Blount passed the bounds of that of a brother; longing to make her his
wife, he adored her with the passion he had lavished on the dead. It
seemed as if the shade of Eleanora was perpetually prompting him to
bestow all his affection on the young and beautiful Eliza. She caressed
his children with the pride of an aunt, she traced the image of her
sister in the laughing eyes of the merry babes--still she was not happy.
How could she be happy? She loved him as a man--as a brother. She was
a Christian--he an Infidel. She was bound by creeds--he by conduct. She
was doing the duty she owed to the dead. He sought to do it by uniting
himself to the living. Eliza was anxious to marry, but there existed
something which, to her mind, was greater than human duties, and it
often outraged them. God and the Church demanded her first attention,
and then her lover and his children. The Church, in cruel mockery of
human rights, stepped between her judgment and her affections. It denied
the power of a woman to occupy the married home of her deceased sister.
She was willing to pledge her love to Charles Blount at the altar, but
the priest mocked her prayers and denounced her affections. The occasion
was too good to be lost. Episcopalism sought revenge on its opponent,
and it triumphed. Eliza felt the force of Blount's arguments. She
wandered with him through the green fields, but her sorrow was too
great to pluck the wild roses. The luscious fruits of summer were
passed untasted. A heart sick and in trouble, a mind wandering from her
sister's grave to her children, and then at the anathema of the Church,
made her a widowed maid. To overcome her scruples, her lover wrote a
book (inviting the clergy to refute it,) defending the marriage with a
deceased wife's sister. But ever as he spoke there was a film before her
eyes. There was a gaunt priest, with canonical robes, stood before the
gates of heaven. Before him and through him was the way to an eternal
happiness, below him was a fiery hell; and he shouted with hoarse voice,
_Incest, incest, incest!_--And ever as he shouted, he pointed with his
finger of scorn at this Christian hell, and she conjured up in her mind
the old stories of this priest, until she saw the livid flames rising up
higher till they encircled her form, and then the priest screamed with
fury, _Anathema maranatha, incest, incest!_ And in terror she stood,
with the big drops of sweat dripping from her brow, with her heart
beating, with her mind distracted, but her affections unclouded.
This priest was the Church of England, and those fancies were driven
into her imagination by her creed, her litanies, and her sermons. Eliza
Tyrrel was miserable; she was placed between her love, her duty, and her
religion. If she had been a woman of a strong mind, she would have
torn her creed into shreds, she would have dared the anathema of the
priest--the ostracism of its dupes--and would have clung to the man she
loved so truly, in defiance of that which was, at the best, but a faint
possibility.
The arguments in that pamphlet of Blount's were conclusive, but she
distrusted reason. The plainest dictates of common logic were referred
to the promptings of the Devil. How could it be otherwise? Can the
teachings of a lifetime be overthrown by the courtship of a few months?
Eliza Tyrrel, true to Blount, loved him; true to her religion, she durst
not marry him without the sanction of the Church. So Blount, as a last
resolve, laid the matter before the Lord's Vicegerent at Canterbury,
and many of the most learned divines of England; and from those
ecclesiastical leeches there was a Shylock cry of _incest, incest,
incest!_ And those terrible words came greeting the ears of Charles
Blount, making his home like a charnel-house, and they nearly sent his
beautiful Eliza to a maniac's grave. Still she lingered on. Denied the
power of a wife, she would not relinquish her duties as a mother to her
sister's babes. There was a calm heroism here which few can imitate.
The passions of Blount could not brook further insults. The last kick
of bigotry against the broken-hearted Freethinker was given. He could
no longer rise with the lark, and roam over the hills of his ancestral
home. To him the birds, as they warbled, spoke of joys never to return.
The broad river told him of the days when the little skiff floated
on its waters with Eleanora; and even his friends only too bitterly
reminded him of the tournaments of wit where Hobbes, Brown, and Gildon,
jousted each other in the presence of his wife. His life was one scene
of misery. He saw no chance of amendment. In a fit of despair, he
loaded his pistol with due deliberation, placed it to his head, and shot
himself. He lingered for sometime, and then died on the breast of Eliza.
This was a strange suicide. Blount's memory bears its weight of obloquy.
It is hard to draw the line when and where a man has a right to take
away his life. Common sense tells us that so long as our families are
dependent upon us, we have no right to end our lives; and if we have no
dependents, no friends, then our country has a claim upon us. But, at
the same time, the one sole end of existence is to be happy. If a man
cannot find happiness in life, if there is a great coalition against
him, he is justified in taking up arms against them; but, at the same
time, it proves a greater amount of courage "to bear up against the ills
of life" than to madly leave it, and thus weaken the force of those who
wish to stem its injustice.
Charles Blount died, and with him expired much of the chivalry of
Freethought. His friend, Charles Gil-don, writing of him to a lady,
says, "You know Astrea (Eliza,) and have an exact friendship with
her. You can attest her beauty, wit, honor, virtue, good humor, and
discretion. You have been acquainted with the charms of her conversation
and conduct, and condemn her, only adhering to a national custom to the
loss of so generous a friend, and so faithful a lover. But custom and
obedience meeting the more easily, betrayed her virtue into a crime. I
know my friend loved her to his last breath; and I know, therefore, that
all who love his memory must, for her sake, love and value her, as being
a lady of that merit, that engaged the reason of Philander (C. Blount)
to so violent a passion for her."
The same writer says, "His father was Sir Henry Blount, the Socrates
of the age, for his aversions to the reigning sophisms and hypocrisies,
eminent in all capacities: the best husband, father, and master,
extremely agreeably in conversation, and just in all his dealings.
From such a father our hero derived him self; to such a master owed
his generous education, unmixed with the nauseous methods and profane
opinions of the schools. Nature gave him parts capable of the noblest
sciences, and his industrious studies bore a proportion to his
capacities. He was a generous and constant friend, an indulgent parent,
and a kind master. His temper was open and free; his conversation
pleasant; his reflections just and modest; his repartees close--not
scurrilous; he had a great deal of wit, and no malice. His mind was
large and noble--above the little designs of most men; an enemy to
dissimulation, and never feared to own his thoughts. He was a true
Englishman, and lover of the liberties of his country, and declared it
in the worst of times. He was an enemy to nothing but error, and none
were his enemies that knew him, but those who sacrificed more to mammon
than reason."
This was the man who died, because a dominant priesthood insisted on
a dogma which interfered with a purely Secular rite, which blasted two
hearts in a vain attempt to perpetuate a system, which dashes its rude
fingers, and tears out the heart of human felicity to sprinkle the altar
of superstition with the gore of offended innocence. Charles Blount
was a Deist; as such, he believed in a God; which he described in his
account of a Deist's religion. Let us examine his thoughts, and see if
they bear the interpretation which Christianity has always placed upon
them. Blount gives the Deist's opinion of God. He says, "Whatever is
adorable, amiable, and imitable by mankind, is in one Supreme, perfect
Being." An Atheist cannot object to this. He speaks in the manner
in which God is to be worshipped. He says, not by sacrifice, or by a
Mediator, but by a steady adherence to all that is great and good and
imitable in nature. This is the brief religious creed of Charles Blount.
He never seeks to find out fabled attributes of Deity. He knows what is
of value to mankind, and sedulously practices whatever is beneficial to
society.
In his "Anima Mundi, or, History of the Opinions of the Heathens on the
Immortality of the Soul," (p. 97,) Blount says:--
"The heathen philosophers were much divided concerning the soul's
future state; some held it mortal, others immortal. Of those who held
the mortality of the soul, the Epicureans were the chief sect, who,
notwithstanding their doctrines, led virtuous lives." Cardan had so
great a value for their moral actions, that he appeared in justification
of them. It appears (says he) "by the writings of Cicero, Diogenes,
and Laertius, that the Epicureans did more religiously observe laws,
piety, and fidelity among men than either the Stoics or the Platonists;
and I suppose the cause thereof was, that a man is either good or evil
by custom, but none confideth in those that do not possess sanctity of
life. Wherefore they were compelled to use greater fidelity, thereby
the better to justify their profession, from which reason it likewise
proceeds, that at this day few do equal the fidelity of usurers,
notwithstanding they are most base in the rest of their life. Also among
the Jews, whilst the Pharisees, that confessed the resurrection and the
immortality of the soul, frequently persecuted Christ, the Sadducees,
who denied the resurrection, angels, and spirits, meddled not with him
above once or twice, and that very gently. Thus, if you compare the
lives of Pliny and Seneca (not their writings,) you shall find Pliny,
with his mortality of the soul, did as far exceed Seneca in honesty of
manners, as Seneca excels him in religious discourse. The Epicureans
observed honesty above others, and in their conversation were usually
found inoffensive and virtuous, and for that reason were often employed
by the Romans when they could persuade them to accept of great employs,
for their fault was not any want of ability or honesty, but their
general desire of leading a private life of ease, and free from trouble,
although inglorious. For when immortality is not owned, there can be no
ambition of posthumous glory.
"The Epicureans, instead of those bloody scenes of gallantry (which
tyrants applaud,) undertook to manage carefully the inheritance of
orphans; bringing up, at their own charge, the children of their
deceased friends, and were counted good men, unless it were in front of
religious worship; for they constantly affirmed that there were no Gods,
or, at least, such as concerned themselves with human affairs, according
to the poets. Neither doth the hope of immortality conduce to fortitude,
as some vainly suggest, for Brutus was not more valiant than Cassius;
and if we will confess the truth, the deeds of Brutus were more cruel
than those of Cassius; for he used the Rhodians, who were his enemies,
far more kindly than Brutus did those amicable cities which he governed.
In a word, though they both, had a hand in Cæsar's murder, yet Brutus
was the only parricide. So that the Stoics, which believed a Providence,
lived as if there were none; whereas the Epicureans, who denied it,
lived as if there were.... The next sect to the Epicureans, in point
of incredulity, concerning the soul, I conceive to be the Sceptics, who
were by some esteemed, not only the modestest, but the most perspicuous
of all sects. They neither affirmed nor denied anything, but doubted
of all things. They thought all our knowledge seemed rather like truth,
than to be really true, and that for such like reasons as these:--
"1. They denied any knowledge of the Divine Nature, because, they say,
to know adequately is to comprehend, and to comprehend is to contain,
and the thing contained must be less than that which contains it; to
know inadequately is not to know.
"2. From the uncertainty of our senses, as, for instance, our eyes
represent things at a distance to be less than they really are. A
straight stick in the water appears crooked; the moon to be no bigger
than a cheese; the sun greater at rising and setting than at noon. The
shore seems to move, and the ship to stand still; square things to be
round at a distance; an erect pillar to be less at the top. Neither (say
they) do we know whether objects are really as our eyes represent them
to us, for the same thing which seems white to us seems yellow to a
jaundiced man, and red to a creature afflicted with red eyes; also, if a
man rubs his eyes, the figure which he beholds seems long or narrow, and
therefore it is not improbable that goats, cats, and other creatures,
which have long pupils of the eye, may think those things long which we
call round, for as glasses represent the object variously, according
to their shape, so it may be with our eyes. And so the sense of hearing
deceives. Thus, the echo of a trumpet, sounded in a valley, makes the
sound seem before us, when it is behind us. Besides, how can we think
that an ear, which has a narrow passage, can receive the same sound with
that which has a wide one? Or the ear, whose inside is full of hair, to
hear the same with a smooth ear? Experience tells us that if we stop,
or half stop, our ears, the sound cometh different as when the ears are
open. Nor is the smelling, taste, or touch less subject to mistake; for
the same scents please some, and displease others, and so in our tastes.
To a rough and dry tongue that very thing seems bitter (as in an ague,)
which to the most moist tongue seems otherwise, and so is it in other
creatures. The like is true of the touch, for it were absurd to think
that those creatures which are covered with shells, scales, or hairs,
should have the same sense in touching with those that are smooth. Thus
one and the same object is diversely judged of, according to the
various qualities of the instruments of sense, which convinceth to
the imagination; from all which the Sceptic concluded, that what these
things are in their own nature, whether red, white, bitter, or sweet,
he cannot tell; for, says he, why should I prefer my own conceit in
affirming the nature of things to be thus, or thus, because it seemeth
so to me--when other living creatures, perhaps, think it is otherwise?
But the greatest fallacy is in the operation of our inward senses; for
the fancy is sometimes persuaded that it hears and sees what it does
not, and our reasoning is so weak, that in many disciplines scarce one
demonstration is found, though this alone produces science. Wherefore it
was Democritus's opinion that truth is hid in a well, that she may not
be found by men. Now, although this doctrine be very inconsistent with
Christianity, yet I could wish Adam had been of this persuasion, for
then he would not have mortgaged his posterity for the purchase of a
twilight knowledge. Now, from these sinister observations it was that
they esteemed all our sciences to be but conjectures, and our knowledge
but opinion. Whereupon, doubting the sufficiency of human reason, they
would not venture to affirm or deny anything of the soul's future state;
but civilly and quietly gave way to the doctrines and ordinances under
which they lived, without raising or espousing any new opinions."
Speaking of the "origin of the world," Gildon gives the following as a
translation from Ocellus Lucanas:--"Again (says he,) as the frame of the
world has been always, so it is necessary that its parts should likewise
always have existed; by parts, I mean the heaven, earth, and that which
lieth betwixt--viz., the sky; for not without these, but with these, and
of these, the world consists. Also, if the parts exist, it is necessary
that the things which are within them should also coexist; as with
the heavens, the sun, moon, fixed stars, and planets; with the earth,
animals, plants, minerals, gold, and silver; with the air, exhalations,
winds, and alterations of weather, sometimes heat and sometimes cold,
for with the world all those things do, and ever have existed, as parts
thereof. Nor hath man had any original production from the earth,
or elsewhere, as some believe, but have always been, as now he is,
coexistent with the world, whereof he is a part. Now, corruptions and
violent alterations are made according to the parts of the earth, by
winds and waters imprisoned in the bowels thereof; but a universal,
corruption of the earth never hath been, nor ever shall be. Yet these
alterations have given occasion for the invention of many lies and
fables. And thus are we to understand them that derive the original of
the Greek history from Inachus, the Argive; not that he really was the
original, as some make him, but because a most memorable alteration
did then happen, and some were so unskilful as to attribute it to
Inachus.... But for the universe, and all the parts whereof it subsists,
as it is at present, so it ever was, and ever shall be; one nature
perpetually moving, and another perpetually suffering, one always
governing, and the other always being governed. The course which
nature takes in governing the world, is by one contrary prevailing over
another, as thus:--The moisture in the air prevaileth over the dryness
of the fire; and the coldness of the wafer over the heat of the air,
and the dryness of the earth over the moisture of the water; and so the
moisture of the water over the dryness of the earth; and the heat in the
air over the coldness of the water; and the dryness in the fire over the
moisture of the air. And thus the alterations are made and produced, out
of one another.... As nature cannot create by making something out
of nothing, so neither can it annihilate, by turning something into
nothing; whence it consequently follows, as there is no access, so there
is no diminution in the universe, no more than in the alphabet, by the
infinite combination and transposition of letters, or in the wax by the
alteration of the seal stamped upon it. Now, as for the forms of natural
bodies, no sooner doth any one abandon the matter he occupied, but
another instantly steps into the place thereof; no sooner hath one acted
his part and is retired, but another comes presently forth upon the
stage, though it may be in a different shape, and so act a different
part; so that no portion of the matter is, or at any time can be,
altogether void and empty, but like Proteus, it burns itself into a
thousand shapes, and is always supplied with one form or another, there
being in nature nothing but circulation."
The following are the principal works of Blount:--"Anima Mundi; or, an
Historical Narration of the Opinions of the Ancients concerning Man's
Soul after this Life, according to Enlightened Nature;" published in
1679. Upwards of twenty answers were published to this work. In 1680
he published a translation, with notes, of the life of Apolloninis, of
Tyana. This work was suppressed. During the same year, he gave the world
"Great is Diana of the Ephesians; or, the Original of Idolatry."
By able critics this is considered one of his ablest works in 1683,
"Religio Laici" appeared, which is published frum a Latin work of Lord
Herbert's. In 1688 he wrote "A Vindication of Learning, and of the
Liberty of the Press." This tractate sparkles with wit and argument. But
by far the most important work he was connected with, was published in
the year he died, and mainly written by himself, "The Oracles of
Reason" a favorite title with both American and English Freethinkers. It
consists of sixteen sections; the most interesting being the first four,
containing "A Vindication of Dr. Burnett's Archiologie." The seventh and
eighth chapters (translated) of the same, of "Moses's Description of
the Original State of Man," and Dr. Burnett's "Appendix of the Brahmin's
Religion." We would quote from these sections of the "Oracles," but
intend to form separate "Half-Hours," with sketches of Drs. Brown and
Burnett; it will be more appropriate to use Blount's translation in
describing those quaint, but highly instructive authors. In the general
style of Blount's works, he is not seen to advantage; there is too much
heaviness, enhanced by the perpetual Greek and Latin quotations; but as
his works were intended for scholars, and the time in which they were
written was essentially the most pedantic era of our literary history,
we cannot expect that vivacity and clearness which other writers in
a later age possessed. It was in his character as a man that Blount
excelled--he was the leader of the chivalry of the period, as in the
next age Woolston was his successor. At the Court he was the gayest of
the gay, without the taint of immorality, in a period of the grossest
licentiousness; he defended the honor of his friends, frequently at
the expense of calumny and danger. In witty repartees he was equal to
Rochester; while for abstruse learning he was superior to many of the
most learned theologians. Daintily brave and skilfully alive to the
requirements of friends and foes, he passed through life in the gilded
barge of pleasure, and ended it sailing through a cloud where he
foundered. But the darkness which enveloped his history is now charged
with that sympathetic power which draws the young to his grave, and
compels the gloomiest to shed a tear over his unhappy fate.
At the close of August, in 1693, a few friends met near the grave of
Blount, to join in their last respects to their lost friend. Foremost
amongst them was Charles Gildon, who so soon repented of the part he
had taken in the "Oracles of Reason," but never forgot the kindness he
experienced from Blount. He lived long enough for Pope to be revenged on
his apostacy, by inserting his name in his great satire. At the time we
speak he was mournful and deeply grieved at the loss he had sustained;
near him was Harvey Wilwood, whose bold demeanor and sorrowful
countenance told of heart-struck grief, for of the few able to
appreciate the genius of Blount, he was one of the earliest and most
devoted in his friendship. Now we see the noble Lord, whom Blount always
addressed as "the most ingenious Strephon;" along with him there is the
pretty Anne Rogers, with Savage, and Major Arkwright; we look in vain
for Eliza Tyr-rel; they talk slowly over him that is no more; they
recount to themselves the intellectual achievements, and the brilliant
hours they have spent in the past; and while they speak so kindly, and
think so deeply, they kneel on the hallowed spot, but not to pray;
some of them pledge their enmity against Christian laws and Christian
priests, and they executed it. During this time, the calm radiance of
the lunar light shines on the church of Ridge, illumining those ghostly
tablets of white marble, where the forefathers of Blount lie entombed.
The baronial arms are emblazoned on the wall; heraldic pomp is keeping
watch over the mouldering bones of the now-levelled great. Anne Rogers
weeps wildly for Eliza and Eleanora. Those metaphysical disquisitions
which have exalted woman to so high a nature, that devotion to esthetics
which woman should always cultivate, not as a household slave, but
as one of equal rights with man, and his leader in everything which
concerns taste, elegance, and modesty; such gifts in no ordinary degree
had Anne Rogers--and often in dialectic subtlety had she mastered her
relative, who stood by her side, and given tokens of her admiration of
Blount's philosophy and conduct. "Strephon" was passionately attached
to his confidant and friend, and could not give so calm an expression
to his loss. He wept wildly, for he had lost one who tempered his rebuke
with a kind word, and pointed out that Epicurean path which leads to
enjoyment without excess: to pleasure, without a reaction. It was a
memorable meeting. While the remembrance of past deeds of love lighted
up the eye and made the blood course faster through their veins, Anne
Rogers detailed the following episode in his character:--Blount had
visited the Court of King James, and had been singled out by that
monarch for one of his savage fits of spleen. "I hear, Mr. Blount, you
are very tenacious of the opinions of Sir Henry, your father, and you
consider his conduct during the Rebellion as worthy of imitation. Is
it so?" "Your Majesty," replies Blount, "has been correctly informed; I
admire my father's conduct." "What!" says James, "in opposing his king?"
Blount quickly answered, "A king, my liege, is the chief magistrate of
the Commonwealth, and is so hereditarily while he obeys the laws of
that Commonwealth, whose power he represents; but when he usurps the
direction of that power, he is king no longer, and such was the case
with your royal father." With a scowl of defiance on his face, King
James left the Freethinker, and sought more congenial company; and as
Anne Rogers told the story, each eye was dimmed with tears. The moon had
risen high in the heavens ere the mourners prepared to depart--the first
streaks of dawn broke through the Eastern sky, and revealed the grave
watered with tears, where the most chivalrous Freethinker of his age
reposed, in that sleep which knows of no awakening.
"A. C."
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.