The company were not soon weary of admiring the rustic building, which
seemed raised as if by the stroke of a magician's wand, so rapidly had
it sprung up. They were delighted to find that their pleasure was to be
prolonged by drinking tea in the temple.
While we were at tea Mr. Stanley, addressing himself to me, said, "I
have always forgotten to ask you, Charles, if your high expectations of
pleasure from the society in London had quite answered?"
"I was entertained, and I was disappointed," replied I. "I always found
the pleasure of the moment not heightened, but effaced by the succeeding
moment. The ever restless, rolling tide of new intelligence at once
gratified and excited the passion for novelty, which I found to be _le
grand poisson qui mange les petits_. This successive abundance of fresh
supply gives an ephemeral importance to every thing, and a lasting
importance to nothing. We skimmed every topic, but dived into none. Much
desultory talk, but little discussion. The combatants skirmished like
men whose arms are kept bright by constant use; who were accustomed to a
flying fight, but who avoided the fatigue of coming to close quarters.
What was old, however momentous, was rejected as dull, what was new,
however insignificant, was thought interesting. Events of the past week
were placed with those beyond the flood; and the very existence of
occurrences which continued to be matter of deep interest with us in the
country, seemed there totally forgotten.
"I found, too, that the inhabitants of the metropolis had a standard of
merit of their own. That knowledge of the town was concluded to be
knowledge of the world; that local habits, reigning phrases, temporary
fashions, and an acquaintance with the surface of manners, was supposed
to be knowledge of mankind. Of course, he who was ignorant of the topics
of the hour, and the anecdotes of a few modish leaders, was ignorant of
human nature."
Sir John observed, that I was rather too young to be a _praiser of past
times_, yet he allowed that the standard of conversation was not so high
as it had been in the time of my father, by whose reports my youthful
ardor had been inflamed. He did not indeed suppose that men were less
intellectual now, but they certainly were less colloquially
intellectual. "For this," added he, "various reasons may be assigned. In
London man is every day becoming less of a social, and more of a
gregarious animal. Crowds are as little favorable to conversation as to
reflection. He finds, therefore, that he may figure in the mass with
less expense of mind; and as to women, they are put to no expense at
all. They find that by mixing with myriads, they may carry on the daily
intercourse of life, without being obliged to bring a single idea to
enrich the common stock."
"I do not wonder," said I, "that the dull and the uninformed love to
shelter their insignificance in a crowd. In mingling with the multitude,
their deficiencies elude detection. The vapid and the ignorant are like
a bad play; they owe the little figure they make to the dress, the
scenery, the music, and the company. The noise and the glare take off
all attention from the defects of the work. The spectator is amused, and
he does not inquire whether it is with the piece or with the
accompaniments. The end is attained, and he is little solicitous about
the means. But an intellectual woman, like a well written drama, will
please at home without all these aids and adjuncts; nay, the beauties of
the superior piece, and of the superior woman, will rise on a more
intimate survey. But you were going, Sir John, to assign other causes
for the decline and fall of conversation."
"One very affecting reason," replied he; "is that the alarming state of
public affairs fills all men's minds with one momentous object. As every
Englishman is a patriot, every patriot is a politician. It is natural
that that subject should fill every mouth which occupies every heart,
and that little room should be left for extraneous matter."
"I should accept this," said I, "as a satisfactory vindication, had I
heard that the same absorbing cause had thinned the public places, or
diminished the attraction of the private resorts of dissipation."
"There is a third reason," said Sir John. "Polite literature has in a
good degree given way to experimental philosophy. The admirers of
science assert, that the last was the age of words, and that this is the
age of things. A more substantial kind of knowledge has partly
superseded these elegant studies, which have caught such hold on your
affections."
"I heartily wish," replied I, "that the new pursuits may be found to
make men wiser; they certainly have not made them more agreeable."
"It is affirmed," said Mr. Stanley, "that the prevailing philosophical
studies have a religious use, and that they naturally tend to elevate
the heart to the great Author of the universe."
"I have but one objection to that assertion," replied Sir John, "namely,
that it is not true. This would seem indeed to be their direct tendency,
yet experiment, which you know is the soul of philosophy, has proved the
contrary."
He then adduced some instances in our own country, which I forbear to
name, that clearly evinced that this was not their necessary
consequence; adding, however, a few great names on the more honorable
side. He next adverted to the Baillies, the Condorcets, the D'Alemberts,
and the Lalandes, as melancholy proofs of the inefficacy of mere science
to make Christians.
"Far be it from me," said Sir John, "to undervalue philosophical
pursuits. The modern discoveries are extremely important, especially in
their application to the purposes of common life; but where these are
pursued exclusively, I can not help preferring the study of the great
classic authors, those exquisite masters of life and manners, with whose
spirit conversation, twenty or thirty years ago, was so richly
impregnated."
"I confess," said I, "there may be more matter; but there is certainly
less mind in the reigning pursuits. The reputation of skill, it is true,
may be obtained at a much less expense of time and intellect. The
comparative cheapness of the acquisition holds out the powerful
temptation of more credit with less labor. A sufficient knowledge of
botany or chemistry to make a figure, is easily obtained, while a
thorough acquaintance with the historians, poets, and orators of
antiquity requires much time, and close application."
"But," exclaimed Sir John, "can the fashionable studies pretend to give
the same expansion to the mind, the same elevation to the sentiments,
the same energy to the feelings, the same stretch and compass to the
understanding, the same correctness to the taste, the same grace and
spirit to the whole moral and intellectual man."
"For my own part," replied I, "so far from saying with Hamlet, 'Man
delights not me, nor woman neither,' I confess I have little delight in
any thing else. As a man, man is the creature with whom I have to do,
and the varieties in his character interest me more than all the
possible varieties of mosses, shells and fossils. To view this compound
creature in the complexity of his actions, as portrayed by the hand of
those immortal masters, Tacitus and Plutarch; to view him in the
struggle of his passions, as displayed by Euripides and Shakspeare; to
contemplate him in the blaze of his eloquence, by the two rival orators
of Greece and Rome, is more congenial to my feelings than the ablest
disquisition of which matter was ever the subject." Sir John, who is a
passionate, and rather too exclusive, admirer of classic lore, warmly
declared himself of my opinion.
"I went to town," replied I, "with a mind eager for intellectual
pleasure. My memory was not quite unfurnished with passages which I
thought likely to be adverted to, and which might serve to embellish
conversation, without incurring the charge of pedantry. But though most
of the men I conversed with were my equals in education, and my
superiors in talent, there seemed little disposition to promote such
topics as might bring our understandings into play. Whether it is that
business, active life, and public debate, absorb the mind, and make men
consider society rather as a scene to rest than to exercise it, I know
not; certain it is that they brought less into the treasury of
conversation than I expected; not because they were poor, but proud, or
idle, and reserved their talents and acquisitions for higher occasions.
The most opulent possessors, I often found the most penurious
contributors."
"_Rien de trop_," said Mr. Stanley, "was the favorite maxim of an
author[3] whom I am not apt to quote for rules of moral conduct. Yet its
adoption would be a salutary check against excess in all our pursuits.
If polite learning is undervalued by the mere man of science, it is
perhaps over-rated by the mere man of letters. If it dignifies
retirement, and exalts society, it is not the great business of life; it
is not the prime fountain of moral excellence."
[Footnote 3: Frederic the Great, king of Prussia.]
"Well, so much for _man_," said Sir John, "but, Charles, you have not
told us what you had to say of _woman_, in your observations on
society."
"As to woman," replied I, "I declare that I found more propensity to
promote subjects of taste and elegant speculation among some of the
superior class of females, than in many of my own sex. The more prudent,
however, are restrained through fear of the illiberal sarcasms of men
who, not contented to suppress their own faculties, ridicule all
intellectual exertion in woman, though evidently arising from a modest
desire of improvement, and not the vanity of hopeless rivalry."
"Charles is always the Paladin of the reading ladies," said Sir John. "I
do not deny it," replied I, "if they bear their faculties meekly. But I
confess that what is sneeringly called a learned lady, is to me far
preferable to a scientific one, such as I encountered one evening, who
talked of the fulcrum, and the lever, and the statera, which she took
care to tell us was the Roman steel-yard, with all the sang-froid of
philosophical conceit."
"Scientific men," said Sir John, "are in general admirable for their
simplicity, but in a technical woman, I have seldom found a grain of
taste or elegance."
"I own," replied I, "I should greatly prefer a fair companion who could
modestly discriminate between the beauties of Virgil and Milton, to one
who was always dabbling in chemistry, and who came to dinner with dirty
hands from the laboratory. And yet I admire chemistry too; I am now only
speaking of that knowledge which is desirable in a female companion; for
knowledge I must have. But arts, which are of immense value in
manufactures, won't make my wife's conversation entertaining to me.
Discoveries which may greatly improve dyeing and bleaching, will add
little to the delights of one's summer evening's walk, or winter
fire-side."
The ladies, Lucilla especially, smiled at my warmth. I felt that there
was approbation in her smile, and though I thought I had said too much
already, it encouraged me to go on. "I repeat, that next to religion,
whatever relates to human manners, is most attracting to human
creatures. To turn from conversation to composition. What is it that
excites so feeble an interest, in perusing that finely written poem of
the Abbe de Lille, '_Les Jardins?_' It is because his garden has no
cultivators, no inhabitants, no men and women. What confers that
powerful charm on the descriptive parts of Paradise Lost? A fascination,
I will venture to affirm, paramount to all the lovely and magnificent
scenery which adorns it. Eden itself with all its exquisite landscape,
would excite a very inferior pleasure did it exhibit only inanimate
beauties. 'Tis the proprietors, 'tis the inhabitants, 'tis the _live
stock_, of Eden, which seize upon the affections, and twine about the
heart. The gardens, even of Paradise, would be dull without the
gardeners. 'Tis mental excellence, 'tis moral beauty which completes the
charm. Where this is wanting, landscape poetry, though it be read with
pleasure, yet the interest it raises is cold. It is admired, but seldom
quoted. It leaves no definite idea on the mind. If general, it is
indistinct; if minute, tedious."
"It must be confessed," said Sir John, "that some poets are apt to
forget that the finest representation of nature is only the scene, not
the object; the canvas, not the portrait. We had indeed some time ago,
so much of this gorgeous scene-painting, so much splendid poetical
botany, so many amorous flowers, and so many vegetable courtships; so
many wedded plants; roots transformed to nymphs, and dwelling in emerald
palaces; that some how or other, truth and probability and nature, and
man slipped out of the picture, though it must be allowed that genius
held the pencil."
"In Mason's 'English Garden,'" replied I, "Alcander's precepts would
have been cold, had there been no personification. The introduction of
character dramatizes what else would have been frigidly didactic.
Thomson enriches his landscape with here and there a figure, drawn with
more correctness than warmth, with more nature than spirit, and exalts
it everywhere by moral allusion and religious reference. The scenery of
Cowper is perpetually animated with sketches of character, enlivened
with portraits from real life, and the exhibition of human manners and
passions. His most exquisite descriptions owe their vividness to moral
illustration. Loyalty, liberty, patriotism, charity, piety, benevolence,
every generous feeling, every glowing sentiment, every ennobling
passion, grows out of his descriptive powers. His matter always bursts
into mind. His shrubbery, his forest, his flower-garden, all produce
Fruits worthy of Paradise,
and lead to immortality."
Mr. Stanley said, adverting again to the subject of conversation, it was
an amusement to him to observe what impression the first introduction to
general society made on a mind conversant with books, but to whom a the
world was in a manner new.
"I believe," said Sir John, "that an overflowing commerce, and the
excessive opulence it has introduced, though favorable to all the
splendors of art and mechanic ingenuity, yet have lowered the standard
of taste, and debilitated the mental energies. They are advantageous to
luxury, but fatal to intellect. It has added to the brilliancy of the
drawing-room itself, but deducted from that of the inhabitant. It has
given perfection to our mirrors, our candelabras, our gilding, our
inlaying, and our sculpture, but it has communicated a torpor to the
imagination, and enervated our intellectual vigor."
"In one way," said Mr. Stanley, smiling, "luxury has been favorable to
literature. From the unparalleled splendor of our printing, paper,
engraving, illuminating and binding, luxury has caused more books to be
purchased, while from the growth of time-absorbing dissipation, it
causes fewer to be read. I believe we were much more familiar with our
native poets in their former plain garb than since they have been
attired in the gorgeous dress which now decorates our shelves."
"Poetry," replied Mr. Stanley, "has of late too much degenerated into
personal satire, persiflage, and caricature among one class of writers,
while among another it has exhibited the vagrancies of genius without
the inspiration, the exuberance of fancy without the curb of judgment,
and the eccentricities of invention without the restrictions of taste.
The image has been strained, while the verse has been slackened. We have
had pleonasm without fullness, and facility without force. Redundancy
has been mistaken for plenitude, flimsiness for ease, and distortion
for energy. An over desire of being natural has made the poet feeble,
and the rage for being simple has sometimes made him silly. The
sensibility is sickly, and the elevation vertiginous."
"To Cowper," said Sir John, "master of melody as he is, the mischief is
partly attributable. Such an original must naturally have a herd of
imitators. If they can not attain to his excellences, his faults are
always attainable. The resemblance between the master and the scholar is
found chiefly in his defects. The determined imitator of an easy writer
becomes insipid; of a sublime one, absurd. Cowper's ease appeared his
most imitable charm, but ease aggraved is insipidity. His occasional
negligences, his disciples adopted uniformly. In Cowper, there might
sometimes be carelessness in the verse, but the verse itself was
sustained by the vigor of the sentiment. The imitator forgot that his
strength lay in the thought; that his buoyant spirit always supported
itself; that the figure, though amplified, was never distorted; the
image, though bold, was never incongruous; and the illustration, though
new, was never false.
"The evil, however," continued Sir John, "seems to be correcting itself.
The real genius, which exists in several of this whimsical school, I
trust, will at length lead them to prune their excrescences, and reform
their youthful eccentricities. Their good sense will teach that the
surest road to fame is to condescend to tread in the luminous track of
their great precursors in the art. They will see that deviation is not
always improvement; that whoever wants to be better than nature will
infallibly be worse; that truth in taste is as obvious as in morals, and
as certain as in mathematics. In other quarters, both the classic and
the Gothic muse are emulously soaring, and I hail the restoration of
genuine poetry and pure taste."
"I must not," said I, "loquacious as I have already been, dismiss the
subject of conversation without remarking that I found there was one
topic which seemed as uniformly avoided by common consent as if it had
been banished by the interdict of absolute authority, and that some
forfeiture, or at least dishonor and disgrace, were to follow it on
conviction--I mean religion."
"Surely, Charles," said Sir John, "you would not convert general
conversation into a divinity school, and friendly societies into
debating clubs."
"Far from it," replied I, "nor do I desire that ladies and gentlemen
over their tea and coffee should rehearse their articles of faith, or
fill the intervals of carving and eating with introducing dogmas, or
discussing controversies. I do not wish to erect the social table, which
was meant for innocent relaxation, into an arena for theological
combatants. I only wish, as people live so much together, that if, when
out of the multitude of topics which arise in conversation, an unlucky
wight happens to start a serious thought, I could see a cordial
recognition of its importance; I wish I could see a disposition to
pursue it, instead of a chilling silence which obliges him to draw in as
if he had dropped something dangerous to the state, or inimical to the
general cheerfulness, or derogatory to his own understanding. I only
desire that as, without any effort on the part of the speaker, but
merely from the overflowing fullness of a mind habitually occupied with
one leading concern, we easily perceive that one of the company is a
lawyer, another a soldier, a third a physician, I only wish that we
could oftener discover from the same plenitude, so hard to conceal where
it exists, that we were in a company of Christians."
"We must not expect in our day," said Mr. Stanley, "to see revive that
animating picture of the prevalence of religious intercourse given by
the prophet: 'Then they that feared the Lord, spake often one to
another.' And yet one can not but regret that, in select society, men
well informed as we know, well principled as we hope, having one common
portion of being to fill, having one common faith, one common Father,
one common journey to perform, one common termination to that journey,
and one common object in view beyond it, should, when together, be so
unwilling to advert occasionally to those great points which doubtless
often occupy them in secret; that they should on the contrary adopt a
sort of inverted hypocrisy, and wish to appear worse than they really
are; that they should be so backward to give or to gain information, to
lend or to borrow lights, in a matter in which they are all equally
interested: which can not be the case in any other possible subject."
"In all human concerns," said I, "we find that those dispositions,
tastes, and affections which are brought into exercise, flourish, while
others are smothered by concealment."
"It is certain," replied Mr. Stanley, "that knowledge which is never
brought forward is apt to decline. Some feelings require to be excited
in order to know if they exist. In short, topics of every kind which are
kept totally out of sight make a fainter impression on the mind than
such as are occasionally introduced. Communication is a great
strengthener of any principle. Feelings, as well as ideas, are often
elicited by collision. Thoughts that are never to be produced, in time
seldom present themselves, while mutual interchange almost creates as
well as cultivates them. And as to the social affections, I am persuaded
that men would love each other more cordially; good-will and kindness
would be inconceivably promoted, were they in the habit of maintaining
that sort of intercourse which would keep up a mutual regard for their
eternal interests, and lead them more to consider each other as
candidates for the same immortality through the same common hope."
Just as he had ceased to speak, we heard a warbling of female voices,
which came softened to us by distance and the undulation of the air. The
little band under the oak had finished their cheerful repast, and
arranged themselves in the same regular procession in which they had
arrived. They stood still at a respectful distance from the temple, and
in their artless manner sung Addison's beautiful version of the
twenty-third psalm, which the Miss Astons had taught them, because it
was a favorite with their mother.
Here the setting sun reminded us to retreat to the house. Before we
quitted the temple, however, Sir George Aston, ventured modestly to
intimate a wish, that if it pleased the Almighty to spare our lives, the
same party should engage always to celebrate this anniversary in the
Temple of Friendship, which should be finished on a larger scale, and
rendered less unworthy to receive such guests. The ladies smiled
assentingly. Ph[oe]be applauded rapturously. Sir John Belfield and I
warmly approved the proposal. Mr. Stanley said it could not but meet
with his cordial concurrence, as it would involve the assurance of an
annual visit from his valued friends.
As we walked into the house, Lady Aston, who held by my arm, in answer
to the satisfaction I expressed at the day I had passed, said, "we owe
what little we are and do, under Providence, to Mr. Stanley. You will
admire his discriminating mind, when I tell you that he recommends these
little exhibitions for my daughters far more than to his own. He says
that they, being naturally cheerful and habitually active, require not
the incentive of company to encourage them. But that for my poor timid
inactive girls, the support and animating presence of a few chosen
friends just give them that degree of life and spirit which serves to
warm their hearts, and keep their minds in motion."