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diff --git a/4243-0.txt b/4243-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..286445f --- /dev/null +++ b/4243-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4285 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sir Thomas More: or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, by Robert Southey + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Sir Thomas More: or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society + +Author: Robert Southey + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: December 18, 2001 [eBook #4243] +[Most recently updated: August 25, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Price + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY *** + + + + +COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. + + +BY +ROBERT SOUTHEY. + +CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited: +_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_. +1887. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +It was in 1824 that Robert Southey, then fifty years old, published "Sir +Thomas More, or Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society," a +book in two octavo volumes with plates illustrating lake scenery. There +were later editions of the book in 1829, and in 1831, and there was an +edition in one volume in 1837, at the beginning of the reign of Queen +Victoria. + +These dialogues with a meditative and patriotic ghost form separate +dissertations upon various questions that concern the progress of +society. Omitting a few dissertations that have lost the interest they +had when the subjects they discussed were burning questions of the time, +this volume retains the whole machinery of Southey's book. It gives +unabridged the Colloquies that deal with the main principles of social +life as Southey saw them in his latter days; and it includes, of course, +the pleasant Colloquy that presents to us Southey himself, happy in his +library, descanting on the course of time as illustrated by the bodies +and the souls of books. As this volume does not reproduce all the +Colloquies arranged by Southey under the main title of "Sir Thomas More," +it avoids use of the main title, and ventures only to describe itself as +"Colloquies on Society, by Robert Southey." + +They are of great interest, for they present to us the form and character +of the conservative reaction in a mind that was in youth impatient for +reform. In Southey, as in Wordsworth, the reaction followed on +experience of failure in the way taken by the revolutionists of France, +with whose aims for the regeneration of Europe they had been in warmest +accord. Neither Wordsworth nor Southey ever lowered the ideal of a +higher life for man on earth. Southey retains it in these Colloquies, +although he balances his own hope with the questionings of the ghost, and +if he does look for a crowning race, regards it, with Tennyson, as a + + "_far off_ divine event + To which the whole Creation moves." + +The conviction brought to men like Wordsworth and Southey by the failure +of the French Revolution to attain its aim in the sudden elevation of +society was not of vanity in the aim, but of vanity in any hope of its +immediate attainment by main force. Southey makes More say to himself +upon this question (page 37), "I admit that such an improved condition of +society as you contemplate is possible, and that it ought always to be +kept in view; but the error of supposing it too near, of fancying that +there is a short road to it, is, of all the errors of these times, the +most pernicious, because it seduces the young and generous, and betrays +them imperceptibly into an alliance with whatever is flagitious and +detestable." All strong reaction of mind tends towards excess in the +opposite direction. Southey's detestation of the excesses of vile men +that brought shame upon a revolutionary movement to which some of the +purest hopes of earnest youth had given impulse, drove him, as it drove +Wordsworth, into dread of everything that sought with passionate energy +immediate change of evil into good. But in his own way no man ever +strove more patiently than Southey to make evil good; and in his own home +and his own life he gave good reason to one to whom he was as a father, +and who knew his daily thoughts and deeds, to speak of him as "upon the +whole the best man I have ever known." + +In the days when this book was written, Southey lived at Greta Hall, by +Keswick, and had gathered a large library about him. He was Poet +Laureate. He had a pension from the Civil List, worth less than 200 +pounds a year, and he was living at peace upon a little income enlarged +by his yearly earnings as a writer. In 1818 his whole private fortune +was 400 pounds in consols. In 1821 he had added to that some savings, +and gave all to a ruined friend who had been good to him in former years. +Yet in those days he refused an offer of 2,000 pounds a year to come to +London and write for the _Times_. He was happiest in his home by +Skiddaw, with his books about him and his wife about him. + +Ten years after the publishing of these Colloquies, Southey's wife, who +had been, as Southey said, "for forty years the life of his life," had to +be placed in a lunatic asylum. She returned to him to die, and then his +gentleness became still gentler as his own mind failed. He died in 1843. +Three years before his death his friend Wordsworth visited him at +Keswick, and was not recognised. But when Southey was told who it was, +"then," Wordsworth wrote, "his eyes flashed for a moment with their +former brightness, but he sank into the state in which I had found him, +patting with both his hands his books affectionately, like a child." + +Sir Thomas More, whose ghost communicates with Robert Southey, was born +in 1478, and at the age of fifty-seven was beheaded for fidelity to +conscience, on the 6th of July, 1535. He was, like Southey, a man of +purest character, and in 1516, when his age was thirty-eight, there was +published at Louvain his "Utopia," which sketched wittily an ideal +commonwealth that was based on practical and earnest thought upon what +constitutes a state, and in what direction to look for amendment of ills. +More also withdrew from his most advanced post of opinion. When he wrote +"Utopia" he advocated absolute freedom of opinion in matters of religion; +in after years he believed it necessary to enforce conformity. King +Henry VIII., stiff in his own opinions, had always believed that; and +because More would not say that he was of one mind with him in the matter +of the divorce of Katherine he sent him to the scaffold. + +H. M. + + + + +COLLOQUY I.--THE INTRODUCTION. + + + "_Posso aver certezza_, _e non paura_, + _Che raccontando quel che m' e accaduto_, + _Il ver diro_, _ne mi sara creduto_." + + "Orlando Innamorato," c. 5. st. 53. + +It was during that melancholy November when the death of the Princess +Charlotte had diffused throughout Great Britain a more general sorrow +than had ever before been known in these kingdoms; I was sitting alone at +evening in my library, and my thoughts had wandered from the book before +me to the circumstances which made this national calamity be felt almost +like a private affliction. While I was thus musing the post-woman +arrived. My letters told me there was nothing exaggerated in the public +accounts of the impression which this sudden loss had produced; that +wherever you went you found the women of the family weeping, and that men +could scarcely speak of the event without tears; that in all the better +parts of the metropolis there was a sort of palsied feeling which seemed +to affect the whole current of active life; and that for several days +there prevailed in the streets a stillness like that of the Sabbath, but +without its repose. I opened the newspaper; it was still bordered with +broad mourning lines, and was filled with details concerning the deceased +Princess. Her coffin and the ceremonies at her funeral were described as +minutely as the order of her nuptials and her bridal dress had been, in +the same journal, scarce eighteen months before. "Man," says Sir Thomas +Brown, "is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave; +solemnising nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting +ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature." These things led me +in spirit to the vault, and I thought of the memorable dead among whom +her mortal remains were now deposited. Possessed with such imaginations +I leaned back upon the sofa and closed my eyes. + +Ere long I was awakened from that conscious state of slumber in which the +stream of fancy floweth as it listeth by the entrance of an elderly +personage of grave and dignified appearance. His countenance and manner +were remarkably benign, and announced a high degree of intellectual rank, +and he accosted me in a voice of uncommon sweetness, saying, "Montesinos, +a stranger from a distant country may intrude upon you without those +credentials which in other cases you have a right to require." "From +America!" I replied, rising to salute him. Some of the most gratifying +visits which I have ever received have been from that part of the world. +It gives me indeed more pleasure than I can express to welcome such +travellers as have sometimes found their way from New England to those +lakes and mountains; men who have not forgotten what they owe to their +ancient mother; whose principles, and talents, and attainments would +render them an ornament to any country, and might almost lead me to hope +that their republican constitution may be more permanent than all other +considerations would induce me either to suppose or wish. + +"You judge of me," he made answer, "by my speech. I am, however, English +by birth, and come now from a more distant country than America, wherein +I have long been naturalised." Without explaining himself further, or +allowing me time to make the inquiry which would naturally have followed, +he asked me if I were not thinking of the Princess Charlotte when he +disturbed me. "That," said I, "may easily be divined. All persons whose +hearts are not filled with their own grief are thinking of her at this +time. It had just occurred to me that on two former occasions when the +heir apparent of England was cut off in the prime of life the nation was +on the eve of a religious revolution in the first instance, and of a +political one in the second." + +"Prince Arthur and Prince Henry," he replied. "Do you notice this as +ominous, or merely as remarkable?" + +"Merely as remarkable," was my answer. "Yet there are certain moods of +mind in which we can scarcely help ascribing an ominous importance to any +remarkable coincidence wherein things of moment are concerned." + +"Are you superstitious?" said he. "Understand me as using the word for +want of a more appropriate one--not in its ordinary and contemptuous +acceptation." + +I smiled at the question, and replied, "Many persons would apply the +epithet to me without qualifying it. This, you know, is the age of +reason, and during the last hundred and fifty years men have been +reasoning themselves out of everything that they ought to believe and +feel. Among a certain miserable class, who are more numerous than is +commonly supposed, he who believes in a First Cause and a future state is +regarded with contempt as a superstitionist. The religious naturalist in +his turn despises the feebler mind of the Socinian; and the Socinian +looks with astonishment or pity at the weakness of those who, having by +conscientious inquiry satisfied themselves of the authenticity of the +Scriptures, are contented to believe what is written, and acknowledge +humility to be the foundation of wisdom as well as of virtue. But for +myself, many, if not most of those even who agree with me in all +essential points, would be inclined to think me superstitious, because I +am not ashamed to avow my persuasion that there are more things in heaven +and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy." + +"You believe, then, in apparitions," said my visitor. + +_Montesinos_.--Even so, sir. That such things should be is probable _a +priori_; and I cannot refuse assent to the strong evidence that such +things are, nor to the common consent which has prevailed among all +people, everywhere, in all ages a belief indeed which is truly catholic, +in the widest acceptation of the word. I am, by inquiry and conviction, +as well as by inclination and feeling, a Christian; life would be +intolerable to me if I were not so. "But," says Saint Evremont, "the +most devout cannot always command their belief, nor the most impious +their incredulity." I acknowledge with Sir Thomas Brown that, "as in +philosophy, so in divinity, there are sturdy doubts and boisterous +objections, wherewith the unhappiness of our knowledge too nearly +acquainteth us;" and I confess with him that these are to be conquered, +"not in a martial posture, but on our knees." If then there are moments +wherein I, who have satisfied my reason, and possess a firm and assured +faith, feel that I have in this opinion a strong hold, I cannot but +perceive that they who have endeavoured to dispossess the people of their +old instinctive belief in such things have done little service to +individuals and much injury to the community. + +_Stranger_.--Do you extend this to a belief in witchcraft? + +_Montesinos_.--The common stories of witchcraft confute themselves, as +may be seen in all the trials for that offence. Upon this subject I +would say with my old friend Charles Lamb-- + + "I do not love to credit tales of magic! + Heaven's music, which is order, seems unstrung. + And this brave world + (The mystery of God) unbeautified, + Disordered, marred, where such strange things are acted." + +The only inference which can be drawn from the confession of some of the +poor wretches who have suffered upon such charges is, that they had +attempted to commit the crime, and thereby incurred the guilt and +deserved the punishment. Of this indeed there have been recent +instances; and in one atrocious case the criminal escaped because the +statute against the imaginary offence is obsolete, and there exists no +law which could reach the real one. + +_Stranger_.--He who may wish to show with what absurd perversion the +forms and technicalities of law are applied to obstruct the purposes of +justice, which they were designed to further, may find excellent examples +in England. But leaving this allow me to ask whether you think all the +stories which are related of an intercourse between men and beings of a +superior order, good or evil, are to be disbelieved like the vulgar tales +of witchcraft? + +_Montesinos_.--If you happen, sir, to have read some of those ballads +which I threw off in the high spirits of youth you may judge what my +opinion then was of the grotesque demonology of the monks and middle ages +by the use there made of it. But in the scale of existences there may be +as many orders above us as below. We know there are creatures so minute +that without the aid of our glasses they could never have been +discovered; and this fact, if it were not notorious as well as certain, +would appear not less incredible to sceptical minds than that there +should be beings which are invisible to us because of their subtlety. +That there are such I am as little able to doubt as I am to affirm +anything concerning them; but if there are such, why not evil spirits, as +well as wicked men? Many travellers who have been conversant with +savages have been fully persuaded that their jugglers actually possessed +some means of communication with the invisible world, and exercised a +supernatural power which they derived from it. And not missionaries only +have believed this, and old travellers who lived in ages of credulity, +but more recent observers, such as Carver and Bruce, whose testimony is +of great weight, and who were neither ignorant, nor weak, nor credulous +men. What I have read concerning ordeals also staggers me; and I am +sometimes inclined to think it more possible that when there has been +full faith on all sides these appeals to divine justice may have been +answered by Him who sees the secrets of all hearts than that modes of +trial should have prevailed so long and so generally, from some of which +no person could ever have escaped without an interposition of Providence. +Thus it has appeared to me in my calm and unbiassed judgment. Yet I +confess I should want faith to make the trial. May it not be, that by +such means in dark ages, and among blind nations, the purpose is effected +of preserving conscience and the belief of our immortality, without which +the life of our life would be extinct? And with regard to the conjurers +of the African and American savages, would it be unreasonable to suppose +that, as the most elevated devotion brings us into fellowship with the +Holy Spirit, a correspondent degree of wickedness may effect a communion +with evil intelligences? These are mere speculations which I advance for +as little as they are worth. My serious belief amounts to this, that +preternatural impressions are sometimes communicated to us for wise +purposes: and that departed spirits are sometimes permitted to manifest +themselves. + +_Stranger_.--If a ghost, then, were disposed to pay you a visit, you +would be in a proper state of mind for receiving such a visitor? + +_Montesinos_.--I should not credit my senses lightly; neither should I +obstinately distrust them, after I had put the reality of the appearance +to the proof, as far as that were possible. + +_Stranger_.--Should you like to have an opportunity afforded you? + +_Montesinos_.--Heaven forbid! I have suffered so much in dreams from +conversing with those whom even in sleep I knew to be departed, that an +actual presence might perhaps be more than I could bear. + +_Stranger_.--But if it were the spirit of one with whom you had no near +ties of relationship or love, how then would it affect you? + +_Montesinos_.--That would of course be according to the circumstances on +both sides. But I entreat you not to imagine that I am any way desirous +of enduring the experiment. + +_Stranger_.--Suppose, for example, he were to present himself as I have +done; the purport of his coming friendly; the place and opportunity +suiting, as at present; the time also considerately chosen--after dinner; +and the spirit not more abrupt in his appearance nor more formidable in +aspect than the being who now addresses you? + +_Montesinos_.--Why, sir, to so substantial a ghost, and of such +respectable appearance, I might, perhaps, have courage enough to say with +Hamlet, + + "Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, + That I will speak to thee!" + +_Stranger_.--Then, sir, let me introduce myself in that character, now +that our conversation has conducted us so happily to the point. I told +you truly that I was English by birth, but that I came from a more +distant country than America, and had long been naturalised there. The +country whence I come is not the New World, but the other one: and I now +declare myself in sober earnest to be a ghost. + +_Montesinos_.--A ghost! + +_Stranger_.--A veritable ghost, and an honest one, who went out of the +world with so good a character that he will hardly escape canonisation if +ever you get a Roman Catholic king upon the throne. And now what test do +you require? + +_Montesinos_.--I can detect no smell of brimstone; and the candle burns +as it did before, without the slightest tinge of blue in its flame. You +look, indeed, like a spirit of health, and I might be disposed to give +entire belief to that countenance, if it were not for the tongue that +belongs to it. But you are a queer spirit, whether good or evil! + +_Stranger_.--The headsman thought so, when he made a ghost of me almost +three hundred years ago. I had a character through life of loving a +jest, and did not belie it at the last. But I had also as general a +reputation for sincerity, and of that also conclusive proof was given at +the same time. In serious truth, then, I am a disembodied spirit, and +the form in which I now manifest myself is subject to none of the +accidents of matter. You are still incredulous! Feel, then, and be +convinced! + +My incomprehensible guest extended his hand toward me as he spoke. I +held forth mine to accept it, not, indeed, believing him, and yet not +altogether without some apprehensive emotion, as if I were about to +receive an electrical shock. The effect was more startling than +electricity would have produced. His hand had neither weight nor +substance; my fingers, when they would have closed upon it, found nothing +that they could grasp: it was intangible, though it had all the reality +of form. + +"In the name of God," I exclaimed, "who are you, and wherefore are you +come?" + +"Be not alarmed," he replied. "Your reason, which has shown you the +possibility of such an appearance as you now witness, must have convinced +you also that it would never be permitted for an evil end. Examine my +features well, and see if you do not recognise them. Hans Holbein was +excellent at a likeness." + +I had now for the first time in my life a distinct sense of that sort of +porcupinish motion over the whole scalp which is so frequently described +by the Latin poets. It was considerably allayed by the benignity of his +countenance and the manner of his speech, and after looking him steadily +in the face I ventured to say, for the likeness had previously struck me, +"Is it Sir Thomas More?" + +"The same," he made answer, and lifting up his chin, displayed a circle +round the neck brighter in colour than the ruby. "The marks of +martyrdom," he continued, "are our insignia of honour. Fisher and I have +the purple collar, as Friar Forrest and Cranmer have the robe of fire." + +A mingled feeling of fear and veneration kept me silent, till I perceived +by his look that he expected and encouraged me to speak; and collecting +my spirits as well as I could, I asked him wherefore he had thought +proper to appear, and why to me rather than to any other person? + +He replied, "We reap as we have sown. Men bear with them from this world +into the intermediate state their habits of mind and stores of knowledge, +their dispositions and affections and desires; and these become a part of +our punishment, or of our reward, according to their kind. Those +persons, therefore, in whom the virtue of patriotism has predominated +continue to regard with interest their native land, unless it be so +utterly sunk in degradation that the moral relationship between them is +dissolved. Epaminondas can have no sympathy at this time with Thebes, +nor Cicero with Rome, nor Belisarius with the imperial city of the East. +But the worthies of England retain their affection for their noble +country, behold its advancement with joy, and when serious danger appears +to threaten the goodly structure of its institutions they feel as much +anxiety as is compatible with their state of beatitude." + +_Montesinos_.--What, then, may doubt and anxiety consist with the +happiness of heaven? + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Heaven and hell may be said to begin on your side the +grave. In the intermediate state conscience anticipates with unerring +certainty the result of judgment. We, therefore, who have done well can +have no fear for ourselves. But inasmuch as the world has any hold upon +our affections we are liable to that anxiety which is inseparable from +terrestrial hopes. And as parents who are in bliss regard still with +parental love the children whom they have left on earth, we, in like +manner, though with a feeling different in kind and inferior in degree, +look with apprehension upon the perils of our country. + + "_sub pectore forti_ + _Vivit adhuc patriae pietas_; _stimulatque sepultum_ + _Libertatis amor_: _pondus mortale necari_ + _Si potuit_, _veteres animo post funera vires_ + _Mansere_, _et prisci vivit non immemor aevi_." + +They are the words of old Mantuan. + +_Montesinos_.--I am to understand, then, that you cannot see into the +ways of futurity? + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Enlarged as our faculties are, you must not suppose +that we partake of prescience. For human actions are free, and we exist +in time. The future is to us therefore as uncertain as to you; except +only that having a clearer and more comprehensive knowledge of the past, +we are enabled to reason better from causes to consequences, and by what +has been to judge of what is likely to be. We have this advantage also, +that we are divested of all those passions which cloud the intellects and +warp the understandings of men. You are thinking, I perceive, how much +you have to learn, and what you should first inquire of me. But expect +no revelations! Enough was revealed when man was assured of judgment +after death, and the means of salvation were afforded him. I neither +come to discover secret things nor hidden treasures; but to discourse +with you concerning these portentous and monster-breeding times; for it +is your lot, as it was mine, to live during one of the grand climacterics +of the world. And I come to you, rather than to any other person, +because you have been led to meditate upon the corresponding changes +whereby your age and mine are distinguished; and because, notwithstanding +many discrepancies and some dispathies between us (speaking of myself as +I was, and as you know me), there are certain points of sympathy and +resemblance which bring us into contact, and enable us at once to +understand each other. + +_Montesinos_.--_Et in Utopia ego_. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--You apprehend me. We have both speculated in the +joys and freedom of our youth upon the possible improvement of society; +and both in like manner have lived to dread with reason the effects of +that restless spirit which, like the Titaness Mutability described by +your immortal master, insults heaven and disturbs the earth. By +comparing the great operating causes in the age of the Reformation, and +in this age of revolutions, going back to the former age, looking at +things as I then beheld them, perceiving wherein I judged rightly, and +wherein I erred, and tracing the progress of those causes which are now +developing their whole tremendous power, you will derive instruction, +which you are a fit person to receive and communicate; for without being +solicitous concerning present effect, you are contented to cast your +bread upon the waters. You are now acquainted with me and my intention. +To-morrow you will see me again; and I shall continue to visit you +occasionally as opportunity may serve. Meantime say nothing of what has +passed--not even to your wife. She might not like the thoughts of a +ghostly visitor: and the reputation of conversing with the dead might be +almost as inconvenient as that of dealing with the devil. For the +present, then, farewell! I will never startle you with too sudden an +apparition; but you may learn to behold my disappearance without alarm. + +I was not able to behold it without emotion, although he had thus +prepared me; for the sentence was no sooner completed than he was gone. +Instead of rising from the chair he vanished from it. I know not to what +the instantaneous disappearance can be likened. Not to the dissolution +of a rainbow, because the colours of the rainbow fade gradually till they +are lost; not to the flash of cannon, or to lightning, for these things +are gone as soon as they are come, and it is known that the instant of +their appearance must be that of their departure; not to a bubble upon +the water, for you see it burst; not to the sudden extinction of a light, +for that is either succeeded by darkness or leaves a different hue upon +the surrounding objects. In the same indivisible point of time when I +beheld the distinct, individual, and, to all sense of sight, substantial +form--the living, moving, reasonable image--in that self-same instant it +was gone, as if exemplifying the difference between to _be_ and _not_ to +_be_. It was no dream, of this I was well assured; realities are never +mistaken for dreams, though dreams may be mistaken for realities. +Moreover I had long been accustomed in sleep to question my perceptions +with a wakeful faculty of reason, and to detect their fallacy. But, as +well may be supposed, my thoughts that night, sleeping as well as waking, +were filled with this extraordinary interview; and when I arose the next +morning it was not till I had called to mind every circumstance of time +and place that I was convinced the apparition was real, and that I might +again expect it. + + + + +COLLOQUY II.--THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WORLD. + + +On the following evening when my spiritual visitor entered the room, that +volume of Dr. Wordsworth's ecclesiastical biography which contains his +life was lying on the table beside me. "I perceive," said he, glancing +at the book, "you have been gathering all you can concerning me from my +good gossiping chronicler, who tells you that I loved milk and fruit and +eggs, preferred beef to young meats, and brown bread to white; was fond +of seeing strange birds and beasts, and kept an ape, a fox, a weasel, and +a ferret." + +"I am not one of those fastidious readers," I replied, "who quarrel with +a writer for telling them too much. But these things were worth telling: +they show that you retained a youthful palate as well as a youthful +heart; and I like you the better both for your diet and your menagerie. +The old biographer, indeed, with the best intentions, has been far from +understanding the character which he desired to honour. He seems, +however, to have been a faithful reporter, and has done as well as his +capacity permitted. I observe that he gives you credit for 'a deep +foresight and judgment of the times,' and for speaking in a prophetic +spirit of the evils, which soon afterwards were 'full heavily felt.'" + +"There could be little need for a spirit of prophecy," Sir Thomas made +answer, to "foresee troubles which were the sure effect of the causes +then in operation, and which were actually close at hand. When the rain +is gathering from the south or west, and those flowers and herbs which +serve as natural hygrometers close their leaves, men have no occasion to +consult the stars for what the clouds and the earth are telling them. You +were thinking of Prince Arthur when I introduced myself yesterday, as if +musing upon the great events which seem to have received their bias from +the apparent accident of his premature death." + +_Montesinos_.--I had fallen into one of those idle reveries in which we +speculate upon what might have been. Lord Bacon describes him as "very +studious, and learned beyond his years, and beyond the custom of great +princes." As this indicates a calm and thoughtful mind, it seems to show +that he inherited the Tudor character. His brother took after the +Plantagenets; but it was not of their nobler qualities that he partook. +He had the popular manners of his grandfather, Edward IV., and, like him, +was lustful, cruel, and unfeeling. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The blood of the Plantagenets, as your friends the +Spaniards would say, was a strong blood. That temper of mind which (in +some of his predecessors) thought so little of fratricide might perhaps +have involved him in the guilt of a parricidal war, if his father had not +been fortunate enough to escape such an affliction by a timely death. We +might otherwise be allowed to wish that the life of Henry VII. had been +prolonged to a good old age. For if ever there was a prince who could so +have directed the Reformation as to have averted the evils wherewith that +tremendous event was accompanied, and yet to have secured its advantages, +he was the man. Cool, wary, far-sighted, rapacious, politic, and +religious, or superstitious if you will (for his religion had its root +rather in fear than in hope), he was peculiarly adapted for such a crisis +both by his good and evil qualities. For the sake of increasing his +treasures and his power, he would have promoted the Reformation; but his +cautious temper, his sagacity, and his fear of Divine justice would have +taught him where to stop. + +_Montesinos_.--A generation of politic sovereigns succeeded to the race +of warlike ones, just in that age of society when policy became of more +importance in their station than military talents. Ferdinand of Spain, +Joam II. whom the Portuguese called the perfect prince, Louis XI. and +Henry VII. were all of this class. Their individual characters were +sufficiently distinct; but the circumstances of their situation stamped +them with a marked resemblance, and they were of a metal to take and +retain the strong, sharp impress of the age. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The age required such characters; and it is worthy of +notice how surely in the order of providence such men as are wanted are +raised up. One generation of these princes sufficed. In Spain, indeed, +there was an exception; for Ferdinand had two successors who pursued the +same course of conduct. In the other kingdoms the character ceased with +the necessity for it. Crimes enough were committed by succeeding +sovereigns, but they were no longer the acts of systematic and reflecting +policy. This, too, is worthy of remark, that the sovereigns whom you +have named, and who scrupled at no means for securing themselves on the +throne, for enlarging their dominions and consolidating their power, were +each severally made to feel the vanity of human ambition, being punished +either in or by the children who were to reap the advantage of their +crimes. "Verily there is a God that judgeth the earth!" + +_Montesinos_.--An excellent friend of mine, one of the wisest, best, and +happiest men whom I have ever known, delights in this manner to trace the +moral order of Providence through the revolutions of the world; and in +his historical writings keeps it in view as the pole-star of his course. +I wish he were present, that he might have the satisfaction of hearing +his favourite opinion confirmed by one from the dead. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--His opinion requires no other confirmation than what +he finds for it in observation and Scripture, and in his own calm +judgment. I should differ little from that friend of yours concerning +the past; but his hopes for the future appear to me like early buds which +are in danger of March winds. He believes the world to be in a rapid +state of sure improvement; and in the ferment which exists everywhere he +beholds only a purifying process; not considering that there is an +acetous as well as a vinous fermentation; and that in the one case the +liquor may be spilt, in the other it must be spoilt. + +_Montesinos_.--Surely you would not rob us of our hopes for the human +race! If I apprehended that your discourse tended to this end I should +suspect you, notwithstanding your appearance, and be ready to exclaim, +"Avaunt, tempter!" For there is no opinion from which I should so hardly +be driven, and so reluctantly part, as the belief that the world will +continue to improve, even as it has hitherto continually been improving; +and that the progress of knowledge and the diffusion of Christianity will +bring about at last, when men become Christians in reality as well as in +name, something like that Utopian state of which philosophers have loved +to dream--like that millennium in which saints as well as enthusiasts +have trusted. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Do you hold that this consummation must of necessity +come to pass; or that it depends in any degree upon the course of +events--that is to say, upon human actions? The former of these +propositions you would be as unwilling to admit as your friend Wesley, or +the old Welshman Pelagius himself. The latter leaves you little other +foundation for your opinion than a desire, which, from its very +benevolence, is the more likely to be delusive. You are in a dilemma. + +_Montesinos_.--Not so, Sir Thomas. Impossible as it may be for us to +reconcile the free will of man with the foreknowledge of God, I +nevertheless believe in both with the most full conviction. When the +human mind plunges into time and space in its speculations, it adventures +beyond its sphere; no wonder, therefore, that its powers fail, and it is +lost. But that my will is free, I know feelingly: it is proved to me by +my conscience. And that God provideth all things I know by His own Word, +and by that instinct which He hath implanted in me to assure me of His +being. My answer to your question, then, is this: I believe that the +happy consummation which I desire is appointed, and must come to pass; +but that when it is to come depends upon the obedience of man to the will +of God, that is, upon human actions. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--You hold then that the human race will one day attain +the utmost degree of general virtue, and thereby general happiness, of +which humanity is capable. Upon what do you found this belief? + +_Montesinos_.--The opinion is stated more broadly than I should choose to +advance it. But this is ever the manner of argumentative discourse: the +opponent endeavours to draw from you conclusions which you are not +prepared to defend, and which perhaps you have never before acknowledged +even to yourself. I will put the proposition in a less disputable form. +A happier condition of society is possible than that in which any nation +is existing at this time, or has at any time existed. The sum both of +moral and physical evil may be greatly diminished both by good laws, good +institutions, and good governments. Moral evil cannot indeed be removed, +unless the nature of man were changed; and that renovation is only to be +effected in individuals, and in them only by the special grace of God. +Physical evil must always, to a certain degree, be inseparable from +mortality. But both are so much within the reach of human institutions +that a state of society is conceivable almost as superior to that of +England in these days, as that itself is superior to the condition of the +tattooed Britons, or of the northern pirates from whom we are descended. +Surely this belief rests upon a reasonable foundation, and is supported +by that general improvement (always going on if it be regarded upon the +great scale) to which all history bears witness. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--I dispute not this: but to render it a reasonable +ground of immediate hope, the predominance of good principles must be +supposed. Do you believe that good or evil principles predominate at +this time? + +_Montesinos_.--If I were to judge by that expression of popular opinion +which the press pretends to convey, I should reply without hesitation +that never in any other known age of the world have such pernicious +principles been so prevalent + + "_Qua terra patet_, _fera regnat Erinnys_; + _In facinus jurasse putes_." + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Is there not a danger that these principles may bear +down everything before them? and is not that danger obvious, palpable, +imminent? Is there a considerate man who can look at the signs of the +times without apprehension, or a scoundrel connected with what is called +the public press, who does not speculate upon them, and join with the +anarchists as the strongest party? Deceive not yourself by the +fallacious notion that truth is mightier than falsehood, and that good +must prevail over evil! Good principles enable men to suffer, rather +than to act. Think how the dog, fond and faithful creature as he is, +from being the most docile and obedient of all animals, is made the most +dangerous, if he becomes mad; so men acquire a frightful and not less +monstrous power when they are in a state of moral insanity, and break +loose from their social and religious obligations. Remember too how +rapidly the plague of diseased opinions is communicated, and that if it +once gain head, it is as difficult to be stopped as a conflagration or a +flood. The prevailing opinions of this age go to the destruction of +everything which has hitherto been held sacred. They tend to arm the +poor against the rich; the many against the few: worse than this, for it +will also be a war of hope and enterprise against timidity, of youth +against age. + +_Montesinos_.--Sir Ghost, you are almost as dreadful an alarmist as our +Cumberland cow, who is believed to have lately uttered this prophecy, +delivering it with oracular propriety in verse: + + "Two winters, a wet spring, + A bloody summer, and no king." + +_Sir Thomas More_.--That prophecy speaks the wishes of the man, whoever +he may have been, by whom it was invented: and you who talk of the +progress of knowledge, and the improvement of society, and upon that +improvement build your hope of its progressive melioration, you know that +even so gross and palpable an imposture as this is swallowed by many of +the vulgar, and contributes in its sphere to the mischief which it was +designed to promote. I admit that such an improved condition of society +as you contemplate is possible, and hath ought always to be kept in view: +but the error of supposing it too near, of fancying that there is a short +road to it, is, of all the errors of these times, the most pernicious, +because it seduces the young and generous, and betrays them imperceptibly +into an alliance with whatever is flagitious and detestable. The fact is +undeniable that the worst principles in religion, in morals, and in +politics, are at this time more prevalent than they ever were known to be +in any former age. You need not be told in what manner revolutions in +opinion bring about the fate of empires; and upon this ground you ought +to regard the state of the world, both at home and abroad, with fear, +rather than with hope. + +_Montesinos_.--When I have followed such speculations as may allowably be +indulged, respecting what is hidden in the darkness of time and of +eternity, I have sometimes thought that the moral and physical order of +the world may be so appointed as to coincide; and that the revolutions of +this planet may correspond with the condition of its inhabitants; so that +the convulsions and changes whereto it is destined should occur, when the +existing race of men had either become so corrupt as to be unworthy of +the place which they hold in the universe, or were so truly regenerate by +the will and word of God, as to be qualified for a higher station in it. +Our globe may have gone through many such revolutions. We know the +history of the last; the measure of its wickedness was then filled up. +For the future we are taught to expect a happier consummation. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--It is important that you should distinctly understand +the nature and extent of your expectations on that head. Is it upon the +Apocalypse that you rest them? + +_Montesinos_.--If you had not forbidden me to expect from this +intercourse any communication which might come with the authority of +revealed knowledge, I should ask in reply, whether that dark book is +indeed to be received for authentic Scripture? My hopes are derived from +the prophets and the evangelists. Believing in them with a calm and +settled faith, with that consent of the will and heart and understanding +which constitutes religious belief, and in them the clear annunciation of +that kingdom of God upon earth, for the coming of which Christ himself +has taught and commanded us to pray. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Remember that the Evangelists, in predicting that +kingdom, announce a dreadful advent! And that, according to the received +opinion of the Church, wars, persecutions, and calamities of every kind, +the triumph of evil, and the coming of Antichrist are to be looked for, +before the promises made by the prophets shall be fulfilled. Consider +this also, that the speedy fulfilment of those promises has been the +ruling fancy of the most dangerous of all madmen, from John of Leyden and +his frantic followers, down to the saints of Cromwell's army, Venner and +his Fifth-Monarchy men, the fanatics of the Cevennes, and the blockheads +of your own days, who beheld with complacency the crimes of the French +Revolutionists, and the progress of Bonaparte towards the subjugation of +Europe, as events tending to bring about the prophecies; and, under the +same besotted persuasion, are ready at this time to co-operate with the +miscreants who trade in blasphemy and treason! But you who neither seek +to deceive others nor yourself, you who are neither insane nor insincere, +you surely do not expect that the millennium is to be brought about by +the triumph of what are called liberal opinions; nor by enabling the +whole of the lower classes to read the incentives to vice, impiety, and +rebellion which are prepared for them by an unlicensed press; nor by +Sunday schools, and religious tract societies; nor by the portentous +bibliolatry of the age! And if you adhere to the letter of the +Scriptures, methinks the thought of that consummation for which you look, +might serve rather for consolation under the prospect of impending evils, +than for a hope upon which the mind can rest in security with a calm and +contented delight. + +_Montesinos_.--To this I must reply, that the fulfilment of those +calamitous events predicted in the Gospels may safely be referred, as it +usually is, and by the best Biblical scholars, to the destruction of +Jerusalem. Concerning the visions of the Apocalypse, sublime as they +are, I speak with less hesitation, and dismiss them from my thoughts, as +more congenial to the fanatics of whom you have spoken than to me. And +for the coming of Antichrist, it is no longer a received opinion in these +days, whatever it may have been in yours. Your reasoning applies to the +enthusiastic millenarians who discover the number of the beast, and +calculate the year when a vial is to be poured out, with as much +precision as the day and hour of an eclipse. But it leaves my hope +unshaken and untouched. I know that the world has improved; I see that +it is improving; and I believe that it will continue to improve in +natural and certain progress. Good and evil principles are widely at +work: a crisis is evidently approaching; it may be dreadful, but I can +have no doubts concerning the result. Black and ominous as the aspects +may appear, I regard them without dismay. The common exclamation of the +poor and helpless, when they feel themselves oppressed, conveys to my +mind the sum of the surest and safest philosophy. I say with them, "God +is above," and trust Him for the event. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--God is above--but the devil is below. Evil +principles are, in their nature, more active than good. The harvest is +precarious, and must be prepared with labour, and cost, and care; weeds +spring up of themselves, and flourish and seed whatever may be the +season. Disease, vice, folly, and madness are contagious; while health +and understanding are incommunicable, and wisdom and virtue hardly to be +communicated! We have come, however, to some conclusion in our +discourse. Your notion of the improvement of the world has appeared to +be a mere speculation, altogether inapplicable in practice; and as +dangerous to weak heads and heated imaginations as it is congenial to +benevolent hearts. Perhaps that improvement is neither so general nor so +certain as you suppose. Perhaps, even in this country there may be more +knowledge than there was in former times and less wisdom, more wealth and +less happiness, more display and less virtue. This must be the subject +of future conversation. I will only remind you now, that the French had +persuaded themselves this was the most enlightened age of the world, and +they the most enlightened people in it--the politest, the most amiable, +and the most humane of nations--and that a new era of philosophy, +philanthropy, and peace, was about to commence under their auspices, when +they were upon the eve of a revolution which, for its complicated +monstrosities, absurdities, and horrors, is more disgraceful to human +nature than any other series of events in history. Chew the cud upon +this, and farewell + + + + +COLLOQUY III.--THE DRUIDICAL STONES.--VISITATIONS OF PESTILENCE. + + +Inclination would lead me to hibernate during half the year in this +uncomfortable climate of Great Britain, where few men who have tasted the +enjoyments of a better would willingly take up their abode, if it were +not for the habits, and still more for the ties and duties which root us +to our native soil. I envy the Turks for their sedentary constitutions, +which seem no more to require exercise than an oyster does or a toad in a +stone. In this respect, I am by disposition as true a Turk as the Grand +Seignior himself; and approach much nearer to one in the habit of +inaction than any person of my acquaintance. Willing however, as I +should be to believe, that anything which is habitually necessary for a +sound body, would be unerringly indicated by an habitual disposition for +it, and that if exercise were as needful as food for the preservation of +the animal economy, the desire of motion would recur not less regularly +than hunger and thirst, it is a theory which will not bear the test; and +this I know by experience. + +On a grey sober day, therefore, and in a tone of mind quite accordant +with the season, I went out unwillingly to take the air, though if taking +physic would have answered the same purpose, the dose would have been +preferred as the shortest, and for that reason the least unpleasant +remedy. Even on such occasions as this, it is desirable to propose to +oneself some object for the satisfaction of accomplishing it, and to set +out with the intention of reaching some fixed point, though it should be +nothing better than a mile-stone, or a directing post. So I walked to +the Circle of Stones on the Penrith road, because there is a long hill +upon the way which would give the muscles some work to perform; and +because the sight of this rude monument which has stood during so many +centuries, and is likely, if left to itself, to outlast any edifice that +man could have erected, gives me always a feeling, which, however often +it may be repeated, loses nothing of its force. + +The circle is of the rudest kind, consisting of single stones, unhewn and +chosen without any regard to shape or magnitude, being of all sizes, from +seven or eight feet in height, to three or four. The circle, however, is +complete, and is thirty-three paces in diameter. Concerning this, like +all similar monuments in Great Britain, the popular superstition +prevails, that no two persons can number the stones alike, and that no +person will ever find a second counting confirm the first. My children +have often disappointed their natural inclination to believe this wonder, +by putting it to the test and disproving it. The number of the stones +which compose the circle, is thirty-eight, and besides these there are +ten which form three sides of a little square within, on the eastern +side, three stones of the circle itself forming the fourth; this being +evidently the place where the Druids who presided had their station; or +where the more sacred and important part of the rites and ceremonies +(whatever they may have been) were performed. All this is as perfect at +this day as when the Cambrian bards, according to the custom of their +ancient order, described by my old acquaintances, the living members of +the Chair of Glamorgan, met there for the last time, + + "On the green turf and under the blue sky, + Their heads in reverence bare, and bare of foot." + +The site also precisely accords with the description which Edward +Williams and William Owen give of the situation required for such meeting +places: + + "--a high hill top, + Nor bowered with trees, nor broken by the plough: + Remote from human dwellings and the stir + Of human life, and open to the breath + And to the eye of Heaven." + +The high hill is now enclosed and cultivated; and a clump of larches has +been planted within the circle, for the purpose of protecting an oak in +the centre, the owner of the field having wished to rear one there with a +commendable feeling, because that tree was held sacred by the Druids, and +therefore, he supposed, might be appropriately placed there. The whole +plantation, however, has been so miserably storm-stricken that the poor +stunted trees are not even worth the trouble of cutting them down for +fuel, and so they continue to disfigure the spot. In all other respects +this impressive monument of former times is carefully preserved; the soil +within the enclosure is not broken, a path from the road is left, and in +latter times a stepping-stile has been placed to accommodate Lakers with +an easier access than by striding over the gate beside it. + +The spot itself is the most commanding which could be chosen in this part +of the country, without climbing a mountain. Derwentwater and the Vale +of Keswick are not seen from it, only the mountains which enclose them on +the south and west. Lattrigg and the huge side of Skiddaw are on the +north; to the east is the open country towards Penrith expanding from the +Vale of St. John's, and extending for many miles, with Mellfell in the +distance, where it rises alone like a huge tumulus on the right, and +Blencathra on the left, rent into deep ravines. On the south-east is the +range of Helvellyn, from its termination at Wanthwaite Crags to its +loftiest summits, and to Dunmailraise. The lower range of Nathdalefells +lies nearer, in a parallel line with Helvellyn; and the dale itself, with +its little streamlet, immediately below. The heights above Leatheswater, +with the Borrowdale mountains, complete the panorama. + +While I was musing upon the days of the Bards and Druids, and thinking +that Llywarc Hen himself had probably stood within this very circle at a +time when its history was known, and the rites for which it was erected +still in use, I saw a person approaching, and started a little at +perceiving that it was my new acquaintance from the world of spirits. "I +am come," said he, "to join company with you in your walk: you may as +well converse with a ghost as stand dreaming of the dead. I dare say you +have been wishing that these stones could speak and tell their tale, or +that some record were sculptured upon them, though it were as +unintelligible as the hieroglyphics, or as an Ogham inscription." + +"My ghostly friend," I replied, "they tell me something to the purport of +our last discourse. Here upon ground where the Druids have certainly +held their assemblies, and where not improbably, human sacrifices have +been offered up, you will find it difficult to maintain that the +improvement of the world has not been unequivocal, and very great." + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Make the most of your vantage ground! My position +is, that this improvement is not general; that while some parts of the +earth are progressive in civilisation, others have been retrograde; and +that even where improvement appears the greatest, it is partial. For +example; with all the meliorations which have taken place in England +since these stones were set up (and you will not suppose that I who laid +down my life for a religious principle, would undervalue the most +important of all advantages), do you believe that they have extended to +all classes? Look at the question well. Consider your +fellow-countrymen, both in their physical and intellectual relations, and +tell me whether a large portion of the community are in a happier or more +hopeful condition at this time, than their forefathers were when Caesar +set foot upon the island? + +_Montesinos_.--If it be your aim to prove that the savage state is +preferable to the social, I am perhaps the very last person upon whom any +arguments to that end could produce the slightest effect. That notion +never for a moment deluded me: not even in the ignorance and +presumptuousness of youth, when first I perused Rousseau, and was +unwilling to feel that a writer whose passionate eloquence I felt and +admired so truly could be erroneous in any of his opinions. But now, in +the evening of life, when I know upon what foundation my principles rest, +and when the direction of one peculiar course of study has made it +necessary for me to learn everything which books could teach concerning +savage life, the proposition appears to me one of the most untenable that +ever was advanced by a perverse or a paradoxical intellect. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--I advanced no such paradox, and you have answered me +too hastily. The Britons were not savages when the Romans invaded and +improved them. They were already far advanced in the barbarous stage of +society, having the use of metals, domestic cattle, wheeled carriages, +and money, a settled government, and a regular priesthood, who were +connected with their fellow-Druids on the Continent, and who were not +ignorant of letters. Understand me! I admit that improvements of the +utmost value have been made, in the most important concerns: but I deny +that the melioration has been general; and insist, on the contrary, that +a considerable portion of the people are in a state, which, as relates to +their physical condition, is greatly worsened, and, as touching their +intellectual nature, is assuredly not improved. Look, for example, at +the great mass of your populace in town and country--a tremendous +proportion of the whole community! Are their bodily wants better, or +more easily supplied? Are they subject to fewer calamities? Are they +happier in childhood, youth, and manhood, and more comfortably or +carefully provided for in old age, than when the land was unenclosed, and +half covered with woods? With regard to their moral and intellectual +capacity, you well know how little of the light of knowledge and of +revelation has reached them. They are still in darkness, and in the +shadow of death! + +_Montesinos_.--I perceive your drift: and perceive also that when we +understand each other there is likely to be little difference between us. +And I beseech you, do not suppose that I am disputing for the sake of +disputation; with that pernicious habit I was never infected, and I have +seen too many mournful proofs of its perilous consequences. Towards any +person it is injudicious and offensive; towards you it would be +irreverent. Your position is undeniable. Were society to be stationary +at its present point, the bulk of the people would, on the whole, have +lost rather than gained by the alterations which have taken place during +the last thousand years. Yet this must be remembered, that in common +with all ranks they are exempted from those dreadful visitations of war, +pestilence, and famine by which these kingdoms were so frequently +afflicted of old. + +The countenance of my companion changed upon this, to an expression of +judicial severity which struck me with awe. "Exempted from these +visitations!" he exclaimed; "mortal man! creature of a day, what art +thou, that thou shouldst presume upon any such exemption! Is it from a +trust in your own deserts, or a reliance upon the forbearance and long- +suffering of the Almighty, that this vain confidence arises?" + +I was silent. + +"My friend," he resumed, in a milder tone, but with a melancholy manner, +"your own individual health and happiness are scarcely more precarious +than this fancied security. By the mercy of God, twice during the short +space of your life, England has been spared from the horrors of invasion, +which might with ease have been effected during the American war, when +the enemy's fleet swept the Channel, and insulted your very ports, and +which was more than once seriously intended during the late long contest. +The invaders would indeed have found their graves in that soil which they +came to subdue: but before they could have been overcome, the atrocious +threat of Buonaparte's general might have been in great part realised, +that though he could not answer for effecting the conquest of England, he +would engage to destroy its prosperity for a century to come. You have +been spared from that chastisement. You have escaped also from the +imminent danger of peace with a military tyrant, which would inevitably +have led to invasion, when he should have been ready to undertake and +accomplish that great object of his ambition, and you must have been +least prepared and least able to resist him. But if the seeds of civil +war should at this time be quickening among you--if your soil is +everywhere sown with the dragon's teeth, and the fatal crop be at this +hour ready to spring up--the impending evil will be a hundredfold more +terrible than those which have been averted; and you will have cause to +perceive and acknowledge, that the wrath has been suspended only that it +may fall the heavier!" + +"May God avert this also!" I exclaimed. + +"As for famine," he pursued, "that curse will always follow in the train +of war: and even now the public tranquillity of England is fearfully +dependent upon the seasons. And touching pestilence, you fancy +yourselves secure, because the plague has not appeared among you for the +last hundred and fifty years: a portion of time, which long as it may +seem when compared with the brief term of mortal existence, is as nothing +in the physical history of the globe. The importation of that scourge is +as possible now as it was in former times: and were it once imported, do +you suppose it would rage with less violence among the crowded population +of your metropolis, than it did before the fire, or that it would not +reach parts of the country which were never infected in any former +visitation? On the contrary, its ravages would be more general and more +tremendous, for it would inevitably be carried everywhere. Your +provincial cities have doubled and trebled in size; and in London itself, +great part of the population is as much crowded now as it was then, and +the space which is covered with houses is increased at least fourfold. +What if the sweating-sickness, emphatically called the English disease, +were to show itself again? Can any cause be assigned why it is not as +likely to break out in the nineteenth century as in the fifteenth? What +if your manufactures, according to the ominous opinion which your +greatest physiologist has expressed, were to generate for you new +physical plagues, as they have already produced a moral pestilence +unknown to all preceding ages? What if the small-pox, which you vainly +believed to be subdued, should have assumed a new and more formidable +character; and (as there seems no trifling grounds for apprehending) +instead of being protected by vaccination from its danger, you should +ascertain that inoculation itself affords no certain security? +Visitations of this kind are in the order of nature and of providence. +Physically considered, the likelihood of their recurrence becomes every +year more probable than the last; and looking to the moral government of +the world, was there ever a time when the sins of this kingdom called +more cryingly for chastisement?" + +_Montesinos_.--[Greek text]! + +_Sir Thomas More_.--I denounce no judgments. But I am reminding you that +there is as much cause for the prayer in your Litany against plague, +pestilence, and famine, as for that which entreats God to deliver you all +from sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion; from all false doctrine, +heresy, and schism. In this, as in all things, it behoves the Christian +to live in a humble and grateful sense of his continual dependence upon +the Almighty: not to rest in a presumptuous confidence upon the improved +state of human knowledge, or the altered course of natural visitations. + +_Montesinos_.--Oh, how wholesome it is to receive instruction with a +willing and a humble mind! In attending to your discourse I feel myself +in the healthy state of a pupil, when without one hostile or contrarient +prepossession, he listens to a teacher in whom he has entire confidence. +And I feel also how much better it is that the authority of elder and +wiser intellects should pass even for more than it is worth, than that it +should be undervalued as in these days, and set at nought. When any +person boasts that he is-- + + "_Nullias addictus jurare in verba magistri_," + +the reason of that boast may easily be perceived; it is because he +thinks, like Jupiter, that it would be disparaging his own all-wiseness +to swear by anything but himself. But wisdom will as little enter into a +proud or a conceited mind as into a malicious one. In this sense also it +may be said, that he who humbleth himself shall be exalted. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--It is not implicit assent that I require, but +reasonable conviction after calm and sufficient consideration. David was +permitted to choose between the three severest dispensations of God's +displeasure, and he made choice of pestilence as the least dreadful. +Ought a reflecting and religious man to be surprised, if some such +punishment were dispensed to this country, not less in mercy than in +judgment, as the means of averting a more terrible and abiding scourge? +An endemic malady, as destructive as the plague, has naturalised itself +among your American brethren, and in Spain. You have hitherto escaped +it, speaking with reference to secondary causes, merely because it has +not yet been imported. But any season may bring it to your own shores; +or at any hour it may appear among you homebred. + +_Montesinos_.--We should have little reason, then, to boast of our +improvements in the science of medicine; for our practitioners at +Gibraltar found themselves as unable to stop its progress, or mitigate +its symptoms, as the most ignorant empirics in the peninsula. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--You were at one time near enough that pestilence to +feel as if you were within its reach? + +_Montesinos_.--It was in 1800, the year when it first appeared in +Andalusia. That summer I fell in at Cintra with a young German, on the +way from his own country to his brothers at Cadiz, where they were +established as merchants. Many days had not elapsed after his arrival in +that city when a ship which was consigned to their firm brought with it +the infection; and the first news which reached us of our poor +acquaintance was that the yellow fever had broken out in his brother's +house, and that he, they, and the greater part of the household, were +dead. There was every reason to fear that the pestilence would extend +into Portugal, both governments being, as usual, slow in providing any +measures of precaution, and those measures being nugatory when taken. I +was at Faro in the ensuing spring, at the house of Mr. Lempriere, the +British Consul. Inquiring of him upon the subject, the old man lifted up +his hands, and replied in a passionate manner, which I shall never +forget, "Oh, sir, we escaped by the mercy of God; only by the mercy of +God!" The governor of Algarve, even when the danger was known and +acknowledged, would not venture to prohibit the communication with Spain +till he received orders from Lisbon; and then the prohibition was so +enforced as to be useless. The crew of a boat from the infected province +were seized and marched through the country to Tavira: they were then +sent to perform quarantine upon a little insulated ground, and the guards +who were set over them, lived with them, and were regularly relieved. +When such were the precautionary measures, well indeed might it be said, +that Portugal escaped only by the mercy of God! I have often reflected +upon the little effect which this imminent danger appeared to produce +upon those persons with whom I associated. The young, with that hilarity +which belongs to thoughtless youth, used to converse about the places +whither they should retire, and the course of life and expedients to +which they should be driven in case it were necessary for them to fly +from Lisbon. A few elder and more considerate persons said little upon +the subject, but that little denoted a deep sense of the danger, and more +anxiety than they thought proper to express. The great majority seemed +to be altogether unconcerned; neither their business nor their amusements +were interrupted; they feasted, they danced, they met at the card-table +as usual; and the plague (for so it was called at that time, before its +nature was clearly understood) was as regular a topic of conversation as +the news brought by the last packet. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--And what was your own state of mind? + +_Montesinos_.--Very much what it has long been with regard to the moral +pestilence of this unhappy age, and the condition of this country more +especially. I saw the danger in its whole extent and relied on the mercy +of God. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--In all cases that is the surest reliance: but when +human means are available, it becomes a Mahommedan rather than a +Christian to rely upon Providence or fate alone, and make no effort for +its own preservation. Individuals never fall into this error among you, +drink as deeply as they may of fatalism; that narcotic will sometimes +paralyse the moral sense, but it leaves the faculty of worldly prudence +unimpaired. Far otherwise is it with your government: for such are the +notions of liberty in England, that evils of every kind--physical, moral, +and political, are allowed their free range. As relates to infectious +diseases, for example, this kingdom is now in a less civilised state than +it was in my days, three centuries ago, when the leper was separated from +general society; and when, although the science of medicine was at once +barbarous and fantastical, the existence of pesthouses showed at least +some approaches towards a medical police. + +_Montesinos_.--They order these things better in Utopia. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--In this, as well as in some other points upon which +we shall touch hereafter, the difference between you and the Utopians is +as great as between the existing generation and the race by whom yonder +circle was set up. With regard to diseases and remedies in general, the +real state of the case may be consolatory, but it is not comfortable. +Great and certain progress has been made in chirurgery; and if the +improvements in the other branch of medical science have not been so +certain and so great, it is because the physician works in the dark, and +has to deal with what is hidden and mysterious. But the evils for which +these sciences are the palliatives have increased in a proportion that +heavily overweighs the benefit of improved therapeutics. For as the +intercourse between nations has become greater, the evils of one have +been communicated to another. Pigs, Spanish dollars, and Norway rats, +are not the only commodities and incommodities which have performed the +circumnavigation, and are to be found wherever European ships have +touched. Diseases also find their way from one part of the inhabited +globe to another, wherever it is possible for them to exist. The most +formidable endemic or contagious maladies in your nosology are not +indigenous; and as far as regards health therefore, the ancient Britons, +with no other remedies than their fields and woods afforded them, and no +other medical practitioners than their deceitful priests, were in a +better condition than their descendants, with all the instruction which +is derived from Sydenham and Heberden, and Hunter, and with all the +powers which chemistry has put into their hands. + +_Montesinos_.--You have well said that there is nothing comfortable in +this view of the case: but what is there consolatory in it? + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The consolation is upon your principle of expectant +hope. Whenever improved morals, wiser habits, more practical religion, +and more efficient institutions shall have diminished the moral and +material causes of disease, a thoroughly scientific practice, the result +of long experience and accumulated observations, will then exist, to +remedy all that is within the power of human art, and to alleviate what +is irremediable. To existing individuals this consolation is something +like the satisfaction you might feel in learning that a fine estate was +entailed upon your family at the expiration of a lease of ninety-nine +years from the present time. But I had forgotten to whom I am talking. A +poet always looks onward to some such distant inheritance. His hopes are +usually _in nubibus_, and his expectations in the _paulo post futurum_ +tense. + +_Montesinos_.--His state is the more gracious then because his enjoyment +is always to come. It is however a real satisfaction to me that there is +some sunshine in your prospect. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--More in mine than in yours, because I command a wider +horizon: but I see also the storms which are blackening, and may close +over the sky. Our discourse began concerning that portion of the +community who form the base of the pyramid; we have unawares taken a more +general view, but it has not led us out of the way. Returning to the +most numerous class of society, it is apparent that in the particular +point of which we have been conversing, their condition is greatly +worsened: they remain liable to the same indigenous diseases as their +forefathers, and are exposed moreover to all which have been imported. +Nor will the estimate of their condition be improved upon farther +inquiry. They are worse fed than when they were hunters, fishers, and +herdsmen; their clothing and habitations are little better, and, in +comparison with those of the higher classes, immeasurably worse. Except +in the immediate vicinity of the collieries, they suffer more from cold +than when the woods and turbaries were open. They are less religious +than in the days of the Romish faith; and if we consider them in relation +to their immediate superiors, we shall find reason to confess that the +independence which has been gained since the total decay of the feudal +system, has been dearly purchased by the loss of kindly feelings and +ennobling attachments. They are less contented, and in no respect more +happy--that look implies hesitation of judgment, and an unwillingness to +be convinced. Consider the point; go to your books and your thoughts; +and when next we meet, you will feel little inclination to dispute the +irrefragable statement. + + + + +COLLOQUY IV.--FEUDAL SLAVERY.--GROWTH OF PAUPERISM. + + +The last conversation had left a weight upon me, which was not lessened +when I contemplated the question in solitude. I called to mind the +melancholy view which Young has taken of the world in his unhappy poem: + + "A part how small of the terraqueous globe + Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste, + Rocks, deserts, frozen seas and burning sands, + Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death. + Such is earth's melancholy map! But, far + More sad, this earth is a true map of man." + +Sad as this representation is, I could not but acknowledge that the moral +and intellectual view is not more consolatory than the poet felt it to +be; and it was a less sorrowful consideration to think how large a +portion of the habitable earth is possessed by savages, or by nations +whom inhuman despotisms and monstrous superstitions have degraded in some +respects below the savage state, than to observe how small a part of what +is called the civilised world is truly civilised; and in the most +civilised parts to how small a portion of the inhabitants the real +blessings of civilisation are confined. In this mood how heartily should +I have accorded with Owen of Lanark if I could have agreed with that +happiest and most beneficent and most practical of all enthusiasts as +well concerning the remedy as the disease! + +"Well, Montesinos," said the spirit, when he visited me next, "have you +recollected or found any solid arguments for maintaining that the +labouring classes, who form the great bulk of the population, are in a +happier condition, physical, moral, or intellectual, in these times, than +they were in mine?" + +_Montesinos_.--Perhaps, Sir Thomas, their condition was better precisely +during your age than it ever has been either before or since. The feudal +system had well-nigh lost all its inhuman parts, and the worse inhumanity +of the commercial system had not yet shown itself. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--It was, indeed, a most important age in English +history, and, till the Reformation so fearfully disturbed it, in many +respects a happy and an enviable one. But the process was then beginning +which is not yet completed. As the feudal system relaxed and tended to +dissolution the condition of the multitude was changed. Let us trace it +from earlier times! In what state do you suppose the people of this +island to have been when they were invaded by the Romans? + +_Montesinos_.--Something worse than the Greeks of the Homeric age: +something better than the Sandwich or Tonga islanders when they were +visited by Captain Cook. Inferior to the former in arts, in polity, and, +above all, in their domestic institutions; superior to the latter as +having the use of cattle and being under a superstition in which, amid +many abominations, some patriarchal truths were preserved. Less +fortunate in physical circumstances than either, because of the climate. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--A viler state of morals than their polyandrian system +must have produced can scarcely be imagined; and the ferocity of their +manners, little as is otherwise known of them, is sufficiently shown by +their scythed war-chariots, and the fact that in the open country the +path from one town to another was by a covered way. But in what +condition were the labouring classes? + +_Montesinos_.--In slavery, I suppose. When the Romans first attacked the +island it was believed at Rome that slaves were the only booty which +Britain could afford; and slaves, no doubt, must have been the staple +commodity for which its ports were visited. Different tribes had at +different times established themselves here by conquest, and wherever +settlements are thus made slavery is the natural consequence. It was a +part of the Roman economy; and when the Saxons carved out their kingdoms +with the sword, the slaves, and their masters too, if any survived, +became the property of the new lords of the land, like the cattle who +pastured upon it. It is not likely even that the Saxons should have +brought artificers of any kind with them, smiths perhaps alone excepted. +Trades of every description must have been practised by the slaves whom +they found. The same sort of transfer ensued upon the Norman conquest. +After that event there could have been no fresh supply of domestic +slaves, unless they were imported from Ireland, as well as carried +thither for sale. That trade did not continue long. Emancipation was +promoted by the clergy, and slavery was exchanged for vassalage, which in +like manner gradually disappeared as the condition of the people +improved. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--You are hurrying too fast to that conclusion. +Hitherto more has been lost than gained in morals by the transition; and +you will not maintain that anything which is morally injurious can be +politically advantageous. Vassalage I know is a word which bears no +favourable acceptation in this liberal age; and slavery is in worse +repute. But we must remember that slavery implies a very different state +in different ages of the world, and in different stages of society. + +_Montesinos_.--In many parts of the East, and of the Mohammedan world, as +in the patriarchal times, it is scarcely an evil. Among savages it is as +little so. In a luxurious state more vices are called into action, the +condition of the slave depends more upon the temper of the owner, and the +evil then predominates. But slavery is nowhere so bad as in commercial +colonies, where the desire of gain hardens the heart--the basest +appetites have free scope there; and the worst passions are under little +restraint from law, less from religion, and none from public opinion. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--You have omitted in this enumeration that kind of +slavery which existed in England. + +_Montesinos_.--The slavery of the feudal ages may perhaps be classed +midway between the best description of that state and the worst. I +suppose it to have been less humane than it generally is in Turkey, less +severe than it generally was in Rome and Greece. In too many respects +the slaves were at the mercy of their lords. They might be put in irons +and punished with stripes; they were sometimes branded; and there is +proof that it has been the custom to yoke them in teams like cattle. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Are you, then, Montesinos, so much the dupe of words +as to account among their grievances a mere practice of convenience? + +_Montesinos_.--The reproof was merited. But I was about to say that +there is no reason to think their treatment was generally rigorous. We +do not hear of any such office among them as that of the Roman _Lorarii_, +whose office appears by the dramatists to have been no sinecure. And it +is certain that they possessed in the laws, in the religion, and probably +in the manners of the country, a greater degree of protection than +existed to alleviate the lot of the Grecian and Roman slaves. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The practical difference between the condition of the +feudal slave, and of the labouring husbandman who succeeded to the +business of his station, was mainly this, that the former had neither the +feeling nor the insecurity of independence. He served one master as long +as he lived; and being at all times sure of the same sufficient +subsistence, if he belonged to the estate like the cattle, and was +accounted with them as part of the live stock, he resembled them also in +the exemption which he enjoyed from all cares concerning his own +maintenance and that of his family. The feudal slaves, indeed, were +subject to none of those vicissitudes which brought so many of the +proudest and most powerful barons to a disastrous end. They had nothing +to lose, and they had liberty to hope for; frequently as the reward of +their own faithful services, and not seldom from the piety or kindness of +their lords. This was a steady hope depending so little upon contingency +that it excited no disquietude or restlessness. They were therefore in +general satisfied with the lot to which they were born, as the +Greenlander is with his climate, the Bedouin with his deserts, and the +Hottentot and the Calmuck with their filthy and odious customs; and going +on in their regular and unvaried course of duty generation after +generation, they were content. + +_Montesinos_.--"Fish, fish, are you in your duty?" said the young lady in +the Arabian tales, who came out of the kitchen wall clad in flowered +satin, and with a rod in her hand. The fish lifted up their heads and +replied, "Yes, yes; if you reckon, we reckon; if you pay your debts we +pay ours; if you fly we overcome, and are content." The fish who were +thus content, and in their duty, had been gutted, and were in the frying- +pan. I do not seek, however, to escape from the force of your argument +by catching at the words. On the other hand, I am sure it is not your +intention to represent slavery otherwise than as an evil, under any +modification. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--That which is a great evil in itself become +relatively a good when it prevents or removes a greater evil; for +instance, loss of a limb when life is preserved by the sacrifice, or the +acute pain of a remedy by which a chronic disease is cured. Such was +slavery in its origin: a commutation for death, gladly accepted as mercy +under the arm of a conqueror in battle, or as the mitigation of a +judicial sentence. But it led immediately to nefarious abuses; and the +earliest records which tell us of its existence show us also that men +were kidnapped for sale. With the principles of Christianity, the +principles of religious philosophy--the only true policy, to which +mankind must come at last, by which alone all the remediable ills of +humanity are to be remedied, and for which you are taught to pray when +you entreat that your Father's kingdom may come--with those principles +slavery is inconsistent, and therefore not to be tolerated, even in +speculation. + +_Montesinos_.--Yet its fitness, as a commutation for other punishments, +is admitted by Michaelis (though he decides against it) to be one of the +most difficult questions connected with the existing state of society. +And in the age of the Revolution, one of the sturdiest Scotch republicans +proposed the reestablishment of slavery, as the best or only means for +correcting the vices and removing the miseries of the poor. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The proposal of such a remedy must be admitted as +full proof of the malignity of the disease. And in further excuse of +Andrew Fletcher, it should be remembered that he belonged to a country +where many of the feudal virtues (as well as most of the feudal vices) +were at that time in full vigour. But let us return to our historical +view of the subject. In feudal servitude there was no motive for +cruelty, scarcely any for oppression. There were no needy slave-owners, +as there are in commercial colonies; and though slaves might sometimes +suffer from a wicked, or even a passionate master, there is no reason to +believe that they were habitually over-tasked, or subjected to systematic +ill-treatment; for that, indeed, can only arise from avarice, and avarice +is not the vice of feudal times. Still, however, slavery is intolerable +upon Christian principles; and to the influence of those principles it +yielded here in England. It had ceased, so as even to be forgotten in my +youth; and villenage was advancing fast towards its natural extinction. +The courts decided that a tenant having a lease could not be a villein +during its term, for if his labour were at the command of another how +could he undertake to pay rent? Landholders had thus to choose between +rent and villenage, and scarcely wanted the Field of the Cloth of Gold at +Ardres to show them which they stood most in need of. And as villenage +disappeared, free labourers of various descriptions multiplied; of whom +the more industrious and fortunate rose in society, and became tradesmen +and merchants; the unlucky and the reprobate became vagabonds. + +_Montesinos_.--The latter class appears to have been far more numerous in +your age than in mine. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Waiving for the present the question whether they +really were so, they appear to have been so partly in consequence of the +desperate wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, partly because +of the great change in society which succeeded to that contest. During +those wars both parties exerted themselves to bring into the field all +the force they could muster. Villeins in great numbers were then +emancipated, when they were embodied in arms; and great numbers +emancipated themselves, flying to London and other cities for protection +from the immediate evils of war, or taking advantage of the frequent +changes of property, and the precarious tenure by which it was held, to +exchange their own servile condition for a station of freedom with all +its hopes and chances. This took place to a great extent, and the +probabilities of success were greatly in their favour; for whatever may +have been practised in earlier and ruder times, in that age they +certainly were not branded like cattle, according to the usage of your +sugar islands. + +_Montesinos_.--A planter, who notwithstanding this curious specimen of +his taste and sensibility, was a man of humane studies and humane +feelings, describes the refined and elegant manner in which the operation +is performed, by way of mitigating the indignation which such a usage +ought to excite. He assures us that the stamp is not a branding iron, +but a silver instrument; and that it is heated not in the fire, but over +the flame of spirits of wine. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Excellent planter! worthy to have been flogged at a +gilt whipping-post with a scourge of gold thread! The practice of +marking slaves had fallen into disuse; probably it was only used at first +with captives, or with those who were newly-purchased from a distant +country, never with those born upon the soil. And there was no means of +raising a hue and cry after a runaway slave so effectually as is done by +your colonial gazettes, the only productions of the British colonial +press. + +_Montesinos_.--Include, I pray you, in the former part of your censure +the journals of the United States, the land of democracy and equal +rights. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--How much more honourable was the tendency of our +laws, and of national feeling in those days, which you perhaps as well as +your trans-Atlantic brethren have been accustomed to think barbarous, +when compared with this your own age of reason and liberality! The +master who killed his slave was as liable to punishment as if he had +killed a freeman. Instead of impeding enfranchisement, the laws, as well +as the public feeling, encouraged it. If a villein who had fled from his +lord remained a year and a day unclaimed upon the King's demesne lands, +or in any privileged town, he became free. All doubtful cases were +decided _in favorem libertatis_. Even the established maxim in law, +_partus sequitur ventrem_, was set aside in favour of liberty; the child +of a neif was free if the father were a freeman, or if it were +illegitimate, in which case it was settled that the free condition of the +father should always be presumed. + +_Montesinos_.--Such a principle must surely have tended to increase the +illegitimate population. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--That inference is drawn from the morals of your own +age, and the pernicious effect of your poor laws as they are now +thoroughly understood and deliberately acted upon by a race who are +thinking always of their imaginary rights, and never of their duties. You +forget the efficacy of ecclesiastical discipline; and that the old Church +was more vigilant, and therefore more efficient than that which rose upon +its ruins. And you suppose that personal liberty was more valued by +persons in a state of servitude than was actually the case. For if in +earlier ages emancipation was an act of piety and benevolence, +afterwards, when the great crisis of society came on, it proceeded more +frequently from avarice than from any worthier motive; and the slave who +was set free sometimes found himself much in the situation of a household +dog that is turned into the streets. + +_Montesinos_.--Are you alluding to the progress of inclosures, which from +the accession of the Tudors to the age of the Stuarts were complained of +as the great and crying evil of the times? + +_Sir Thomas More_.--That process originated as soon as rents began to be +of more importance than personal services, and money more convenient to +the landlords than payments in kind. + +_Montesinos_.--And this I suppose began to be the case under Edward III. +The splendour of his court, and the foreign wars in which he was engaged, +must have made money more necessary to the knights and nobles than it had +ever been before, except during the Crusades. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The wars of York and Lancaster retarded the process; +but immediately after the termination of that fierce struggle it was +accelerated by the rapid growth of commerce, and by the great influx of +wealth from the new found world. Under a settled and strong and vigilant +government men became of less value as vassals and retainers, because the +boldest barons no longer dared contemplate the possibility of trying +their strength against the crown, or attempting to disturb the +succession. Four-legged animals therefore were wanted for slaughter more +than two-legged ones; and moreover, sheep could be shorn, whereas the art +of fleecing the tenantry was in its infancy, and could not always be +practised with the same certain success. A trading spirit thus gradually +superseded the rude but kindlier principle of the feudal system: profit +and loss became the rule of conduct; in came calculation, and out went +feeling. + +_Montesinos_.--I remember your description (for indeed who can forget +it?) how sheep, more destructive than the Dragon of Wantley in those +days, began to devour men and fields and houses. The same process is at +this day going on in the Highlands, though under different circumstances; +some which palliate the evil, and some which aggravate the injustice. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The real nature of the evil was misunderstood by my +contemporaries, and for some generations afterward. A decrease of +population was the effect complained of, whereas the greater grievance +was that a different and worse population was produced. + +_Montesinos_.--I comprehend you. The same effect followed which has been +caused in these days by the extinction of small farms. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The same in kind, but greater in degree; or at least +if not greater, or so general in extent, it was more directly felt. When +that ruinous fashion prevailed in your age there were many resources for +the class of people who were thus thrown out of their natural and proper +place in the social system. Your fleets and armies at that time required +as many hands as could be supplied; and women and children were consumed +with proportionate rapidity by your manufactures. + +Moreover, there was the wholesome drain of emigration open + + "_Facta est immensi copia mundi_." + +But under the Tudors there existed no such means for disposing of the +ejected population, and except the few who could obtain places as +domestic servants, or employment as labourers and handicraftsmen +(classes, it must be remembered, for all which the employ was diminished +by the very ejectment in question), they who were turned adrift soon +found themselves houseless and hopeless, and were reduced to prey upon +that society which had so unwisely as well as inhumanly discarded them. + +_Montesinos_.--Thus it is that men collectively as well as individually +create for themselves so large a part of the evils they endure. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Enforce upon your contemporaries that truth which is +as important in politics as in ethics, and you will not have lived in +vain! Scatter that seed upon the waters, and doubt not of the harvest! +Vindicate always the system of nature, in other and sounder words, the +ways of God, while you point out with all faithfulness + + "what ills + Remediable and yet unremedied + Afflict man's wretched race," + +and the approbation of your own heart will be sufficient reward on earth. + +_Montesinos_.--The will has not been wanting. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--There are cases in which the will carries with it the +power; and this is of them. No man was ever yet deeply convinced of any +momentous truth without feeling in himself the power as well as the +desire of communicating it. + +_Montesinos_.--True, Sir Thomas; but the perilous abuse of that feeling +by enthusiasts and fanatics leads to an error in the opposite extreme. + +We sacrifice too much to prudence; and, in fear of incurring the danger +or the reproach of enthusiasm, too often we stifle the holiest impulses +of the understanding and the heart. + + "Our doubts are traitors, + And make us lose the good we oft might win, + By fearing to attempt." + +--But I pray you, resume your discourse. The monasteries were probably +the chief palliatives of this great evil while they existed. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Their power of palliating it was not great, for the +expenditure of those establishments kept a just pace with their revenues. +They accumulated no treasures, and never were any incomes more +beneficially employed. The great abbeys vied with each other in +architectural magnificence, in this more especially, but likewise in +every branch of liberal expenditure, giving employment to great numbers, +which was better than giving unearned food. They provided, as it became +them, for the old and helpless also. That they prevented the necessity +of raising rates for the poor by the copious alms which they distributed, +and by indiscriminately feeding the indigent, has been inferred, because +those rates became necessary immediately after the suppression of the +religious houses. But this is one of those hasty inferences which have +no other foundation than a mere coincidence of time in the supposed cause +and effect. + +_Montesinos_.--For which you have furnished a proverbial illustration in +your excellent story of Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--That illustration would have been buried in the dust +if it had not been repeated by Hugh Latimer at St. Paul's Cross. It was +the only thing in my writings by which he profited. If he had learnt +more from them he might have died in his bed, with less satisfaction to +himself and less honour from posterity. We went different ways, but we +came to the same end, and met where we had little expectation of meeting. +I must do him the justice to say that when he forwarded the work of +destruction it was with the hope and intention of employing the materials +in a better edifice; and that no man opposed the sacrilegious temper of +the age more bravely. The monasteries, in the dissolution of which he +rejoiced as much as he regretted the infamous disposal of their spoils, +delayed the growth of pauperism, by the corrodies with which they were +charged; the effect of these reservations on the part of the founders and +benefactors being, that a comfortable and respectable support was +provided for those who grew old in the service of their respective +families; and there existed no great family, and perhaps no wealthy one, +which had not entitled itself thus to dispose of some of its aged +dependants. And the extent of the depopulating system was limited while +those houses endured: because though some of the great abbots were not +less rapacious than the lay lords, and more criminal, the heads in +general could not be led, like the nobles, into a prodigal expenditure, +the burthen of which fell always upon the tenants; and rents in kind were +to them more convenient than in money, their whole economy being founded +upon that system, and adapted to it. + +_Montesinos_.--Both facts and arguments were indeed strongly on your side +when you wrote against the supplication of beggars; but the form in which +you embodied them gave the adversary an advantage, for it was connected +with one of the greatest abuses and absurdities of the Romish Church. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Montesinos, I allow you to call it an abuse; but if +you think any of the abuses of that church were in their origin so +unreasonable as to deserve the appellation of absurdities, you must have +studied its history with less consideration and a less equitable spirit +than I have given you credit for. Both Master Fish and I had each our +prejudices and errors. We were both sincere; Master Fish would +undoubtedly have gone to the stake in defence of his opinions as +cheerfully as I laid down my neck upon the block; like his namesake in +the tale which you have quoted, he too when in Nix's frying-pan would +have said he was in his duty, and content. But withal he cannot be +called an honest man, unless in that sort of liberal signification by +which, in these days, good words are so detorted from their original and +genuine meaning as to express precisely the reverse of what was formerly +intended by them. More gross exaggerations and more rascally +mis-statements could hardly be made by one of your own thorough-paced +revolutionists than those upon which the whole argument of his +supplication is built. + +_Montesinos_.--If he had fallen into your hands you would have made a +stock-fish of him. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Perhaps so. I had not then I learnt that laying men +by the heels is not the best way of curing them of an error in the head. +But the King protected him. Henry had too much sagacity not to perceive +the consequences which such a book was likely to produce, and he said, +after perusing it, "If a man should pull down an old stone wall, and +begin at the bottom, the upper part thereof might chance to fall upon his +head." But he saw also that it tended to serve his immediate purpose. + +_Montesinos_.--I marvel that good old John Fox, upright, downright man as +he was, should have inserted in his "Acts and Monuments" a libel like +this, which contains no arguments except such as were adapted to +ignorance, cupidity, and malice. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Old John Fox ought to have known that, however +advantageous the dissolution of the monastic houses might be to the views +of the Reformers, it was every way injurious to the labouring classes. As +far as they were concerned, the transfer of property was always to worse +hands. The tenantry were deprived of their best landlords, artificers of +their best employers, the poor and miserable of their best and surest +friends. There would have been no insurrections in behalf of the old +religion if the zeal of the peasantry had not been inflamed by a sore +feeling of the injury which they suffered in the change. A great +increase of the vagabond population was the direct and immediate +consequence. They who were ejected from their tenements or deprived of +their accustomed employment were turned loose upon society; and the +greater number, of course and of necessity, ran wild. + +_Montesinos_.--Wild, indeed! The old chroniclers give a dreadful picture +of their numbers and of their wickedness, which called forth and deserved +the utmost severity of the law. They lived like savages in the woods and +wastes, committing the most atrocious actions, stealing children, and +burning, breaking, or otherwise disfiguring their limbs for the purpose +of exciting compassion, and obtaining alms by this most flagitious of all +imaginable crimes. Surely we have nothing so bad as this. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The crime of stealing children for such purposes is +rendered exceedingly difficult by the ease and rapidity with which a hue +and cry can now be raised throughout the land, and the eagerness and +detestation with which the criminal would be pursued; still, however, it +is sometimes practised. In other respects the professional beggars of +the nineteenth century are not a whit better than their predecessors of +the sixteenth; and your gipsies and travelling potters, who, gipsy-like, +pitch their tents upon the common, or by the wayside, retain with as much +fidelity the manners and morals of the old vagabonds as they do the +_cant_, or pedlar's French, which this class of people are said to have +invented in the age whereof we are now speaking. + +_Montesinos_.--But the number of our vagabonds has greatly diminished. In +your Henry's reign it is affirmed that no fewer than 72,000 criminals +were hanged; you have yourself described them as strung up by scores upon +a gibbet all over the country. Even in the golden days of good Queen +Bess the executions were from three to four hundred annually. A large +allowance must be made for the increased humanity of the nation, and the +humaner temper with which the laws are administered: but the new crimes +which increased wealth and a system of credit on one hand, and increased +ingenuity, and new means of mischief on the part of the depredators have +produced, must also be taken into the account. And the result will show +a diminution in the number of those who prey upon society either by open +war or secret wiles. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Add your paupers to the list, and you will then have +added to it not less than an eighth of your whole population. But +looking at the depredators alone, perhaps it will be found that the evil +is at this time more widely extended, more intimately connected with the +constitution of society, like a chronic and organic disease, and +therefore more difficult of cure. Like other vermin they are numerous in +proportion as they find shelter; and for this species of noxious beast +large towns and manufacturing districts afford better cover than the +forest or the waste. The fault lies in your institutions, which in the +time of the Saxons were better adapted to maintain security and order +than they are now. No man in those days could prey upon society unless +he were at war with it as an outlaw, a proclaimed and open enemy. Rude +as the laws were, the purposes of law had not then been perverted: it had +not been made a craft; it served to deter men from committing crimes, or +to punish them for the commission; never to shield notorious, +acknowledged, impudent guilt from condign punishment. And in the fabric +of society, imperfect as it was, the outline and rudiments of what it +ought to be were distinctly marked in some main parts, where they are now +well-nigh utterly effaced. Every person had his place. There was a +system of superintendence everywhere, civil as well as religious. They +who were born in villenage were born to an inheritance of labour, but not +of inevitable depravity and wretchedness. If one class were regarded in +some respects as cattle they were at least taken care of; they were +trained, fed, sheltered and protected; and there was an eye upon them +when they strayed. None were wild, unless they ran wild wilfully, and in +defiance of control. None were beneath the notice of the priest, nor +placed out of the possible reach of his instruction and his care. But +how large a part of your population are like the dogs at Lisbon and +Constantinople, unowned, unbroken to any useful purpose, subsisting by +chance or by prey, living in filth, mischief, and wretchedness, a +nuisance to the community while they live, and dying miserably at last! +This evil had its beginning in my days; it is now approaching fast to its +consummation. + + + + +COLLOQUY V.--DECAY OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.--EDWARD VI.--ALFRED. + + +I had retired to my library as usual after dinner, and while I was +wishing for the appearance of my ghostly visitor he became visible. +"Behold me to your wish!" said he. "Thank you," I replied, "for those +precious words." + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Wherefore precious? + +_Montesinos_.--Because they show that spirits who are in bliss perceive +our thoughts;--that that communion with the departed for which the heart +yearns in its moods of intensest feeling is in reality attained when it +is desired. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--You deduce a large inference from scanty premises. As +if it were not easy to know without any super-human intuition that you +would wish for the arrival of one whose company you like, at a time when +you were expecting it. + +_Montesinos_.--And is this all? + +_Sir Thomas More_.--All that the words necessarily imply. For the rest, +_crede quod habeas et habes_, according to the scurvy tale which makes my +friend Erasmus a horse-stealer, and fathers Latin rhymes upon him. But +let us take up the thread of our discourse, or, as we used to say in old +times, "begin it again and mend it, for it is neither mass nor matins." + +_Montesinos_.--You were saying that the evil of a vagrant and brutalised +population began in your days, and is approaching to its consummation at +this time. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The decay of the feudal system produced it. When +armies were no longer raised upon that system soldiers were disbanded at +the end of a war, as they are now: that is to say, they were turned +adrift to fare as they could--to work if they could find employment; +otherwise to beg, starve, live upon the alms of their neighbours, or prey +upon a wider community in a manner more congenial to the habits and +temper of their old vocation. In consequence of the gains which were to +be obtained by inclosures and sheep-farming, families were unhoused and +driven loose upon the country. These persons, and they who were +emancipated from villenage, or who had in a more summary manner +emancipated themselves, multiplied in poverty and wretchedness. Lastly, +owing to the fashion for large households of retainers, great numbers of +men were trained up in an idle and dissolute way of life, liable at any +time to be cast off when age or accident invalided them, or when the +master of the family died; and then if not ashamed to beg, too lewd to +work, and ready for any kind of mischief. Owing to these co-operating +causes, a huge population of outcasts was produced, numerous enough +seriously to infest society, yet not so large as to threaten its +subversion. + +_Montesinos_.--A derangement of the existing system produced them then; +they are a constituent part of the system now. With you they were, as +you have called them, outcasts: with us, to borrow an illustration from +foreign institutions, they have become a caste. But during two centuries +the evil appears to have decreased. Why was this? + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Because it was perceived to be an evil, and could +never at any time be mistaken for a healthful symptom. And because +circumstances tended to suspend its progress. The habits of these +unhappy persons being at first wholly predatory, the laws proclaimed a +sort of crusade against them, and great and inhuman riddance was made by +the executioner. Foreign service opened a drain in the succeeding +reigns: many also were drawn off by the spirit of maritime adventure, +preferring the high seas to the high way, as a safer course of +plundering. Then came an age of civil war, with its large demand for +human life. Meanwhile as the old arrangements of society crumbled and +decayed new ones were formed. The ancient fabric was repaired in some +parts and modernised in others. And from the time of the Restoration the +people supposed their institutions to be stable because after long and +violent convulsions they found themselves at rest, and the transition +which was then going on was slow, silent, and unperceived. The process +of converting slaves and villeins into servants and free peasantry had +ended; that of raising a manufacturing populace and converting peasantry +into poor was but begun; and it proceeded slowly for a full hundred +years. + +_Montesinos_.--Those hundred years were the happiest which England has +ever known. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Perhaps so: [Greek text]. + +_Montesinos_.--With the exception of the efforts which were made for +restoring the exiled family of the Stuarts they were years of quiet +uniform prosperity and advancement. The morals of the country recovered +from the contagion which Charles II. imported from France, and for which +Puritanism had prepared the people. Visitations of pestilence were +suspended. Sectarians enjoyed full toleration, and were contented. The +Church proved itself worthy of the victory which it had obtained. The +Constitution, after one great but short struggle, was well balanced and +defined; and if the progress of art, science, and literature was not +brilliant, it was steady, and the way for a brighter career was prepared. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The way was prepared meantime for evil as well as for +good. You were retrograde in sound policy, sound philosophy and sound +learning. Our business at present is wholly with the first. Because +your policy, defective as it was at the best, had been retrograde, +discoveries in physics, and advances in mechanical science which would +have produced nothing but good in Utopia, became as injurious to the weal +of the nation as they were instrumental to its wealth. But such had your +system imperceptibly become, and such were your statesmen, that the +wealth of nations was considered as the sole measure of their prosperity. + +_Montesinos_.--In feudal ages the object of those monarchs who had any +determinate object in view was either to extend their dominions by +conquest from their neighbours, or to increase their authority at home by +breaking the power of a turbulent nobility. In commercial ages the great +and sole object of government, when not engaged in war, was to augment +its revenues, for the purpose of supporting the charges which former wars +had induced, or which the apprehension of fresh ones rendered necessary. +And thus it has been, that of the two main ends of government, which are +the security of the subjects and the improvement of the nation, the +latter has never been seriously attempted, scarcely indeed taken into +consideration; and the former imperfectly attained. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Fail not, however, I entreat you, to bear in mind +that this has not been the fault of your rulers at any time. It has been +their misfortune--an original sin in the constitution of the society +wherein they were born. Circumstances which they did not make and could +not control have impelled them onward in ways which neither for +themselves nor the nation were ways of pleasantness and peace. + +_Montesinos_.--There is one beautiful exception--Edward VI. + + "That blessed Prince whose saintly name might move + The understanding heart to tears of reverent love." + +He would have struck into the right course. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--You have a Catholic feeling concerning saints, +Montesinos, though you look for them in the Protestant calendar. Edward +deserves to be remembered with that feeling. But had his life been +prolonged to the full age of man it would not have been in his power to +remedy the evil which had been done in his father's reign and during his +own minority. To have effected that would have required a strength and +obduracy of character incompatible with his meek and innocent nature. In +intellect and attainments he kept pace with his age, a more stirring and +intellectual one than any which had gone before it: but in the wisdom of +the heart he was far beyond that age, or indeed any that has succeeded +it. It cannot be said of him as of Henry of Windsor, that he was fitter +for a cloister than a throne, but he was fitter for a heavenly crown than +a terrestrial one. This country was not worthy of him!--scarcely this +earth! + +_Montesinos_.--There is a homely verse common in village churchyards, the +truth of which has been felt by many a heart, as some consolation in its +keenest afflictions:-- + + "God calls them first whom He loves best." + +But surely no prince ever more sedulously employed himself to learn his +office. His views in some respects were not in accord with the more +enlarged principles of trade, which experience has taught us. But on the +other hand he judged rightly what "the medicines were by which the sores +of the commonwealth might be healed." His prescriptions are as +applicable now as they were then, and in most points as needful: they +were "good education, good example, good laws, and the just execution of +those laws: punishing the vagabond and idle, encouraging the good, +ordering well the customers, and engendering friendship in all parts of +the commonwealth." In these, and more especially in the first of these, +he hoped and purposed to have "shown his device." But it was not +permitted. Nevertheless, he has his reward. It has been more wittily +than charitably said that Hell is paved with good intentions: they have +their place in Heaven also. Evil thoughts and desires are justly +accounted to us for sin; assuredly therefore the sincere goodwill will be +accounted for the deed, when means and opportunity have been wanting to +bring it to effect. There are feelings and purposes as well as +"thoughts, + + --whose very sweetness yieldeth proof + That they were born for immortality." + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Those great legislative measures whereby the +character of a nation is changed and stamped are more practicable in a +barbarous age than in one so far advanced as that of the Tudors; under a +despotic government, than under a free one; and among an ignorant, rather +than inquiring people. Obedience is then either yielded to a power which +is too strong to be resisted, or willingly given to the acknowledged +superiority of some commanding mind, carrying with it, as in such ages it +does, an appearance of divinity. Our incomparable Alfred was a prince in +many respects favourably circumstanced for accomplishing a great work +like this, if his victory over the Danes had been so complete as to have +secured the country against any further evils from that tremendous enemy. +And had England remained free from the scourge of their invasion under +his successors, it is more than likely that his institutions would at +this day have been the groundwork of your polity. + +_Montesinos_.--If you allude to that part of the Saxon law which required +that all the people should be placed under _borh_, I must observe that +even those writers who regard the name of Alfred with the greatest +reverence always condemn this part of his system of government. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--It is a question of degree. The just medium between +too much superintendence and too little: the mystery whereby the free +will of the subject is preserved, while it is directed by the fore +purpose of the State (which is the secret of true polity), is yet to be +found out. But this is certain, that whatever be the origin of +government, its duties are patriarchal, that is to say, parental: +superintendence is one of those duties, and is capable of being exercised +to any extent by delegation and sub-delegation. + +_Montesinos_.--The Madras system, my excellent friend Dr. Bell would +exclaim if he were here. That which, as he says, gives in a school to +the master, the hundred eyes of Argus, and the hundred hands of Briareus, +might in a state give omnipresence to law, and omnipotence to order. This +is indeed the fair ideal of a commonwealth. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--And it was this at which Alfred aimed. His means +were violent, because the age was barbarous. Experience would have shown +wherein they required amendment, and as manners improved the laws would +have been softened with them. But they disappeared altogether during the +years of internal warfare and turbulence which ensued. The feudal order +which was established with the Norman conquest, or at least methodised +after it, was in this part of its scheme less complete: still it had the +same bearing. When that also went to decay, municipal police did not +supply its place. Church discipline then fell into disuse; clerical +influence was lost; and the consequence now is, that in a country where +one part of the community enjoys the highest advantages of civilisation +with which any people upon this globe have ever in any age been favoured, +there is among the lower classes a mass of ignorance, vice, and +wretchedness, which no generous heart can contemplate without grief, and +which, when the other signs of the times are considered, may reasonably +excite alarm for the fabric of society that rests upon such a base. It +resembles the tower in your own vision, its beautiful summit elevated +above all other buildings, the foundations placed upon the sand, and +mouldering. + +_Montesinos_. + + "Rising so high, and built so insecure, + Ill may such perishable work endure!" + +You will not, I hope, come to that conclusion! You will not, I hope, say +with the evil prophet-- + + "The fabric of her power is undermined; + The Earthquake underneath it will have way, + And all that glorious structure, as the wind + Scatters a summer cloud, be swept away!" + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Look at the populace of London, and ask yourself what +security there is that the same blind fury which broke out in your +childhood against the Roman Catholics may not be excited against the +government, in one of those opportunities which accident is perpetually +offering to the desperate villains whom your laws serve rather to protect +than to punish! + +_Montesinos_.--It is an observation of Mercier's, that despotism loves +large cities. The remark was made with reference to Paris only a little +while before the French Revolution! But even if he had looked no farther +than the history of his own country and of that very metropolis, he might +have found sufficient proof that insubordination and anarchy like them +quite as well. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--London is the heart of your commercial system, but it +is also the hot-bed of corruption. It is at once the centre of wealth +and the sink of misery; the seat of intellect and empire: and yet a +wilderness wherein they, who live like wild beasts upon their +fellow-creatures, find prey and cover. Other wild beasts have long since +been extirpated: even in the wilds of Scotland, and of barbarous, or +worse than barbarous Ireland, the wolf is no longer to be found; a degree +of civilisation this to which no other country has attained. Man, and +man alone, is permitted to run wild. You plough your fields and harrow +them; you have your scarifiers to make the ground clean; and if after all +this weeds should spring up, the careful cultivator roots them out by +hand. But ignorance and misery and vice are allowed to grow, and +blossom, and seed, not on the waste alone, but in the very garden and +pleasure-ground of society and civilisation. Old Thomas Tusser's coarse +remedy is the only one which legislators have yet thought of applying. + +_Montesinos_.--What remedy is that? + +_Sir Thomas More_.--'Twas the husbandman's practice in his days and mine: + + "Where plots full of nettles annoyeth the eye, + Sow hempseed among them, and nettles will die." + +_Montesinos_.--The use of hemp indeed has not been spared. But with so +little avail has it been used, or rather to such ill effect, that every +public execution, instead of deterring villains from guilt, serves only +to afford them opportunity for it. Perhaps the very risk of the gallows +operates upon many a man among the inducements to commit the crime +whereto he is tempted; for with your true gamester the excitement seems +to be in proportion to the value of the stake. Yet I hold as little with +the humanity-mongers, who deny the necessity and lawfulness of inflicting +capital punishment in any case, as with the shallow moralists, who +exclaim against vindictive justice, when punishment would cease to be +just, if it were not vindictive. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--And yet the inefficacious punishment of guilt is less +to be deplored and less to be condemned than the total omission of all +means for preventing it. Many thousands in your metropolis rise every +morning without knowing how they are to subsist during the day, or many +of them where they are to lay their heads at night. All men, even the +vicious themselves, know that wickedness leads to misery; but many, even +among the good and the wise, have yet to learn that misery is almost as +often the cause of wickedness. + +_Montesinos_.--There are many who know this, but believe that it is not +in the power of human institutions to prevent this misery. They see the +effect, but regard the causes as inseparable from the condition of human +nature. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--As surely as God is good, so surely there is no such +thing as necessary evil. For by the religious mind sickness and pain and +death are not to be accounted evils. Moral evils are of your own making, +and undoubtedly the greater part of them may be prevented; though it is +only in Paraguay (the most imperfect of Utopias) that any attempt at +prevention has been carried into effect. Deformities of mind, as of +body, will sometimes occur. Some voluntary castaways there will always +be, whom no fostering kindness and no parental care can preserve from +self-destruction; but if any are lost for want of care and culture, there +is a sin of omission in the society to which they belong. + +_Montesinos_.--The practicability of forming such a system of prevention +may easily be allowed, where, as in Paraguay, institutions are +fore-planned, and not, as everywhere in Europe, the slow and varying +growth of circumstances. But to introduce it into an old society, _hic +labor_, _hoc opus est_! The Augean stable might have been kept clean by +ordinary labour, if from the first the filth had been removed every day; +when it had accumulated for years, it became a task for Hercules to +cleanse it. Alas, the age of heroes and demigods is over! + +_Sir Thomas More_.--There lies your error! As no general will ever +defeat an enemy whom he believes to be invincible, so no difficulty can +be overcome by those who fancy themselves unable to overcome it. +Statesmen in this point are, like physicians, afraid, lest their own +reputation should suffer, to try new remedies in cases where the old +routine of practice is known and proved to be ineffectual. Ask yourself +whether the wretched creatures of whom we are discoursing are not +abandoned to their fate without the highest attempt to rescue them from +it? The utmost which your laws profess is, that under their +administration no human being shall perish for want: this is all! To +effect this you draw from the wealthy, the industrious, and the frugal, a +revenue exceeding tenfold the whole expenses of government under Charles +I., and yet even with this enormous expenditure upon the poor it is not +effected. I say nothing of those who perish for want of sufficient food +and necessary comforts, the victims of slow suffering and obscure +disease; nor of those who, having crept to some brick-kiln at night, in +hope of preserving life by its warmth, are found there dead in the +morning. Not a winter passes in which some poor wretch does not actually +die of cold and hunger in the streets of London! With all your public +and private eleemosynary establishments, with your eight million of poor- +rates, with your numerous benevolent associations, and with a spirit of +charity in individuals which keeps pace with the wealth of the richest +nation in the world, these things happen, to the disgrace of the age and +country, and to the opprobrium of humanity, for want of police and order! +You are silent! + +_Montesinos_.--Some shocking examples occurred to me. The one of a poor +Savoyard boy with his monkey starved to death in St. James's Park. The +other, which is, if that be possible, a still more disgraceful case, is +recorded incidentally in Rees's Cyclopaedia under the word "monster." It +is only in a huge overgrown city that such cases could possibly occur. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The extent of a metropolis ought to produce no such +consequences. Whatever be the size of a bee-hive or an ant-hill, the +same perfect order is observed in it. + +_Montesinos_.--That is because bees and ants act under the guidance of +unerring instinct. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--As if instinct were a superior faculty to reason! But +the statesman, as well as the sluggard, may be told to "go to the ant and +the bee, consider their ways and be wise!" It is for reason to observe +and profit by the examples which instinct affords it. + +_Montesinos_.--A country modelled upon Apiarian laws would be a strange +Utopia! the bowstring would be used there as unmercifully as it is in the +seraglio, to say nothing of the summary mode of bringing down the +population to the means of subsistence. But this is straying from the +subject. The consequences of defective order are indeed frightful, +whether we regard the physical or the moral evils which are produced. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--And not less frightful when the political evils are +contemplated. To the dangers of an oppressive and iniquitous order, +such, for example, as exists where negro slavery is established, you are +fully awake in England; but to those of defective order among yourselves, +though they are precisely of the same nature, you are blind. And yet you +have spirits among you who are labouring day and night to stir up a +_bellum servile_, an insurrection like that of Wat Tyler, of the +Jacquerie, and of the peasants in Germany. There is no provocation for +this, as there was in all those dreadful convulsions of society: but +there are misery and ignorance and desperate wickedness to work upon, +which the want of order has produced. Think for a moment what London, +nay, what the whole kingdom would be, were your Catilines to succeed in +exciting as general an insurrection as that which was raised by one +madman in your own childhood! Imagine the infatuated and infuriated +wretches, whom not Spitalfields, St. Giles's, and Pimlico alone, but all +the lanes and alleys and cellars of the metropolis would pour out--a +frightful population, whose multitudes, when gathered together, might +almost exceed belief! The streets of London would appear to teem with +them, like the land of Egypt with its plague of frogs: and the lava +floods from a volcano would be less destructive than the hordes whom your +great cities and manufacturing districts would vomit forth! + +_Montesinos_.--Such an insane rebellion would speedily be crushed. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Perhaps so. But three days were enough for the Fire +of London. And be assured this would not pass away without leaving in +your records a memorial as durable and more dreadful. + +_Montesinos_.--Is such an event to be apprehended? + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Its possibility at least ought always to be borne in +mind. The French Revolution appeared much less possible when the +Assembly of Notables was convoked; and the people of France were much +less prepared for the career of horrors into which they were presently +hurried. + + + + +COLLOQUY XIV.--THE LIBRARY. + + +I was in my library, making room upon the shelves for some books which +had just arrived from New England, removing to a less conspicuous station +others which were of less value and in worse dress, when Sir Thomas +entered. You are employed, said he, to your heart's content. Why, +Montesinos, with these books, and the delight you take in their constant +society, what have you to covet or desire? + +_Montesinos_.--Nothing, except more books. + +_Sir Thomas More_.-- + + "_Crescit_, _indulgens sibi_, _dirus hydrops_." + +_Montesinos_.--Nay, nay, my ghostly monitor, this at least is no diseased +desire. If I covet more, it is for the want I feel and the use which I +should make of them. "Libraries," says my good old friend George Dyer, a +man as learned as he is benevolent, "libraries are the wardrobes of +literature, whence men, properly informed, might bring forth something +for ornament, much for curiosity, and more for use." These books of +mine, as you well know, are not drawn up here for display, however much +the pride of the eye may be gratified in beholding them, they are on +actual service. Whenever they may be dispersed, there is not one among +them that will ever be more comfortably lodged, or more highly prized by +its possessor; and generations may pass away before some of them will +again find a reader. It is well that we do not moralise too much upon +such subjects. + + "For foresight is a melancholy gift, + Which bares the bald, and speeds the all-too-swift." + + H. T. + +But the dispersion of a library, whether in retrospect or in +anticipation, is always to me a melancholy thing. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--How many such dispersions must have taken place to +have made it possible that these books should thus be brought together +here among the Cumberland mountains. + +_Montesinos_.--Many, indeed; and in many instances most disastrous ones. +Not a few of these volumes have been cast up from the wreck of the family +or convent libraries during the late Revolution. Yonder "Acta Sanctorum" +belonged to the Capuchins, at Ghent. This book of St. Bridget's +Revelations, in which not only all the initial letters are illuminated, +but every capital throughout the volume was coloured, came from the +Carmelite Nunnery at Bruges. That copy of Alain Chartier, from the +Jesuits' College at Louvain; that _Imago Primi Saeculi Societatis_, from +their college at Ruremond. Here are books from Colbert's library, here +others from the Lamoignon one. And here are two volumes of a work, not +more rare than valuable for its contents, divorced, unhappily, and it is +to be feared for ever, from the one which should stand between them; they +were printed in a convent at Manila, and brought from thence when that +city was taken by Sir William Draper; they have given me, perhaps, as +many pleasurable hours (passed in acquiring information which I could not +otherwise have obtained), as Sir William spent years of anxiety and +vexation in vainly soliciting the reward of his conquest. + +About a score of the more out-of-the-way works in my possession belonged +to some unknown person, who seems carefully to have gleaned the +bookstalls a little before and after the year 1790. He marked them with +certain ciphers, always at the end of the volume. They are in various +languages, and I never found his mark in any book that was not worth +buying, or that I should not have bought without that indication to +induce me. All were in ragged condition, and having been dispersed, upon +the owner's death probably, as of no value, to the stalls they had +returned; and there I found this portion of them just before my old +haunts as a book-hunter in the metropolis were disforested, to make room +for the improvements between Westminster and Oxford Road. I have +endeavoured without success to discover the name of their former +possessor. He must have been a remarkable man, and the whole of his +collection, judging of it by that part which has come into my hands, must +have been singularly curious. A book is the more valuable to me when I +know to whom it has belonged, and through what "scenes and changes" it +has passed. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--You would have its history recorded in the fly-leaf +as carefully as the pedigree of a racehorse is preserved. + +_Montesinos_.--I confess that I have much of that feeling in which the +superstition concerning relics has originated, and I am sorry when I see +the name of a former owner obliterated in a book, or the plate of his +arms defaced. Poor memorials though they be, yet they are something +saved for a while from oblivion, and I should be almost as unwilling to +destroy them as to efface the _Hic jacet_ of a tombstone. There may be +sometimes a pleasure in recognising them, sometimes a salutary sadness. + +Yonder Chronicle of King D. Manoel, by Damiam de Goes, and yonder +"General History of Spain," by Esteban de Garibay, are signed by their +respective authors. The minds of these laborious and useful scholars are +in their works, but you are brought into a more personal relation with +them when you see the page upon which you know that their eyes have +rested, and the very characters which their hands have traced. This copy +of Casaubon's Epistles was sent to me from Florence by Walter Landor. He +had perused it carefully, and to that perusal we are indebted for one of +the most pleasing of his Conversations; these letters had carried him in +spirit to the age of their writer, and shown James I. to him in the light +wherein James was regarded by contemporary scholars, and under the +impression thus produced Landor has written of him in his happiest mood, +calmly, philosophically, feelingly, and with no more of favourable +leaning than justice will always manifest when justice is in good humour +and in charity with all men. The book came from the palace library at +Milan, how or when abstracted I know not, but this beautiful dialogue +would never have been written had it remained there in its place upon the +shelf, for the worms to finish the work which they had begun. Isaac +Casaubon must be in your society, Sir Thomas, for where Erasmus is you +will be, and there also Casaubon will have his place among the wise and +the good. Tell him, I pray you, that due honour has in these days been +rendered to his name by one who as a scholar is qualified to appreciate +his merits, and whose writings will be more durable than monuments of +brass or marble. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Is there no message to him from Walter Landor's +friend? + +_Montesinos_.--Say to him, since you encourage me to such boldness, that +his letters could scarcely have been perused with deeper interest by the +persons to whom they were addressed than they have been by one, at the +foot of Skiddaw, who is never more contentedly employed than when +learning from the living minds of other ages, one who would gladly have +this expression of respect and gratitude conveyed to him, and who trusts +that when his course is finished here he shall see him face to face. + +Here is a book with which Lauderdale amused himself, when Cromwell kept +him prisoner in Windsor Castle. He has recorded his state of mind during +that imprisonment by inscribing in it, with his name, and the dates of +time and place, the Latin word _Durate_, and the Greek [Greek text]. Here +is a memorial of a different kind inscribed in this "Rule of Penance of +St. Francis, as it in ordered for religious women." "I beseech my deare +mother humbly to accept of this exposition of our holy rule, the better +to conceive what your poor child ought to be, who daly beges your +blessing. Constantia Francisco." And here in the Apophthegmata, +collected by Conrad Lycosthenes, and published after drastic expurgation +by the Jesuits as a commonplace book, some Portuguese has entered a +hearty vow that he would never part with the book, nor lend it to any +one. Very different was the disposition of my poor old Lisbon +acquaintance, the Abbe, who, after the old humaner form, wrote in all his +books (and he had a rare collection) _Ex libris Francisci Garnier_, _et +amicorum_. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--How peaceably they stand together--Papists and +Protestants side by side. + +_Montesinos_.--Their very dust reposes not more quietly in the cemetery. +Ancient and modern, Jew and Gentile, Mahommedan and Crusader, French and +English, Spaniards and Portuguese, Dutch and Brazilians, fighting their +own battles, silently now, upon the same shelf: Fernam Lopez and Pedro de +Ayala; John de Laet and Barlaeus, with the historians of Joam Fernandes +Vieira; Foxe's Martyrs and the Three Conversions of Father Parsons; +Cranmer and Stephen Gardiner; Dominican and Franciscan; Jesuit and +Philosophe (equally misnamed); Churchmen and Sectarians; Round-heads and +Cavaliers + + "Here are God's conduits, grave divines; and here + Is Nature's secretary, the philosopher: + And wily statesmen, which teach how to tie + The sinews of a city's mystic body; + Here gathering chroniclers; and by them stand + Giddy fantastic poets of each land."--DONNE. + +Here I possess these gathered treasures of time, the harvest of so many +generations, laid up in my garners: and when I go to the window there is +the lake, and the circle of the mountains, and the illimitable sky. + +_Sir Thomas More_.-- + + "_Felicemque voco pariter studiique locique_!" + +_Montesinos_.-- + + "--_meritoque probas artesque locumque_." + +The simile of the bees, + + "_Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes_," + +has often been applied to men who have made literature their profession; +and they among them to whom worldly wealth and worldly honours are +objects of ambition, may have reason enough to acknowledge its +applicability. But it will bear a happier application and with equal +fitness: for, for whom is the purest honey hoarded that the bees of this +world elaborate, if it be not for the man of letters? The exploits of +the kings and heroes of old, serve now to fill story-books for his +amusement and instruction. It was to delight his leisure and call forth +his admiration that Homer sung and Alexander conquered. It is to gratify +his curiosity that adventurers have traversed deserts and savage +countries, and navigators have explored the seas from pole to pole. The +revolutions of the planet which he inhabits are but matters for his +speculation; and the deluges and conflagrations which it has undergone, +problems to exercise his philosophy, or fancy. He is the inheritor of +whatever has been discovered by persevering labour, or created by +inventive genius. The wise of all ages have heaped up a treasure for +him, which rust doth not corrupt, and which thieves cannot break through +and steal. I must leave out the moth, for even in this climate care is +required against its ravages. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Yet, Montesinos, how often does the worm-eaten volume +outlast the reputation of the worm-eaten author! + +_Montesinos_.--Of the living one also; for many there are of whom it may +be said, in the words of Vida, that-- + + "--_ipsi_ + _Saepe suis superant monumentis_; _illaudatique_ + _Extremum ante diem faetus flevere caducos_, + _Viventesque suae viderunt funera famae_." + +Some literary reputations die in the birth; a few are nibbled to death by +critics, but they are weakly ones that perish thus, such only as must +otherwise soon have come to a natural death. Somewhat more numerous are +those which are overfed with praise, and die of the surfeit. Brisk +reputations, indeed, are like bottled twopenny, or pop "they sparkle, are +exhaled, and fly"--not to heaven, but to the Limbo. To live among books, +is in this respect like living among the tombs; you have in them speaking +remembrancers of mortality. "Behold this also is vanity!" + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Has it proved to you "vexation of spirit" also? + +_Montesinos_.--Oh, no! for never can any man's life have been passed more +in accord with his own inclinations, nor more answerably to his own +desires. Excepting that peace which, through God's infinite mercy, is +derived from a higher source, it is to literature, humanly speaking, that +I am beholden, not only for the means of subsistence, but for every +blessing which I enjoy; health of mind and activity of mind, contentment, +cheerfulness, continual employment, and therewith continual pleasure. +_Sua vissima vita indies_, _sentire se fieri meliorem_; and this as Bacon +has said, and Clarendon repeated, is the benefit that a studious man +enjoys in retirement. To the studies which I have faithfully pursued I +am indebted for friends with whom, hereafter, it will be deemed an honour +to have lived in friendship; and as for the enemies which they have +procured to me in sufficient numbers, happily I am not of the +thin-skinned race: they might as well fire small-shot at a rhinoceros, as +direct their attacks upon me. _In omnibus requiem quaesivi_, said Thomas +a Kempis, _sed non inveni nisi in angulis et libellis_. I too have found +repose where he did, in books and retirement, but it was there alone I +sought it: to these my nature, under the direction of a merciful +Providence, led me betimes, and the world can offer nothing which should +tempt me from them. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--If wisdom were to be found in the multitude of books, +what a progress must this nation have made in it since my head was cut +off! A man in my days might offer to dispute _de omni scibile_, and in +accepting the challenge I, as a young man, was not guilty of any +extraordinary presumption, for all which books could teach was, at that +time, within the compass of a diligent and ardent student. Even then we +had difficulties to contend with which were unknown to the ancients. The +curse of Babel fell lightly upon them. The Greeks despised other nations +too much to think of acquiring their languages for the love of knowledge, +and the Romans contented themselves with learning only the Greek. But +tongues which, in my lifetime, were hardly formed, have since been +refined and cultivated, and are become fertile in authors; and others, +the very names of which were then unknown in Europe, have been discovered +and mastered by European scholars, and have been found rich in +literature. The circle of knowledge has thus widened in every +generation; and you cannot now touch the circumference of what might +formerly have been clasped. + +_Montesinos_.--We are fortunate, methinks, who live in an age when books +are accessible and numerous, and yet not so multiplied, as to render a +competent, not to say thorough, acquaintance with any one branch of +literature, impossible. He has it yet in his power to know much, who can +be contented to remain in ignorance of more, and to say with Scaliger, +_non sum ex illis gloriosulis qui nihil ignorant_. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--If one of the most learned men whom the world has +ever seen felt it becoming in him to say this two centuries ago, how +infinitely smaller in these days must the share of learning which the +most indefatigable student can hope to attain, be in proportion to what +he must wish to learn! The sciences are simplified as they are improved; +old rubbish and demolished fabrics serve there to make a foundation for +new scaffolding, and more enduring superstructures; and every discoverer +in physics bequeaths to those who follow him greater advantages than he +possessed at the commencement of his labours. The reverse of this is +felt in all the higher branches of literature. You have to acquire what +the learned of the last age acquired, and in addition to it, what they +themselves have added to the stock of learning. Thus the task is greater +in every succeeding generation, and in a very few more it must become +manifestly impossible. + +_Montesinos_. Pope Ganganelli is said to have expressed a whimsical +opinion that all the books in the world might be reduced to six thousand +volumes in folio--by epitomising, expurgating, and destroying whatever +the chosen and plenipotential committee of literature should in their +wisdom think proper to condemn. It is some consolation to know that no +Pope, or Nero, or Bonaparte, however great their power, can ever think +such a scheme sufficiently within the bounds of possibility for them to +dream of attempting it; otherwise the will would not be wanting. The +evil which you anticipate is already perceptible in its effects. Well +would it be if men were as moderate in their desire of wealth, as those +who enter the ranks of literature, and lay claim to distinction there, +are in their desire of knowledge! A slender capital suffices to begin +with, upon the strength of which they claim credit, and obtain it as +readily as their fellow adventurers in trade. If they succeed in setting +up a present reputation, their ambition extends no further. The very +vanity which finds its present food produces in them a practical contempt +for any fame beyond what they can live to enjoy; and this sense of its +insignificance to themselves is what better minds hardly attain, even in +their saddest wisdom, till this world darkens upon them, and they feel +that they are on the confines of eternity. But every age has had its +sciolists, and will continue to have them; and in every age literature +has also had, and will continue to have its sincere and devoted +followers, few in number, but enough to trim the everlasting lamp. It is +when sciolists meddle with State affairs that they become the pests of a +nation; and this evil, for the reason which you have assigned, is more +likely to increase than to be diminished. In your days all extant +history lay within compassable bounds: it is a fearful thing to consider +now what length of time would be required to make studious man as +conversant with the history of Europe since those days, as he ought to +be, if he would be properly qualified for holding a place in the councils +of a kingdom. Men who take the course of public life will not, nor can +they be expected to, wait for this. Youth and ardour, and ambition and +impatience, are here in accord with worldly prudence; if they would reach +the goal for which they start, they must begin the career betimes; and +such among them as may be conscious that their stock of knowledge is less +than it ought to be for such a profession, would not hesitate on that +account to take an active part in public affairs, because they have a +more comfortable consciousness that they are quite as well informed as +the contemporaries, with whom they shall have to act, or to contend. The +_quantulum_ at which Oxenstern admired would be a large allowance now. +For any such person to suspect himself of deficiency would, in this age +of pretension, be a hopeful symptom; but should he endeavour to supply +it, he is like a mail-coach traveller, who is to be conveyed over +macadamised roads at the rate of nine miles an hour, including stoppages, +and must therefore take at his minuted meals whatever food is readiest. +He must get information for immediate use, and with the smallest cost of +time; and therefore it is sought in abstracts and epitomes, which afford +meagre food to the intellect, though they take away the uneasy sense of +inanition. _Tout abrege sur un bon livre est un sot abrege_, says +Montaigne; and of all abridgments there are none by which a reader is +liable, and so likely, to be deceived as by epitomised histories. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Call to mind, I pray you, my foliophagous friend, +what was the extent of Michael Montaigne's library; and that if you had +passed a winter in his chateau you must, with that appetite of yours, +have but yourself upon short allowance there. Historical knowledge is +not the first thing needful for a statesman, nor the second. And yet do +not hastily conclude that I am about to disparage its importance. A +sailor might as well put to sea without chart or compass as a minister +venture to steer the ship of the State without it. For as "the strong +and strange varieties" in human nature are repeated in every age, so "the +thing which hath been, it is that which shall be. Is there anything +whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old +time which was before us." + +_Montesinos_.-- + + "For things forepast are precedents to us, + Whereby we may things present now, discuss," + +as the old poet said who brought together a tragical collection of +precedents in the mirror of magistrates. This is what Lord Brooke calls + + "the second light of government + Which stories yield, and no time can disseason:" + +"the common standard of man's reason," he holds to be the first light +which the founders of a new state, or the governors of an old one, ought +to follow. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Rightly, for though the most sagacious author that +ever deduced maxims of policy from the experience of former ages has said +that the misgovernment of States, and the evils consequent thereon, have +arisen more from the neglect of that experience--that is, from historical +ignorance--than from any other cause, the sum and substance of historical +knowledge for practical purposes consists in certain general principles; +and he who understands those principles, and has a due sense of their +importance, has always, in the darkest circumstances, a star in sight by +which he may direct his course surely. + +_Montesinos_.--The British ministers who began and conducted the first +war against revolutionary France, were once reminded, in a memorable +speech, that if they had known, or knowing had borne in mind, three +maxims of Machiavelli, they would not have committed the errors which +cost this country so dearly. They would not have relied upon bringing +the war to a successful end by aid of a party among the French: they +would not have confided in the reports of emigrants; and they would not +have supposed that because the French finances were in confusion, France +was therefore incapable of carrying on war with vigour and ability; men +and not money being the sinews of war, as Machiavelli had taught, and the +revolutionary rulers and Buonaparte after them had learnt. Each of these +errors they committed, though all were marked upon the chart! + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Such maxims are like beacons on a dangerous shore, +not the less necessary, because the seaman may sometimes be deceived by +false lights, and sometimes mistaken in his distances; but the +possibility of being so misled will be borne in mind by the cautious. +Machiavelli is always sagacious, but the tree of knowledge of which he +had gathered grew not in Paradise; it had a bitter root, and the fruit +savours thereof, even to deadliness. He believed men to be so malignant +by nature that they always act malevolently from choice, and never well +except by compulsion, a devilish doctrine, to be accounted for rather +than excused by the circumstances of his age and country. For he lived +in a land where intellect was highly cultivated, and morals thoroughly +corrupted, the Papal Church having by its doctrines, its practices, and +its example, made one part of the Italians heathenism and superstitious, +the other impious, and both wicked. + +The rule of policy as well as of private morals is to be found in the +Gospel; and a religious sense of duty towards God and man is the first +thing needful in a statesman: herein he has an unerring guide when +knowledge fails him, and experience affords no light. This, with a clear +head and a single heart, will carry him through all difficulties; and the +just confidence which, having these, he will then have in himself, will +obtain for him the confidence of the nation. In every nation, indeed, +which is conscious of its strength, the minister who takes the highest +tone will invariably be the most popular; let him uphold, even haughtily, +the character of his country, and the heart and voice of the people will +be with him. But haughtiness implies always something that is hollow: +the tone of a wise minister will be firm but calm. He will neither +truckle to his enemies in the vain hope of conciliating them by a +specious candour, which they at the same time flatter and despise; nor +will he stand aloof from his friends, lest he should be accused of +regarding them with partiality; and thus while he secures the attachment +of the one he will command the respect of the other. He will not, like +the Lacedemonians, think any measures honourable which accord with his +inclinations, and just if they promote his views; but in all cases he +will do that which is lawful and right, holding this for a certain truth, +that in politics the straight path is the sure one! Such a minister will +hope for the best, and expect the best; by acting openly, steadily, and +bravely, he will act always for the best: and so acting, be the issue +what it may, he will never dishonour himself or his country, nor fall +under the "sharp judgment" of which they that are in "high places" are in +danger. + +_Montesinos_.--I am pleased to hear you include hopefulness among the +needful qualifications. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--It was a Jewish maxim that the spirit of prophecy +rests only upon eminent, happy, and cheerful men. + +_Montesinos_.--A wise woman, by which I do not mean in vulgar parlance +one who pretends to prophecy, has a maxim to the same effect: _Toma este +aviso_, she says, _guardate de aquel que no tiene esperanza de bien_! +take care of him who hath no hope of good! + +_Sir Thomas More_.--"Of whole heart cometh hope," says old Piers Plowman. +And these maxims are warranted by philosophy, divine and human; by human +wisdom, because he who hopes little will attempt little--fear is "a +betrayal of the succours which reason offereth," and in difficult times, +_pericula magna non nisi periculis depelli solent_; by religion, because +the ways of providence are not so changed under the dispensation of Grace +from what they were under the old law but that he who means well, and +acts well, and is not wanting to himself, may rightfully look for a +blessing upon the course which he pursues. The upright individual may +rest his heal in peace upon this hope; the upright minister who conducts +the affairs of a nation may trust in it; for as national sins bring after +them in sure consequence their merited punishment, so national virtue, +which is national wisdom, obtains in like manner its temporal and visible +reward. + +Blessings and curses are before you, and which are to be your portion +depends upon the direction of public opinion. The march of intellect is +proceeding at quick time; and if its progress be not accompanied by a +corresponding improvement in morals and religion, the faster it proceeds, +with the more violence will you be hurried down the road to ruin. + +One of the first effects of printing was to make proud men look upon +learning as disgraced by being thus brought within reach of the common +people. Till that time learning, such as it was, had been confined to +courts and convents, the low birth of the clergy being overlooked because +they were privileged by their order. But when laymen in humble life were +enabled to procure books the pride of aristocracy took an absurd course, +insomuch that at one time it was deemed derogatory for a nobleman if he +could read or write. Even scholars themselves complained that the +reputation of learning, and the respect due to it, and its rewards were +lowered when it was thrown open to all men; and it was seriously proposed +to prohibit the printing of any book that could be afforded for sale +below the price of three _soldi_. This base and invidious feeling was +perhaps never so directly avowed in other countries as in Italy, the land +where literature was first restored; and yet in this more liberal island +ignorance was for some generations considered to be a mark of +distinction, by which a man of gentle birth chose, not unfrequently, to +make it apparent that he was no more obliged to live by the toil of his +brain, than by the sweat of his brow. The same changes in society which +rendered it no longer possible for this class of men to pass their lives +in idleness have completely put an end to this barbarous pride. It is as +obsolete as the fashion of long finger-nails, which in some parts of the +East are still the distinctive mark of those who labour not with their +hands. All classes are now brought within the reach of your current +literature, that literature which, like a moral atmosphere, is as it were +the medium of intellectual life, and on the quality of which, according +as it may be salubrious or noxious, the health of the public mind +depends. There is, if not a general desire for knowledge, a general +appearance of such a desire. Authors of all kinds have increased and are +increasing among you. Romancers-- + +_Montesinos_.--Some of whom attempt things which had hitherto been +unattempted yet in prose or rhyme, because among all the extravagant +intellects with which the world has teemed none were ever before so +utterly extravagant as to choose for themselves themes of such revolting +monstrosity. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Poets-- + +_Montesinos_.-- + + "Tanti Rome non ha preti, o dottori + _Bologna_." + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Critics-- + +_Montesinos_.--More numerous yet; for this is a corps in which many who +are destined for better things engage, till they are ashamed of the +service; and a much greater number who endeavour to distinguish +themselves in higher walks of literature, and fail, take shelter in it; +as they cannot attain reputation themselves they endeavour to prevent +others from being more successful, and find in the gratification of envy +some recompense for disappointed vanity. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Philosophers-- + +_Montesinos_.--True and false; the philosophers and the philosophists; +some of the former so full, that it would require, as the rabbis say of a +certain pedigree in the Book of Chronicles, four hundred camel loads of +commentaries to expound the difficulties in their text; others so empty, +that nothing can approximate so nearly to the notion of an infinitesimal +quantity as their meaning. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--With this multiplication of books, which in its +proportionate increase marvellously exceeds that of your growing +population, are you a wiser, a more intellectual, or more imaginative +people than when, as in my days, the man of learning, while he sat at his +desk, had his whole library within arm's-length? + +_Montesinos_.--If we are not wiser, it must be because the means of +knowledge, which are now both abundant and accessible, are either +neglected or misused. + +The sciences are not here to be considered: in these our progress has +been so great, that seeing the moral and religious improvement of the +nation has in no degree kept pace with it, you have reasonably questioned +whether we have not advanced in certain branches, farther and faster than +is conducive to, or perhaps consistent with, the general good. But there +can be no question that great advancement has been made in many +departments of literature conducive to innocent recreation (which would +be alone no trifling good, even were it not, as it is, itself conducive +to health both of body and of mind), to sound knowledge, and to moral and +political improvement. There are now few portions of the habitable earth +which have not been explored, and with a zeal and perseverance which had +slept from the first age of maritime discovery till it was revived under +George III. in consequence of this revival, and the awakened spirit of +curiosity and enterprise, every year adds to our ample store of books +relating to the manners of other nations, and the condition of men in +states and stages of society different to our own. And of such books we +cannot have too many; the idlest reader may find amusement in them of a +more satisfactory kind than he can gather from the novel of the day or +the criticism of the day; and there are few among them so entirely +worthless that the most studious man may not derive from them some +information for which he ought to be thankful. Some memorable instances +we have had in this generation of the absurdities and errors, sometimes +affecting seriously the public service and the national character, which +have arisen from the want of such knowledge as by means of such books is +now generally diffused. Skates and warming-pans will not again be sent +out as ventures to Brazil. The Board of Admiralty will never again +attempt to ruin an enemy's port by sinking a stone-ship, to the great +amusement of that enemy, in a tide harbour. Nor will a cabinet minister +think it sufficient excuse for himself and his colleagues, to confess +that they were no better informed than other people, and had everything +to learn concerning the interior of a country into which they had sent an +army. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--This is but a prospective benefit; and of a humble +kind, if it extend no further than to save you from any future exposure +of an ignorance which might deserve to be called disgraceful. We +profited more by our knowledge of other countries in the age when + + "Hops and turkeys, carp and beer, + Came into England all in one year." + +_Montesinos_.--And yet in that age you profited slowly by the commodities +which the eastern and western parts of the world afforded. Gold, pearls, +and spices were your first imports. For the honour of science and of +humanity, medicinal plants were soon sought for. But two centuries +elapsed before tea and potatoes--the most valuable products of the East +and West--which have contributed far more to the general good than all +their spices and gems and precious metals--came into common use; nor have +they yet been generally adopted on the Continent, while tobacco found its +way to Europe a hundred years earlier; and its filthy abuse, though here +happily less than in former times, prevails everywhere. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--_Pro pudor_! There is a snuff-box on the +mantelpiece--and thou revilest tobacco! + +_Montesinos_.--Distinguish, I pray you, gentle ghost! I condemn the +abuse of tobacco as filthy, implying in those words that it has its +allowable and proper use. To smoke, is, in certain circumstances, a +wholesome practice; it may be regarded with a moral complacency as the +poor man's luxury, and with liking by any one who follows a lighted pipe +in the open air. But whatever may be pleaded for its soothing and +intellectualising effects, the odour within doors of a defunct pipe is +such an abomination, that I join in anathematising it with James, the +best-natured of kings, and Joshua Sylvester, the most voluble of poets. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Thou hast written verses praise of snuff! + +_Montesinos_.--And if thy nose, sir Spirit, were anything more than the +ghost of an olfactor, I would offer it a propitiatory pinch, that you +might the more feelingly understand the merit of the said verses, and +admire them accordingly. But I am no more to be deemed a snuff-taker +because I carry a snuff-box when travelling, and keep one at hand for +occasional use, than I am to be reckoned a casuist or a pupil of the +Jesuits because the "Moral Philosophy" of Escobar and the "Spiritual +Exercises" of St. Ignatius Loyola are on my shelves. Thank Heaven, I +bear about with me no habits which I cannot lay aside as easily as my +clothes. + +The age is past in which travellers could add much to the improvement, +the comfort, or the embellishment of this country by imparting anything +which they have newly observed in foreign parts. We have happily more to +communicate now than to receive. Yet when I tell you that since the +commencement of the present century there have been every year, upon an +average, more than a hundred and fifty plants which were previously +unknown here introduced into the nurseries and market-gardens about +London, you will acknowledge that in this branch at least, a constant +desire is shown of enriching ourselves with the produce of other hands. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Philosophers of old travelled to observe the manners +of men and study their institutions. I know not whether they found more +pleasure in the study, or derived more advantages from it, than the +adventurers reap who, in these latter times, have crossed the seas and +exposed themselves to dangers of every kind, for the purpose of extending +the catalogue of plants. + +_Montesinos_.--Of all travels, those of the mere botanist are the least +instructive-- + +_Sir Thomas More_.--To any but botanists--but for them alone they are +written. Do not depreciate any pursuit which leads men to contemplate +the works of their Creator! The Linnean traveller who, when you look +over the pages of his journal, seems to you a mere botanist, has in his +pursuit, as you have in yours, an object that occupies his time, and +fills his mind, and satisfies his heart. It is as innocent as yours, and +as disinterested--perhaps more so, because it is not so ambitious. Nor +is the pleasure which he partakes in investigating the structure of a +plant less pure, or less worthy, than what you derive from perusing the +noblest productions of human genius. You look at me as if you thought +this reprehension were undeserved! + +_Montesinos_.--The eye, then, Sir Thomas, is proditorious, and I will not +gainsay its honest testimony: yet would I rather endeavour to profit by +the reprehension than seek to show that it was uncalled for. If I know +myself I am never prone to undervalue either the advantages or +acquirements which I do not possess. That knowledge is said to be of all +others the most difficult; whether it be the most useful the Greeks +themselves differ, for if one of their wise men left the words [Greek +text] as his maxim to posterity, a poet, who perhaps may have been not +less deserving of the title, has controverted it, and told us that for +the uses of the world it is more advantageous for us to understand the +character of others than to know ourselves. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Here lies the truth; he who best understands himself +is least likely to be deceived in others; you judge of others by +yourselves, and therefore measure them by an erroneous standard whenever +your autometry is false. This is one reason why the empty critic is +usually contumelious and flippant, the competent one as generally +equitable and humane. + +_Montesinos_.--This justice I would render to the Linnean school, that it +produced our first devoted travellers; the race to which they succeeded +employed themselves chiefly in visiting museums and cataloguing pictures, +and now and then copying inscriptions; even in their books notices are +found for which they who follow them may be thankful; and facts are +sometimes, as if by accident, preserved, for useful application. They +went abroad to accomplish or to amuse themselves--to improve their time, +or to get rid of it; the botanists travelled for the sake of their +favourite science, and many of them, in the prime of life, fell victims +to their ardour in the unwholesome climates to which they were led. +Latterly we have seen this ardour united with the highest genius, the +most comprehensive knowledge, and the rarest qualities of perseverance, +prudence, and enduring patience. This generation will not leave behind +it two names more entitled to the admiration of after ages than +Burckhardt and Humboldt. The former purchased this pre-eminence at the +cost of his life; the latter lives, and long may he live to enjoy it. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--This very important branch of literature can scarcely +be said to have existed in my time; the press was then too much occupied +in preserving such precious remains of antiquity as could be rescued from +destruction, and in matters which inflamed the minds of men, as indeed +they concerned their dearest and most momentous interests. Moreover +reviving literature took the natural course of imitation, and the +ancients had left nothing in this kind to be imitated. Nothing therefore +appeared in it, except the first inestimable relations of the discoveries +in the East and West, and these belong rather to the department of +history. As travels we had only the chance notices which occurred in the +Latin correspondence of learned men when their letters found their way to +the public. + +_Montesinos_.--Precious remains these are, but all too few. The first +travellers whose journals or memoirs have been preserved were +ambassadors; then came the adventurer of whom you speak; and it is +remarkable that two centuries afterwards we should find men of the same +stamp among the buccaneers, who recorded in like manner with faithful +dilligence whatever they had opportunity of observing in their wild and +nefarious course of life. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--You may deduce from thence two conclusions, +apparently contrarient, yet both warranted by the fact which you have +noticed. It may be presumed that men who, while engaged in such an +occupation, could thus meritoriously employ their leisure, were rather +compelled by disastrous circumstances to such a course than engaged in it +by inclination: that it was their misfortune rather than their fault if +they were not the benefactors and ornaments of society, instead of being +its outlaws; and that under a wise and parental government such persons +never would be lost. This is a charitable consideration, nor will I +attempt to impugn it; the other may seem less so, but is of more +practical importance. For these examples are proof, if proof were +needed, that intellectual attainments and habits are no security for good +conduct unless they are supported by religious principles; without +religion the highest endowments of intellect can only render the +possessor more dangerous if he be ill disposed, if well disposed only +more unhappy. + +The conquerors, as they called themselves, were followed by missionaries. + +_Montesinos_.--Our knowledge of the remoter parts of the world, during +the first part of the seventeenth century, must chiefly be obtained from +their recitals. And there is no difficulty in separating what may be +believed from their fables, because their falsehoods being systematically +devised and circulated in pursuance of what they regarded as part of +their professional duty, they told truth when they had no motive for +deceiving the reader. Let any person compare the relations of our +Protestant missionaries with those of the Jesuits, Dominicans, +Franciscans, or any other Romish order, and the difference which he +cannot fail to perceive between the plain truth of the one and the +audacious and elaborate mendacity of the other may lead him to a just +inference concerning the two churches. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Their fables were designed, by exciting admiration, +to call forth money for the support of missions, which, notwithstanding +such false pretences, were piously undertaken and heroically pursued. +They scrupled therefore as little at interlarding their chronicles and +annual letters with such miracles, as poets at the use of machinery in +their verses. Think not that I am excusing them; but thus it was that +they justified their system of imposition to themselves, and this part of +it must not be condemned as if it proceeded from an evil intention. + +_Montesinos_.--Yet, Sir Thomas, the best of those missionaries are not +more to be admired for their exemplary virtue, and pitied for the +superstition which debased their faith, than others of their respective +orders are to be abominated for the deliberate wickedness with which, in +pursuance of the same system, they imposed the most blasphemous and +atrocious legends upon the credulous, and persecuted with fire and sword +those who opposed their deceitful villainy. One reason wherefore so few +travels were written in the age of which we are speaking is, that no +Englishman, unless he were a Papist, could venture into Italy, or any +other country where the Romish religion was established in full power, +without the danger of being seized by the Inquisition! + +Other dangers, by sea and by land, from corsairs and banditti, including +too the chances of war and of pestilence, were so great in that age, that +it was not unusual for men when they set out upon their travels to put +out a sum upon their own lives, which if they died upon the journey was +to be the underwriter's gain, but to be repaid if they returned, within +such increase as might cover their intervening expenses. The chances +against them seem to have been considered as nearly three to one. But +danger, within a certain degree, is more likely to provoke adventurers +than to deter them. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--There thou hast uttered a comprehensive truth. No +legislator has yet so graduated his scale of punishment as to ascertain +that degree which shall neither encourage hope nor excite the audacity of +desperate guilt. It is certain that there are states of mind in which +the consciousness that he is about to play for life or death stimulates a +gamester to the throw. This will apply to most of those crimes which are +committed for cupidity, and not attended with violence. + +_Montesinos_.--Well then may these hazards have acted as incentives where +there was the desire of honour, the spirit of generous enterprise, or +even the love of notoriety. By the first of these motives Pietro della +Valle (the most romantic in his adventures of all true travellers) was +led abroad, the latter spring set in motion my comical countryman, Tom +Coriat, who by the engraver's help has represented himself at one time in +full dress, making a leg to a courtesan at Venice, and at another +dropping from his rags the all-too lively proofs of prolific poverty. + +Perhaps literature has never been so directly benefited by the spirit of +trade as it was in the seventeenth century, when European jewellers found +their most liberal customers in the courts of the East. Some of the best +travels which we possess, as well as the best materials for Persian and +Indian history, have been left us by persons engaged in that trade. From +that time travelling became less dangerous and more frequent in every +generation, except during the late years when Englishmen were excluded +from the Continent by the military tyrant whom (with God's blessing on a +rightful cause) we have beaten from his imperial throne. And now it is +more customary for females in the middle rank of life to visit Italy than +it was for them in your days to move twenty miles from home. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Is this a salutary or an injurious fashion? + +_Montesinos_.--According to the subject, and to the old school maxim +_quicquid recipitur_, _recipitur in modum recipientis_. The wise come +back wiser, the well-informed with richer stores of knowledge, the empty +and the vain return as they went, and there are some who bring home +foreign vanities and vices in addition to their own. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--And what has been imported by such travellers for the +good of their country? + +_Montesinos_.--Coffee in the seventeenth century, inoculation in that +which followed; since which we have had now and then a new dance and a +new game at cards, curry and mullagatawny soup from the East Indies, +turtle from the West, and that earthly nectar to which the East +contributes its arrack, and the West its limes and its rum. In the +language of men it is called Punch; I know not what may be its name in +the Olympian speech. But tell not the Englishmen of George the Second's +age, lest they should be troubled for the degeneracy of their +grandchildren, that the punchbowl is now become a relic of antiquity, and +their beloved beverage almost as obsolete as metheglin, hippocras, chary, +or morat! + +_Sir Thomas More_.--It is well for thee that thou art not a young beagle +instead of a grey-headed bookman, or that rambling vein of thine would +often bring thee under the lash of the whipper-in! Off thou art and away +in pursuit of the smallest game that rises before thee. + +_Montesinos_.--Good Ghost, there was once a wise Lord Chancellor, who in +a dialogue upon weighty matters thought it not unbecoming to amuse +himself with discursive merriment concerning St. Appollonia and St. +Uncumber. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Good Flesh and Blood, that was a nipping reply! And +happy man is his dole who retains in grave years, and even to grey hairs, +enough of green youth's redundant spirits for such excursiveness! He who +never relaxes into sportiveness is a wearisome companion, but beware of +him who jests at everything! Such men disparage by some ludicrous +association all objects which are presented to their thoughts, and +thereby render themselves incapable of any emotion which can either +elevate or soften them, they bring upon their moral being an influence +more withering than the blast of the desert. A countenance, if it be +wrinkled either with smiles or with frowns, is to be shunned; the furrows +which the latter leave show that the soil is sour, those of the former +are symptomatic of a hollow heart. + +None of your travellers have reached Utopia, and brought from thence a +fuller account of its institutions? + +_Montesinos_.--There was one, methinks, who must have had it in view when +he walked over the world to discover the source of moral motion. He was +afflicted with a tympany of mind produced by metaphysics, which was at +that time a common complaint, though attended in him with unusual +symptoms, but his heart was healthy and strong, and might in former ages +have enabled him to acquire a distinguished place among the saints of the +Thebais or the philosophers of Greece. + +But although we have now no travellers employed in seeking undiscoverable +countries, and although Eldorado, the city of the Cesares, and the +Sabbatical River, are expunged even from the maps of credulity and +imagination, Welshmen have gone in search of Madoc's descendants, and +scarcely a year passes without adding to the melancholy list of those who +have perished in exploring the interior of Africa. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Whenever there shall exist a civilised and Christian +negro state Providence will open that country to civilisation and +Christianity, meantime to risk strength and enterprise and science +against climate is contending against the course of nature. Have these +travellers yet obtained for you the secret of the Psylli? + +_Montesinos_.--We have learnt from savages the mode of preparing their +deadliest poisons. The more useful knowledge by which they render the +human body proof against the most venomous serpents has not been sought +with equal diligence; there are, however, scattered notices which may +perhaps afford some clue to the discovery. The writings of travellers +are not more rich in materials for the poet and the historian than they +are in useful notices, deposited there like seeds which lie deep in the +earth till some chance brings them within reach of air, and then they +germinate. These are fields in which something may always be found by +the gleaner, and therefore those general collections in which the works +are curtailed would be to be reprobated, even if epitomisers did not seem +to possess a certain instinct of generic doltishness which leads them +curiously to omit whatever ought especially to be preserved. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--If ever there come a time, Montesinos, when +beneficence shall be as intelligent, and wisdom as active, as the spirit +of trade, you will then draw from foreign countries other things beside +those which now pay duties at the custom-house, or are cultivated in +nurseries for the conservatories of the wealthy. Not that I regard with +dissatisfaction these latter importations of luxury, however far they may +be brought, or at whatever cost; for of all mere pleasures those of a +garden are the most salutary, and approach nearest to a moral enjoyment. +But you will then (should that time come) seek and find in the laws, +usages and experience of other nations palliatives for some of those +evils and diseases which have hitherto been inseparable from society and +human nature, and remedies, perhaps, for others. + +_Montesinos_.--Happy the travellers who shall be found instrumental to +such good! One advantage belongs to authors of this description; because +they contribute to the instruction of the learned, their reputation +suffers no diminution by the course of time: age rather enhances their +value. In this respect they resemble historians, to whom, indeed, their +labours are in a great degree subsidiary. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--They have an advantage over them, my friend, in this, +that rarely can they leave evil works behind them, which either from a +mischievous persuasion, or a malignant purpose, may heap condemnation +upon their own souls as long as such works survive them. Even if they +should manifest pernicious opinions and a wicked will, the venom is in a +great degree sheathed by the vehicle in which it is administered. And +this is something; for let me tell thee, thou consumer of goose quills, +that of all the Devil's laboratories there is none in which more poison +is concocted for mankind than in the inkstand! + +_Montesinos_.--"My withers are unwrung!" + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Be thankful, therefore, in life, as thou wilt in +death. + +A principle of compensation may be observed in literary pursuits as in +other things. Reputations that never flame continue to glimmer for +centuries after those which blaze highest have gone out. And what is of +more moment, the humblest occupations are morally the safest. +Rhadamanthus never puts on his black cap to pronounce sentence upon a +dictionary-maker or the compiler of a county history. + +_Montesinos_. I am to understand, then, that in the archangel's balance +a little book may sink the scale toward the pit; while all the tomes of +Thomas Hearne and good old John Nichols will be weighed among their good +works! + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Sport as thou wilt in allusions to allegory and +fable; but bear always in thy most serious mind this truth, that men hold +under an awful responsibility the talents with which they are entrusted. +Kings have not so serious an account to render as they who exercise an +intellectual influence over the minds of men! + +_Montesinos_.--If evil works, so long as they continue to produce evil, +heap up condemnation upon the authors, it is well for some of the +wickedest writers that their works do not survive them. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Such men, my friend, even by the most perishable of +their wicked works, lay up sufficient condemnation for themselves. The +maxim that _malitia supplet aetatem_ is rightfully admitted in human +laws: should there not then, by parity of justice, be cases where, when +the secrets of the heart are seen, the intention shall be regarded rather +than the act? + +The greatest portion of your literature, at any given time, is ephemeral; +indeed, it has ever been so since the discovery of printing; and this +portion it is which is most influential, consequently that by which most +good or mischief is done. + +_Montesinos_.--Ephemeral it truly may be called; it is now looked for by +the public as regularly as their food; and, like food, it affects the +recipient surely and permanently, even when its effect is slow, according +as it is wholesome or noxious. But how great is the difference between +the current literature of this and of any former time! + +_Sir Thomas More_.--From that complacent tone it may be presumed that you +see in it proof both of moral and intellectual improvement. Montesinos, +I must disturb that comfortable opinion, and call upon you to examine how +much of this refinement which passes for improvement is superficial. True +it is that controversy is carried on with more decency than it was by +Martin Lutherand a certain Lord Chancellor, to whom you just now alluded; +but if more courtesy is to be found in polemical writers, who are less +sincere than either the one or the other, there is as much acerbity of +feeling and as much bitterness of heart. You have a class of miscreants +which had no existence in those days--the panders of the press, who live +by administering to the vilest passions of the people, and encouraging +their most dangerous errors, practising upon their ignorance, and +inculcating whatever is most pernicious in principle and most dangerous +to society. This is their golden age; for though such men would in any +age have taken to some villainy or other, never could they have found a +course at once so gainful and so safe. Long impunity has taught them to +despise the laws which they defy, and the institutions which they are +labouring to subvert; any further responsibility enters not into their +creed, if that may be called a creed, in which all the articles are +negative. I? we turn from politics to what should be humaner literature, +and look at the self-constituted censors of whatever has passed the +press, there also we shall find that they who are the most incompetent +assume the most authority, and that the public favour such pretensions; +for in quackery of every kind, whether medical, political, critical, or +hypocritical, _quo quis impudentior eo doctior habetur_. + +_Montesinos_.--The pleasure which men take in acting maliciously is +properly called by Barrow a _rascally_ delight. But this is no new form +of malice. "_Avant nous_," says the sagacious but iron-hearted +Montluc--"_avant nous ces envies ont regne_, _et regneront encore apres +nous_, _si Dieu ne nous voulait tous refondre_." Its worst effect is +that which Ben Jonson remarked: "The gentle reader," says he, "rests +happy to hear the worthiest works misrepresented, the clearest actions +obscured, the innocentest life traduced; and in such a licence of lying, +a field so fruitful of slanders, how can there be matter wanting to his +laughter? Hence comes the epidemical infection: for how can they escape +the contagion of the writings whom the virulency of the calumnies hath +not staved off from reading?" + +There is another mischief, arising out of ephemeral literature, which was +noticed by the same great author. "Wheresoever manners and fashions are +corrupted," says he, "language is. It imitates the public riot. The +excess of feasts and apparel are the notes of a sick state; and the +wantonness of language of a sick mind." This was the observation of a +man well versed in the history of the ancients and in their literature. +The evil prevailed in his time to a considerable degree; but it was not +permanent, because it proceeded rather from the affectation of a few +individuals than from any general cause: the great poets were free from +it; and our prose writers then, and till the end of that century, were +preserved, by their sound studies and logical habits of mind, from any of +those faults into which men fall who write loosely because they think +loosely. The pedantry of one class and the colloquial vulgarity of +another had their day; the faults of each were strongly contrasted, and +better writers kept the mean between them. More lasting effect was +produced by translators, who in later times have corrupted our idiom as +much as, in early ones, they enriched our vocabulary; and to this injury +the Scotch have greatly contributed; for composing in a language which is +not their mother tongue, they necessarily acquired an artificial and +formal style, which, not so much through the merit of a few as owing to +the perseverance of others, who for half a century seated themselves on +the bench of criticism, has almost superseded the vernacular English of +Addison and Swift. Our journals, indeed, have been the great corrupters +of our style, and continue to be so, and not for this reason only. Men +who write in newspapers, and magazines, and reviews, write for present +effect; in most cases this is as much their natural and proper aim as it +would be in public speaking; but when it is so they consider, like public +speakers, not so much what is accurate or just, either in matter or +manner, as what will be acceptable to those whom they address. Writing +also under the excitement of emulation and rivalry, they seek, by all the +artifices and efforts of an ambitious style, to dazzle their readers; and +they are wise in their generation, experience having shown that common +minds are taken by glittering faults, both in prose and verse, as larks +are with looking-glasses. + +In this school it is that most writers are now trained; and after such +training anything like an easy and natural movement is as little to be +looked for in their compositions as in the step of a dancing master. To +the vices of style which are thus generated there must be added the +inaccuracies inevitably arising from haste, when a certain quantity of +matter is to be supplied for a daily or weekly publication which allows +of no delay--the slovenliness that confidence, as well as fatigue and +inattention, will produce--and the barbarisms, which are the effect of +ignorance, or that smattering of knowledge which serves only to render +ignorance presumptuous. These are the causes of corruption in our +current style; and when these are considered there would be ground for +apprehending that the best writings of the last century might become as +obsolete as yours in the like process of time, if we had not in our +Liturgy and our Bible a standard from which it will not be possible +wholly to depart. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Will the Liturgy and the Bible keep the language at +that standard in the colonies, where little or no use is made of the one, +and not much, it may be feared, of the other? + +_Montesinos_.--A sort of hybrid speech, a _Lingua Anglica_, more debased, +perhaps, than the _Lingua Franca_ of the Levant, or the Portuguese of +Malabar, is likely enough to grow up among the South Sea Islands; like +the mixture of Spanish with some of the native languages in South +America, or the mingle-mangle which the negroes have made with French and +English, and probably with other European tongues in the colonies of +their respective states. The spirit of mercantile adventure may produce +in this part of the new world a process analogous to what took place +throughout Europe on the breaking up of the Western Empire; and in the +next millennium these derivatives may become so many cultivated tongues, +having each its literature. These will be like varieties in a flower- +garden, which the florist raises from seed; but in the colonies, as in +our orchards, the graft takes with it, and will preserve, the true +characteristics of the stock. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--But the same causes of deterioration will be at work +there also. + +_Montesinos_.--Not nearly in the same degree, nor to an equal extent. Now +and then a word with the American impress comes over to us which has not +been struck in the mint of analogy. But the Americans are more likely to +be infected by the corruption of our written language than we are to have +it debased by any importations of this kind from them. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--There is a more important consideration belonging to +this subject. The cause which you have noticed as the principal one of +this corruption must have a farther and more mischievous effect. For it +is not in the vices of an ambitious style that these ephemeral writers, +who live upon the breath of popular applause, will rest. Great and +lasting reputations, both in ancient and modern times, have been raised +notwithstanding that defect, when the ambition from which it proceeded +was of a worthy kind, and was sustained by great powers and adequate +acquirements. But this ambition, which looks beyond the morrow, has no +place in the writers of a day. Present effect is their end and aim; and +too many of them, especially the ablest, who have wanted only moral worth +to make them capable of better things, are persons who can "desire no +other mercy from after ages than silence and oblivion." Even with the +better part of the public that author will always obtain the most +favourable reception, who keeps most upon a level with them in +intellectuals, and puts them to the least trouble of thinking. He who +addresses himself with the whole endeavours of a powerful mind to the +understanding faculty may find fit readers; but they will be few. He who +labours for posterity in the fields of research, must look to posterity +for his reward. Nay, even they whose business is with the feelings and +the fancy, catch most fish when they angle in shallow waters. Is it not +so, Piscator? + +_Montesinos_.--In such honest anglers, Sir Thomas, I should look for as +many virtues, as good old happy Izaak Walton found in his brethren of the +rod and line. Nor will you, I think, disparage them; for you were of the +Rhymers' Company, and at a time when things appear to us in their true +colours and proportion (if ever while we are yet in the body), you +remembered your verses with more satisfaction than your controversial +writings, even though you had no misgivings concerning the part which you +had chosen. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--My verses, friend, had none of the _athanasia_ in +their composition. Though they have not yet perished, they cannot be +said to have a living existence; even you, I suspect, have sought for +them rather because of our personal acquaintance than for any other +motive. Had I been only a poet, those poems, such as they were, would +have preserved my name; but being remembered for other grounds, better +and worse, the name which I have left has been one cause why they have +passed into oblivion, sooner than their perishable nature would have +carried them thither. If in the latter part of my mortal existence I had +misgivings concerning any of my writings, they were of the single one, +which is still a living work, and which will continue so to be. I feared +that speculative opinions, which had been intended for the possible but +remote benefit of mankind, might, by unhappy circumstances, be rendered +instrumental to great and immediate evil; an apprehension, however, which +was altogether free from self-reproach. + +But my verses will continue to exist in their mummy state, long after the +worms shall have consumed many of those poetical reputations which are at +this time in the cherry-cheeked bloom of health and youth. Old poets +will always retain their value for antiquaries and philologists, modern +ones are far too numerous ever to acquire an accidental usefulness of +this kind, even if the language were to undergo greater changes than any +circumstances are likely to produce. There will now be more poets in +every generation than in that which preceded it; they will increase +faster than your population; and as their number increases, so must the +proportion of those who will be remembered necessarily diminish. Tell +the Fitz-Muses this! It is a consideration, Sir Poet, which may serve as +a refrigerant for their ardour. Those of the tribe who may flourish +hereafter (as the flourishing phrase is) in any particular age, will be +little more remembered in the next than the Lord Mayors and Sheriffs who +were their contemporaries. + +_Montesinos_.--Father in verse, if you had not put off flesh and blood so +long, you would not imagine that this consideration will diminish their +number. I am sure it would not have affected me forty years ago, had I +seen this truth then as clearly as I perceive and feel it now. Though it +were manifest to all men that not one poet in an age, in a century, a +millennium, could establish his claim to be for ever known, every +aspirant would persuade himself that he is the happy person for whom the +inheritance of fame is reserved. And when the dream of immortality is +dispersed, motives enough remain for reasonable ambition. + +It is related of some good man (I forget who), that upon his death-bed he +recommended his son to employ himself in cultivating a garden, and in +composing verses, thinking these to be at once the happiest and the most +harmless of all pursuits. Poetry may be, and too often has been, +wickedly perverted to evil purposes; what indeed is there that may not, +when religion itself is not safe from such abuses! but the good which it +does inestimably exceeds the evil. It is no trifling good to provide +means of innocent and intellectual enjoyment for so many thousands in a +state like ours; an enjoyment, heightened, as in every instance it is +within some little circle, by personal considerations, raising it to a +degree which may deserve to be called happiness. It is no trifling good +to win the ear of children with verses which foster in them the seeds of +humanity and tenderness and piety, awaken their fancy, and exercise +pleasurably and wholesomely their imaginative and meditative powers. It +is no trifling benefit to provide a ready mirror for the young, in which +they may see their own best feelings reflected, and wherein "whatsoever +things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are +pure, whatsoever things are lovely," are presented to them in the most +attractive form. It is no trifling benefit to send abroad strains which +may assist in preparing the heart for its trials, and in supporting it +under them. But there is a greater good than this, a farther benefit. +Although it is in verse that the most consummate skill in composition is +to be looked for, and all the artifice of language displayed, yet it is +in verse only that we throw off the yoke of the world, and are as it were +privileged to utter our deepest and holiest feelings. Poetry in this +respect may be called the salt of the earth; we express in it, and +receive in it, sentiments for which, were it not for this permitted +medium, the usages of the world would neither allow utterance nor +acceptance. And who can tell in our heart-chilling and heart-hardening +society, how much more selfish, how much more debased, how much worse we +should have been, in all moral and intellectual respects, had it not been +for the unnoticed and unsuspected influence of this preservative? Even +much of that poetry, which is in its composition worthless, or absolutely +bad, contributes to this good. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Such poetry, then, according to your view, is to be +regarded with indulgence. + +_Montesinos_.--Thank Heaven, Sir Thomas, I am no farther critical than +every author must necessarily be who makes a careful study of his own +art. To understand the principles of criticism is one thing; to be what +is called critical, is another; the first is like being versed in +jurisprudence, the other like being litigious. Even those poets who +contribute to the mere amusement of their readers, while that amusement +is harmless, are to be regarded with complacency, if not respect. They +are the butterflies of literature, who during the short season of their +summer, enliven the garden and the field. It were pity to touch them +even with a tender hand, lest we should brush the down from their wings. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--These are they of whom I spake as angling in shallow +waters. You will not regard with the same complacency those who trouble +the stream; still less those who poison it. + +_Montesinos_.-- + + "_Vesanum tetigisse timent_, _fugiuntque poetam_ + _Qui sapiunt_; _agitant pueri_, _incautique sequuntur_." + +_Sir Thomas More_.--This brings us again to the point at which you +bolted. The desire of producing present effect, the craving for +immediate reputation, have led to another vice, analogous to and +connected with that of the vicious style, which the same causes are +producing, but of worse consequences. The corruption extends from the +manner to the matter; and they who brew for the press, like some of those +who brew for the publicans, care not, if the potion has but its desired +strength, how deleterious may be the ingredients which they use. Horrors +at which the innocent heart quails, and the healthy stomachs heaves in +loathing, are among the least hurtful of their stimulants. + +_Montesinos_.--This too, Sir Thomas, is no new evil. An appetite for +horrors is one of the diseased cravings of the human mind; and in old +times the tragedies which most abounded in them, were for that reason the +most popular. The dramatists of our best age, great Ben and greater +Shakespeare excepted, were guilty of a farther sin, with which the +writers whom you censure are also to be reproached; they excited their +auditors by the representation of monstrous crimes--crimes out of the +course of nature. Such fables might lawfully be brought upon the Grecian +stage, because the belief of the people divested them of their odious and +dangerous character; there they were well known stories, regarded with a +religious persuasion of their truth; and the personages, being +represented as under the overruling influence of dreadful destiny, were +regarded therefore with solemn commiseration, not as voluntary and guilty +agents. There is nothing of this to palliate or excuse the production of +such stories in later times; the choice, and, in a still greater degree, +the invention of any such, implies in the author, not merely a want of +judgment, but a defect in moral feeling. Here, however, the dramatists +of that age stopped. They desired to excite in their audience the +pleasure of horror, and this was an abuse of the poet's art: but they +never aimed at disturbing their moral perceptions, at presenting +wickedness in an attractive form, exciting sympathy with guilt, and +admiration for villainy, thereby confounding the distinctions between +right and wrong. This has been done in our days; and it has accorded so +well with the tendency of other things, that the moral drift of a book is +no longer regarded, and the severest censure which can be passed upon it +is to say that it is in bad taste; such is the phrase--and the phrase is +not confined to books alone. Anything may be written, said, or done, in +bad feeling and with a wicked intent; and the public are so tolerant of +these, that he who should express a displeasure on that score would be +censured for bad taste himself! + +_Sir Thomas More_.--And yet you talked of the improvement of the age, and +of the current literature as exceeding in worth that of any former time + +_Montesinos_.--The portion of it which shall reach to future times will +justify me; for we have living minds who have done their duty to their +own age and to posterity. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Has the age in return done its duty to them? + +_Montesinos_.--They complain not of the age, but they complain of an +anomalous injustice in the laws. They complain that authors are deprived +of a perpetual property in the produce of their own labours, when all +other persons enjoy it as an indefeasible and acknowledged right. And +they ask upon what principle, with what equity, or under what pretence of +public good they are subjected to this injurious enactment? Is it +because their labour is so light, the endowments which are required for +it so common, the attainments so cheaply and easily acquired, and the +present remuneration in all cases so adequate, so ample, and so certain? + +The act whereby authors are deprived of that property in their own works +which, upon every principle of reason, natural justice, and common law, +they ought to enjoy, is so curiously injurious in its operation, that it +bears with most hardship upon the best works. For books of great +immediate popularity have their run and come to a dead stop: the hardship +is upon those which win their way slowly and difficultly, but keep the +field at last. And it will not appear surprising that this should +generally have been the case with books of the highest merit, if we +consider what obstacles to the success of a work may be opposed by the +circumstances and obscurity of the author, when he presents himself as a +candidate for fame, by the humour or the fashion of the times; the taste +of the public, more likely to be erroneous than right at any time; and +the incompetence, or personal malevolence of some unprincipled critic, +who may take upon himself to guide the public opinion, and who if he +feels in his own heart that the fame of the man whom he hates is +invulnerable, lays in wait for that reason the more vigilantly to wound +him in his fortunes. In such cases, when the copyright as by the +existing law departs from the author's family at his death, or at the end +of twenty-eight years from the first publication of every work, (if he +dies before the expiration of that term,) his representatives are +deprived of their property just as it would begin to prove a valuable +inheritance. + +The last descendants of Milton died in poverty. The descendants of +Shakespeare are living in poverty, and in the lowest condition of life. +Is this just to these individuals? Is it grateful to the memory of those +who are the pride and boast of their country? Is it honourable, or +becoming to us as a nation, holding--the better part of us assuredly, and +the majority affecting to hold--the names of Shakespeare and Milton in +veneration? + +To have placed the descendants of Shakespeare and Milton in +respectability and comfort--in that sphere of life where, with a full +provision for our natural wants and social enjoyments, free scope is +given to the growth of our intellectual and immortal part, simple justice +was all that was required, only that they should have possessed the +perpetual copyright of their ancestors' works, only that they should not +have been deprived of their proper inheritance. + +The decision which time pronounces upon the reputation of authors, and +upon the permanent rank which they are to hold in the estimation of +posterity, is unerring and final. Restore to them that perpetuity in the +property of their works, of which the law has deprived them, and the +reward of literary labour will ultimately be in just proportion to its +deserts. + +However slight may be the hope of obtaining any speedy redress, there is +some satisfaction in earnestly protesting against this injustice. And +believing as I do, that if society continues to improve, no injustice +will long be permitted to continue after it has been fairly exposed, and +is clearly apprehended, I cannot but believe that a time must come when +the rights of literature will be acknowledged and its wrongs redressed; +and that those authors hereafter who shall deserve well of posterity, +will have no cause to reproach themselves for having sacrificed the +interests of their children when they disregarded the pursuit of fortune +for themselves. + + + + +COLLOQUY XV.--THE CONCLUSION. + + +_Montesinos_.--Here Sir Thomas is the opinion which I have attempted to +maintain concerning the progress and tendency of society, placed in a +proper position, and inexpugnably entrenched here according to the rules +of art, by the ablest of all moral engineers. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Who may this political Achilles be whom you have +called in to your assistance? + +_Montesinos_.--Whom Fortune rather has sent to my aid, for my reading has +never been in such authors. I have endeavoured always to drink from the +spring-head, but never ventured out to fish in deep waters. Thor, +himself, when he had hooked the Great Serpent, was unable to draw him up +from the abyss. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The waters in which you have now been angling have +been shallow enough, if the pamphlet in your hand is, as it appears to +be, a magazine. + +_Montesinos_.--"_Ego sum is_," said Scaliger, "_qui ab omnibus discere +volo_; _neque tam malum librum esse puto_, _ex quo non aliquem fructum +colligere possum_." I think myself repaid, in a monkish legend, for +examining a mass of inane fiction, if I discover a single passage which +elucidates the real history or manners of its age. In old poets of the +third and fourth order we are contented with a little ore, and a great +deal of dross. And so in publications of this kind, prejudicial as they +are to taste and public feeling, and the public before deeply injurious +to the real interests of literature, something may sometimes be found to +compensate for the trash and tinsel and insolent flippancy, which are now +become the staple commodities of such journals. This number contains +Kant's idea of a Universal History on a Cosmo-Political plan; and that +Kant is as profound a philosopher as his disciples have proclaimed him to +be, this little treatise would fully convince me, if I had not already +believed it, in reliance upon one of the very few men who are capable of +forming a judgment upon such a writer. + +The sum of his argument is this: that as deaths, births, and marriages, +and the oscillations of the weather, irregular as they seem to be in +themselves, are nevertheless reduceable upon the great scale to certain +rules; so there may be discovered in the course of human history a steady +and continuous, though slow development of certain great predispositions +in human nature, and that although men neither act under the law of +instinct, like brute animals, nor under the law of a preconcerted plan, +like rational cosmopolites, the great current of human actions flows in a +regular stream of tendency toward this development; individuals and +nations, while pursuing their own peculiar and often contradictory +purposes, following the guidance of a great natural purpose, and thus +promoting a process which, even if they perceived it, they would little +regard. What that process is he states in the following series of +propositions:-- + +1st. All tendencies of any creature, to which it is predisposed by +nature, are destined in the end to develop themselves perfectly and +agreeably to their final purpose. + +2nd. In man, as the sole rational creature upon earth, those tendencies +which have the use of his reason for their object are destined to obtain +their perfect development in the species only, and not in the individual. + +3rd. It is the will of nature that man should owe to himself alone +everything which transcends the mere mechanic constitution of his animal +existence, and that he should be susceptible of no other happiness or +perfection than what he has created for himself, instinct apart, through +his own reason. + +4th. The means which nature employs to bring about the development of +all the tendencies she has laid in man, is the antagonism of those +tendencies in the social state, no farther, however, than to that point +at which this antagonism becomes the cause of social arrangements founded +in law. + +5th. The highest problem for the human species, to the solution of which +it is irresistibly urged by natural impulses, is the establishment of a +universal civil society, founded on the empire of political justice. + +6th. This problem is, at the same time, the most difficult of all, and +the one which is latest solved by man. + +7th. The problem of the establishment of a perfect constitution of +society depends upon the problem of a system of international relations, +adjusted to law, and apart from this latter problem cannot be solved. + +8th. The history of the human race, as a whole, may be regarded as the +unravelling of a hidden plan of nature for accomplishing a perfect state +of civil constitution for society in its internal relations (and as the +condition of that, by the last proposition, in its external relations +also), as the sole state of society in which the tendencies of human +nature can be all and fully developed. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--This is indeed a master of the sentences, upon whose +text it may be profitable to dwell. Let us look to his propositions. +From the first this conclusion must follow, that as nature has given men +all his faculties for use, any system of society in which the moral and +intellectual powers of any portion of the people are left undeveloped for +want of cultivation, or receive a perverse direction, is plainly opposed +to the system of nature, in other words, to the will of God. Is there +any government upon earth that will bear this test? + +_Montesinos_.--I should rather ask of you, will there ever be one? + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Not till there be a system of government conducted in +strict conformity to the precepts of the Gospel. + +_Montesinos_. + + "Offer these truths to Power, will she obey? + It prunes her pomp, perchance ploughs up the root." + + LORD BROOKE. + +Yet, in conformity to those principles alone, it is that subjects can +find their perfect welfare, and States their full security. Christianity +may be long in obtaining the victory over the powers of this world, but +when that consummation shall have taken place the converse of his second +proposition will hold good, for the species having obtained its perfect +development, the condition of society must then be such that individuals +will obtain it also as a necessary consequence. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Here you and your philosopher part company. For he +asserts that man is left to deduce from his own unassisted reason +everything which relates not to his mere material nature. + +_Montesinos_.--There, indeed, I must diverge from him, and what in his +language is called the hidden plan of nature, in mine will be the +revealed will of God. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--The will is revealed; but the plan is hidden. Let +man dutifully obey that will, and the perfection of society and of human +nature will be the result of such obedience; but upon obedience they +depend. Blessings and curses are set before you--for nations as for +individuals--yea, for the human race. + +Flatter not yourself with delusive expectations! The end may be +according to your hope--whether it will be so (which God grant!) is as +inscrutable for angels as for men. But to descry that great struggles +are yet to come is within reach of human foresight--that great +tribulations must needs accompany them--and that these may be--you know +not how near at hand! + +Throughout what is called the Christian world there will be a contest +between Impiety and Religion; the former everywhere is gathering +strength, and wherever it breaks loose the foundations of human society +will be shaken. Do not suppose that you are safe from this danger +because you are blest with a pure creed, a reformed ritual, and a +tolerant Church! Even here the standard of impiety has been set up; and +the drummers who beat the march of intellect through your streets, lanes, +and market-places, are enlisted under it. + +The struggle between Popery and Protestanism is renewed. And let no man +deceive himself by a vain reliance upon the increased knowledge, or +improved humanity of the times! Wickedness is ever the same; and you +never were in so much danger from moral weakness. + +Co-existent with these struggles is that between the feudal system of +society as variously modified throughout Europe, and the levelling +principle of democracy. That principle is actively and indefatigably at +work in these kingdoms, allying itself as occasion may serve with Popery +or with Dissent, with atheism or with fanaticism, with profligacy or with +hypocrisy, ready confederates, each having its own sinister views, but +all acting to one straightforward end. Your rulers meantime seem to be +trying that experiment with the British Constitution which Mithridates is +said to have tried upon his own; they suffer poison to be administered in +daily doses, as if they expected that by such a course the public mind +would at length be rendered poison-proof! + +The first of these struggles will affect all Christendom; the third may +once again shake the monarchies of Europe. The second will be felt +widely; but nowhere with more violence than in Ireland, that unhappy +country, wherein your government, after the most impolitic measures into +which weakness was ever deluded, or pusillanimity intimidated, seems to +have abdicated its functions, contenting itself with the semblance of an +authority which it has wanted either wisdom or courage to exert. + +There is a fourth danger, the growth of your manufacturing system; and +this is peculiarly your own. You have a great and increasing population, +exposed at all times by the fluctuations of trade to suffer the severest +privations in the midst of a rich and luxurious society, under little or +no restraint from religious principle, and if not absolutely disaffected +to the institutions of the country, certainly not attached to them: a +class of men aware of their numbers and of their strength; experienced in +all the details of combination; improvident when they are in the receipt +of good wages, yet feeling themselves injured when those wages, during +some failure of demand, are so lowered as no longer to afford the means +of comfortable subsistence; and directing against the government and the +laws of the country their resentment and indignation for the evils which +have been brought upon them by competition and the spirit of rivalry in +trade. They have among them intelligent heads and daring minds; and you +have already seen how perilously they may be wrought upon by seditious +journalists and seditious orators in a time of distress. + +On what do you rely for security against these dangers? On public +opinion? You might as well calculate upon the constancy of wind and +weather in this uncertain climate. On the progress of knowledge? it is +such knowledge as serves only to facilitate the course of delusion. On +the laws? the law which should be like a sword in a strong hand, is weak +as a bulrush if it be feebly administered in time of danger. On the +people? they are divided. On the Parliament? every faction will be fully +and formidably represented there. On the government? it suffers itself +to be insulted and defied at home, and abroad it has shown itself +incapable of maintaining the relations of peace and amity with its +allies, so far has it been divested of power by the usurpation of the +press. It is at peace with Spain, and it is at peace with Turkey; and +although no government was ever more desirous of acting with good faith, +its subjects are openly assisting the Greeks with men and money against +the one, and the Spanish Americans against the other. Athens, in the +most turbulent times of its democracy, was not more effectually +domineered over by its demagogues than you are by the press--a press +which is not only without restraint, but without responsibility; and in +the management of which those men will always have most power who have +least probity, and have most completely divested themselves of all sense +of honour and all regard for truth. + +The root of all your evils is in the sinfulness of the nation. The +principle of duty is weakened among you; that of moral obligation is +loosened; that of religious obedience is destroyed. Look at the +worldliness of all classes--the greediness of the rich, the misery of the +poor, and the appalling depravity which is spreading among the lower +classes through town and country; a depravity which proceeds unchecked +because of the total want of discipline, and for which there is no other +corrective than what may be supplied by fanaticism, which is itself an +evil. + +If there be nothing exaggerated in this representation, you must +acknowledge that though the human race, considered upon the great scale, +should be proceeding toward the perfectibility for which it may be +designed, the present aspects in these kingdoms are nevertheless rather +for evil than for good. Sum you up now upon the hopeful side. + +_Montesinos_.--First, then. I rest in a humble but firm reliance upon +that Providence which sometimes in its mercy educes from the errors of +men a happier issue than could ever have been attained by their +wisdom;--that Providence which has delivered this nation from so many and +such imminent dangers heretofore. + +Looking, then, to human causes, there is hope to be derived from the +humanising effects of Literature, which has now first begun to act upon +all ranks. Good principles are indeed used as the stalking-horse under +cover of which pernicious designs may be advanced; but the better seeds +are thus disseminated and fructify after the ill design has failed. + +The cruelties of the old criminal law have been abrogated. Debtors are +no longer indiscriminately punished by indefinite imprisonment. The +iniquity of the slave trade has been acknowledged, and put an end to, so +far as the power of this country extends; and although slavery is still +tolerated, and must be so for awhile, measures have been taken for +alleviating it while it continues, and preparing the way for its gradual +and safe removal. These are good works of the government. And when I +look upon the conduct of that government in all its foreign relations, +though there may be some things to disapprove, and some sins of omission +to regret, it has been, on the whole, so disinterested, so magnanimous, +so just, that this reflection gives me a reasonable and a religious +ground of hope. And the reliance is strengthened when I call to mind +that missionaries from Great Britain are at this hour employed in +spreading the glad tidings of the Gospel far and wide among heathen +nations. + +Descending from these wider views to the details of society, there, too, +I perceive ground, if not for confidence, at least for hope. There is a +general desire throughout the higher ranks for bettering the condition of +the poor, a subject to which the government also has directed its patient +attention: minute inquiries have been made into their existing state, and +the increase of pauperism and of crimes. In no other country have the +wounds of the commonwealth been so carefully probed. By means of +colonisation, of an improved parochial order and of a more efficient +police, the further increase of these evils may be prevented; while, by +education, by providing means of religious instruction for all by savings +banks, and perhaps by the establishment of Owenite communities among +themselves, the labouring classes will have their comforts enlarged, and +their well-being secured, if they are not wanting to themselves in +prudence and good conduct. A beginning has been made--an impulse given: +it may be hoped--almost, I will say, it may be expected--that in a few +generations this whole class will be placed within the reach of moral and +intellectual gratifications, whereby they may be rendered healthier, +happier, better in all respects, an improvement which will be not more +beneficial to them as individuals, than to the whole body of the +commonweal. + +The diffusion of literature, though it has rendered the acquirement of +general knowledge impossible, and tends inevitably to diminish the number +of sound scholars, while it increases the multitude of sciolists, carries +with it a beneficial influence to the lower classes. Our booksellers +already perceive that it is their interest to provide cheap publications +for a wide public, instead of looking to the rich alone as their +customers. There is reason to expect that, in proportion as this is +done--in proportion as the common people are supplied with wholesome +entertainment (and wholesome it is, if it be only harmless) they will be +less liable to be acted upon by fanaticism and sedition. + +You have not exaggerated the influence of the newspaper press, nor the +profligacy of some of those persons, by whom this unrestrained and +irresponsible power is exercised. Nevertheless it has done, and is +doing, great and essential good. The greatest evils in society proceed +from the abuse of power; and this, though abundantly manifested in the +newspapers themselves, they prevent in other quarters. No man engaged in +public life could venture now upon such transactions as no one, in their +station half a century ago, would have been ashamed of. There is an end +of that scandalous jobbing which at that time existed in every department +of the State, and in every branch of the public service; and a check is +imposed upon any scandalous and unfit promotion, civil or ecclesiastical. +By whatever persons the government may be administered, they are now well +aware that they must do nothing which will not bear daylight and strict +investigation. The magistrates also are closely observed by this self- +constituted censorship; and the inferior officers cannot escape exposure +for any perversion of justice, or undue exercise of authority. Public +nuisances are abated by the same means, and public grievances which the +Legislature might else overlook, are forced upon its attention. Thus, in +ordinary times, the utility of this branch of the press is so great that +one of the worst evils to be apprehended from the abuse of its power at +all times, and the wicked purposes to which it is directed in dangerous +ones, is the ultimate loss of a liberty, which is essential to the public +good, but which when it passes into licentiousness, and effects the +overthrow of a State, perishes in the ruin it has brought on. + +In the fine arts, as well as in literature, a levelling principle is +going on, fatal, perhaps, to excellence, but favourable to mediocrity. +Such facilities are afforded to imitative talent, that whatever is +imitable will be imitated. Genius will often be suppressed by this, and +when it exerts itself, will find it far more difficult to obtain notice +than in former times. There is the evil here that ingenious persons are +seduced into a profession which is already crowded with unfortunate +adventurers; but, on the other hand, there is a great increase of +individual and domestic enjoyment. Accomplishments which were almost +exclusively professional in the last age, are now to be found in every +family within a certain rank of life. Wherever there is a disposition +for the art of design, it is cultivated, and in consequence of the +general proficiency in this most useful of the fine arts, travellers +represent to our view the manners and scenery of the countries which they +visit, as well by the pencil as the pen. By means of two fortunate +discoveries in the art of engraving, these graphic representations are +brought within the reach of whole classes who were formerly precluded by +the expense of such things from these sources of gratification and +instruction. Artists and engravers of great name are now, like authors +and booksellers, induced to employ themselves for this lower and wider +sphere of purchasers. In all this I see the cause as well as the effect +of a progressive refinement, which must be beneficial in many ways. This +very diffusion of cheap books and cheap prints may, in its natural +consequences, operate rather to diminish than to increase the number of +adventurers in literature and in the arts. For though at first it will +create employment for greater numbers, yet in another generation +imitative talent will become so common, that neither parents nor +possessors will mistake it for an indication of extraordinary genius, and +many will thus be saved from a ruinous delusion. More pictures will be +painted but fewer exhibited, more poetry written but less published, and +in both arts talents which might else have been carried to an overstocked +and unprofitable market, will be cultivated for their own sakes, and for +the gratification of private circles, becoming thus a source of sure +enjoyment and indirectly of moral good. Scientific pursuits will, in +like manner, be extended, and pursuits which partake of science, and +afford pleasures within the reach of humble life. + +Here, then, is good in progress which will hold on its course, and the +growth of which will only be suspended, not destroyed, during any of +those political convulsions which may too probably be apprehended--too +probably, I say, because when you call upon me to consider the sinfulness +of this nation, my heart fails. There can be no health, no soundness in +the state, till government shall regard the moral improvement of the +people as its first great duty. The same remedy is required for the rich +and for the poor. Religion ought to be so blended with the whole course +of instruction, that its doctrines and precepts should indeed "drop as +the rain, and distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, +and as the showers upon the grass"--the young plants would then imbibe +it, and the heart and intellect assimilate it with their growth. We are, +in a great degree, what our institutions make us. Gracious God were +those institutions adapted to Thy will and word--were we but broken in +from childhood to Thy easy yoke--were we but carefully instructed to +believe and obey--in that obedience and belief we should surely find our +temporal welfare and our eternal happiness! + +Here, indeed, I tremble at the prospect! Could I look beyond the clouds +and the darkness which close upon it, I should then think that there may +come a time when that scheme for a perpetual peace among the states of +Christendom which Henri IV. formed, and which has been so ably digested +by the Abbe St. Pierre, will no longer be regarded as the speculation of +a visionary. The Holy Alliance, imperfect and unstable as it is, is in +itself a recognition of the principle. At this day it would be +practicable, if one part of Europe were as well prepared for it as the +other; but this cannot be, till good shall have triumphed over evil in +the struggles which are brooding, or shall have obtained such a +predominance as to allay the conflict of opinions before it breaks into +open war. + +God in his mercy grant that it be so! If I looked to secondary causes +alone, my fears would preponderate. But I conclude as I began, in firm +reliance upon Him who is the beginning and the end. Our sins are +manifold, our danger is great, but His mercy is infinite. + +_Sir Thomas More_.--Rest there in full faith. I leave you to your +dreams; draw from them what comfort you can. And now, my friend, +farewell! + +The look which he fixed on me, as he disappeared, was compassionate and +thoughtful; it impressed me with a sad feeling, as if I were not to see +him again till we should meet in the world of spirits. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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