predecessors; you ever find his warriors able to conquer armies, and his
sages acquainted with more than possible knowledge: human nature is to
him an unknown country: he thinks it capable of great things, because he
is ignorant of its boundaries; whatever can be conceived to be done he
allows to be possible, and whatever is possible he conjectures must have
been done. He never measures the actions and powers of others by what
himself is able to perform, nor makes a proper estimate of the greatness
of his fellows, by bringing it to the standard of his own capacity. He
is satisfied to be one of a country where mighty things have been; and
imagines the fancied power of others reflects a lustre on himself. Thus
by degrees he loses the idea of his own insignificance in a confused
notion of the extraordinary powers of humanity, and is willing to grant
extraordinary gifts to every pretender, because unacquainted with their
claims.
This is the reason why demi-gods and heroes have ever been erected in
times or countries of ignorance and barbarity: they addressed a people
who had high opinions of human nature, because they were ignorant how far
it could extend; they addressed a people who were willing to allow that
men should be gods, because they were yet imperfectly acquainted with God
and with man. These impostors knew that all men are naturally fond of
seeing something very great made from the little materials of humanity;
that ignorant nations are not more proud of building a tower to reach
heaven, or a pyramid to last for ages, than of raising up a demi-god of
their own country and creation. The same pride that erects a colossus
or a pyramid instals a god or a hero: but though the adoring savage can
raise his colossus to the clouds, he can exalt the hero not one inch
above the standard of humanity; incapable therefore of exalting the idol,
he debases himself, and falls prostrate before him.
When man has thus acquired an erroneous idea of the dignity of his
species, he and the gods become perfectly intimate; men are but angels,
angels are but men, nay but servants that stand in waiting to execute
human commands. The Persians, for instance, thus address their prophet
Haly: “I salute thee, glorious Creator, of whom the sun is but the
shadow. Masterpiece of the lord of human creatures, great star of justice
and religion, the sea is not rich and liberal, but by the gifts of thy
munificent hands. The angel treasurer of heaven reaps his harvest in the
fertile gardens of the purity of thy nature. The _primum mobile_ would
never dart the ball of the sun through the trunk of heaven, were it not
to serve the morning out of the extreme love she has for thee. The angel
Gabriel, messenger of truth, every day kisses the groundsel of thy gate.
Were there a place more exalted than the most high throne of God, I would
affirm it to be thy place, O master of the faithful! Gabriel, with all
his art and knowledge, is but a mere scholar to thee.” Thus, my friend,
men think proper to treat angels; but if indeed there be such an order
of beings, with what a degree of satirical contempt must they listen to
the songs of little mortals thus flattering each other! thus to see
creatures, wiser indeed than the monkey, and more active than the oyster,
claiming to themselves a mastery of heaven! minims, the tenants of an
atom, thus arrogating a partnership in the creation of universal nature!
surely heaven is kind that launches no thunder at those guilty heads;
but it is kind, and regards their follies with pity, nor will destroy
creatures that it loved into being.
But whatever success this practice of making demi-gods might have been
attended with in barbarous nations, I do not know that any man became
a god in a country where the inhabitants were refined. Such countries
generally have too close an inspection into human weakness to think it
invested with celestial power. They sometimes indeed admit the gods of
strangers, or of their ancestors, who had their existence in times of
obscurity; their weakness being forgotten, while nothing but their power
and their miracles were remembered. The Chinese, for instance, never
had a god of their own country; the idols which the vulgar worship at
this day were brought from the barbarous nations around them. The Roman
emperors, who pretended to divinity, were generally taught by a poniard
that they were mortal; and Alexander, though he passed among barbarous
countries for a real god, could never persuade his polite countrymen into
a similitude of thinking. The Lacedæmonians shrewdly complied with his
commands by the following sarcastic edict: Ει Αλεξανδρος βουλεται ειναι
Θεος, Θεος εστω.
INDEX.
_No._ _Page_
I. Description of various Clubs 7
II. Specimen of a Magazine in Miniature 17
III. Asem, an Eastern Tale 22
IV. On the English Clergy, and popular Preachers 31
V. A Reverie at the Boar’s Head Tavern, Eastcheap 37
VI. Adventures of a Strolling Player 54
VII. Rules enjoined to be observed at a Russian Assembly 66
VIII. Biographical Memoir, supposed to be written by the Ordinary
of Newgate 68
IX. On National Concord 71
X. Female Warriors 74
XI. On National Prejudice 80
XII. On Taste 85
XIII. Cultivation of Taste 95
XIV. Origin of Poetry 107
XV. Poetry distinguished from other Writing 121
XVI. On Metaphor 133
XVII. On Hyperbole 154
XVIII. On Versification 158
XIX. Schools of Music—Objections thereto, and Answers 164
XX. On Carolan, the Irish Bard 171
XXI. On the Tenants of the Leasowes 174
XXII. On Sentimental Comedy 179
XXIII. Scotch Marriages 184
XXIV. On the Dignity of Human Nature 188
THE END.
T. Davison, Printer, Whitefriars.