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diff --git a/old/cllsc10.txt b/old/cllsc10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..504d8e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/cllsc10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4543 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Colloquies on Society +by Robert Southey +(#2 in our series by Robert Southey) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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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 so on 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 which cannot be reproduced] + +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 which cannot be +reproduced] + +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 which cannot be reproduced]. 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 which cannot be reproduced] 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 Etext of Colloquies on Society +by Robert Southey + |