belonging to the opposite party, whether he allowed Burke to be a
great man. Of all the persons of this description that I have ever
known, I never met with above one or two who would make this
concession; whether it was that party feelings ran too high to admit
of any real candour, or whether it was owing to an essential vulgarity
in their habits of thinking, they all seemed to be of opinion that he
was a wild enthusiast, or a hollow sophist, who was to be answered by
bits of facts, by smart logic, by shrewd questions, and idle songs.
They looked upon him as a man of disordered intellects, because he
reasoned in a style to which they had not been used, and which
confounded their dim perceptions. If you said that though you differed
with him in sentiment, yet you thought him an admirable reasoner, and
a close observer of human nature, you were answered with a loud laugh,
and some hackneyed quotation. 'Alas! Leviathan was not so tamed!' They
did not know whom they had to contend with. The corner-stone, which
the builders rejected, became the head-corner, though to the Jews a
stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; for, indeed, I cannot
discover that he was much better understood by those of his own party,
if we may judge from the little affinity there is between his mode of
reasoning and theirs. The simple clue to all his reasonings on
politics is, I think, as follows. He did not agree with some writers
that that mode of government is necessarily the best which is the
cheapest. He saw in the construction of society other principles at
work, and other capacities of fulfilling the desires, and perfecting
the nature of man, besides those of securing the equal enjoyment of
the means of animal life, and doing this at as little expense as
possible. He thought that the wants and happiness of men were not to
be provided for, as we provide for those of a herd of cattle, merely
by attending to their physical necessities. He thought more nobly of
his fellows. He knew that man had affections and passions and powers
of imagination, as well as hunger and thirst, and the sense of heat
and cold. He took his idea of political society from the pattern of
private life, wishing, as he himself expresses it, to incorporate the
domestic charities with the orders of the state, and to blend them
together. He strove to establish an analogy between the compact that
binds together the community at large, and that which binds together
the several families that compose it. He knew that the rules that form
the basis of private morality are not founded in reason, that is, in
the abstract properties of those things which are the subjects of
them, but in the nature of man, and his capacity of being affected by
certain things from habit, from imagination, and sentiment, as well as
from reason.
Thus, the reason why a man ought to be attached to his wife and
children is not, surely, that they are better than others (for in this
case every one else ought to be of the same opinion), but because he
must be chiefly interested in those things which are nearest to him,
and with which he is best acquainted, since his understanding cannot
reach equally to everything; because he must be most attached to those
objects which he has known the longest, and which by their situation
have actually affected him the most, not those which in themselves are
the most affecting whether they have ever made any impression on him
or no; that is, because he is by his nature the creature of habit and
feeling, and because it is reasonable that he should act in conformity
to his nature. Burke was so far right in saying that it is no
objection to an institution that it is founded in _prejudice_, but the
contrary, if that prejudice is natural and right; that is, if it
arises from those circumstances which are properly subjects of feeling
and association, not from any defect or perversion of the
understanding in those things which fall strictly under its
jurisdiction. On this profound maxim he took his stand. Thus he
contended, that the prejudice in favour of nobility was natural and
proper, and fit to be encouraged by the positive institutions of
society: not on account of the real or personal merit of the
individuals, but because such an institution has a tendency to enlarge
and raise the mind, to keep alive the memory of past greatness, to
connect the different ages of the world together, to carry back the
imagination over a long tract of time, and feed it with the
contemplation of remote events: because it is natural to think highly
of that which inspires us with high thoughts, which has been connected
for many generations with splendour, and affluence, and dignity, and
power, and privilege. He also conceived, that by transferring the
respect from the person to the thing, and thus rendering it steady and
permanent, the mind would be habitually formed to sentiments of
deference, attachment, and fealty, to whatever else demanded its
respect: that it would be led to fix its view on what was elevated and
lofty, and be weaned from that low and narrow jealousy which never
willingly or heartily admits of any superiority in others, and is glad
of every opportunity to bring down all excellence to a level with its
own miserable standard. Nobility did not, therefore, exist to the
prejudice of the other orders of the state, but by, and for them. The
inequality of the different orders of society did not destroy the
unity and harmony of the whole. The health and well-being of the moral
world was to be promoted by the same means as the beauty of the
natural world; by contrast, by change, by light and shade, by variety
of parts, by order and proportion. To think of reducing all mankind to
the same insipid level, seemed to him the same absurdity as to destroy
the inequalities of surface in a country, for the benefit of
agriculture and commerce. In short, he believed that the interests of
men in society should be consulted, and their several stations and
employments assigned, with a view to their nature, not as physical,
but as moral beings, so as to nourish their hopes, to lift their
imagination, to enliven their fancy, to rouse their activity, to
strengthen their virtue, and to furnish the greatest number of objects
of pursuit and means of enjoyment to beings constituted as man is,
consistently with the order and stability of the whole.
The same reasoning might be extended farther. I do not say that his
arguments are conclusive: but they are profound and _true_, as far as
they go. There may be disadvantages and abuses necessarily interwoven
with his scheme, or opposite advantages of infinitely greater value,
to be derived from another order of things and state of society. This,
however, does not invalidate either the truth or importance of Burke's
reasoning; since the advantages he points out as connected with the
mixed form of government are really and necessarily inherent in it:
since they are compatible, in the same degree, with no other; since
the principle itself on which he rests his argument (whatever we may
think of the application) is of the utmost weight and moment; and
since, on whichever side the truth lies, it is impossible to make a
fair decision without having the opposite side of the question clearly
and fully stated to us. This Burke has done in a masterly manner. He
presents to you one view or face of society. Let him who thinks he
can, give the reverse side with equal force, beauty, and clearness. It
is said, I know, that truth is _one_; but to this I cannot subscribe,
for it appears to me that truth is _many_. There are as many truths as
there are things and causes of action and contradictory principles at
work in society. In making up the account of good and evil, indeed,
the final result must be one way or the other; but the particulars on
which that result depends are infinite and various.
It will be seen from what I have said, that I am very far from
agreeing with those who think that Burke was a man without
understanding, and a merely florid writer. There are two causes which
have given rise to this calumny; namely, that narrowness of mind which
leads men to suppose that the truth lies entirely on the side of their
own opinions, and that whatever does not make for them is absurd and
irrational; secondly, a trick we have of confounding reason with
judgment, and supposing that it is merely the province of the
understanding to pronounce sentence, and not to give evidence, or
argue the case; in short, that it is a passive, not an active faculty.
Thus there are persons who never run into any extravagance, because
they are so buttressed up with the opinions of others on all sides,
that they cannot lean much to one side or the other; they are so
little moved with any kind of reasoning, that they remain at an equal
distance from every extreme, and are never very far from the truth,
because the slowness of their faculties will not suffer them to make
much progress in error. These are persons of great judgment. The
scales of the mind are pretty sure to remain even, when there is
nothing in them. In this sense of the word, Burke must be allowed to
have wanted judgment, by all those who think that he was wrong in his
conclusions. The accusation of want of judgment, in fact, only means
that you yourself are of a different opinion. But if in arriving at
one error he discovered a hundred truths, I should consider myself a
hundred times more indebted to him than if, stumbling on that which I
consider as the right side of the question, he had committed a hundred
absurdities in striving to establish his point. I speak of him now
merely as an author, or as far as I and other readers are concerned
with him; at the same time, I should not differ from any one who may
be disposed to contend that the consequences of his writings as
instruments of political power have been tremendous, fatal, such as no
exertion of wit or knowledge or genius can ever counteract or atone
for.
Burke also gave a hold to his antagonists by mixing up sentiment and
imagery with his reasoning; so that being unused to such a sight in
the region of politics, they were deceived, and could not discern the
fruit from the flowers. Gravity is the cloak of wisdom; and those who
have nothing else think it an insult to affect the one without the
other, because it destroys the only foundation on which their
pretensions are built. The easiest part of reason is dulness; the
generality of the world are therefore concerned in discouraging any
example of unnecessary brilliancy that might tend to show that the two
things do not always go together. Burke in some measure dissolved the
spell. It was discovered, that his gold was not the less valuable for
being wrought into elegant shapes, and richly embossed with curious
figures; that the solidity of a building is not destroyed by adding to
it beauty and ornament; and that the strength of a man's understanding
is not always to be estimated in exact proportion to his want of
imagination. His understanding was not the less real, because it was
not the only faculty he possessed. He justified the description of the
poet--
'How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute!'
Those who object to this union of grace and beauty with reason, are in
fact weak-sighted people, who cannot distinguish the noble and
majestic form of Truth from that of her sister Folly, if they are
dressed both alike! But there is always a difference even in the
adventitious ornaments they wear, which is sufficient to distinguish
them.
Burke was so far from being a gaudy or flowery writer, that he was one
of the severest writers we have. His words are the most like things;
his style is the most strictly suited to the subject. He unites every
extreme and every variety of composition; the lowest and the meanest
words and descriptions with the highest. He exults in the display of
power, in showing the extent, the force, and intensity of his ideas;
he is led on by the mere impulse and vehemence of his fancy, not by
the affectation of dazzling his readers by gaudy conceits or pompous
images. He was completely carried away by his subject. He had no other
object but to produce the strongest impression on his reader, by
giving the truest, the most characteristic, the fullest, and most
forcible description of things, trusting to the power of his own mind
to mould them into grace and beauty. He did not produce a splendid
effect by setting fire to the light vapours that float in the regions
of fancy, as the chemists make fine colours with phosphorus, but by
the eagerness of his blows struck fire from the flint, and melted the
hardest substances in the furnace of his imagination. The wheels of
his imagination did not catch fire from the rottenness of the
materials, but from the rapidity of their motion. One would suppose,
to hear people talk of Burke, that his style was such as would have
suited the _Lady's Magazine_; soft, smooth, showy, tender, insipid,
full of fine words, without any meaning. The essence of the gaudy or
glittering style consists in producing a momentary effect by fine
words and images brought together, without order or connection. Burke
most frequently produced an effect by the remoteness and novelty of
his combinations, by the force of contrast, by the striking manner in
which the most opposite and unpromising materials were harmoniously
blended together; not by laying his hands on all the fine things he
could think of, but by bringing together those things which he knew
would blaze out into glorious light by their collision. The florid
style is a mixture of affectation and commonplace. Burke's was an
union of untameable vigour and originality.
Burke was not a verbose writer. If he sometimes multiplies words, it
is not for want of ideas, but because there are no words that fully
express his ideas, and he tries to do it as well as he can by
different ones. He had nothing of the _set_ or formal style, the
measured cadence, and stately phraseology of Johnson, and most of our
modern writers. This style, which is what we understand by the
_artificial_, is all in one key. It selects a certain set of words to
represent all ideas whatever, as the most dignified and elegant, and
excludes all others as low and vulgar. The words are not fitted to the
things, but the things to the words. Everything is seen through a
false medium. It is putting a mask on the face of nature, which may
indeed hide some specks and blemishes, but takes away all beauty,
delicacy, and variety. It destroys all dignity or elevation, because
nothing can be raised where all is on a level, and completely destroys
all force, expression, truth, and character, by arbitrarily
confounding the differences of things, and reducing everything to the
same insipid standard. To suppose that this stiff uniformity can add
anything to real grace or dignity, is like supposing that the human
body, in order to be perfectly graceful, should never deviate from its
upright posture. Another mischief of this method is, that it confounds
all ranks in literature. Where there is no room for variety, no
discrimination, no nicety to be shown in matching the idea with its
proper word, there can be no room for taste or elegance. A man must
easily learn the art of writing, when every sentence is to be cast in
the same mould: where he is only allowed the use of one word he cannot
choose wrong, nor will he be in much danger of making himself
ridiculous by affectation or false glitter, when, whatever subject he
treats of, he must treat of it in the same way. This indeed is to wear
golden chains for the sake of ornament.
Burke was altogether free from the pedantry which I have here
endeavoured to expose. His style was as original, as expressive, as
rich and varied, as it was possible; his combinations were as
exquisite, as playful, as happy, as unexpected, as bold and daring,
as his fancy. If anything, he ran into the opposite extreme of too
great an inequality, if truth and nature could ever be carried to an
extreme.
Those who are best acquainted with the writings and speeches of Burke
will not think the praise I have here bestowed on them exaggerated.
Some proof will be found of this in the following extracts. But the
full proof must be sought in his works at large, and particularly in
the _Thoughts on the Discontents_; in his _Reflections on the French
Revolution_; in his _Letter to the Duke of Bedford_; and in the
_Regicide Peace_. The two last of these are perhaps the most
remarkable of all his writings, from the contrast they afford to each
other. The one is the most delightful exhibition of wild and brilliant
fancy that is to be found in English prose, but it is too much like a
beautiful picture painted upon gauze; it wants something to support
it: the other is without ornament, but it has all the solidity, the
weight, the gravity of a judicial record. It seems to have been
written with a certain constraint upon himself, and to show those who
said he could not _reason_, that his arguments might be stripped of
their ornaments without losing anything of their force. It is
certainly, of all his works, that in which he has shown most power of
logical deduction, and the only one in which he has made any important
use of facts. In general he certainly paid little attention to them:
they were the playthings of his mind. He saw them as he pleased, not
as they were; with the eye of the philosopher or the poet, regarding
them only in their general principle, or as they might serve to
decorate his subject. This is the natural consequence of much
imagination: things that are probable are elevated into the rank of
realities. To those who can reason on the essences of things, or who
can invent according to nature, the experimental proof is of little
value. This was the case with Burke. In the present instance, however,
he seems to have forced his mind into the service of facts; and he
succeeded completely. His comparison between our connection with
France or Algiers, and his account of the conduct of the war, are as
clear, as convincing, as forcible examples of this kind of reasoning,
as are anywhere to be met with. Indeed I do not think there is
anything in Fox (whose mind was purely historical), or in Chatham (who
attended to feelings more than facts), that will bear a comparison
with them.
Burke has been compared to Cicero--I do not know for what reason.
Their excellences are as different, and indeed as opposite, as they
can well be. Burke had not the polished elegance, the glossy neatness,
the artful regularity, the exquisite modulation of Cicero: he had a
thousand times more richness and originality of mind, more strength
and pomp of diction.
It has been well observed, that the ancients had no word that properly
expresses what we mean by the word _genius_. They perhaps had not the
thing. Their minds appear to have been too exact, too retentive, too
minute and subtle, too sensible to the external differences of things,
too passive under their impressions, to admit of those bold and rapid
combinations, those lofty flights of fancy, which, glancing from
heaven to earth, unite the most opposite extremes, and draw the
happiest illustrations from things the most remote. Their ideas were
kept too confined and distinct by the material form or vehicle in
which they were conveyed, to unite cordially together, to be melted
down in the imagination. Their metaphors are taken from things of the
same class, not from things of different classes; the general analogy,
not the individual feeling, directs them in their choice. Hence, as
Dr. Johnson observed, their similes are either repetitions of the same
idea, or so obvious and general as not to lend any additional force to
it; as when a huntress is compared to Diana, or a warrior rushing into
battle to a lion rushing on his prey. Their _forte_ was exquisite art
and perfect imitation. Witness their statues and other things of the
same kind. But they had not that high and enthusiastic fancy which
some of our own writers have shown. For the proof of this, let any one
compare Milton and Shakspeare with Homer and Sophocles, or Burke with
Cicero.
It may be asked whether Burke was a poet. He was so only in the general
vividness of his fancy, and in richness of invention. There may be
poetical passages in his works, but I certainly think that his writings
in general are quite distinct from poetry; and that for the reason
before given, namely, that the subject-matter of them is not poetical.
The finest part of them are illustrations or personifications of dry
abstract ideas;[11] and the union between the idea and the illustration
is not of that perfect and pleasing kind as to constitute poetry, or
indeed to be admissible, but for the effect intended to be produced by
it; that is, by every means in our power to give animation and
attraction to subjects in themselves barren of ornament, but which at
the same time are pregnant with the most important consequences, and in
which the understanding and the passions are equally interested.
I have heard it remarked by a person, to whose opinion I would sooner
submit than to a general council of critics, that the sound of Burke's
prose is not musical; that it wants cadence; and that instead of being
so lavish of his imagery as is generally supposed, he seemed to him to
be rather parsimonious in the use of it, always expanding and making
the most of his ideas. This may be true if we compare him with some of
our poets, or perhaps with some of our early prose writers, but not if
we compare him with any of our political writers or parliamentary
speakers. There are some very fine things of Lord Bolingbroke's on the
same subjects, but not equal to Burke's. As for Junius, he is at the
head of his class; but that class is not the highest. He has been
said to have more dignity than Burke. Yes--if the stalk of a giant is
less dignified than the strut of a _petit-maitre_. I do not mean to
speak disrespectfully of Junius, but grandeur is not the character of
his composition; and if it is not to be found in Burke it is to be
found nowhere.
1807.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] For instance, he produced less effect on the mob that compose the
English House of Commons, than Chatham or Fox, or even Pitt.
[11] As in the comparison of the British Constitution to the 'proud
keep of Windsor,' etc., the most splendid passage in his works.
ESSAY XIII
ON THE CHARACTER OF FOX
I shall begin with observing generally, that Mr. Fox excelled all his
contemporaries in the extent of his knowledge, in the clearness and
distinctness of his views, in quickness of apprehension, in plain
practical common sense, in the full, strong, and absolute possession
of his subject. A measure was no sooner proposed than he seemed to
have an instantaneous and intuitive perception of its various bearings
and consequences; of the manner in which it would operate on the
different classes of society, on commerce or agriculture, on our
domestic or foreign policy; of the difficulties attending its
execution; in a word, of all its practical results, and the
comparative advantages to be gained either by adopting or rejecting
it. He was intimately acquainted with the interests of the different
parts of the community, with the minute and complicated details of
political economy, with our external relations, with the views, the
resources, and the maxims of other states. He was master of all those
facts and circumstances which it was necessary to know in order to
judge fairly and determine wisely; and he knew them not loosely or
lightly, but in number, weight, and measure. He had also stored his
memory by reading and general study, and improved his understanding by
the lamp of history. He was well acquainted with the opinions and
sentiments of the best authors, with the maxims of the most profound
politicians, with the causes of the rise and fall of states, with the
general passions of men, with the characters of different nations,
and the laws and constitution of his own country. He was a man of
large, capacious, powerful, and highly cultivated intellect. No man
could know more than he knew; no man's knowledge could be more sound,
more plain and useful; no man's knowledge could lie in more connected
and tangible masses; no man could be more perfectly master of his
ideas, could reason upon them more closely, or decide upon them more
impartially. His mind was full, even to overflowing. He was so
habitually conversant with the most intricate and comprehensive trains
of thought, or such was the natural vigour and exuberance of his mind,
that he seemed to recall them without any effort. His ideas quarrelled
for utterance. So far from ever being at a loss for them, he was
obliged rather to repress and rein them in, lest they should overwhelm
and confound, instead of informing the understandings of his hearers.