 
 the Edinburgh, Foreign Quarterly, and Eraser, the series of critical and 
 historical essays which make up his " Miscellanies." Those on Count Cag- 
 liostro and the Diamond Necklace form a sort of proem to the " French Re- 
 volution." That work itself appeared in 1837, and with it Carlyle's name 
 was for the first time brought before the public. " Sartor Resartus " was 
 originally written in 1830, and after being rejected by several London 
 iirms, was printed in successive numbers of Eraser's Magazine. Published 
 as a single volume only in 1838, it made its way in this country slowly 
 but steadily, and helped to establish the author's place in the front rank 
 of our thinkers. " Chartism " appeared in 1839. Meanwhile Carlyle, who 
 had transferred his residence to the metropolis, had been distinguishing 
 himself in another sphere. In the summer of 1837 he delivered a course 
 of six lectures on German literature, and a second series of twelve on the 
 history of literature (1838). In 1839 he gave a course on the revolutions 
 of modern Europe ; and in 1840 delivered the lectures on " Heroes and 
 Hero-worship," which were afterwards published. Carlyle himself, at the 
 conclusion of his last lecture, expressed his satisfaction with the cordial 
 way in which his call for attention had been answered, but it was his last 
 effort in this direction. He has confined himself since then to the other 
 channels of literature, in which he judged, perhaps rightly, that his force 
 more really lay. His " Past and Present " was pubhshed in 1843 ; " Oliver 
 Cromwell's Letters and Speeches" in 1845. The rapid sale of this latter 
 work bore testimony to the growing fame of its author. A new edition 
 was called for a few weeks after its publication, and a third, with addi- 
 tions, appeared in 1849. The " Latter-Day Pamphlets " came out in 1850, 
 and the " Life of John Sterling " in 1851. The first instalment of his great 
 work on Frederick II., 2 vols. 8vo, appeared in 1858. 
 
 When Carlyle's essay on German literature first appeared, it marked an 
 era in the history of criticism. The writers who contributed to the early 
 numbers of the Edinburgh Review, brought with them a large amount of 
 taste and sound judgment, which they successfully applied to such works 
 as fell within their sphere, and could fairly be tested by their canons. In 
 dealing with a new literature they failed to criticise, because they had 
 never made the necessary effort to comprehend it, and intolerantly pro- 
 
CARLTLB — THE MODERN CKNSOR. 237 
 
 scribed all that did not conform to rules which, applied beyond that sphere, 
 became mere arbitrary formula. If such criterions have been dismissed 
 as inadequate — and it is a first principle of our criticism that we must 
 place ourselves as far as possible in the position of our author — it is mainly 
 owing to the influence of the "Miscellanies." The hterature of Germany 
 — ^to which three-fourths of those papers are devoted— first became known 
 in England through Carlyle, because he himself was the first to apprehend its 
 meaning. At the close of one of his essays he gives two pieces of advice, 
 salutary at all times, but more especially needful at the time they were 
 given. The first records his conviction that careful study is necessary to 
 understand well anything that is much worth understanding ; — the belief, 
 in his own phrase, that nothing great can be " adequately tasted." Nothing 
 more impresses the student of his works than his thoroughness. He never 
 takes a task in hand without the obvious determination to perform it to 
 the best of his ability ; consequently when he has satisfied himself that 
 he is master of his subject, he will more than satisfy others. His second 
 impresses the duty of trying to throw ourselves into the mind of others 
 before we pronounce judgment on them. This is the grand secret of 
 C'arlyle's success as a critic : to it is chiefly owing his pre-eminent skill to 
 interest us in the thoughts, feelings, and fortunes of every one of whom he 
 writes. He has many of the minor requisites of a good critic ; he knows 
 how to distinguish the essential from the accidental — what to forget and 
 what to remember — what to say and what not to say — where to begin and 
 when to stop. Not only his biographies of Schiller and Sterhng, but the 
 shorter notices scattered among his essays, are intrinsically more complete, 
 and throw more real light on character, than whole volumes of ordinary 
 memoirs. He exhibits in prose the same penetrating imagination which 
 distinguishes a great poet, and, ciroum prcecordia ludens, brings out in bold 
 relief the main featiu'es of the men whom he designs to commemorate. 
 His desire to find good in all greatness — a charitable breadth of sympathy 
 expressed in the saying, that we must judge a man not by the number of his 
 faults, but by the amount of his deflection from the circle, narrow or wide, 
 which bounds his being — enables him to appreciate those most widely 
 differing in creed, sentiment, and lines of activity from each other and 
 himself. We can understand how a native of the Scottish Lowlands, hav- 
 ing much of his nature in common with their lyrist, should have written 
 the best of essays on Robert Burns : or how one so remarkable for stem 
 independence and strength of will, should find congenial themes of dis- 
 course in Johnson, Luther, Mirabeau, and Franoia ; but when the same 
 searching criticism is appMed to such names as Voltaire, Diderot, and 
 Novalis, with the same generous liberality, we admire a genius as flexible 
 as it is intense. Carlyle sums his view of history, when he calls it " the 
 essence of innumerable biographies." Nothing is more characteristic than 
 his tendency to individualise every thing he meets, and his dislike of ab- 
 stractions, political or moral, which he cannot connect with something 
 concrete, single, and definite. Mo.st biographies are too vague for him ; he 
 delights in Boswell. He glides over dissertations and generalisations, to 
 
238 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 pick out some little bit of fact from the heart of Clarendon or Hume. The 
 essence of history doea not he in laws, senate-houses; and battle-fields, but 
 in the tide of thought and action — the world of existence that in gloom 
 and brightness blossoms and fades apart from these. Other writers have 
 expanded biography into history — Carlyle condenses history into biography. 
 Even in the " French Revolution," where he has pre-eminently to deal 
 with masses, he gives a striking prominence to their leaders. They pass 
 before us, as the writer gives them names, and calls them back again as 
 they lived, and moved, and died, amid those stormy scenes. But this is 
 only one of the aspects of the work. Tlie " Revolution " has been com- 
 pared to an epic poem. Its author recognises in his theme the longest and 
 fiercest fight the world ever saw — the death-wrestle of outworn feudalism 
 and young democracy. Hence there is a deep back-ground to all these 
 figures, in the rush and surge of contending multitudes. If the book is in 
 prose, it is such prose as was never seen before. It is all a " flame picture," 
 every page seems on fire ; we read the whole as if we were listening to 
 successive volleys of artillery. " Cromwell " is avowedly biographical. The 
 events of the period are brought out in Carlyle' s book only so far as they 
 are connected with the career and character of his hero ; but in its eluci- 
 dation of that character it is without a rival. There never was a work 
 which more completely reversed a historical verdict. The old notions of 
 hypocrisy, fanaticism, and ambition are refuted out of his own mouth ; but 
 it required the illustrative genius of his editor to bring back life and mean- 
 ing to those half-forgotten letters, and sweep away the clouds that so long 
 obscured the august proportions of the Protector. " Frederick " abounds 
 with evidences of the same revivifying power. The introductory portion, 
 which has to lead us through one of the most tangled mazes of early Prus- 
 sian history, is rendered interesting mainly by the restoration of a whole 
 gallery of German worthies. In the main body of the book, the men and 
 women connected with the Prussian court are brought out in fuller light 
 and shade : — Frederick himself at Sans Souoi, with his cocked hat, walking- 
 stick, and wonderful grey eyes ; Sophie Charlotte, with her grace, wit, and 
 music ; Wilhelmina and her book ; the black artists, Seckendorf and 
 Grumkow ; George I. and his Bluebeard, chamber ; the Old Dessauer ; 
 August the Strong ; Voltaire ; Algerotti. All these, and more, are sum- 
 moned as, by a wizard's wand from the land of shadows to march or flutter 
 past the central figure of his volumes. Carlyle as a historian is notably 
 exact. What he himself calls " a transcendent capacity of taking trouble," 
 and a genius for accuracy, preserves him from being carried away from the 
 strict confines of fact. He has a keen eye for nature, and the reliance we 
 come to have on their fidelity adds a new charm to his pictures. His de- 
 scriptions of places and events, even the most trivial, have a freshness 
 which one hardly finds anywhere else out of Homer. See especially in 
 " Cromwell " the account of the battle and battle-field of Dunbar, where 
 the narrative is sustained throughout with more than Homeric grandeur. 
 His last work brings before us a host of places and scenes — all vividly 
 realised, and enriched by the memories that are made to cluster round them. 
 
CARLYLE — THE MODERN CENSOR. 239 
 
 Much of the power of this writing is connected with the peculiar fascina- 
 tion of the author's later style. Questionable as a model for others, his own 
 manner suits him, for it is emphatically part of his matter. Its abrupt- 
 ness corresponds with the abruptness of his thought, which proceeds often 
 by a series of electric shocks, as if — to borrow a simile from a criticism on 
 St Paul — ^it were bursting its bounds and breaking the sentence. It has a 
 rugged energy which suggests a want of fluency in the writer, and gives 
 the impression of his being compelled to write. He is at all hazards deter- 
 mined to convey his meaning ; willing to borrow expressions from all 
 lines of life and all languages, and even to invent new sounds and coin new 
 words for the expression of a new thought. He cares as httle for rounded 
 phrases as for logical arguments, and rather convinces and persuades 
 by calling up a succession of feehngs than a train of reasoning. Hence 
 his love of repetitions, and his profuse use of eWea impoevra. The most 
 Protean quahty of Carlyle's gerdus is his humour. Now lighting up the 
 crevices of some quaint fancy ; now shining over his serious thought 
 like sunshine on the sea, it is as subtle as that of Cervantes, more 
 humane than Swift's, and only less exuberant than Richter's. There is in 
 it, as in all humour, a sense of ever-present contrasts and apparent 
 contradictions, a sort of double sight, of matter for laughter in sorrow and 
 tears in joy. It has besides a gloomy fervour of its own, and an irony 
 which is more Socratio than Sophoclean, for it is as often at the expense of 
 the writer as of others. He seems perpetually checking himseK, as if 
 afraid of betraying too much emotion, and throwing in absurd illustrations 
 of serious propositions, partly to shew their universal applicability, partly 
 to escape the suspicion of sermonising. Carlyle's humour is a mode in 
 which he practises his doctrine of golden silence. It is, in one of its aspects, 
 the oflFspring of intense reserve. Sometimes it takes a lighter form, and 
 appears as side-splitting satire ; sometimes it consists in drollery of de- 
 scription ; sometimes in oddity of conception ; sometimes it is a character 
 sketch ; sometimes it is prominent in the account of an event ; now it is 
 an antithesis — now a si mil p. ; sometimes it lin-ks in a word, sometimes in 
 a sentence. Its most unfortunate use is where Carlyle forgets his own 
 warning, and makes laughter a test of truth ; its noblest accompanies the 
 purity which enables him to handle fearlessly themes that in more awkward 
 hands might have easily become disgusting. Unlike others, he can touch 
 pitch and not be deiiled. His humour is equal to that of Sterne ; his 
 pathos is profounder, in proportion as the man himself is more true. 
 Pathos is the other side of humour. It is the same deep sympathy that 
 laughs with those who laugh, and mourns with those who mourn. Its two 
 phases are often simultaneously prominent in our author's works ; but his 
 reverence for the past makes him more touched by its sorrows than moved 
 by its foUy. With a sense of brotherhood he stretches out a hand of 
 compassion to all that were weary ; he feels even for the pedlars climbing 
 the HohenzoUem valley, and pities the solitude of soul on the frozen 
 Schreckhom of power, whether in a dictator of Paraguay or a Prussian 
 ijrince. He leads us to the death-chamber of Louis Quinze, of Mirabeau, of 
 
240 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 Cromwell, of Sterling, his own lost friend ; and we feel with him, in the 
 presence of a mystery which solemnises the errors as well as the greatness 
 of men. Ever and anon amid the din of battle and the cares of state, some 
 gentler feeling wells up in his pages like the chime of Sabbath bells. It is 
 Teufelsdrockh left " alone with the night " — Oliver remembering the 
 old days at St Ives — or the Electress Louisa bidding adieu to her Elector. 
 "At the moment of her death, it is said, when speech had fled, he felt from 
 her hand, which lay in his, three slight, slight pressures — Farewell, thrice 
 mutely spoken in that manner, not easy to forget in this world." There is 
 nothing more pathetic than the whole account of the relations of father 
 and son in the domestic history of the Prussian court, from. the first 
 estrangement between them — the young Frederick in his prison at Custrin, 
 the old Frederick gliding about seeking shelter from ghosts, mourning for 
 Absalom — ^to the reconciliation, the end, and the after-thoughts about the 
 loved one — a scene never to be mentioned without thoughts that lie too 
 deep for tears. 
 
 What Carlyle says of Dante's Francesca, that it is " a thing woven as of 
 rainbows on a ground of eternal black," might be applied to his own tender- 
 ness. Every reader of his works has felt in them the presence — sometimes 
 the excess — of an element of sternness. He is a good hater. What he 
 loves most is truth ; what he hates most is falsehood, and his denuncia- 
 tions of all its forms — as shams, hypocrisies, phantasms — often remind 
 one of the Hebrew prophets, or Dante himself, in their condensed ferocity. 
 He is constantly drawing lessons from history to shew their necessary 
 overthrow, and in somewhat exaggerated terms proclaiming their essential 
 weakness. A strong sympathy with strength is one of his characteristic 
 qualities. A Titan himseK, he is ever ready to shake hands with Titans, 
 Gothic gods, burly Dantons, Mohammed, Knox, Columbus. Hence his con- 
 nexion of truth and strength ; his view that virtue, valour, and victory, 
 are inseparable ; his assertion that Might is Eight ; that aU power is.moral 
 — convictions which express a truth as yet but partially realised, and which, 
 in their premature anticipation of it, lead this writer to partial verdicts 
 even on questions of history and biography. He is apt to find excuse for 
 all the tyranny of conquest, and withdraw his sympathy even from the 
 greatness of conquered nations. His burden is too prevailingly a " Vse 
 victis." We may admit that right is might,* and remember that wrong 
 is might also. There is nothing more difficult to guard against in specular 
 tion than schemes of crude optimism ; it seems almost irreligious to draw 
 rt6 morals from history. We may avoid the logical consequences of a 
 partial view by a vague use of words. If power means moral force, it is of 
 course moral ; but the assertion, explained, is tautological ; unexplained, 
 it is misleading. Carlyle's desire to reconcile the moral and intellectual 
 powers, leads him to fill up the side ot a character which is wanting from 
 his imagination. He attacks other schemes of historical optimism, 
 and yet frames one for himself which embraces only half the truth. 
 
 See Essay on " Might and Right.' 
 
CARLTLE — THE MODERN CENSOR. 241 
 
 He acknowledges the importance of new powers that have not yet found 
 their place ; but he despises new ideas that have not yet become powers. 
 This is the negative aspect of Mr Carlyle's pohtical philosophy. Its posi- 
 tive side is Hero-worship — his notion of Order and Fealty. Feudalism had 
 its chiefs, and floui-ished, or not, as it followed them well or ill. Demo- 
 cracy, the new idea of this age, must also find its representatives in great 
 men. Pohtical science consists in discovering the will of the people ; but 
 this will is not to be found by universal suffrage and ballot-boxes. It is 
 only a sovereign, well chosen and loyally served, who can express it. The- 
 oretically Carlyle's view ignores the conception of collective wisdom and 
 the action of masses, different in kind as well as degree from that of units. 
 It is partly a result of his excessive individualism. He forgets the practi- 
 cal impossibility of finding wisdom before trial — the misery of mistakes 
 which are irrevocable. He assigns everywhere too wide a sphere to com- 
 pulsion, and forgets that freedom itself is greater than any end. He is not 
 altogether responsible for the use that has been made of his views to sup- 
 port theories of absolutism ; but it cannot be concealed that some of these 
 views lie athwart the best tendencies of the time, and have materially ob- 
 structed their progress. Even this, the weakest phase of Mr Carlyle's 
 philosophy, has some advantages. Standing aside from all political parties, 
 he corrects in turn the errors of each, and checks their exaggerations even 
 by his own. He sees deeply into the under-current evils of the time. He 
 assails, with equal force and justice, our practice of leaving those evils to 
 adjust themselves, or dealing with them by empty catchwords. He brands 
 the meanness which too often marks our mercantile dealing, the selfishness 
 which results from over-strained competition, and teaches a truth we are 
 apt to ignore ; viz., that wealth is not the one thing needful for national 
 prosperity. Some of his direct suggestions are practical and excellent ; as 
 the advice to let merit rise from the ranks in all spheres — to employ our 
 army and navy in time of peace — to provide a national education for the 
 people — ^to fix more exactly the province of the executive and legislative 
 bodies — ^to promote men of eminence who cannot face a popular election 
 — to organise a new chivalry of labour — making industrial regiments of our 
 able-bodied paupers, and enlarging the sphere of partnerships in all trades. 
 Even on the vexed question of the negroes, his proposals to change their 
 servitude into serfdom, and open the door to the purchase of liberty by the 
 slaves themselves, indicate the best path towards securing their ultimate 
 emancipation. 
 
 But it is neither as a politician nor a biographer, nor even in the domain 
 of history proper, that Carlyle's greatness pi-e-eminently appears. Every- 
 thing he writes has at bottom a personal reference. It is as an ethical and 
 religious teacher that he has the largest claim on our gratitude. When he 
 first came to London, everybody was making inquiries about the political 
 and religious opinions of the rising author ; was he a Chartist, an Absolutist, 
 a Calvinist, or an Atheist ? — inquiries which were then and ever doomed to 
 disappointment. He had come from the Scottish moors and his study of 
 the great German literature, a strange element into their society, not to 
 
 Q 
 
242 13I0ORAPHICAL A.ND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 promulgate a new set of opinions, but to infuse a new spirit into those 
 already existing. He found Benthamism prevailing in philosophy ; the 
 Byronic vein in poetry ; formalism in religion ; society was regulated by 
 fashion and routine ; men wore their dogmata like their dress, and really 
 believed only in that on which they could lay their hands. His mission 
 was not to controvert any form of creed, but to shew the insufficiency of 
 this mode of belief. He raised the tone of literature by referring to higher 
 standards ; he tried to elevate men's minds to the contemplation of some- 
 thing better than themselves, and impress upon them the necessity of pro- 
 fessing nothing with their lips which in their hearts they could not believe. 
 He taught that we must make our own convictions, and that the matter of 
 profoundest consequence is the degree of sincerity with which we hold 
 them. Beliefs by hearsay are not merely barren but obstructive ; it is only 
 " when half gods go, the gods arrive." Carlyle had to war against credulity, 
 in order to grapple with unbelief. A deep sense of reverence lies at the root 
 of all his symbolism. He uses new phrases to express a meaning that old 
 ones have ceased to convey. After all that has been done to explain it, 
 this world seems to him still a mystery, and we ourselves the miracle of 
 miracles. There is beneath all the soundings of science a deeper deep. 
 Content with what we see and know, we would need no religion. It is the 
 feeling that mere sight and knowledge leave us only more forlorn, that 
 creates the grand want. However Carlyle's own form of faith may differ 
 from others (and we have no right to assume more than he chooses to 
 announce), his appeal to the sense on which they all depend, has done 
 service to the cause of religion which it is not easy to estimate. He has 
 done much to shatter all existing schemes of utilitarianism. Our relation 
 to our fellows is not a relation of repulsion merely ; we are bound to them 
 by invisible yet adamantine chains of duty. Duty is with Carlyle some- 
 thing which cannot be derived. Bare calculation would leave the world a 
 wilderness of mean contentions. It is through the sense of the infinite 
 within and around us, that our moral, as well as our religious nature, first 
 truly unfolds itself. " The hero gives his life, he does not sell it." We 
 must be ready to renounce the pursuit of happiness, and in self-annihila- 
 tion — merging our interests in our duty — we shall find blessedness. Thus 
 alone are true ethics possible. There may be something of the spirit of 
 the mystic in that portion of "Sartor Eesartus" where this view is un- 
 folded, but surely there is much of the essence of Christianity. It is a 
 firm grasp of the religious sentiment that qualifies any one to be the 
 exponent of religious epochs in history. "By this alone," says Dr 
 Chalmers, " Thomas Carlyle has done so much to vindicate and bring to 
 light the Augustan age of Christianity in England." It is the secret of 
 his sympathy with the Puritans. It is the secret, also, of his appreciation 
 of the higher Teutonic literature. " It is obvious from all his writings," 
 we quote from the same authority, " that they are not the dogmata of 
 Germany which he idolises, but the lofty intellect, the high-souled inde- 
 pendence, and above all, as most akin with the aspirings of his own 
 chivalrous and undaunted nature, the noble-heartedness of Germany." 
 
CAULYLE THE MODKRN CENSOR. 243 
 
 Those are the common characteristics which have bound him so closely 
 to Goethe. The relation between the great poet and his English inter- 
 preter is a remarkable one. There are many points of contrast between 
 them. The one, self-centred, solitary in his calm, "totus teres atque 
 rotundus," an Apollo sending forth notes of Memnonian music ; the other, 
 a rough giant, struggling, restless, suffering with the sorrows of all 
 himianity ; the one all symmetry, the other all strength. It is as if 
 Shakespeare and Luther had been bom again as master and disciple. 
 Yet they are one at hea;'t. They have the same deep insight — the 
 same sense of the glory and mystery of the universe — the same great 
 grasp of life — ^the same reverence for man as man — the same intense 
 convictions, and the earnestness they bring. The essential difference be- 
 tween Carlyle and the Germans is that of action and thought. To know 
 IS not his end, but to be. Either to know ourselves or others is in great 
 measure impossible. " Know thy work, and do it." A practical philoso- 
 pher, he habitually depreciates metaphysicians. {Vide his treatment of 
 Leibnitz.) He loves the lyre, but it is the lyre that builds the walls of 
 cities. Truth is with him not so much a majestic vision, as an element to 
 mould the character and rule the will. Carlyle does not rest in it — paint, 
 sing, or prove it ; but breathes, moves, fights, and dies for it. He loves 
 the strife ; like Luther's, his words are battles. Hence his gospel of 
 labour, his sympathy with all its forms. Laborare est orare. He, and he 
 alone, is honourable who does his day's task bravely, whether by the axe, 
 or plough, or pen. Knowledge and strength are the rewards of toil. 
 Action converts the ring of necessity that girds us into a ring of duty ; it 
 frees us from the unhealthy blight of self-consciousness — from morbid 
 dreams — from childish fretfulness — ^from despair itseK — and makes us men. 
 
 ' The midnight phantoms feel the spell, 
 The shadows sweep away." 
 
 There is nothing grander in literature than some of these litanies of 
 labour. They have the roll of music that makes armies march ; rousing 
 us, as by a trumpet, to put forth new power, and force, and energy. They 
 are among the most beneficent influences of Carlyle's philosophy, for they 
 continue to present it on its most genial side. It has another and less con- 
 solatory aspect. The appreciation of what is wise and excellent involves, in 
 a world like ours, an equally present sense of folly and crime ; but it is un- 
 fortunate when the sense of evil predominates over the sense of good. Car^ 
 lyle seems to forget his own best teaching when, turning from the past with 
 its religious aisles and solemn memories — the past, softened and harmonised 
 by time — ^to the present, with its tumults, discord, and wrong, he addresses 
 it in words of impatient anger. This mood has grown upon him. His ac- 
 cents come to us oftener in the thunder and the whirlwind, more rarely in 
 the still small voice. We have had less in recent years of the sublime 
 hopefulness that illumines " Sartor Eesartus," — ^that most beautiful of all 
 his works, " written in star fire and immortal tears," so rich in tenderness 
 and grace, full of all sights and sounds and modes of melody. Turning 
 
244 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 from this to the scorn and mockery of the " Latter Day Pamphlets," we 
 are impressed with a somewhat saddening contrast. It is as if he who had 
 led us so far on the way had himself lapsed backward into the Everlasting 
 No. Loss of temper is not loss of faith ; but the gloom which pervades 
 some of Carlyle's later wi'itings goes deeper than loss of temper. The 
 " riddle of the painful earth " weighs too heavily upon him. The pressure 
 of infinity itself threatens to overwhelm his liberty ; the old doubts ever 
 and anon recur, and the shadow of a dieary fatalism seems to pass over his 
 mind. But the doubts are never quite victorious. There is a profound 
 sense in the remark of one who loved him — He is never at rest in his fatal- 
 ism, and while he resists it, it is not fatalism. It is a struggle, " yet a 
 struggle never ended, ever with true unconquerable purpose begun anew." 
 His fiery unrest is a sign of the presence and conflict of the spirit of free- 
 dom, and an unwearied will. 
 
 We have accorded a greater length to this than is generally due to con- 
 temporary notices, from a sense of the paramount influence Carlyle's 
 works are exercising, and are long destined to exercise, on the whole specu- 
 lation of the age. They have already made a deeper impression on the 
 literature of England than the works of any writer who has lived for a 
 century. They have done much to mould some of the best thinkers in 
 America ; and are extending their influence to the continent of Europe. 
 Thomas Carlyle has been, by his advice and guidance, the Greatheart to 
 many a pilgrim. Not a few could speak in the words of th^ friend whose 
 memory he has so affectionately preserved : — " Towards me it is still more 
 true than towards England, that no man has been and done like you." He 
 is one of those regarding whom we are constrained to acknowledge, after 
 all is said that can be said about their works, the man is mightier than 
 them all. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PHIKTKHR, EDINBUEUH.