A quaker is made up of ice and flame. He has no composition, no mean
temperature. Hence he is rarely interested about any public measure but he
becomes a fanatic, and oversteps, in his irrespective zeal, every decency
and every right opposed to his course.
* * * * *
I have never known a trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in heart
somewhere or other. Individuals so distinguished are usually unhappy in
their family relations,--men not benevolent or beneficent to individuals,
but almost hostile to them, yet lavishing money and labour and time on the
race, the abstract notion. The cosmopolitism which does not spring out of,
and blossom upon, the deep-rooted stem of nationality or patriotism, is a
spurious and rotten growth.
* * * * *
When I read the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of the Epistle to the
Romans to that fine old man Mr. ----, at Ramsgate, he shed tears. Any Jew
of sensibility must be deeply impressed by them.
* * * * *
The two images farthest removed from each other which can be comprehended
under one term, are, I think, Isaiah [1]--"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O
earth!"--and Levi of Holywell Street--"Old clothes!"--both of them Jews,
you'll observe. _Immane quantum discrepant!_
[Footnote 1:
I remember Mr. Coleridge used to call Isaiah his ideal of the Hebrew
prophet. He studied that part of the Scripture with unremitting attention
and most reverential admiration. Although Mr. C. was remarkably deficient
in the technical memory of words, he could say a great deal of Isaiah by
heart, and he delighted in pointing out the hexametrical rhythm of numerous
passages in the English version:--
"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, | O earth: for the Lord hath spoken.
I have nourished and brought up children, | and they have rebelled
against me.
The ox knoweth his owner, | and the ass his master's crib:
But Israel doth not know, | my people doth not consider."--ED.]
_August_ 15. 1833.
SALLUST.--THUCYDIDES.--HERODOTUS.--GIBBON.--KEY TO THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN
EMPIRE.
I consider the two works of Sallust which have come down to us entire, as
romances founded on facts; no adequate causes are stated, and there is no
real continuity of action. In Thucydides, you are aware from the beginning
that you are reading the reflections of a man of great genius and
experience upon the character and operation of the two great political
principles in conflict in the civilized world in his time; his narrative of
events is of minor importance, and it is evident that he selects for the
purpose of illustration. It is Thucydides himself whom you read throughout
under the names of Pericles, Nicias, &c. But in Herodotus it is just the
reverse. He has as little subjectivity as Homer, and, delighting in the
great fancied epic of events, he narrates them without impressing any thing
as of his own mind upon the narrative. It is the charm of Herodotus that he
gives you the spirit of his age--that of Thucydides, that he reveals to you
his own, which was above the spirit of his age.
The difference between the composition of a history in modern and ancient
times is very great; still there are certain principles upon which the
history of a modern period may be written, neither sacrificing all truth
and reality, like Gibbon, nor descending into mere biography and anecdote.
Gibbon's style is detestable, but his style is not the worst thing about
him. His history has proved an effectual bar to all real familiarity with
the temper and habits of imperial Rome. Few persons read the original
authorities, even those which are classical; and certainly no distinct
knowledge of the actual state of the empire can be obtained from Gibbon's
rhetorical sketches. He takes notice of nothing but what may produce an
effect; he skips on from eminence to eminence, without ever taking you
through the valleys between: in fact, his work is little else but a
disguised collection of all the splendid anecdotes which he could find in
any book concerning any persons or nations from the Antonines to the
capture of Constantinople. When I read a chapter in Gibbon, I seem to be
looking through a luminous haze or fog:--figures come and go, I know not
how or why, all larger than life, or distorted or discoloured; nothing is
real, vivid, true; all is scenical, and, as it were, exhibited by
candlelight. And then to call it a History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire!
Was there ever a greater misnomer? I protest I do not remember a single
philosophical attempt made throughout the work to fathom the ultimate
causes of the decline or fall of that empire. How miserably deficient is
the narrative of the important reign of Justinian! And that poor
scepticism, which Gibbon mistook for Socratic philosophy, has led him to
misstate and mistake the character and influence of Christianity in a way
which even an avowed infidel or atheist would not and could not have done.
Gibbon was a man of immense reading; but he had no philosophy; and he never
fully understood the principle upon which the best of the old historians
wrote. He attempted to imitate their artificial construction of the whole
work--their dramatic ordonnance of the parts--without seeing that their
histories were intended more as documents illustrative of the truths of
political philosophy than as mere chronicles of events.
The true key to the declension of the Roman empire--which is not to be
found in all Gibbon's immense work--may be stated in two words:--the
_imperial_ character overlaying, and finally destroying, the _national_
character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation.
_August_ 16. 1833.
DR. JOHNSON'S POLITICAL PAMPHLETS.--TAXATION.-DIRECT REPRESENTATION.---
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE.---RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE----HORNE TOOKE.----ETYMOLOGY
OF THE FINAL IVE.
I like Dr. Johnson's political pamphlets better than any other parts of his
works:-particularly his "Taxation no Tyranny" is very clever and spirited,
though he only sees half of his subject, and that not in a very
philosophical manner. Plunder--Tribute--Taxation--are the three gradations
of action by the sovereign on the property of the subject. The first is
mere violence, bounded by no law or custom, and is properly an act only
between conqueror and conquered, and that, too, in the moment of victory.
The second supposes law; but law proceeding only from, and dictated by, one
party, the conqueror; law, by which he consents to forego his right of
plunder upon condition of the conquered giving up to him, of their own
accord, a fixed commutation. The third implies compact, and negatives any
right to plunder,--taxation being professedly for the direct benefit of the
party taxed, that, by paying a part, he may through the labours and
superintendence of the sovereign be able to enjoy the rest in peace. As to
the right to tax being only commensurate with direct representation, it is
a fable, falsely and treacherously brought forward by those who know its
hollowness well enough. You may show its weakness in a moment, by observing
that not even the universal suffrage of the Benthamites avoids the
difficulty;--for although it may be allowed to be contrary to decorum that
women should legislate; yet there can be no reason why women should not
choose their representatives to legislate;--and if it be said that they are
merged in their husbands, let it be allowed where the wife has no separate
property; but where she has a distinct taxable estate, in which her husband
has no interest, what right can her husband have to choose for her the
person whose vote may affect her separate interest?--Besides, at all
events, an unmarried woman of age, possessing one thousand pounds a year,
has surely as good a moral right to vote, if taxation without
representation is tyranny, as any ten-pounder in the kingdom. The truth, of
course, is, that direct representation is a chimera, impracticable in fact,
and useless or noxious if practicable.
Johnson had neither eye nor ear; for nature, therefore, he cared, as he
knew, nothing. His knowledge of town life was minute; but even that was
imperfect, as not being contrasted with the better life of the country.
Horne Tooke was once holding forth on language, when, turning to me, he
asked me if I knew what the meaning of the final _ive_ was in English
words. I said I thought I could tell what he, Horne Tooke himself, thought.
"Why, what?" said he. "_Vis_," I replied; and he acknowledged I had guessed
right. I told him, however, that I could not agree with him; but believed
that the final _ive_ came from _ick_--_vicus_, [Greek: --] a'txaq; the root
denoting collectivity and community, and that it was opposed to the final
_ing_, which signifies separation, particularity, and individual property,
from _ingle_, a hearth, or one man's place or seat: [Greek: --] oi'xo?,
_vicus_, denoted an aggregation of _ingles_. The alteration of the _c_ and
_k_ of the root into the _v_ was evidently the work of the digammate power,
and hence we find the _icus_ and _ivus_ indifferently as finals in Latin.
The precise difference of the etymologies is apparent in these phrases:---
The lamb is spor_tive;_ that is, has a nature or habit of sporting: the
lamb is sport_ing;_ that is, the animal is now performing a sport. Horne
Tooke upon this said nothing to my etymology; but I believe he found that
he could not make a fool of me, as he did of Godwin and some other of his
butts.
August 17. 1833.
"THE LORD" IN THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE PSALMS, ETC.----SCOTCH KIRK AND
IRVING.
It is very extraordinary that, in our translation of the Psalms, which
professes to be from the Hebrew, the name Jehovah--[Hebrew: --] 'O -- The
Being, or God--should be omitted, and, instead of it, the [Hebrew: --]
Ktlpio?, or Lord, of the Septuagint be adopted. The Alexandrian Jews had a
superstitious dread of writing the name of God, and put [Greek: Kurhios]
not as a translation, but as a mere mark or sign--every one readily
understanding for what it really stood. We, who have no such superstition,
ought surely to restore the Jehovah, and thereby bring out in the true
force the overwhelming testimony of the Psalms to the divinity of Christ,
the Jehovah or manifested God.[1]
[Footnote 1:
I find the same remark in the late most excellent Bishop Sandford's diary,
under date 17th December, 1827:--"[Greek: CHairhete en t_o Kurhi_o Kurhios]
idem significat quod [Hebrew: --] apud Hebraeos. Hebraei enim nomine
[Hebrew: --] sanctissimo nempe Dei nomine, nunquam in colloquio utebantur,
sed vice ejus [Hebrew: --] pronuntiabant, quod LXX per [Greek: Kurhios]
exprimebant."--_Remains of Bishop Sandford_, vol. i. p. 207.
Mr. Coleridge saw this work for the first time many months after making the
observation in the text. Indeed it was the very last book he ever read. He
was deeply interested in the picture drawn of the Bishop, and said that the
mental struggles and bodily sufferings indicated in the Diary had been his
own for years past. He conjured me to peruse the Memoir and the Diary with
great care:--"I have received," said he, "much spiritual comfort and
strength from the latter. O! were my faith and devotion, like my
sufferings, equal to that good man's! He felt, as I do, how deep a depth is
prayer in faith."
In connection with the text, I may add here, that Mr. C. said, that long
before he knew that the late Bishop Middleton was of the same opinion, he
had deplored the misleading inadequacy of our authorized version of the
expression, [Greek: pr_ototokos pas_es ktise_os] in the Epistle to the
Colossians, i. 15.: [Greek: hos estin eik_on tou THeou tou aoratou,
pr_ototokos pas_es ktise_os.] He rendered the verse in these words:--"Who
is the manifestation of God the invisible, the begotten antecedently to all
creation;" observing, that in [Greek: pr_ototokos] there was a double
superlative of priority, and that the natural meaning of "_first-born of
every creature_,"--the language of our version,--afforded no premiss for
the causal [Greek: hoti] in the next verse. The same criticism may be found
in the Stateman's Manual, p. 56. n.; and see Bishop Sandford's judgment to
the same effect, vol. i. p. 165.--ED.]
* * * * *
I cannot understand the conduct of the Scotch Kirk with regard to poor
Irving. They might with ample reason have visited him for the monstrous
indecencies of those exhibitions of the spirit;--perhaps the Kirk would not
have been justified in overlooking such disgraceful breaches of decorum;
but to excommunicate him on account of his language about Christ's body was
very foolish. Irving's expressions upon this subject are ill judged,
inconvenient, in had taste, and in terms false: nevertheless his apparent
meaning, such as it is, is orthodox. Christ's body--as mere body, or rather
carcass (for body is an associated word), was no more capable of sin or
righteousness than mine or yours;--that his humanity had a capacity of sin,
follows from its own essence. He was of like passions as we, and was
tempted. How could he be tempted, if he had no formal capacity of being
seduced?
It is Irving's error to use declamation, high and passionate rhetoric, not
introduced and pioneered by calm and clear logic, which is--to borrow a
simile, though with a change in the application, from the witty-wise, but
not always wisely-witty, Fuller--like knocking a nail into a board, without
wimbling a hole for it, and which then either does not enter, or turns
crooked, or splits the wood it pierces.
August 18. 1833.