"O thou who know'st for whom I mourn;"
and the other--
"They are all gone into the world of light."
But our object now is, not so much to illustrate Mr. Tennyson's verses,
as to introduce to our readers what we ourselves have got so much
delight, and, we trust, profit from--_The Remains, in Verse and Prose,
of Arthur Henry Hallam_, 1834; privately printed. We had for many years
been searching for this volume, but in vain; a sentence quoted by Henry
Taylor struck us, and our desire was quickened by reading _In Memoriam_.
We do not remember when we have been more impressed than by these
Remains of this young man, especially when taken along with his friend's
Memorial; and instead of trying to tell our readers what this impression
is, we have preferred giving them as copious extracts as our space
allows, that they may judge and enjoy for themselves. The italics are
our own. We can promise them few finer, deeper, and better pleasures
than reading, and detaining their minds over these two books together,
filling their hearts with the fulness of their truth and tenderness.
They will see how accurate as well as how affectionate and "of
imagination all compact" Tennyson is, and how worthy of all that he has
said of him, that friend was. The likeness is drawn _ad vivum_,--
"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
He summons up remembrance of things past."
"The idea of his Life" has been sown a natural body, and has been raised
a spiritual body, but the identity is unhurt; the countenance shines and
the raiment is white and glistering, but it is the same face and form.
The Memoir is by Mr. Hallam. We give it entire, not knowing anywhere a
nobler or more touching record of a father's love and sorrow.
"Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place,[37] London, on
the 1st of February, 1811. Very few years had elapsed before his
parents observed strong indications of his future character, in
a peculiar clearness of perception, a facility of acquiring
knowledge, and, above all, in an undeviating sweetness of
disposition, and adherence to his sense of what was right and
becoming. As he advanced to another stage of childhood, it was
rendered still more manifest that he would be distinguished from
ordinary persons, by an increasing thoughtfulness, and a
fondness for a class of books, which in general are so little
intelligible to boys of his age, that they excite in them no
kind of interest.
[37] "Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street;
Doors, where my heart was wont to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand."--_In Memoriam._
This is a mistake, as his friend Dr. A. P. Stanley thus
corrects:--"'The long unlovely street' was Wimpole Street,
No. 67, where the Hallams lived; and Arthur used to say to
his friends, You know you will always find us at sixes and
sevens.'"
"In the summer of 1818 he spent some months with his parents in
Germany and Switzerland, and became familiar with the French
language, which he had already learned to read with facility. He
had gone through the elements of Latin before this time; but
that language having been laid aside during his tour, it was
found upon his return that, a variety of new scenes having
effaced it from his memory, it was necessary to begin again with
the first rudiments. He was nearly eight years old at this time;
and in little more than twelve months he could read Latin with
tolerable facility. In this period his mind was developing
itself more rapidly than before; he now felt a keen relish for
dramatic poetry, and wrote several tragedies, if we may so call
them either in prose or verse, with a more precocious display of
talents than the Editor remembers to have met with in any other
individual. The natural pride, however, of his parents, did not
blind them to the uncertainty that belongs to all premature
efforts of the mind; and they so carefully avoided everything
like a boastful display of blossoms which, in many cases, have
withered away in barren luxuriance, that the circumstance of
these compositions was hardly ever mentioned out of their own
family.
"In the spring of 1820, Arthur was placed under the Rev. W.
Carmalt, at Putney, where he remained nearly two years. After
leaving this school he went abroad again for some months; and in
October, 1822, became the pupil of the Rev. E. C. Hawtrey, an
Assistant Master of Eton College. At Eton he continued till the
summer of 1827. He was now become a good though not perhaps a
first-rate scholar in the Latin and Greek languages. The loss of
time, relatively to this object, in travelling, but far more his
increasing avidity for a different kind of knowledge, and the
strong bent of his mind to subjects which exercise other
faculties than such as the acquirement of languages calls into
play, will sufficiently account for what might seem a
comparative deficiency in classical learning. It can only,
however, be reckoned one, comparatively to his other
attainments, and to his remarkable facility in mastering the
modern languages. The Editor has thought it not improper to
print in the following pages an Eton exercise, which, as written
before the age of fourteen, though not free from metrical and
other errors, appears, perhaps to a partial judgment, far above
the level of such compositions. It is remarkable that he should
have selected the story of Ugolino, from a poet with whom, and
with whose language, he was then but very slightly acquainted,
but who was afterwards to become, more perhaps than any other,
the master-mover of his spirit. It may be added, that great
judgment and taste are perceptible in this translation, which is
by no means a literal one; and in which the phraseology of
Sophocles is not ill substituted, in some passages, for that of
Dante.
"The Latin poetry of an Etonian is generally reckoned at that
School the chief test of his literary talent. That of Arthur was
good without being excellent; he never wanted depth of thought,
or truth of feeling; but it is only in a few rare instances, if
altogether in any, that an original mind has been known to utter
itself freely and vigorously, without sacrifice of purity, in a
language the capacities of which are so imperfectly understood;
and in his productions there was not the thorough conformity to
an ancient model which is required for perfect elegance in Latin
verse. He took no great pleasure in this sort of composition;
and perhaps never returned to it of his own accord.
"In the latter part of his residence at Eton, he was led away
more and more by the predominant bias of his mind, from the
exclusive study of ancient literature. The poets of England,
especially the older dramatists, came with greater attraction
over his spirit. He loved Fletcher, and some of Fletcher's
contemporaries, for their energy of language and intenseness of
feeling; but it was in Shakspeare alone that he found the
fulness of soul which seemed to slake the thirst of his own
rapidly expanding genius for an inexhaustible fountain of
thought and emotion. He knew Shakspeare thoroughly; and indeed
his acquaintance with the earlier poetry of this country was
very extensive. Among the modern poets, Byron was at this time,
far above the rest, and almost exclusively, his favorite; a
preference which, in later years, he transferred altogether to
Wordsworth and Shelley.
"He became, when about fifteen years old, a member of the
debating society established among the elder boys, in which he
took great interest; and this served to confirm the bias of his
intellect towards the moral and political philosophy of modern
times. It was probably, however, of important utility in giving
him that command of his own language which he possessed, as the
following Essays will show, in a very superior degree, and in
exercising those powers of argumentative discussion, which now
displayed themselves as eminently characteristic of his mind. It
was a necessary consequence that he declined still more from the
usual paths of study, and abated perhaps somewhat of his regard
for the writers of antiquity. It must not be understood,
nevertheless, as most of those who read these pages will be
aware, that he ever lost his sensibility to those ever-living
effusions of genius which the ancient languages preserve. He
loved AEschylus and Sophocles (to Euripides he hardly did
justice), Lucretius and Virgil; if he did not seem so much drawn
towards Homer as might at first be expected, this may probably
be accounted for by his increasing taste for philosophical
poetry.
"In the early part of 1827, Arthur took a part in the Eton
Miscellany, a periodical publication, in which some of his
friends in the debating society were concerned. He wrote in
this, besides a few papers in prose, a little poem on a story
connected with the Lake of Killarney. It has not been thought by
the Editor advisable, upon the whole, to reprint these lines;
though, in his opinion, they bear very striking marks of
superior powers. This was almost the first poetry that Arthur
had written, except the childish tragedies above mentioned. No
one was ever less inclined to the trick of versifying. Poetry
with him was not an amusement, but the natural and almost
necessary language of genuine emotion; and it was not till the
discipline of serious reflection, and the approach of manhood,
gave a reality and intenseness to such emotions, that he learned
the capacities of his own genius. That he was a poet by nature,
these Remains will sufficiently prove; but certainly he was far
removed from being a versifier by nature; nor was he probably
able to perform, what he scarce ever attempted, to write easily
and elegantly on an ordinary subject. The lines on the story of
Pygmalion are so far an exception, that they arose out of a
momentary amusement of society; but he could not avoid, even in
these, his own grave tone of poetry.
"Upon leaving Eton in the summer of 1827, he accompanied his
parents to the Continent, and passed eight months in Italy. This
introduction to new scenes of nature and art, and to new sources
of intellectual delight, at the very period of transition from
boyhood to youth, sealed no doubt the peculiar character of his
mind, and taught him, too soon for his peace, to sound those
depths of thought and feeling, from which, after this time, all
that he wrote was derived. He had, when he passed the Alps, only
a moderate acquaintance with the Italian language; but during
his residence in the country he came to speak it with perfect
fluency, and with a pure Sienese pronunciation. In its study he
was much assisted by his friend and instructor, the Abbate
Pifferi, who encouraged him to his first attempts at
versification. The few sonnets, which are now printed, were, it
is to be remembered, written by a foreigner, hardly seventeen
years old, and after a very short stay in Italy. The Editor
might not, probably, have suffered them to appear, even in this
private manner, upon his own judgment. But he knew that the
greatest living writer of Italy, to whom they were shown some
time since at Milan, by the author's excellent friend, Mr.
Richard Milnes, has expressed himself in terms of high
approbation.
"The growing intimacy of Arthur with Italian poetry led him
naturally to that of Dante. No poet was so congenial to the
character of his own reflective mind; in none other could he so
abundantly find that disdain of flowery redundance, that
perpetual preference of the sensible to the ideal, that
aspiration for somewhat better and less fleeting than earthly
things, to which his inmost soul responded. Like all genuine
worshippers of the great Florentine poet, he rated the _Inferno_
below the two latter portions of the _Divina Commedia_; there
was nothing even to revolt his taste, but rather much to attract
it, in the scholastic theology and mystic visions of the
_Paradiso_. Petrarch he greatly admired, though with less
idolatry than Dante; and the sonnets here printed will show to
all competent judges how fully he had imbibed the spirit,
without servile centonism, of the best writers in that style of
composition who flourished in the 16th century.
"But poetry was not an absorbing passion at this time in his
mind. His eyes were fixed on the best pictures with silent
intense delight. He had a deep and just perception of what was
beautiful in this art, at least in its higher schools; for he
did not pay much regard, or perhaps quite do justice, to the
masters of the 17th century. To technical criticism he made no
sort of pretension; painting was to him but the visible language
of emotion; and where it did not aim at exciting it, or employed
inadequate means, his admiration would be withheld. Hence he
highly prized the ancient paintings, both Italian and German, of
the age which preceded the full development of art. But he was
almost as enthusiastic an admirer of the Venetian, as of the
Tuscan and Roman schools; considering these masters as reaching
the same end by the different agencies of form and color. This
predilection for the sensitive beauties of painting is somewhat
analogous to his fondness for harmony of verse, on which he laid
more stress than poets so thoughtful are apt to do. In one of
the last days of his life, he lingered long among the fine
Venetian pictures of the Imperial Gallery at Vienna.
"He returned to England in June, 1828; and, in the following
October, went down to reside at Cambridge; having been entered
on the boards of Trinity College before his departure to the
Continent. He was the pupil of the Rev. William Whewell. In some
respects, as soon became manifest, he was not formed to obtain
great academical reputation. An acquaintance with the learned
languages, considerable at the school where he was educated, but
not improved, to say the least, by the intermission of a year,
during which his mind had been so occupied by other pursuits,
that he had thought little of antiquity even in Rome itself,
though abundantly sufficient for the gratification of taste and
the acquisition of knowledge, was sure to prove inadequate to
the searching scrutiny of modern examinations. He soon,
therefore, saw reason to renounce all competition of this kind;
nor did he ever so much as attempt any Greek or Latin
composition during his stay at Cambridge. In truth he was very
indifferent to success of this kind; and conscious as he must
have been of a high reputation among his contemporaries, he
could not think that he stood in need of any University
distinctions. The Editor became by degrees almost equally
indifferent to what he perceived to be so uncongenial to
Arthur's mind. It was however to be regretted, that he never
paid the least attention to mathematical studies. That he should
not prosecute them with the diligence usual at Cambridge, was of
course to be expected; yet his clearness and acumen would
certainly have enabled him to master the principles of
geometrical reasoning; nor, in fact, did he so much find a
difficulty in apprehending demonstrations, as a want of
interest, and a consequent inability to retain them in his
memory. A little more practice in the strict logic of geometry,
a little more familiarity with the physical laws of the
universe, and the phenomena to which they relate, would possibly
have repressed the tendency to vague and mystical speculations
which he was too fond of indulging. In the philosophy of the
human mind, he was in no danger of the materializing theories of
some ancient and modern schools; but in shunning this extreme,
he might sometimes forget that, in the honest pursuit of truth,
we can shut our eyes to no real phenomena, and that the
physiology of man must always enter into any valid scheme of his
psychology.
"The comparative inferiority which he might show in the usual
trials of knowledge, sprung in a great measure from the want of
a prompt and accurate memory. It was the faculty wherein he
shone the least, according to ordinary observation; though his
very extensive reach of literature, and his rapidity in
acquiring languages, sufficed to prove that it was capable of
being largely exercised. He could remember anything, as a friend
observed to the Editor, that was associated with an idea. But he
seemed, at least after he reached manhood, to want almost wholly
the power, so common with inferior understandings, of retaining
with regularity and exactness, a number of unimportant
uninteresting particulars. It would have been nearly impossible
to make him recollect for three days the date of the battle of
Marathon, or the names in order of the Athenian months. Nor
could he repeat poetry, much as he loved it, with the
correctness often found in young men. It is not improbable, that
a more steady discipline in early life would have strengthened
this faculty, or that he might have supplied its deficiency by
some technical devices; but where the higher powers of intellect
were so extraordinarily manifested, it would have been
preposterous to complain of what may perhaps have been a
necessary consequence of their amplitude, or at least a natural
result of their exercise.
"But another reason may be given for his deficiency in those
unremitting labors which the course of academical education, in
the present times, is supposed to exact from those who aspire to
its distinctions. In the first year of his residence at
Cambridge, symptoms of disordered health, especially in the
circulatory system, began to show themselves; and it is by no
means improbable, that these were indications of a tendency to
derangement of the vital functions, which become ultimately
fatal. A too rapid determination of blood towards the brain,
with its concomitant uneasy sensations, rendered him frequently
incapable of mental fatigue. He had indeed once before, at
Florence, been affected by symptoms not unlike these. His
intensity of reflection and feeling also brought on occasionally
a considerable depression of spirits, which had been painfully
observed at times by those who watched him most, from the time
of his leaving Eton, and even before. It was not till after
several months that he regained a less morbid condition of mind
and body. This same irregularity of circulation returned again
in the next spring, but was of less duration. During the third
year of his Cambridge life, he appeared in much better health.
"In this year (1831) he obtained the first college prize for an
English declamation. The subject chosen by him was the conduct
of the Independent party during the civil war. This exercise was
greatly admired at the time, but was never printed. In
consequence of this success, it became incumbent on him,
according to the custom of the college, to deliver an oration in
the chapel immediately before the Christmas vacation of the same
year. On this occasion he selected a subject very congenial to
his own turn of thought and favorite study, the influence of
Italian upon English literature. He had previously gained
another prize for an English essay on the philosophical writings
of Cicero. This essay is perhaps too excursive from the
prescribed subject; but his mind was so deeply imbued with the
higher philosophy, especially that of Plato, with which he was
very conversant, that he could not be expected to dwell much on
the praises of Cicero in that respect.
"Though the bent of Arthur's mind by no means inclined him to
strict research into facts, he was full as much conversant with
the great features of ancient and modern history, as from the
course of his other studies and the habits of his life it was
possible to expect. He reckoned them, as great minds always do,
the groundworks of moral and political philosophy, and took no
pains to acquire any knowledge of this sort from which a
principle could not be derived or illustrated. To some parts of
English history, and to that of the French Revolution, he had
paid considerable attention. He had not read nearly so much of
the Greek and Latin historians as of the philosophers and poets.
In the history of literary, and especially of philosophical and
religious opinions, he was deeply versed, as much so as it is
possible to apply that term at his age. The following pages
exhibit proofs of an acquaintance, not crude or superficial,
with that important branch of literature.
"His political judgments were invariably prompted by his strong
sense of right and justice. These, in so young a person, were
naturally rather fluctuating, and subject to the correction of
advancing knowledge and experience. Ardent in the cause of those
he deemed to be oppressed, of which, in one instance, he was led
to give a proof with more of energy and enthusiasm than
discretion, he was deeply attached to the ancient institutions
of his country.
"He spoke French readily, though with less elegance than
Italian, till from disuse he lost much of his fluency in the
latter. In his last fatal tour in Germany, he was rapidly
acquiring a readiness in the language of that country. The whole
range of French literature was almost as familiar to him as that
of England.
"The society in which Arthur lived most intimately, at Eton and
at the University, was formed of young men, eminent for natural
ability, and for delight in what he sought above all things, the
knowledge of truth, and the perception of beauty. They who loved
and admired him living, and who now revere his sacred memory, as
of one to whom, in the fondness of regret, they admit of no
rival, know best what he was in the daily commerce of life; and
his eulogy should, on every account, better come from hearts,
which, if partial, have been rendered so by the experience of
friendship, not by the affection of nature.
"Arthur left Cambridge on taking his degree in January 1832. He
resided from that time with the Editor in London, having been
entered on the boards of the Inner Temple. It was greatly the
desire of the Editor that he should engage himself in the study
of the law; not merely with professional views, but as a useful
discipline for a mind too much occupied with habits of thought,
which, ennobling and important as they were, could not but
separate him from the every-day business of life, and might, by
their excess, in his susceptible temperament, be productive of
considerable mischief. He had, during the previous long
vacation, read with the Editor the Institutes of Justinian, and
the two works of Heineccius which illustrate them; and he now
went through Blackstone's Commentaries, with as much of other
law-books as, in the Editor's judgment, was required for a
similar purpose. It was satisfactory at that time to perceive
that, far from showing any of that distaste to legal studies
which might have been anticipated from some parts of his
intellectual character, he entered upon them not only with great
acuteness, but considerable interest. In the month of October
1832, he began to see the practical application of legal
knowledge in the office of an eminent conveyancer, Mr. Walters
of Lincoln's Inn Fields, with whom he continued till his
departure from England in the following summer.
"It was not, however, to be expected, or even desired by any who
knew how to value him, that he should at once abandon those
habits of study which had fertilized and invigorated his mind.
But he now, from some change or other in his course of thinking,
ceased in a great measure to write poetry, and expressed to more
than one friend an intention to give it up. The instances after
his leaving Cambridge were few. The dramatic scene between
Raffaelle and Fiammetta was written in 1832; and about the same
time he had a design to translate the _Vita Nuova_ of his
favorite Dante; a work which he justly prized, as the
development of that immense genius, in a kind of autobiography,
which best prepares us for a real insight into the _Divine
Comedy_. He rendered accordingly into verse most of the sonnets
which the _Vita Nuova_ contains; but the Editor does not believe
that he made any progress in the prose translation. These
sonnets appearing rather too literal, and consequently harsh, it
has not been thought worth while to print.
"In the summer of 1832, the appearance of Professor Rosetti's
_Disquisizioni sullo spirito Antipapale_, in which the writings
of Arthur's beloved masters, Dante and Petrarch, as well as most
of the mediaeval literature of Italy, were treated as a series
of enigmas, to be understood only by a key that discloses a
latent Carbonarism, a secret conspiracy against the religion of
their age, excited him to publish his own Remarks in reply. It
seemed to him the worst of poetical heresies to desert the
Absolute, the Universal, the Eternal, the Beautiful and True,
which the Platonic spirit of his literary creed taught him to
seek in all the higher works of genius, in quest of some
temporary historical allusion, which could be of no interest
with posterity. Nothing, however, could be more alien from his
courteous disposition than to abuse the license of controversy,
or to treat with intentional disrespect a very ingenious person,
who had been led on too far in pursuing a course of
interpretation, which, within certain much narrower limits, it
is impossible for any one conversant with history not to admit.
"A very few other anonymous writings occupied his leisure about
this time. Among these were slight memoirs of Petrarch,
Voltaire, and Burke, for the Gallery of Portraits, published by
the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.[38] His time
was, however, principally devoted, when not engaged at his
office, to metaphysical researches, and to the history of
philosophical opinions.
[38] We had read these Lives, and had remarked them, before we
knew whose they were, as being of rare merit. No one could
suppose they were written by one so young. We give his
estimate of the character of Burke. "The mind of this great
man may perhaps be taken as a representation of the general
characteristics of the English intellect. Its groundwork was
solid, practical, and conversant with the details of
business; but upon this, and secured by this, arose a
superstructure of imagination and moral sentiment. He saw
little, _because it was painful to him_ to see anything
beyond the limits of the national character. In all things,
while he deeply reverenced principles, he chose to deal with
the concrete rather than with abstractions. He studied men
rather than man." The words in italics imply an insight into
the deepest springs of human action, the conjunct causes of
what we call character such as few men of large experience
can attain.
"From the latter part of his residence at Cambridge, a gradual
but very perceptible improvement in the cheerfulness of his
spirits gladdened his family and his friends; intervals there
doubtless were, when the continual seriousness of his habits of
thought, or the force of circumstances, threw something more of
gravity into his demeanor; but in general he was animated and
even gay, renewing or preserving his intercourse with some of
those he had most valued at Eton and Cambridge. The symptoms of
deranged circulation which had manifested themselves before,
ceased to appear, or at least so as to excite his own attention;
and though it struck those who were most anxious in watching
him, that his power of enduring fatigue was not quite so great
as from his frame of body and apparent robustness might have
been anticipated, nothing gave the least indication of danger
either to their eyes, or to those of the medical practitioners
who were in the habit of observing him. An attack of
intermittent fever, during the prevalent influenza of the spring
of 1833, may perhaps have disposed his constitution to the last
fatal blow."
To any one who has watched the history of the disease by which "so quick
this bright thing came to confusion," and who knows how near its subject
must often, perhaps all his life, have been to that eternity which
occupied so much of his thoughts and desires, and the secrets of which
were so soon to open on his young eyes, there is something very touching
in this account. Such a state of health would enhance, and tend to
produce, by the sensations proper to such a condition, that habitual
seriousness of thought, that sober judgment, and that tendency to look
at the true life of things--that deep but gentle and calm sadness, and
that occasional sinking of the heart, which make his noble and strong
inner nature, his resolved mind, so much more impressive and endearing.
This feeling of personal insecurity--of life being ready to slip
away--the sensation that this world and its ongoings, its mighty
interests, and delicate joys, is ready to be shut up in a moment--this
instinctive apprehension of the peril of vehement bodily enjoyment--all
this would tend to make him "walk softly," and to keep him from much of
the evil that is in the world, and would help him to live soberly,
righteously, and godly even in the bright and rich years of his youth.
His power of giving himself up to the search after absolute truth, and
the contemplation of Supreme goodness, must have been increased by this
same organization. But all this delicate feeling, this fineness of
sense, did rather quicken the energy and fervor of the indwelling
soul--the {ti thermon pragma} that burned within. In the quaint words of
Vaughan, it was "manhood with a female eye." These two conditions must,
as we have said, have made him dear indeed. And by a beautiful law of
life, having that organ out of which are the issues of life, under a
sort of perpetual nearness to suffering, and so liable to pain, he would
be more easily moved for others--more alive to their pain--more filled
with fellow-feeling.
"The Editor cannot dwell on anything later. Arthur accompanied
him to Germany in the beginning of August. In returning to
Vienna from Pesth, a wet day probably gave rise to an
intermittent fever, with very slight symptoms, and apparently
subsiding, when a sudden rush of blood to the head put an
instantaneous end to his life on the 15th of September 1833. The
mysteriousness of such a dreadful termination to a disorder
generally of so little importance, and in this instance of the
slightest kind, has been diminished by an examination which
showed a weakness of the cerebral vessels, and a want of
sufficient energy in the heart. Those whose eyes must long be
dim with tears, and whose hopes on this side the tomb are broken
down forever, may cling, as well as they can, to the poor
consolation of believing that a few more years would, in the
usual chances of humanity, have severed the frail union of his
graceful and manly form with the pure spirit that it enshrined.
"The remains of Arthur were brought to England, and interred on
the 3d of January 1834, in the chancel of Clevedon Church in
Somersetshire, belonging to his maternal grandfather Sir Abraham
Elton, a place selected by the Editor, not only from the
connection of kindred, but on account of its still and
sequestered situation, on a lone hill that overhangs the Bristol
Channel.
"More ought perhaps to be said--but it is very difficult to
proceed. From the earliest years of this extraordinary young
man, his premature abilities were not more conspicuous than an
almost faultless disposition, sustained by a more calm
self-command than has often been witnessed in that season of
life. The sweetness of temper which distinguished his childhood,
became with the advance of manhood a habitual benevolence, and
ultimately ripened into that exalted principle of love towards
God and man, which animated and almost absorbed his soul during
the latter period of his life, and to which most of the
following compositions bear such emphatic testimony. He seemed
to tread the earth as a spirit from some better world; and in
bowing to the mysterious will which has in mercy removed him,
perfected by so short a trial, and passing over the bridge which
separates the seen from the unseen life, in a moment, and, as we
may believe, without a moment's pang, we must feel not only the
bereavement of those to whom he was dear, but the loss which
mankind have sustained by the withdrawing of such a light.
"A considerable portion of the poetry contained in this volume
was printed in the year 1830, and was intended by the author to
be published together with the poems of his intimate friend, Mr.
Alfred Tennyson. They were however withheld from publication at
the request of the Editor. The poem of Timbuctoo was written for
the University prize in 1829, which it did not obtain.
Notwithstanding its too great obscurity, the subject itself
being hardly indicated, and the extremely hyperbolical
importance which the author's brilliant fancy has attached to a
nest of barbarians, no one can avoid admiring the grandeur of
his conceptions, and the deep philosophy upon which he has built
the scheme of his poem. This is however by no means the most
pleasing of his compositions. It is in the profound reflection,
the melancholy tenderness, and the religious sanctity of other
effusions that a lasting charm will be found. A commonplace
subject, such as those announced for academical prizes generally
are, was incapable of exciting a mind which, beyond almost every
other, went straight to the farthest depths that the human
intellect can fathom, or from which human feelings can be drawn.
Many short poems of equal beauty with those here printed, have
been deemed unfit even for the limited circulation they might
obtain, on account of their unveiling more of emotion than,
consistently with what is due to him and to others, could be
exposed to view.
"The two succeeding essays have never been printed; but were
read, it is believed, in a literary society at Trinity College,
or in one to which he afterwards belonged in London. That
entitled _Theodicaea Novissima_, is printed at the desire of
some of his intimate friends. A few expressions in it want his
usual precision; and there are ideas which he might have seen
cause, in the lapse of time, to modify, independently of what
his very acute mind would probably have perceived, that his
hypothesis, like that of Leibnitz, on the origin of evil,
resolves itself at last into an unproved assumption of its
necessity. It has however some advantages, which need not be
mentioned, over that of Leibnitz; and it is here printed, not as
a solution of the greatest mystery of the universe, but as most
characteristic of the author's mind, original and sublime,
uniting, what is very rare except in early youth, a fearless and
unblenching spirit of inquiry into the highest objects of
speculation, with the most humble and reverential piety. It is
probable that in many of his views on such topics he was
influenced by the writings of Jonathan Edwards, with whose
opinions on metaphysical and moral subjects, he seems generally
to have concurred.
"The extract from a review of Tennyson's poems in a publication
now extinct, the _Englishman's Magazine_, is also printed at the
suggestion of a friend. The pieces that follow are reprints, and
have been already mentioned in this Memoir."
We have given this Memoir almost entire, for the sake both of its
subject and its manner--for what in it is the father's as well as for
what is the son's. There is something very touching in the paternal
composure, the judiciousness, the truthfulness, where truth is so
difficult to reach through tears, the calm estimate and the subdued
tenderness, the ever-rising but ever restrained emotion; the father's
heart throbs throughout.
We wish we could have given in full the letters from Arthur's friends,
which his father has incorporated in the Memoir. They all bring out in
different but harmonious ways, his extraordinary moral and intellectual
worth, his rare beauty of character, and their deep affection.
The following extract from one seems to us very interesting:--"Outwardly
I do not think there was anything remarkable in his habits, except _an
irregularity with regard to times and places of study_, which may seem
surprising in one whose progress in so many directions was so eminently
great and rapid. _He was commonly to be found in some friend's room,
reading, or canvassing._ I dare say he lost something by this
irregularity, _but less than perhaps one would at first imagine_. I
never saw him idle. He might seem to be lounging, or only amusing
himself, but his mind was always active, and active for good. In fact,
his energy and quickness of apprehension did not stand in need of
outward aid." There is much in this worthy of more extended notice. Such
minds as his probably grow best in this way, are best left to themselves
to glide on at their own sweet wills; the stream was too deep and clear,
and perhaps too entirely bent on its own errand, to be dealt with or
regulated by any art or device. The same friend sums up his character
thus:--"I have met with no man his superior in metaphysical subtlety; no
man his equal as a philosophical critic on works of taste; no man whose
views on all subjects connected with the duties and dignities of
humanity were more large, and generous, and enlightened." And all this
said of a youth of twenty--_heu nimium brevis aevi decus et desiderium!_
We have given little of this verse; and what we do give is taken at
random. We agree entirely in his father's estimate of his poetical gift
and art, but his mind was too serious, too thoughtful, too intensely
dedicated to truth and the God of truth, to linger long in the pursuit
of beauty; he was on his way to God, and could rest in nothing short of
Him, otherwise he might have been a poet of genuine excellence.
"Dark, dark, yea, 'irrecoverably dark,
Is the soul's eye; yet how it strives and battles
Thorough th' impenetrable gloom to fix
That master light, the secret truth of things,
Which is the body of the infinite God!"
"Sure, we are leaves of one harmonious bower,
Fed by a sap that never will be scant,
All-permeating, all-producing mind;
And in our several parcellings of doom
We but fulfil the beauty of the whole.
Oh, madness! if a leaf should dare complain
Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be
The gayer, brighter thing that wantons near."
"Oh, blessing and delight of my young heart,
Maiden, who wast so lovely, and so pure,
I know not in what region now thou art,
Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy assure.
Not the old hills on which we gazed together,
Not the old faces which we both did love,
Not the old books, whence knowledge we did gather,
Not these, but others now thy fancies move.
I would I knew thy present hopes and fears,
All thy companions with their pleasant talk,
And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears:
So, though in body absent, I might walk
With thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood
Did sanctify mine own to peerless good."
"Alfred, I would that you beheld me now,
Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall
On a quaint bench, which to that structure old
Winds an accordant curve. Above my head
_Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves,_
Seeming received into the blue expanse
That vaults this summer noon."
"Still here--thou bast not faded from my sight,
_Nor all the music round thee from mine ear;_
_Still grace flows from thee to the brightening year,_
_And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light._
Still am I free to close my happy eyes,
And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form,
That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty warm,
And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies:
With, oh! the blissful knowledge all the while
That I can lift at will each curved lid,
And my fair dream most highly realize.
The time will come, 'tis ushered by my sighs,
When I may shape the dark, but vainly bid
True light restore that form, those looks, that smile."
"The garden trees _are busy with the shower_
That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk,
Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour,
One to another down the grassy walk.
Hark the laburnum from his opening flower,
This cherry creeper greets in whisper light,
While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night,
Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore,[39]
What shall I deem their converse? would they hail
The wild gray light that fronts yon massive cloud,
Or the half bow, rising like pillar'd fire?
Or are they fighting faintly for desire
That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed,
And dews about their feet may never fail?"
[39] This will remind the reader of a fine passage in _Edwin the
Fair_, on the specific differences in the sounds made by the
ash, the elm, the fir, &c., when moved by the wind; and of
some lines by Landor on flowers speaking to each other; and
of something more exquisite than either, in _Consuelo_--the
description of the flowers in the old monastic garden, at
"the sweet hour of prime."
In the Essay, entitled _Theodicaea Novissima_, from which the following
passages are taken to the great injury of its general effect, he sets
himself to the task of doing his utmost to clear up the mystery of the
existence of such things as sin and suffering in the universe of a being
like God. He does it fearlessly, but like a child. It is in the spirit
of his friend's words,--
"An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry."
"Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near."
It is not a mere exercitation of the intellect, it is an endeavor to get
nearer God--to assert his eternal Providence, and vindicate his ways to
men. We know no performance more wonderful for such a boy. Pascal might
have written it. As was to be expected, the tremendous subject remains
where he found it--his glowing love and genius cast a gleam here and
there across its gloom; but it is brief as the lightning in the collied
night--the jaws of darkness do devour it up--this secret belongs to God.
Across its deep and dazzling darkness, and from out its abyss of thick
cloud, "all dark, dark, irrecoverably dark," no steady ray has ever, or
will ever, come,--over its face its own darkness must brood, till He to
whom alone the darkness and the light are both alike, to whom the night
shineth as the day, says, "Let there be light!" There is, we all know, a
certain awful attraction, a nameless charm for all thoughtful spirits,
in this mystery, "the greatest in the universe," as Mr. Hallam truly
says; and it is well for us at times, so that we have pure eyes and a
clean heart, to turn aside and look into its gloom; but it is not good
to busy ourselves in clever speculations about it, or briskly to
criticize the speculations of others--it is a wise and pious saying of
Augustin, _Verius cogitatur Deus, quam dicitur; et verius est quam
cogitatur_.
"I wish to be understood as considering Christianity in the
present Essay rather in its relation to the intellect, as
constituting the higher philosophy, than in its far more
important bearing upon the hearts and destinies of us all. I
shall propose the question in this form, 'Is there ground for
believing that the existence of moral evil is absolutely
necessary to the fulfilment of God's essential love for Christ?'
(_i. e._, of the Father for Christ, or of {ho pater} for {ho
logos}).
"'Can man by searching find out God?' I believe not. I believe
that the unassisted efforts of man's reason have not established
the existence and attributes of Deity on so sure a basis as the
Deist imagines. However sublime may be the notion of a supreme
original mind, and however naturally human feelings adhered to
it, the reasons by which it was justified were not, in my
opinion, sufficient to clear it from considerable doubt and
confusion.... I hesitate not to say that I derive from
Revelation a conviction of Theism, which without that assistance
would have been but a dark and ambiguous hope. _I see that the
Bible fits into every fold of the human heart. I am a man, and I
believe it to be God's book because it is man's book._ It is
true that the Bible affords me no additional means of
demonstrating the falsity of Atheism; _if mind had nothing to do
with the formation of the Universe, doubtless whatever had was
competent also to make the Bible_; but I have gained this
advantage, that my feelings and thoughts can no longer refuse
their assent to _what is evidently framed to engage that assent;
and what is it to me that I cannot disprove the bare logical
possibility of my whole nature being fallacious? To seek for a
certainty above certainty, an evidence beyond necessary belief,
is the very lunacy of skepticism_: we must trust our own
faculties, or we can put no trust in anything, save that moment
we call the present, which escapes us while we articulate its
name. _I am determined therefore to receive the Bible as
Divinely authorized, and the scheme of human and Divine things
which it contains, as essentially true._"
"I may further observe, that however much we should rejoice to
discover that the eternal scheme of God--the necessary
completion, let us remember, of his Almighty Nature--did not
require the absolute perdition of any spirit called by Him into
existence, we are certainly not entitled to consider the
perpetual misery of many individuals as incompatible with
sovereign love."
"In the Supreme Nature those two capacities of Perfect Love and
Perfect Joy are indivisible. Holiness and Happiness, says an old
divine, are two several notions of one thing. Equally
inseparable are the notions of Opposition to Love and Opposition
to Bliss. _Unless therefore the heart of a created being is at
one with the heart of God, it cannot but be miserable._
Moreover, there is no possibility of continuing forever partly
with God and partly against him; we must either be capable by
our nature of entire accordance with His will, or we must be
incapable of anything but misery, further than He may for awhile
'not impute our trespasses to us,' that is, He may interpose
some temporary barrier between sin and its attendant pain. _For
in the Eternal Idea of God a created spirit is perhaps not seen,
as a series of successive states_, of which some that are evil
might be compensated by others that are good, _but as one
indivisible object of these almost infinitely divisible modes_,
and that either in accordance with His own nature, or in
opposition to it....
"Before the gospel was preached to man, how could a human soul
have this love, and this consequent life? I see no way; but now
that Christ has excited our love for him by showing unutterable
love for us; now that we know him as an Elder Brother, a being
of like thoughts, feelings, sensations, sufferings, with
ourselves, it has become possible to love as God loves, that is,
to love Christ, and thus to become united in heart to God.
Besides, Christ is the express image of God's person; in loving
him we are sure we are in a state of readiness to love the
Father, whom we see, he tells us, when we see him. Nor is this
all; the tendency of love is towards a union so intimate as
virtually to amount to identification; when then by affection
towards Christ we have become blended with his being, the beams
of eternal love, falling, as ever, on the one beloved object,
will include us in him, and their returning flashes of love out
of his personality will carry along with them some from our own,
since ours has become confused with his, and so shall we be one
with Christ and through Christ with God. Thus then we see the
great effect of the Incarnation, as far as our nature is
concerned, _was to render human love for the Most High a
possible thing_. The Law had said, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy
strength;' and could men have lived by law, 'which is the
strength of sin,' verily righteousness and life would have been
by that law. But it was not possible, and all were concluded
under sin, that in Christ might be the deliverance of all. I
believe that Redemption" (_i.e._, what Christ has done and
suffered for mankind) "is universal, in so far as it left no
obstacle between man and God, but man's own will: that indeed is
in the power of God's election, with whom alone rest the abysmal
secrets of personality; but as far as Christ is concerned, his
death was for all, since his intentions and affections were
equally directed to all, and 'none who come to him will he in
any wise cast out.'
"I deprecate any hasty rejection of these thoughts as novelties.
Christianity is indeed, as St. Augustin says, 'pulchritudo tam
antiqua;' but he adds, 'tam nova,' for it is capable of
presenting to every mind a new face of truth. The great
doctrine, which in my judgment these observations tend to
strengthen and illumine, _the doctrine of personal love for a
personal God_, is assuredly no novelty, but has in all times
been the vital principle of the Church. Many are the forms of
antichristian heresy, which for a season have depressed and
obscured that principle of life; but its nature is connective
and resurgent; and neither the Papal Hierarchy with its pomp of
systematized errors, not the worse apostasy of latitudinarian
Protestantism, have ever so far prevailed, but that many from
age to age have proclaimed and vindicated the eternal gospel of
love, believing, as I also firmly believe, that any opinion
which tends to keep out of sight the living and loving God,
whether it substitute for Him an idol, an occult agency, or a
formal creed, can be nothing better than a vain and portentous
shadow projected from the selfish darkness of unregenerate man."
The following is from the Review of Tennyson's Poems; we do not know
that during the lapse of eighteen years anything better has been said:--
"Undoubtedly the true poet addresses himself, in all his
conceptions, to the common nature of us all. Art is a lofty
tree, and may shoot up far beyond our grasp, but its roots are
in daily life and experience. Every bosom contains the elements
of those complex emotions which the artist feels, and every head
can, to a certain extent, go over in itself the process of their
combination, so as to understand his expressions and sympathize
with his state. _But this requires exertion_; more or less,
indeed, according to the difference of occasion, but always some
degree of exertion. For since the emotions of the poet during
composition follow a regular law of association, it follows that
to accompany their progress up to the harmonious prospect of the
whole, and to perceive the proper dependence of every step on
that which preceded, it is absolutely necessary _to start from
the same point, i.e._, clearly to apprehend that leading
sentiment of the poet's mind, by their conformity to which the
host of suggestions are arranged. _Now this requisite exertion
is not willingly made by the large majority of readers. It is so
easy to judge capriciously, and according to indolent impulse!_"
"Those different powers of poetic disposition, the energies of
Sensitive, of Reflective, or Passionate Emotion, which in former
times were intermingled, and derived from mutual support an
extensive empire over the feelings of men, were now restrained
within separate spheres of agency. The whole system no longer
worked harmoniously, and by intrinsic harmony acquired external
freedom; but there arose a violent and unusual action in the
several component functions, each for itself, all striving to
reproduce the regular power which the whole had once enjoyed.
_Hence the melancholy which so evidently characterizes the
spirit of modern poetry_; hence that return of the mind upon
itself, and the habit of seeking relief in idiosyncrasies rather
than community of interest. _In the old times the poetic impulse
went along with the general impulse of the nation._
"One of the faithful Islam, a poet in the truest and highest
sense, we are anxious to present to our readers.... He sees all
the forms of Nature with the '_eruditus oculus_,' and his ear
has a fairy fineness. There is _a strange earnestness in his
worship of beauty_, which throws a charm over his impassioned
song, more easily felt than described, and not to be escaped by
those who have once felt it. We think that he has _more
definiteness and roundness of general conception_ than the late
Mr. Keats, and is much more free from blemishes of diction and
hasty capriccios of fancy.... The author imitates nobody; _we
recognize the spirit of his age, but not the individual form of
this or that writer_. His thoughts bear no more resemblance to
Byron or Scott, Shelley or Coleridge, than to Homer or Calderon,
Ferdusi or Calidasa. We have remarked five distinctive
excellencies of his own manner. First, his luxuriance of
imagination, and at the same time his control over it. Secondly,
his power of embodying himself in ideal characters, or rather
modes of character, with such extreme accuracy of adjustment,
that the circumstances of the narration seem to have a natural
correspondence with the predominant feeling, and, as it were, to
be evolved from it by assimilative force. Thirdly, his vivid,
picturesque delineation of objects, and the peculiar skill with
which he holds all of them _fused_, to borrow a metaphor from
science, in a medium of strong emotion. Fourthly, the variety of
his lyrical measures, and exquisite modulation of harmonious
words and cadences to the swell and fall of the feelings
expressed. Fifthly, the elevated habits of thought, implied in
these compositions, and imparting a mellow soberness of tone,
more impressive, to our minds, than if the author had drawn up a
set of opinions in verse, and sought to instruct the
understanding, _rather than to communicate the love of beauty to
the heart_."
What follows is justly thought and well said.
"And is it not a noble thing, that the English tongue is, as it
were, the common focus and point of union to which opposite
beauties converge? Is it a trifle that we temper energy with
softness, strength with flexibility, capaciousness of sound with
pliancy of idiom? Some, I know, insensible to these virtues, and
ambitious of I know not what unattainable decomposition, prefer
to utter funeral praises over the grave of departed Anglo-Saxon,
or, starting with convulsive shudder, are ready to leap from
surrounding Latinisms into the kindred, sympathetic arms of
modern German. For myself, I neither share their regret, nor
their terror. Willing at all times to pay filial homage to the
shades of Hengist and Horsa, and to admit they have laid the
base of our compound language; or, if you will, have prepared
the soil from which the chief nutriment of the goodly tree, our
British oak, must be derived, I am yet proud to confess that I
look with sentiments more exulting and more reverential to the
bonds by which the law of the universe has fastened me to my
distant brethren of the same Caucasian race; to the privileges
which I, an inhabitant of the gloomy North, share in common with
climates imparadised in perpetual summer, to the universality
and efficacy resulting from blended intelligence, which, while
it endears in our eyes the land of our fathers as a seat of
peculiar blessing, tends to elevate and expand our thoughts into
communion with humanity at large; and, in the 'sublimer spirit'
of the poet, to make us feel
"That God is everywhere--the God who framed
Mankind to be one mighty family,
Himself our Father, and the world our home."
What nice shading of thought do his remarks on Petrarch discover!
"But it is not so much to his direct adoptions that I refer, _as
to the general modulation of thought, that clear softness of his
images, that energetic self-possession of his conceptions, and
that melodious repose in which are held together all the
emotions he delineates_."
Every one who knows anything of himself, and of his fellow-men, will
acknowledge the wisdom of what follows. It displays an intimate
knowledge both of the constitution and history of man, and there is much
in it suited to our present need:--
"_I do not hesitate to express my conviction, that the spirit of
the critical philosophy, as seen by its fruits in all the
ramifications of art, literature, and morality, is as much more
dangerous than the spirit of mechanical philosophy_, as it is
fairer in appearance, and more capable of alliance with our
natural feelings of enthusiasm and delight. Its dangerous
tendency is this, that it perverts those very minds, whose
office it was to resist the perverse impulses of society, and to
proclaim truth under the dominion of falsehood. However
precipitate may be at any time the current of public opinion,
bearing along the mass of men to the grosser agitations of life,
and to such schemes of belief as make these the prominent
object, _there will always be in reserve a force of antagonist
opinion, strengthened by opposition, and attesting the sanctity
of those higher principles, which are despised or forgotten by
the majority_. These men _are secured by natural temperament_
and peculiar circumstances from participating in the common
delusion; but if some other and deeper fallacy be invented; if
some more subtle beast of the field should speak to them in
wicked flattery; if a digest of intellectual aphorisms can be
substituted in their minds for a code of living truths, and the
lovely semblances of beauty, truth, affection, can be made first
to obscure the presence, and then to conceal the loss, of that
religious humility, without which, as their central life, all
these are but dreadful shadows; if so fatal a stratagem can be
successfully practised, I see not what hope remains for a people
against whom the gates of hell have so prevailed."
"But the number of pure artists is small: few souls are so
finely tempered as to preserve the delicacy of meditative
feeling, untainted by the allurements of accidental suggestion.
The voice of the critical conscience is still and small, like
that of the moral: it cannot entirely be stifled where it has
been heard, but it may be disobeyed. Temptations are never
wanting: some immediate and temporary effect can be produced at
less expense of inward exertion than the high and more ideal
effect which art demands: it is much easier to pander to the
ordinary and often recurring wish for excitement, than to
promote the rare and difficult intuition of beauty. _To raise
the many to his own real point of view, the artist must employ
his energies, and create energy in others: to descend to their
position is less noble, but practicable with ease._ If I may be
allowed the metaphor, one partakes of the nature of redemptive
power; the other of that self-abased and degenerate will, which
'flung from his splendors' the fairest star in heaven."
"_Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the Infinite Being
to the ways and thoughts of finite humanity._ But until this
step has been taken by Almighty Grace, how should man have a
warrant for loving with all his heart and mind and strength?...
Without the gospel, nature exhibits a want of harmony between
our intrinsic constitution, and the system in which it is
placed. But Christianity has made up the difference. It is
possible and natural to love the Father, who has made us his
children by the spirit of adoption: it is possible and natural
to love the Elder Brother, who was, in all things, like as we
are, except sin, and can succor those in temptation, having been
himself tempted. _Thus the Christian faith is the necessary
complement of a sound ethical system._"
There is something to us very striking in the words "Revelation is a
_voluntary_ approximation of the Infinite Being." This states the case
with an accuracy and a distinctness not at all common among either the
opponents or the apologists of _revealed religion_ in the ordinary sense
of the expression. In one sense God is forever revealing himself. His
heavens are forever telling his glory, and the firmament showing his
handiwork; day unto day is uttering speech, and night unto night is
showing knowledge concerning him. But in the word of the truth of the
gospel, God draws near to his creatures; he bows his heavens, and comes
down:
"That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,"
he lays aside. The Word dwelt with men. "Come then, let _us_ reason
together;"--"Waiting to be gracious;"--"Behold, I stand at the door, and
knock; if any man open to me, I will come in to him, and sup with him,
and he with me." It is the father seeing his son while yet a great way
off, and having compassion, and running to him and falling on his neck
and kissing him; for "it was meet for us to rejoice, for this my son was
dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found." Let no man confound
the voice of God in his Works with the voice of God in his Word; they
are utterances of the same infinite heart and will; they are in absolute
harmony; together they make up "that undisturbed song of pure concent;"
one "perfect diapason;" but they are distinct; they are meant to be so.
A poor traveller, "weary and waysore," is stumbling in unknown places
through the darkness of a night of fear, with no light near him, the
everlasting stars twinkling far off in their depths, and yet unrisen
sun, or the waning moon, sending up their pale beams into the upper
heavens, but all this is distant, and bewildering for his feet,
doubtless better much than outer darkness, beautiful and full of God, if
he could have the heart to look up, and the eyes to make use of its
vague light; but he is miserable, and afraid, his next step is what he
is thinking of; a lamp secured against all winds of doctrine is put into
his hands, it may, in some respects, widen the circle of darkness, but
it will cheer his feet, it will tell them what to do next. What a silly
fool he would be to throw away that lantern, or draw down the shutters,
and make it dark to him, while it sits "i' the centre and enjoys bright
day," and all upon the philosophical ground that its light was of the
same kind as the stars', and that it was beneath the dignity of human
nature to do anything but struggle on and be lost in the attempt to get
through the wilderness and the night by the guidance of those "natural"
lights, which, though they are from heaven, have so often led the
wanderer astray. The dignity of human nature indeed! Let him keep his
lantern till the glad sun is up, with healing under his wings. Let him
take good heed to the "sure" {logon} while in this {auchmero topo}--this
dark, damp, unwholesome place, "till the day dawn and {phosphoros}--the
day-star--arise." Nature and the Bible, the Works and the Word of God,
are two distinct things. In the mind of their Supreme Author they dwell
in perfect peace, in that unspeakable unity which is of his essence; and
to us his children, every day their harmony, their mutual relations, are
discovering themselves; but let us beware of saying all nature is a
revelation as the Bible is, and all the Bible is natural as nature is:
there is a perilous juggle here.
The following passage develops Arthur Hallam's views on religious
feeling; this was the master-idea of his mind, and it would not be easy
to overrate its importance. "My son, give me thine heart;"--"Thou shalt
_love_ the Lord thy God;"--"The fool hath said in his _heart_, There is
no God." He expresses the same general idea in these words, remarkable
in themselves, still more so as being the thought of one so young. "The
work of intellect is posterior to the work of feeling. _The latter lies
at the foundation of the man_; it is his proper self--the peculiar thing
that characterizes him as an individual. No two men are alike in
feeling; but conceptions of the understanding, when distinct, are
precisely similar in all--the ascertained relations of truths are the
common property of the race."
Tennyson, we have no doubt, had this thought of his friend in his mind,
in the following lines; it is an answer to the question, Can man by
searching find out God?--
"I found Him not in world or sun,
Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye;
Nor thro' the questions men may try,
The petty cobwebs we have spun:
"If e'er when faith had fallen asleep,
I heard a voice 'believe no more,'
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the godless deep;
"_A warmth within the breast would melt_
The freezing reason's colder part,
_And like a man in wrath, the heart_
_Stood up and answered, 'I have felt._'
"No, like a child in doubt and fear:
But that blind clamor made me wise;
Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near;
"And what I seem beheld again
What is, and no man understands:
And out of darkness came the hands
That reach thro' nature, moulding men."
This is a subject of the deepest personal as well as speculative
interest. In the works of Augustin, of Baxter, Howe, and Jonathan
Edwards, and of Alexander Knox, our readers will find how large a place
the religious affections held, in their view of Divine truth as well as
of human duty. The last-mentioned writer expresses himself thus:--"Our
sentimental faculties are far stronger than our cogitative; and the best
impressions on the latter will be but the moonshine of the mind, if they
are alone. Feeling will be best excited by sympathy; rather, it cannot
be excited in any other way. Heart must act upon heart--the idea of a
living person being essential to all intercourse of heart. You cannot by
any possibility _cordialize_ with a mere _ens rationis_. 'The Word was
made flesh, and dwelt among us,' otherwise we could not 'have beheld his
glory,' much less 'received of his fulness.'"[40]
[40] _Remains_, vol. iii. p. 105.