There is no connection between the _real_ eye, and the _artificial_
horizon.
In every picture the artificial eye, or point of sight, is supposed to
be at a certain height from the base-line; as high as a human figure
would be, represented as standing there. To this point every thing in
the picture tends, as every thing in a real view tends to the natural
eye. The picture then, as far as this circumstance is concerned, is
perfect, if the _artificial_ eye and the _artificial_ horizon go
together; for these always bear the same relation to each other, let
the picture be placed any where.
[Illustration]
Let A be the eye, B the picture (in section) and c the horizon of the
picture.—The eye is always the apex of the cone; there is constantly
the same relation between the parts in every position. It must be
observed that there is a defect in this illustration which it was
impossible to avoid—for tho’ I have considered A as the eye, yet _upon
paper_, it is _artificial_ as well as the picture B. If you cannot
make this distinction, I propose the following demonstration.——Take
a landscape and stand it upon a table—hang it up the height of the
eye—above the height—put it upon a chair—upon the floor—it still,
perspectively considered, is seen equally well—for
The _real_ eye is always the height of the _artificial_ eye, whether
the picture be fixed in the cieling or laid upon the floor.
Indeed if this was not so, how would it be possible to hang one picture
over another? and yet this is done, and with the greatest propriety.
I have often lamented the shifts to which painters are reduced, who
have followed this rule in opposition to their senses. Laresse was so
thoroughly possessed with it, that his idea of fitting up a room with
pictures, was to have those which were below the eye to contain nothing
but ground, and those which were above, the sky and clouds. But though
he was convinced of the rectitude of his principle, he was struck with
the oddity of the practice—he therefore recommended that there should
be but one picture from the floor to the cieling, in which there might
be a perfect coincidence of the natural and artificial horizon.
A portrait-painter sets the person he is to draw generally the height
of his eye.——Suppose it to be a whole-length with a landscape in
the back-ground: the artist considers his picture is to hang above
the eye, and for that reason makes his horizon low, about the height
of the knees. The consequence is, that there are two points of sight,
which supposes an impossibility; for the eye cannot be in two places
at the same time. If the eye be supposed on a level with the head of
the figure, as it was on drawing the face, then the back-ground is
too low; if equal to the horizon of the back-ground, then the figure
is too high, unless we suppose it on an eminence, or ourselves in a
pit; in that case, instead of seeing the face in front, we must have
looked under the chin—but as we do not, the figure always appears to
be falling forward.
Raffaele’s horizon is most commonly the height of his figures, so that
they stand properly, and seem to be, whether in a print or a picture,
the size of human creatures;—on the contrary, when the horizon is low,
the figures always appear gigantic. When I was a boy, I had formed so
very exalted an idea of the size of running horses, from seeing them
drawn with the distant hills appearing under their bodies, that the
first time I was at a course, it appeared but as a rat-race.
Every whole length picture will furnish you with an instance of this
false principle, which would appear more disagreeable, if custom
had not in some measure reconciled us to it. I am aware that the
practice of so many great men is a strong objection to my argument;
but as I conceive, with due submission to such authority, that there
is _demonstration_ on my side, I cannot easily retract what I have
advanced.
=LETTER= XXII.
The commentators of Shakspeare think themselves obliged to find some
meaning in his nonsense; and to come at it, twist and turn his words
without mercy: never considering, that in his scenes, as in common
life, some part must be necessarily unimportant.
Many a passage has been criticised into consequence. The meaning, to
use Shakspeare’s words on a like occasion, “is like a grain of wheat
hid in a bushel of chaff; you shall seek all day e’er you find it, and
when you have it, it is not worth the search.”
An expression of _Shallow_’s in the second part of Henry the fourth
has been the subject of much criticism and hypercriticism. “We will
eat a last year’s pippin with a dish of carraways;” and it is certain
that there was such a dish, but if Shakspeare had meant it, he would
have said, “A dish of last year’s pippins with carraways”—“_with_ a
dish, &c.” clearly means something distinct from the pippins. Roasted
pippins stuck full of carraways, says one—carraway confect, or comfit
well known to children, says another—as if every one did not know
what carraway comfits were, says a third, laughing at the second.
Dine with any of the _natural_ inhabitants of Bath about Christmas,
and they probably will give you after dinner a dish of pippins and
carraways—which last is the name of an apple as well known in that
country as nonpareil is in London, and as generally associated with
golden pippins.
“Then am I a sous’d gurnet,” lays Falstaff. This fish has puzzled the
commentators as much as the apple did before.—What can it be?—I
never heard of such a fish.—There is no such fish. A magazine critic,
assured of its non-existence, proposed reading _grunt_, gurnet, quasi
grunet, quasi grunt——well, and what do we get by that? Why, because
hogs grunt, and pork is the flesh of hogs, sous’d gurnet means pickled
pork! Very lately a commentator, who once denied its existence, has
discovered in consequence of his great learning, that there is _really_
such a fish——he is _really_ in the right—if he will go to the South
coast of Devonshire, he may see plenty of them—but not _sous’d_.
And now I mention Falstaff, let me explain his copper ring. He
complains of being robbed when he was asleep, and “losing a seal-ring
of his _grandfather’s_ worth forty marks.” “O Jesu,” says the hostess,
“I have heard the prince tell him I know not how oft, that the ring was
_copper_.” Is the appearance of copper so much like gold, that one
may be mistaken for the other? Formerly, (about the time of Falstaff’s
grandfather) gold was a scarce commodity in England, so scarce that
they frequently made rings of copper and plated them thinly with gold;
I have seen two or three of them. As the look of both was alike,
Falstaff might insist upon its being gold; on the contrary, the prince,
from the quality of the wearer and lightness of the ring, might with
equal fairness maintain that it was only plated.
Though it is not my intention to make one of the number of Shakspeare’s
commentators, I will take this opportunity of restoring a passage in
King Lear. In the agony of his passion with his daughter, he says (in
the modern editions)
“Th’ _untented_ woundings of a Father’s curse
Pierce every sense about thee.”
In the old editions it is printed exceeding plainly, “Th’ _untender_
woundings, &c.” that is, not tender, or cruel. It would be waste
of time to shew its propriety, and that there is no such word as
_untented_. Who first threw out the true reading and substituted the
false, I know not. Is it worth while to say, that the word is often
used by Shakspeare, and once at least besides in the same play, “so
young and so untender?”
One more and I will release you.—Shylock says,
Some men there are, love not a gaping pig;
Some that are mad, if they behold a cat;
And others, when the bag-pipe sings in the nose,
Cannot contain, &c.——for _affection_.
that is, because they are so _affected_. These poor lines have been
new-worded, new stopped, and all to find the meaning of as plain a
passage as can be written. “Some men cannot abide this thing, others
have an aversion to another, which sometimes produces strange effects
on their bodies, because their imagination is so strongly _affected_.
Masterless passion, suffering, or feeling, compels them to follow
the impulse.” The not understanding _affection_ and _passion_ in
Shakspeare’s quaint sense has occasioned the difficulty.
There are many other corrupted and misunderstood passages that require
as little attention, to set them right, as what has been exerted on
this occasion, by
Yours sincerely, &c.
=LETTER= XXIII.
Scarce a year passes but our language has some new trick played with
it.—But let the sufferers speak for themselves.
_To the People of_ GREAT-BRITAIN.
The Petition of _To_ and _The_,
_Humbly sheweth_,
That your Petitioners have, time out of mind, possessed certain places
allowed to be their undoubted right, and that they lately have been,
_vi et armis_, thrust from their ancient possessions. Their misfortune
being in common, they present their common petition; hoping that the
laudable zeal for the reformation of abuses will extend even to them,
and that they shall be restored to their pristine use and consequence.
Though your petitioners labour under a common misfortune, yet it is
necessary that they separately state their case.—And first _To_ for
himself says,
That he has for years past had a place in the direction of all
letters—that he was first removed from thence, as he apprehends, by
some member of parliament, who was too much busied in his country’s
good to attend to propriety. As it is the wicked custom of the world
to press down a falling man, the said _To_ is in a manner totally
displaced from his ancient possession: all people, except the very few
who prefer grammar to fashion, agreeing to his removal. Were his place
filled by a worthy successor he should keep his complaints secret,
remembering that he himself succeeded _For_—but to be succeeded by
nothing, is reviving the old fanatic principle of the last century,
which all who are lovers of the constitution must shudder at! Consider
good people, you who so well know the value of property, what
quantities of letters are at this instant in the post-office that are
neither _To_ nor _For_ any person? In many instances you condescend to
be instructed by your neighbours—is the _A_ Monsieur yet left out in
the direction of French letters? If you were to address in Latin, would
you not use the dative case—and pray what is the sign of the dative
but your petitioner
_To?_
Secondly, _The_ for himself says,
That he has had, from the first existence of our language, precedence
of army, navy, commons, lords, and even government itself;—that he
is most basely removed from this his just station—for he appeals to
all impartial judges, if such are to be found, what a foolish figure
does army, navy, commons, lords, and government cut without he takes
the lead. If this were alone the damage it is surely of great concern,
but alas! the evil is spreading! scarce a day passes but he loses
some ancient possession of trust and consequence! It is, indeed,
insinuated, that your petitioner formerly usurped a station he had by
no means a right to, and that his present loss is a just retaliation.
What business had _The_, says these meddlers, before _Faustina_ and
_Cuzzoni_, and so on through all the _inas_ and _onis_ to the present
time? Alas! my good countrymen, consider, these were but possessions
of a day! _The_ Faustina and her successors were but the grasshoppers
of a season—from this encroachment he was soon dispossessed; but
navy, army, ministry, are of perpetual duration. Perhaps you will
reply that your petitioner is but an article—true—but think of the
consequence—if you destroy your particles and articles, and reduce
your language by degrees to noun substantives, who knows but the next
innovation will be the substituting _things_ instead of _words_—you
have heard of a country so incumbered.——Consider the expence of
carriage.—Think, O ye wits, of having your coaches attended with
waggon loads of conversation. Nip the evil in its bud, shew your regard
for posterity, and consider the petition of
_The._
In a general wreck it is worth while to save something.——Your
Petitioners are contented to be thrust out of parliament—it is
confessed that the members of that honourable house should not attend
to trifles.—But consider, good people, you are not _all_ members
of parliament, _you_ may restore us to our ancient rights, our just
privileges, and legal possessions—which we trust you will do, and your
poor Petitioners
Shall ever pray, &c.
=LETTER= XXIV.
I cannot agree with you in the cause of that uncommon production you
mention; my thoughts on this subject, and on some others connected with
it, will appear by the following reflections.
Until the last hundred years or thereabout, it was supposed that in
many instances life was produced by putrefaction, fermentation, &c.
Leuwenhoek and other naturalists, clearly demonstrated that some
animals which were supposed to owe their existence to the above
causes, or in other words, to spontaneous generation, really had a
regular production. This discovery established the general principle of
_omnia ab ovo_—but it must be received with reserve and exception.
After giving every theory of the earth a patient reading, it seems to
me probable that the whole world was originally covered with water
to the depth of about three miles, which is about as much below the
surface, as the highest mountains rise above it. This depth, though far
below all soundings, bears no more proportion to the earth’s diameter,
than that of the paper it is covered with does to a common globe. The
idea of the sea approaching the center, and of course, possessing
a superior share in quantity as well as surface of the earth, has
occasioned many difficulties in accounting for the balance between the
different sides of the globe; which vanish, if the sea is not supposed
of a greater depth than necessity requires, or reason and probability
warrant.
I consider all continents as a congeries of islands heaved up from
the bottom of the sea at different times by vulcanos and earthquakes.
Modern philosophers have discovered ancient vulcanos where they were
never suspected to have existed, and the whole earth is full of
evidence that it was once beneath the ocean. Marble, freestone, and
many other substances abound in seashells and marine productions. It
is frequently said that the sea has left many places which were once
covered by it. Is it not rather to be supposed that those places have
been elevated above the sea, than that the sea has sunk below them?
There seems to be no cause in nature equal to the altering the quantity
of water in the ocean, but we know that there are many causes equal to
the elevating the land above it. If the sea had retired from the land,
the retiring must have been equal in all places; this we are sure is
not the case, therefore it is the land in that particular place that
must be risen.
In the manner I suppose all land to have been first brought to light,
many islands have been produced in our own time. What was under the
water is forced above it. The marine substances on the surface by
degrees decay; moss appears, grass succeeds, then the smaller kind of
plants, bushes and trees. Animal life begins and goes on upon the same
scale from the minuter, to beings of more consequence. This system is
at least as general as the other, but like that must be received with
many restrictions; for it is certain that by far the greater part of
vegetables and animals would never be found self-produced in any one
place, tho’ many might live, and indeed flourish, if brought there.
Let us proceed from reasoning to facts. Some voyager discovers an
island evidently formed by a vulcano, and very remote from other
countries; it is a perfect wood to the water’s edge, has some plants
which exist no where but in that spot, together with others common to
places in the same latitude. It is full of insects, reptiles, birds,
and sometimes quadrupeds. Now, if _every one_ of these organized bodies
was not brought there, something must be self-produced.
In some islands of the East-Indies are serpents of an enormous size;
who could carry them there? In all streams there are fish—how could
they get there? Not from the sea, for fish which inhabit the source of
rivers are as soon killed by salt water as in air, besides there are
many rivers which do not run into the ocean. Perhaps this circumstance
was never sufficiently considered. Every set of rivers is perfectly
distinct from any other set. The greater number have some fish which
exist no where but in the particular stream they are bred. Find any
other cause for their first production than what must be taken from the
old philosophy.
Let us attend to what we have always near us. Fill a vessel with water
from the pump: it is pure, and contains neither animal, nor vegetable.
After standing some days, a green substance begins to be formed in it,
and which is inhabited by myriads of little beings: this seems the
first step towards plants and animals. We are told indeed that the
animalcules are from eggs laid by flies, and the green slime is a plant
which has its proper seed. That the water may accidentally receive
both eggs and seeds is highly probable; but these (by reasoning from
other instances) seem the first efforts towards vegetable and animal
life. Besides, it yet remains to be proved, that the air so abounds
with flying seeds and insects. If the air swarmed, as is supposed,
vision would be obstructed (as by a fog which consists of particles
inconceivably small), and perhaps life in the nobler animals destroyed.
The slime to be produced from seed then must have come from some of
the same sort in the neighbourhood; besides, if its being produced in
the water depended upon accident, which it does by this supposition,
it must sometimes fail. Again, if the animals and vegetables, in
the above instance, were from eggs floating in the air, why are the
smallest always produced first? must it not sometimes happen that ova
of a larger sort precede the smaller? which is never the case: not to
mention the total impossibility of some ova, particularly of animals,
being so conveyed.
It is well known that by pepper-water, and a variety of other mixtures,
peculiar animalcules are produced. Can we suppose that the fly, which
lays the egg from which this creature exists, continues floating in the
air until some philosopher makes a mixture proper for its deposit? is
it done often enough to preserve the species? What must the fly have
done before pepper was brought from India? You may tell me that the egg
was deposited there—well then, if the eggs are not hurt by the pepper
being dried in an oven, happen to be brought to Europe, and fall in the
way of a naturalist, the species is preserved. Much is not got by this.
There is great reason for believing that the animalcule was really
produced by the infusion, and did not exist before.
How are the worms in human bodies to be accounted for? There are some,
it is true, which bear a resemblance to earth-worms, and are supposed
to be eggs we take in with roots, vegetables, &c. Not to insist upon
the impossibility of a creature intended to live in the cold earth
existing on the hot stomach, it is well known that there are worms in
the intestines which have no resemblance to any other thing in the
creation—the jointed worm, for instance, which is found of many yards
in length: indeed, if some accounts are to be credited, of some scores
of yards. Where does this animal exist except in the stomach where it
is found? Sheep, dogs, horses, &c. breed worms peculiar to themselves.
I have seen frequently between the sound and back-bone of a whiting,
long worms that were evidently bred there. As I have no system to
support, I shall have no objection if you can account for these facts
according to the present philosophy—but to me it seems absolutely
impossible.
I may strengthen every thing I have advanced on self-production with
additional arguments, and those from instances on the largest scale.
The old and new continents are two immense islands. You will get little
by supposing them once joined at Kamchatka. What should ever induce
those animals which are never seen out of a hot climate, to travel so
far North as the Strait between the continents? They do not approach
it now, why should they then? Besides, has not each continent some
creatures peculiar to itself? Did those in America come from countries
where no such animals exist? If they did not, and are found in America
only, what is the fair conclusion?
When an inhabitant of the old continent asks how America was peopled,
why does the question stop there? How was it supplied with vegetables
and animals? particularly river-fish; and whence came those creatures
that exist no where else? Pray, what is to hinder an American from
reversing the question? When did our people, he may say, first migrate
and give inhabitants to the Eastern world? What answer can be given to
these questions confident with the present system of philosophy?
There is something in the sound of self-production which seems like
a contradiction. I mean nothing more by it, than that a vegetable or
animal does in many instances first exist by a different principle
than that upon which the species is afterwards continued. As the term
does not exactly express this, it may easily be perverted from the
sense in which I wish to be understood. Perhaps we shall find that
self-production shocks the imagination more or less according to the
_size_ of the thing produced. Who would not sooner believe that cheese
breeds mites, than that deserts produce elephants? And yet, according
to our present philosophy, one is as possible as the other.
If the consequences I have drawn from these facts appear to you wrong,
or the facts themselves ill-supported—convince me of my error, and the
whole shall be retracted as freely as it is advanced by
Yours most faithfully, &c.
=LETTER= XXV.
Tho’ I hate to set out upon the principle of word-hunting, yet it
always gives me pleasure when by accident I can trace the meaning of
a word or phrase to its source, and pursue it through its various
changes to its present date. The pleasure is still greater to mark the
gradual refinement of language from obscurity and barbarism, until it
arrives at precision and elegance. Our tongue, as every one knows, is
a compound of many.——The pains which William the Conqueror took to
graft his Norman French upon it, succeeded in many instances, and there
are others where we may trace the dying away of the French by degrees,
and the English resuming its old place. Chaucer in his character of the
Monk, says
He was a lord full fat and in _good point_.
This is the remains of the French _embonpoint_, or as it was written
then _en bon point_.——The phrase was wearing out in Chaucer’s time,
the _en bon_ being translated, and _point_ preserved. Now, the whole
is translated, and we say _in good case_, or _plight_.——You may find
many other instances of this in the old poets.
“The days are now a cock-stride longer,” say the country-folks at
Twelfth-day—and many have been the conjectures upon the derivation
of this phrase (see the Gentleman’s Magazine). It is not cock-stride,
but cock’s-tread. In the country, _tread_ is pronounced _trede_, (not
_tred_)—and in most of the western counties, Devonshire excepted,
_stride_ has more of the _e_ than _i_ in its sound.—But the
impossibility of expressing by any known signs the different provincial
modifications of the sound of the vowels, has occasioned some strange
mistakes when people of one county endeavour to write down an
expression used in another. Our old poets, who generally writ in the
dialect of the province where they resided, and spelt as well as they
could with their own country vowels, have given birth to much laughable
criticism.
_Help-mate_ is an odd corruption. In the Book of Genesis it is said,
“it is not good for man to be alone, I will make an help meet for
him”—that is an help, _proper_ for him—_meet_ is an adjective. But
these two words, like the first man and his help, soon became one, and
of late have been corrected into _help-mate_.
As I was reading John Struys’s voyages the other day, I thought I
discovered the original of the word, and perhaps of the liquor,
punch; which, if I am right, has nothing to do with that diverting
personage in puppet-shews of the same name, from whom it is usually
derived. Struys was at Gomroon in Persia, where he says, he drank——“A
liquor much in use there, called _pale punshen_, being compounded of
arak, sugar, and raisins, which is so bewitching that they cannot
refrain from drinking it.” I really believe he _forgot_ to mention the
water—for how in such a climate as the southern part of Persia it was
possible to drink undiluted arak, I have no conception. The raisins
have given place, and very properly, to lemons. But I had better leave
this to its own merits.—I am afraid it will not bear too minute an
examination—remember it is only _humbly_ offered together with the
other conjectures of
Yours, &c.
As Struys’s Voyages is a scarce book, I might with great ease have
practised the common trick of authors, and introduced _water_ into the
quotation without fear of discovery. It being supposed that few will
give themselves the trouble to turn to the original book to examine
extracts, authors have been made to give evidence to facts, “of which
they nothing know,” and to support systems which never had existence,
but in the imagination of the writer who presses them into his service.
=LETTER= XXVI.
The rubs and difficulties which the public throw in the way of a genius
at his first appearance, are frequently too great to be surmounted.
We are apt to form our opinion of a man’s abilities, by his resemblance
to some other man of reputation in the art or science he professes.
A painter, musician, or author perfectly new we are afraid to
commend—like hounds, we wait for the opening of one whose cry we may
venture to follow.—But it should be remembered that a sure mark of a
genius is originality. As he is original, and therefore new, perhaps it
may be necessary to conquer some prepossessions before we can judge of
his merit; and as he is generally incapable, from that modesty which
so frequently attends ability, of insisting on his own excellencies,
the world should take that task from him.—But does it so? Or from the
fear of commending too hastily, leave a Being to languish in obscurity,
which should be protected and encouraged. The greatest part of those
who seem to have been born to make mankind happy, were themselves
miserable. A melancholy catalogue might be made of these. If we know
any thing of Homer, it is, that he ran about ballad-singing. Poor,
unhappy, half-starved Cervantes, Camöens, Butler, Fielding! Does it
not grieve you to be told that the author of Tom Jones lies in the
factory’s burying-ground at Lisbon, undistinguished, unregarded—not
a stone to mark the place! And would it not raise our indignation to
behold stately monuments erected for those whose names were never heard
of, until they appeared in their epitaph?——were they not considered
rather as monuments of the sculptor’s art, than as preserving the
memory of the persons whose dust they so pompously cover.
The instances of those original geniuses who in their life-time have
enjoyed the public applause and lived by it, are very few—indeed I
cannot recollect any—Garrick excepted. I do not consider Virgil or
Pope in this light—they are not original. It is true that Shakspeare
lived well enough, but the money he got was by acting, not writing.
Milton was in tolerable circumstances, but if he had had nothing more
to depend on than the profit arising from the sale of the finest poem
in the world, he must have been starved.
It is common when we speak of a genius, to say, he will not be valued
until he is dead—not that his death is essential to his reputation;
but there is a necessity of his being known and understood, before he
can be esteemed; and it generally happens that life is of too short
duration for that purpose—
“But the fair guerdon when we hope to find
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life.”———
=LETTER= XXVII.
Alliteration very early made its appearance in English poetry. I have
seen an old piece where it was intended to supply the place of rhyme:
the terminations of each line were different; and there were in every
one, three or four words which begun with the same letter. This I
suppose was thought a beauty. Shakspeare in several places burlesques
the improper use of Alliteration with great pleasantry. It was much in
request in the days of Thompson——his
——Floor, faithless to the fuddled foot,
is scarce less ridiculous than Shakspeare’s
Bravely broach’d his bloody boiling breast.
I believe wherever it is _perceived_, it disgusts. There is something
very ridiculous in the pains of an author when he is searching for a
set of words beginning with the same letter: this surely argues a “lack
of matter.” A man who has _things_ in his head, is never curious about
_words_, unless it be those which express his meaning quickest and
clearest. I would have given something to have seen the paper upon
which _Smollet_ first sketched the titles of some of his novels. I dare
say it cost him as much time to fix upon the name _Roderick Random_,
as to write some of the best parts in that sprightly and entertaining
performance.——_Robert_ and _Richard_ were common, _Roger_ and
_Ralph_ were vulgar—there was a necessity for a sounding uncommon
name, and beginning with an _R_: at last, by a lucky chance _Roderick_
occurred—and _Roderick_ it is.—Do you think me fanciful? I call upon
_Peregrine Pickle_, and _Ferdinand Fathom_ to prove the contrary.
If we laugh at the hard-sought-for Alliteration of the poet and
historian, may we not laugh a little louder at that of the comic
dramatist? Can any language be less that of nature or common
conversation, than strings of words beginning with an M or N? And yet
this has been done by one who paints the “Manners living as they rise.”
It is surprizing that so sprightly a genius as Foote could submit to
the drudgery of consulting his spelling-book for words proper to be
paired—my three _ppp’s_ put me in mind of a letter in the Student, in
which _p_ is predominant—it is highly humourous and well worth your
perusing.
Will you give me leave to make an abrupt transition from Alliteration
to _Literation_, and pardon me also for coining?
The Germans in pronouncing English, and writing it too, if they have
not studied the language, almost constantly change _b_ into _p_, _d_
into _t_, _g_ (hard) into _k_, _v_ into _f_, and the reverse. This
peculiarity of theirs, I find, upon recollection, is not confined to
English. In the Burletta of _La buona Figliola_, the author makes
his German character to say _trompetti_ and _tampurri_—nay they
serve their own language the same, as I have observed from their
pronunciation of proper names of cities, &c. it seems difficult to
account for this——but perhaps not more so than for the trick of
the French in giving an aspirate to those English words where there
is none, and omitting it where it should be used.——I once saw a
French-man much surprized, (not disconcerted) at a general laugh when
he was comparing our country women with his—an unlucky misplaced
aspirate was all the cause—“The English ladies,” says he, “are so
plain, but the French ladies are so ῞_airy_!”
=LETTER= XXVIII.
Though superstition is pretty well laughed away, yet there are some
points in which we can never get the better of it. The wedding ring in
coffee grounds—the coffin in the candle—the stranger in the fire,
are marked by none but vulgar and foolish eyes. You see salt spilt,
hear death-watches—owls hoot—dogs howl, and despise the omen—you are
above it. But yet let me ask _you_, an enlightened philosopher—Whether
you are above choice of seats at whist? Whether you have not really
believed that your chance for winning was much bettered by your taking
the fortunate chairs, and of course obliging your adversaries to sit,
not in those of the scornful, but of the losers? When you quit the game
on a run of ill luck, what is it but declaring your belief that the
games already played have an influence upon those which are to come?
Each ticket in a lottery has an equal chance——do you think so?
Number 1000 got the great prize in the last lottery—now, confess
honestly that you feel something within that tells you the same
number can never win the great prize again—you would prefer every
other number to it—and yet reason says, that all the tickets have
an equal probability of success. In these instances and many others,
superstition, even in cultivated minds, will be always more than a
match for truth.
A gentleman coming a passenger in a vessel from the West-Indies,
finding it more inconvenient to be shaved than to wear his beard, chose
the latter——but he was not suffered to have his choice long—it
was the unanimous opinion of the sailors, and indeed of the Captain
as well, that there was not the least probability of a wind as long
as this ominous beard was suffered to grow. They petitioned—they
remonstrated, and at last prepared to cut the fatal hairs by violence.
Now, as there is no operation at which it is so much the patient’s
interest to consent, as that of the barber——the gentleman quietly
submitted—nor could the wind resist the potent spell which instantly
filled all their sails, and “wafted them merrily away.”
You see we have only got rid of _general_ superstition, we still retain
that which belongs to our particular profession or pursuits.
Adieu.
=LETTER= XXIX.
I have often tryed to have a proper idea of vast space—great
numbers—enormous size and such subjects, and as you may suppose,
without success. But though I fail in getting a competent idea, I
sometimes make an approach towards it, which is better than nothing.
The solar system is one of these sublime subjects in the consideration
of which I have frequently been lost. I never attempted to conceive
the size of the sun, or the distance of saturn; the impossibility
instantly repels the most daring imagination. No, all that I have
attempted is to have a just idea of the proportion (upon any scale)
that the sun and planets bear to each other in respect to size and
distance. At first sight, this seems easily done—Draw some concentric
circles on a sheet of paper, make the sun the centre, and place the
planets round in their order.—Or if you would have an idea of their
motion as well, look at an orrery. But a little examination will
convince you that this is doing nothing towards having an idea of
their size and distance in proportion to each other, which is the
point sought. Nay, it is worse than nothing, for it imposes a falsity
as a reality. Imagination by itself can do a great deal, if assisted
it can do more, but if perverted, nothing. Let us try to assist the
imagination then.
If the sun be only a million times bigger than the earth, (exactness
is of no consequence to my argument, so that I am within the truth) it
is plain that I cannot make two circles upon a sheet of paper (without
considering any thing about distance) that can bear this proportion to
each other; and if this cannot be done for the earth, much less can it
for other planets and moons where the disproportion is greater. Let
us take the floor of a large room—on this make a circle of two feet
diameter for the sun—the size of the earth will be about a large
pin’s head. The distance of the sun from the earth is about eighty of
the sun’s diameters; if so, there must be a circle of three hundred
and twenty feet diameter for the earth’s orbit, which no room, nor
indeed any other building, will contain. Let us try a field——here
we may put our sun and draw the earth’s orbit round. If we stand in
the center (which we should do) the earth is too small to be seen.
These difficulties occurring so soon, how will they increase when we
take in the superior planets? The ingenious Ferguson has endeavoured
to assist our imagination by supposing St. Paul’s dome, in diameter
one hundred and forty-five feet, to be the sun——upon this scale,
Mercury is between nine and ten inches, and placed at the Tower; Venus
near eighteen, at St. James’s Palace; the Earth eighteen, at Marybone;
Mars ten, at Kensington; Jupiter fifteen feet, at Hampton-Court; and
Saturn eleven feet and half, at Cliffden. Let us be on the top of
the dome, and look for the planets where he has placed them. Do you
think we could see any thing of Jupiter and Saturn? to say nothing
of their moons—or that we could conceive properly the difference
between four miles and twenty, when seen on a line? the four may be
two, or one mile; and the twenty may be ten, or thirty, for ought we
can judge by the appearance. All that we get by this is the knowing
that a sheet of paper or an orrery give us wrong ideas, and that we
cannot by any contrivance put the size and distance of the planets upon
a proportionable scale, so as to take in the whole with our eye or
understanding.
We are as much at a loss to comprehend the slowness of their motion—I
have not mistaken—I mean slowness.—A circuit which is six or
twelve months or twice as many years performing, is slow almost
beyond conception; and yet this motion is called whirling—as if the
planets went round their orbits like a top! Though quick and slow are
comparative terms, we have ideas of each arising from the medium of
the two, from observation, and common application, that do not stand in
need of any comparison to be understood. The motion of a flea is quick;
of a snail, slow; and the common walk of a man is neither quick nor
slow. Let us imagine an elephant to walk, and a flea to hop the same
distance in the same time—would you hesitate to say that the motion of
the one was slow, and the other quick? In short, swiftness or slowness
does not depend upon the absolute quantity of ground the animal passes
in a certain time, but upon the relative quantity to its own size.
The earth is about eight minutes in moving the space of one diameter,
therefore its absolute motion is slow—it is twenty-four hours making
one revolution round its axis, which gives no idea of velocity. It
is certain that if we were placed very near the earth (unaffected
by its attraction) there would appear an exceeding quick change of
surface—and so would the motion of a snail appear to an animalcule.
The quantity of space when compared to any we can move in the same time
is vast, and the motion quick, but when considered as belonging to a
body of the size of a world, the motion is slow. Suppose a common globe
was turned round once in twenty-four hours—imagine an animal as much
inferior to it in size as we are to the earth, placed as I conceived
the human spectator placed to view the earth—would the apprehension
of this Being induce you to call a single revolution in twenty-four
hours, whirling? Would not you say that though the surface passed quick
in review before him, yet that the absolute motion of the whole was
exceedingly slow. Perhaps it is our measuring this motion by miles that
makes us fancy that it is quick, which is much like taking the height
of a mountain in hairs-breadths. When we are told that Saturn moves in
his orbit more than twenty-two thousand miles in an hour, we conceive
the velocity to be great; but when we find that he is more than three
hours moving his own diameter, we must then think it as it really is,
slow. Bishop Wilkins is the only writer I have met with who considers
the motion of the heavenly bodies as I do, and I am rather proud of
having my opinion supported by so great a man.
There is another circumstance which prevents the solar system, as
commonly delineated, from bearing a true resemblance to the apparent
position and motion of the planets. It is always drawn in plan instead
of section, whereas the _appearance_ of the orbits of the heavenly
bodies is always in section and never can be in plan. This difference
is not, as far as I know, noticed in any account of the solar system;
and yet if it be not attended to, it is impossible to prove the truth
of the system by the apparent paths of the planets. This will be best
understood by considering the inferior ones. Mercury and Venus remove
to a certain distance from the sun, and then, after seeming at rest,
return in nearly the same line and remove to the same distance on the
other side, where the same thing is repeated. This to the eye is not
a revolution in plan, but a revolution in section—and this might
be explained by a draught which should always accompany the common
delineation of the planetary orbits.
=LETTER= XXX.
It is so long since that I sent you the first part of my observations
on Quarles that perhaps you have forgot my promise for the
remainder.——I will now resume the subject.
Quarles sometimes introduces personages, and makes his poem of the
dramatic cast. The sixth hieroglyphic is a dialogue between _Time_
and _Death_; as usual, alluding to the print, where _Death_ is going
to extinguish the taper, but is prevented by _Time_. There are a few
awkward expressions in this, which are easier to be overlooked than
omitted.
_Time._ _Death._
_Time._ Behold the frailty of this slender snuff;
Alas! it hath not long to last;
Without the help of either thief or puff,
Her weakness knows the way to waste:
Nature hath made her substance apt enough
To spend itself, and spend too fast:
It needs the help of none
That is so prone
To lavish out untouch’d, and languish all alone.
_Death._ _Time_, hold thy peace, and shake thy slow-pac’d sand;
Thine idle minutes make no way:
Thy glass exceeds her hour, or else doth stand,
I cannot hold, I cannot stay.
Surcease thy pleading, and enlarge my hand,
I surfeit with too long delay:
This brisk this bold-fac’d light
Doth burn too bright;
Darkness adorns my throne, my day is darkest night.
_Time._ Great Prince of darkness! hold thy needless hand,
Thy captive’s fast and cannot flee:
What arm can rescue? who can countermand?
What pow’r can set thy pris’ner free?
Or if they could; what close, what foreign land
Can hide that head that flees from thee?
But if her harmless light
Offend thy sight
What need’st thou snatch at noon, what must be thine at
night?
_Death._ I have outstaid my patience; my quick trade
Grows dull and makes too slow return:
This long-liv’d debt is due, and should been paid
When first her flame began to burn:
But I have staid too long, I have delay’d
To store my vast, my craving urn.
My patent gives me pow’r
Each day, each hour,
To strike the peasant’s thatch, and shake the princely
tow’r.
_Time._ Thou count’st too fast: thy patent gives no pow’r
Till Time shall please to say, Amen.
_Death._ Canst thou appoint my shaft?
_Time._ Or thou my hour?
_Death._ ’Tis I bid, do.
_Time._ ’Tis I bid, when;
Alas! thou canst not make the poorest flow’r
To hang the drooping head ’till then:
Thy shafts can neither kill,
Nor strike, until
My power gives them wings, and pleasure arms thy will!
There is nothing which destroys the _reality_ in a dramatic dialogue
more than when the speakers ask questions and reply in an equal
quantity of lines. Perhaps the most disgusting instance of this is in
Milton’s Mask, where Comus and the Lady have a verse each alternately,
for fourteen lines together. We are more sensible of the sameness in
quantity where it is so short, and so often repeated, than here in
Quarles where it is extended to a stanza, and that repeated for each
speaker but once—but even here you begin to feel its bad effect,
when it is finely relieved towards the end by the characters growing
warmer in their dispute, and, of course, making their speeches shorter.
Yet what I here condemn, others admire.——You, who are so fond of the
ancients, may easily defend this practice by their example, and if you
want any assistance to demolish me, may call in Mr. West and the author
of the Origin and Progress of Language.—This passage of the former
from his translation of the Iphigenia of Euripedes is quoted by the
latter with great commendations——not indeed because the dialogue is
in alternate verse, but for its being a fine imitation of the ancient
trochaic measure.
_Iph._ Know’st thou what should now be ordered?
_Tho._ ’Tis thy office to prescribe.
_Iph._ Let them bind in chains the strangers.
_Tho._ Canst thou fear they should escape?
_Iph._ Trust no Greek; Greece is perfidious.
_Tho._ Slaves depart, and bind the Greeks.
_Iph._ Having bound, conduct them hither, &c.
It is true that here the reply wants one of having the same number of
syllables as the question—but still the constant return of the same
quantity for each speaker is disgusting to all unprejudiced ears. You
will tell me that it is in the high gusto of the antique, and that the
feet are trochaics—I can only reply, that hard words cannot convince
me contrary to reason, and if a proper effect is not produced, it is
of very little consequence to me whether the authority is brought from
Greece or Siberia. Horace’s often-quoted _Pallida mors_, &c. was
perhaps never better translated than at the end of the fourth stanza.
The ninth hieroglyphic will put you in mind of the poems that are
squeezed or stretched into the form of axes, altars, and wings——but
if you will attend to the matter, and not the form, you will find it
excellent——to write this properly requires some care.
_Behold_
How short a span
Was long enough of old
To measure out the life of man;
In those well-temper’d days, his time was then
Survey’d, cast up, and found but threescore years and ten!
_Alas!_
And what is that?
They come, and slide, and pass,
Before my pen can tell thee what.
The posts of Time are swift, which having run
Their sev’n short stages o’er, their short-liv’d task is done.
_Our days_
Begun, we lend
To sleep, to antick plays
And toys, until the first stage end:
12 waining moons, twice 5 times told, we give
To unrecover’d loss: we rather breathe than live.
_We spend_
A ten years breath
Before we apprehend
What ’tis to live, or fear a Death:
Our childish dreams are fill’d with painted joys
Which please our sense awhile, and waking prove but toys!
_How vain_
How wretched is
Poor man, that doth remain
A slave to such a state as this!
His days are short, at longest; few at most;
They are but bad at best; yet lavish’d out, or lost.
_They be_
The secret springs
That make our minutes flee
On wheels more swift than eagle’s wings!
Our Life’s a clock, and ev’ry gasp of breath
Breathes forth a warning grief, till Time shall strike a Death!
_How soon_
Our new-born light
Attains to full-ag’d noon!
And this, how soon to grey-hair’d night!
We spring, we bud, we blossom and we blast
E’er we can count our days, our days they flee so fast!
_They end_
When scarce begun;
And e’er we apprehend
That we begin to live, our life is done:
Man count thy days; and if they fly too fast
For thy dull thoughts to count, count ev’ry day the last.
Methinks Quarles’s ghost is at my elbow, which will not be appeased
unless I remark that the first lines of each stanza make a verse, being
the text on which the poem is a comment.
_Behold, alas! our days we spend;
How vain they be, how soon they end!_
This is a kind of false wit once much in request. Jarvis, the
translator of Don Quixote, calls it _glossing_—upon what authority I
know not. In the first chapter of the second book of the second volume
may be found a text and gloss—with this difference from Quarles’s,
that the text is introduced at the end of the stanza and not at the
beginning.
It is impossible to avoid smiling at the pains he must have taken to
preserve the form of the stanza—in the third he is obliged to have
the assistance of figures, or his line would have been too long; and
after all his trouble there must be some for the reader before he has
calculated how much “12 moons, twice 5 times told,” are——in the
rest, to say the truth, it is not so apparent. If this pyramidical
stanza prevents you from attending to the poetry, it is easily put in
another—of the two first lines make one; and the false wit immediately
vanishes.—I hope Quarles’s ghost vanished before I proposed the
alteration.
I have, like a prudent caterer, reserved the best thing for the last.
It is the twelfth emblem of the third book. The subject of the print is
a figure trying to escape from the Divine vengeance which is pursuing
in thunders: the motto——_O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave,
that thou wouldst keep me in secret until thy wrath be past!_ Upon this
hint he has produced the following excellent poem.
Ah! whither shall I fly? what path untrod
Shall I seek out to ’scape the flaming rod
Of my offended, of my angry God?
Where shall I sojourn? what kind sea will hide
My head from thunder? where shall I abide,
Until his flames be quench’d or laid aside?
What, if my feet should take their hasty flight,
And seek protection in the shades of night?
Alas! no shades can blind the God of light.
What, if my soul should take the wings of day,
And find some desert? if she spring away
The wings of vengeance clip as fast as they.
What, if some solid rock should entertain
My frighted soul? can solid rocks restrain
The stroke of Justice and not cleave in twain?
Nor sea, nor shade, nor shield, nor rock, nor cave,
Nor silent deserts, nor the sullen grave,
Where flame-ey’d fury means to smite, can save.
Tis vain to flee; ’till gentle mercy shew
Her better eye; the farther off we go,
The swing of Justice deals the mightier blow.
Th’ ingenuous child, corrected, doth not flie
His angry mother’s hand, but clings more nigh,
And quenches with his tears her flaming eye.
Great God! there is no safety here below;
Thou art my fortress, thou that seem’st my foe,
’Tis thou that strik’st the stroke, must guard the blow.
Six stanzas, which though very good, yet being of less merit than the
rest are omitted. It is obvious that he had the 139th psalm in his
eye, of which he has made great use. The alarm at the beginning—the
searching all nature for shelter—the impossibility of being hid
from the author of nature—and the acquiescing at last in what was
unavoidable, are grand and natural ideas. The motion of the wings of
vengeance—and the recapitulation of the places where protection was
fought in vain—are instances of expression rarely met with. But
what praise is sufficient for the simile in the eighth stanza? To
say only that it is apposite and beautiful, comes very short of my
sensations when I read it. Let me confess honestly that I think it
one of the noblest instances of the sublime pathetic! As a part of a
religious poem it is proper, in a high degree; the scripture frequently
considering our connection with the Almighty as that of children
with a parent.—As a pictoresque image it is distinct, natural, and
affecting.—But to remark all the beauties of this poem would be to
comment on every stanza.——You will have more pleasure in finding them
out yourself.
Now what think you, is not this rather too good to be lost? Was it from
never reading Quarles, or taking his character from common report, that
Pope considered his productions as the very bathos of poetry? Poor
Quarles! thou hast had many enemies, and art now forgotten. But thou
hast at last found a friend—not equal, indeed, to the task of turning
a tide that has been flowing for a hundred years against thee—not
equal to his wishes for giving thee and every neglected genius his due
share of reputation—but barely capable of laying the first stone of
thy temple of fame, which he leaves to be compleated by abler and by
stronger hands!
Farewel.
P. S. I had forgot to inform you that these emblems were imitated in
Latin by one Herman Hugo, a Jesuit. The first edition of them was in
1623, soon after the appearance of Quarles; and the book was reprinted
for the ninth time in 1676, which last is the date of the copy in my
possession. How many more editions there have been, I know not. He
makes no acknowledgement to Quarles, and speaks of his own work as
original. As a specimen of his manner, take the following, which is
intended as an imitation of “Ah whither shall I fly?”
Quis mihi securis dabit hospita tecta latebris?
Tecta, quibus dextræ server ab igne tuæ?
Heu! tuus ante oculos quoties furor ille recursat,
Nulla mihi toties fida sat antra reor.
Tunc ego secretas, umbracula frondea, sylvas,
Lustràque solivagis opto relicta feris.
Tunc ego vel mediis timidum caput abdere terris,
Aut maris exesâ condere rupe velim, &c.
It reads but poorly after the other, though I have given you the best
of it. He afterwards by degrees quits his subject, runs into stuff
about Cain and Jonah, and has entirely omitted the simile.
* * * * *
You express an inclination to publish my letters. You should consider
that the date of some of them is so far back, that many allusions
to passing incidents which might engage attention at the time, now
must fail of their effect.——People are spoken of as living, who are
dead——and many other objections might be enumerated. However, you
are at liberty to do what you please with them. Those which are of
a private nature, your prudence will, of course, keep to yourself:
and for the others, where some conjectures are hazarded which may be
thought different from received opinions; the writer wishes them to be
read with the same impartiality they were written——though he is well
apprized of the difficulty of dispossessing old opinions.
_=FINIS.=_
Transcriber’s Notes:
- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
- Text enclosed by equals is in gespertt (=gespertt=).
- Blank pages have been removed.
- Silently corrected typographical errors.
- Spelling and hyphenation variations made consistent.
- Page 87, end of letter XXVII: The symbol appears to be U+1FDE
Greek Dasia (rough breathing diacritical mark for an ‘h’ sound
before a vowel) and Oxia (acute accent).
- Formatting of a dialogue in letter XXX made more consistent.