INTERCHAPTER X.

MORE ON THE FOREGOING SUBJECT. ELUCIDATIONS FROM HENRY MORE AND DR. WATTS. AN INCIDENTAL OPINION UPON HORACE WALPOLE. THE STREAM OF THOUGHT “FLOWETH AT ITS OWN SWEET WILL.” PICTURES AND BOOKS. A SAYING OF MR PITT'S CONCERNING WILBERFORCE. THE AUTHOR EXPLAINS IN WHAT SENSE IT MIGHT BE SAID THAT HE SOMETIMES SHOOTS WITH A LONG BOW.

Vorrei, disse il Signor Gasparo Pallavicino, che voi ragionassi un poco piu minutamente di questo, che non fate; che in vero vi tenete molto al generale, et quasi ci mostrate le cose per transito.

IL CORTEGIANO.             

Henry More, in the Preface General to the collection of his philosophical writings, says to the reader, “if thy curiosity be forward to enquire what I have done in these new editions of my books, I am ready to inform thee that I have taken the same liberty in this Intellectual Garden of my own planting, that men usually take in their natural ones; which is, to set or pluck up, to transplant and inoculate, where and what they please. And therefore if I have rased out some things, (which yet are but very few) and transposed others, and interserted others, I hope I shall seem injurious to no man in ordering and cultivating this Philosophical Plantation of mine according to mine own humour and liking.”

Except as to the rasing out, what our great Platonist has thus said for himself, may here be said for me. “Many things,” as the happy old lutanist, Thomas Mace, says, “are good, yea, very good; but yet upon after-consideration we have met with the comparative, which is better; yea, and after that, with the superlative, (best of all), by adding to, or altering a little, the same good things.”

During the years that this Opus has been in hand, (and in head and heart also) nothing was expunged as if it had become obsolete because the persons therein alluded to had departed like shadows, or the subjects there touched on had grown out of date; but much was introduced from time to time where it fitted best. Allusions occur in relation to facts which are many years younger than the body of the chapter in which they have been grafted, thus rendering it impossible for any critic, however acute, to determine the date of any one chapter by its contents.

What Watts has said of his own Treatise upon the Improvement of the Mind may therefore with strict fidelity be applied to this book, which I trust, O gentle Reader, thou wilt regard as specially conducive to the improvement of thine. “The work was composed at different times, and by slow degrees. Now and then indeed it spread itself into branches and leaves, like a plant in April, and advanced seven or eight pages in a week; and sometimes it lay by without growth, like a vegetable in the winter, and did not increase half so much in the revolution of a year. As thoughts occurred to me in reading or meditation, or in my notices of the various appearances of things among mankind, they were thrown under appropriate heads, and were, by degrees, reduced to such a method as the subject would admit. The language and dress of these sentiments is such as the present temper of mind dictated, whether it were grave or pleasant, severe or smiling. And a book which has been twenty years in writing may be indulged in some variety of style and manner, though I hope there will not be found any great difference of sentiment.” With little transposition Watts' words have been made to suit my purpose; and when he afterwards speaks of “so many lines altered, so many things interlined, and so many paragraphs and pages here and there inserted,” the circumstances which he mentions as having deceived him in computing the extent of his work, set forth the embarrassment which the commentators will find in settling the chronology of mine.

The difficulty would not be obviated were I, like Horace Walpole, (though Heaven knows for no such motives as influenced that posthumous libeller,—) to leave a box containing the holograph manuscript of this Opus in safe custody, with an injunction that the seals should not be broken till the year of our Lord, 2000. Nothing more than what has been here stated would appear in that inestimable manuscript. Whether I shall leave it as an heir-loom in my family, or have it deposited either in the public library of my Alma Mater, or that of my own College, or bequeath it as a last mark of affection to the town of Doncaster, concerns not the present reader. Nor does it concern him to know whether the till-then-undiscoverable name of the author will be disclosed at the opening of the seals. An adequate motive for placing the manuscript in safe custody is, that a standard would thus be secured for posterity whereby the always accumulating errors of the press might be corrected. For modern printers make more and greater blunders than the copyists of old.

In any of those works which posterity will not be “willing to let perish,” how greatly would the interest be enhanced, if the whole history of its rise and progress were known, and amid what circumstances, and with what views, and in what state of mind, certain parts were composed. Sir Walter, than whom no man ever took more accurate measure of the public taste, knew this well; and posterity will always be grateful to him for having employed his declining years in communicating so much of the history of those works which obtained a wider and more rapid celebrity than any that ever preceded them, and perhaps than any that ever may follow them.

An author of the last generation, (I cannot call to mind who,) treated such an opinion with contempt, saying in his preface that “there his work was, and that as the Public were concerned with it only as it appeared before them, he should say nothing that would recal the blandishments of its childhood:” whether the book was one of which the maturity might just as well be forgotten as the nonage, I do not remember. But he must be little versed in bibliology who has not learnt that such reminiscences are not more agreeable to an author himself, than they are to his readers, (if he obtain any,) in after times; for every trifle that relates to the history of a favourite author, and of his works, then becomes precious.

Far be it for me to despise the relic-mongers of literature, or to condemn them, except when they bring to light things which ought to have been buried with the dead; like the Dumfries craniologists, who, when the grave of Burns was opened to receive the corpse of his wife, took that opportunity of abstracting the poet's skull that they might make a cast from it! Had these men forgotten the malediction which Shakespeare utters from his monument? And had they never read what Wordsworth says to such men in his Poet's epitaph—

                 Art thou one all eyes,
Philosopher! a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside,—and take, I pray,
That he below may rest in peace,
Thy pin-point of a soul away!

O for an hour of Burns' for these men's sake! Were there a Witch of Endor in Scotland it would be an act of comparative piety in her to bring up his spirit; to stigmatize them in verses that would burn for ever would be a gratification for which he might think it worth while to be thus brought again upon earth.

But to the harmless relic-mongers we owe much; much to the Thomas Hearnes and John Nichols, the Isaac Reids and the Malones, the Haslewoods and Sir Egertons. Individually, I owe them much, and willingly take this opportunity of acknowledging the obligation. And let no one suppose that Sir Egerton is disparaged by being thus classed among the pioneers of literature. It is no disparagement for any man of letters, however great his endowments, and however extensive his erudition, to take part in those patient and humble labours by which honour is rendered to his predecessors, and information preserved for those who come after him.

But in every original work which lives and deserves to live there must have been some charms which no editorial diligence can preserve, no critical sagacity recover. The pictures of the old masters, suffer much when removed from the places for which, (and in which, many of them,) they were painted. It may happen that one which has been conveyed from a Spanish palace or monastery to the collection of Marshal Soult, or any other Plunder-Master-General in Napoleon's armies, and have past from thence,—honestly as regards the purchaser,—to the hands of an English owner, may be hung at the same elevation as in its proper place, and in the same light. Still it loses much. The accompaniments are all of a different character; the air and odour of the place are different. There is not here the locality that consecrated it,—no longer the religio loci. Wealth cannot purchase these; power may violate and destroy, but it cannot transplant them. The picture in its new situation is seen with a different feeling, by those who have any true feeling for such things.

Literary works of imagination, fancy or feeling, are liable to no injury of this kind; but in common with pictures they suffer a partial deterioration in even a short lapse of time. In such works as in pictures, there are often passages which once possessed a peculiar interest, personal and local, subordinate to the general interest. The painter introduced into an historical piece the portrait of his mistress, his wife, his child, his dog, his friend, or his faithful servant. The picture is not as a work of art the worse where these persons were not known, or when they are forgotten: but there was once a time when it excited on this account in very many beholders a peculiar delight which it can never more impart.

So it is with certain books; and though there is perhaps little to regret in any thing that becomes obsolete, an author may be allowed to sigh over what he feels and knows to be evanescent.

Mr. Pitt used to say of Wilberforce that he was not so single minded in his speeches as might have been expected from the sincerity of his character, and as he would have been if he had been less dependent upon popular support. Those who knew him, and how he was connected, he said, could perceive that some things in his best speeches were intended to tell in such and such quarters,—upon Benjamin Sleek in one place, Isaac Drab in another, and Nehemiah Wilyman in a third.—Well would it be if no man ever looked askant with worse motives!

Observe, Reader, that I call him simply Wilberforce, because any common prefix would seem to disparage that name, especially if used by one who regarded him with admiration; and with respect, which is better than admiration, because it can be felt for those only whose virtues entitle them to it; and with kindliness, which is better than both, because it is called forth by those kindly qualities that are worth more than any talents, and without which a man, though he may be both great and good, never can be amiable. No one was ever blest with a larger portion of those gifts and graces which make up the measure of an amiable and happy man.

It will not be thought then that I have repeated with any disrespectful intention what was said of Wilberforce by Mr. Pitt. The observation was brought to mind while I was thinking how many passages in these volumes were composed with a double intention, one for the public and for posterity, the other private and personal, written with special pleasure on my part, speciali gratiâ, for the sake of certain individuals. Some of these which are calculated for the meridian of Doncaster the commentators may possibly, if they make due research, discover; but there are others which no ingenuity can detect. Their quintessence exhales when the private, which was in these cases the primary intention has been fulfilled. Yet the consciousness of the emotions which those passages will excite, the recollections they will awaken, the surprize and the smile with which they will be received,—yea and the melancholy gratification,—even to tears,—which they will impart, has been one and not the least of the many pleasures which I have experienced while employed upon this work.

    Πολλά μοι ὑπ᾽ ἀγκῶ–
–νος ὠκέα βέλη
Ἒνδον ἐντὶ φαρέτρας
Φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν.1

1 PINDAR.

But while thus declaring that these volumes contain much covert intention of this kind, I utterly disclaim all covert malevolence. My roving shafts are more harmless even than bird bolts, and can hurt none on whom they fall. The arrows with which I take aim carry tokens of remembrance and love, and may be likened to those by which intelligence has been conveyed into besieged places. Of such it is that I have been speaking. Others indeed I have in the quiver which are pointed and barbed.

    ἐμοὶ μὲν ὧν Μοῖσα καρτερώ-
-τατον βέλος ἀλκᾷ τρἐφει.2

When one of these is let fly, (with sure aim and never without just cause,) it has its address written on the shaft at full length, like that which Aster directed from the walls of Methone to Philip's right eye.

2 PINDAR.

Or' c'est assez s' estre esgare de son grand chemin: j'y retourne et le bats, et le trace comme devant. 3

3 BRANTOME.