The hardy paradoxes, not wholly without foundation, and the humiliating
truths so mortifying to human nature, of the mighty "Leviathan," whose
author was little disposed to flatter or to elevate his brothers,[1]
were opposed by an ideal government, more generous in its sympathies,
and less obtrusive of brute force, or "the public sword," in the OCEANA
of JAMES HARRINGTON.
Free from mere party motives of the Monarchist or the Commonwealth-man,
for he gratified neither, Harrington was the greatest of political
theorists; and his "political architecture," with all his "models of
government, notional and practicable," still remains for us, and has not
been overlooked by some framers of constitutions.
The psychological history of HARRINGTON combines with his works. His was
a thoughtful youth, like that of Sidney, of Milton, and Gray, which
never needed correction, but rather kept those around him in awe. Among
the usual studies of his age, it was an enterprise to have acquired the
modern languages, as entering into an extensive plan of foreign travel,
which the boy had already decided on. The death of his father before his
legal age enabled him to realise this project. Political studies,
however, had not yet occurred to him; and when he left England, he "knew
no more of monarchy, anarchy, aristocracy, and democracy or oligarchy,
than as hard words for which he was obliged to look into the
dictionary."
In Holland, he first contemplated on the image of popular liberty,
recent from the yoke of Spain; it was a young people rejoicing in the
holiday of freedom. There he found a friend in the fugitive Queen of
Bohemia: his uncle, Lord Harrington, had been the governor of that
spirited princess. He passed over into Denmark with the crownless
elector, soliciting for that aid which no political prudence could
afford. He resisted the seductions of those noble friendships in pursuit
of his great plan. He entered France, he loitered in Germany, and at
length advanced into Italy. At Rome, he refused to bestow on his
holiness the prostrate salutation, and when some Englishmen complained
of their compatriot's stiffness to Charles the First, who reminded the
young philosopher that he might have performed a courteous custom as to
a temporal prince, the reply was happy--"having kissed his majesty's
hand, he would always hold it beneath him to kiss any prince's toe."
Our future political theorist was deeply struck in his admiration of the
aristocratic government of Venice, which he conceived to be the most
perfect and durable government hitherto planned by the wit of man. Such
was the prevalent notion throughout Europe concerning a government
existing in secrecy and mystery! In Italy, he found Politics, Literature
and Art, and provided himself with a rich store of Italian books,
especially on political topics. Machiavelli with him was "the prince of
Politicians;" but he has opened his great work with the name of another
Italian, "Janotti (Giannotti), the most excellent describer of the
Commonwealth of Venice." Giannotti is a name which, though it has not
shared the celebrity of Machiavelli, seems to have been that of a more
practical politician, for Giannotti at length obtained that honourable
secretaryship of Florence, the loss of which, it is said, so deeply
mortified the lofty spirit of his greater rival, that the illustrious
ex-secretary died of grief, which his philosophy should have quieted.
Harrington returned home an accomplished cavalier; but the commonwealth
of Holland, the aristocracy of Venice, the absolute monarchy of France,
imperial Germany, and what else he had contemplated in the northern
courts, must have furnished to his thoughtful mind the elements of his
theory of politics.
He returned home to the privacy of his studies, refusing any public
employment; but that he kept up an intercourse with the court, appears
by his personal acquaintance with the king. Many years form a blank in
his life; once indeed he had made an ineffectual attempt to enter
parliament, but failed, though his sentiments were well known in favour
of popular government. It is probable, that in that unhappy period, when
persons and events were alike of so mixed and ambiguous a character, our
philosopher could not sympathize with the clash of temporary passions.
When the king was to be conveyed from Newcastle in 1646, Harrington was
chosen to attend his person as "a gentleman well known to the king
before, and who had never engaged with any party whatever." He was then
in his thirty-fifth year.
This appointment of Harrington was agreeable to the king. Charles found
in Harrington the character he well knew how to appreciate. He conversed
on books, and pictures, and foreign affairs, and found a ripe scholar, a
travelled mind, and a genius overflowing with strange speculative
notions. Their conversations were free; Harrington did not conceal his
predilection for commonwealth institutions, at which the king was
impatient. Neither could bring the other to his own side, for each was
fixed in taking opposite views; the one looking to the advantages of
monarchy, and the other to those of a republic. The only subject they
could differ on, never interrupted their affections; the theoretical
commonwealth-man, and the practical monarch, in their daily intercourse,
found that they had a heart for each other.
In Charles the First, Harrington discovered a personage unlike the
distorted image which political passions had long held out. In adversity
the softened prince seemed only to be "the man of sorrows." On one
occasion Harrington vindicated the king's conduct, and urged that the
royal concessions were satisfactory. This strong personal attachment to
Charles alarmed the party in power. Harrington was ordered away. He
subsequently visited the king when at St. James's, and was present at
the awful act of the decapitation. Charles presented Harrington with a
last memorial. Aubrey, who knew Harrington, may tell the rest of his
story. "Mr. Harrington was on the scaffold with the king when he was
beheaded; and I have ofttimes heard him speak of King Charles the First
with the greatest zeal and passion imaginable; and that his death gave
him so great grief, that he contracted a disease by it; that never
anything did go so near to him."
The agony of that terrible day afflicted Harrington with a malady from
which he was never afterwards freed; a profound melancholy preyed upon
his spirits; he withdrew into utter seclusion, not to mourn, but to
despond. His friends were alarmed at a hermit's melancholy; some
imagined that his affection for the king had deranged his intellect;
others ascribed his seclusion to mere discontent with the times.
To rid himself of friendly importunities, and to evince that his mind
was not deranged, whatever might be his feelings, he confided to his
circle that he had long been occupied in the study of civil government,
to invent an art which should prevent the disorders of a state. It was
his opinion that "a government is not of so accidental or arbitrary
institution as people imagine; for in society there are natural causes
producing their necessary effects as well as in the earth or the air."
The passionless sage was so discriminately just, that he declared that
"our late troubles were not wholly to be ascribed to the misgovernment
of the prince, nor to the stubbornness of the people; but to the nature
of certain changes which had happened to the nation." He then, for their
curious admiration, disclosed the perfect model of a commonwealth in his
"OCEANA."
OCEANA, or England, was the model of "a free state;" a political
"equality" was its basis; equality to be guarded by a number of devices.
Harrington laid the foundation of politics, on the principle that
_empire follows the balance of property_, whether lodged in one, in a
few, or in many. Toland asserts that this was as noble a discovery as
that of the circulation of the blood, of printing, gunpowder, or the
compass, or optic glasses; the Newtonian gravity had not then been
established, or, doubtless, it had been enumerated.
To preserve the political equality, there were to be "balances" in
dominion and in property. An agrarian law, by its distributions suitable
to the rank of the individual, and which were never to be enlarged nor
diminished, would prevent any man, or any party, overpowering the
people by their possessions. All those states in Europe which were the
remains of Gothic dominion, were thrown into internal conflicts by their
"overbalances." The overbalance of one man was tyranny; of a few, was
oligarchy; of the many, was rebellion, or anarchy.[2] The perpetual
shifting of their "balances" had produced all their disturbances. He
traced this history in extinct governments, as well as in our own. So
refined were his political optics, that he discerned when our kings had
broken Magna Charta some thirty times; and during the reign of Charles
the First, he asserts that these "balances" had been altered nine times.
The "balance of property" being the foundation of the commonwealth, the
superstructure was raised of magistracy. Magistracy was to proceed by
"rotation," and to be settled by the "ballot." The senate was to be
elected by the purity of suffrage, which was to be found in the
balloting-box. And in this rotatory government, the third part of the
senate would be wheeled out at their fixed terms. The senate by these
self-purgations would renovate its youth; and the sovereign authority,
by this unceasing movement, would act in its perpetual integrity.
In this equal commonwealth no party can be at variance with, or gain
ground upon another; and as there can be no factions, so neither will
there be any seditions; because the people are without the power or the
interest to raise commotions; they would be as likely to throw
themselves into the sea as to disturb the state. It is one of his
political axioms, that where the public interest governs, it is a
government of laws; but where a private interest, it is a government of
men, and not of laws.
HARRINGTON was no admirer of a mixed monarchy; his political logic
includes some important truths. "In a mixed monarchy, the nobility
sometimes imposing chains on the king or domineering over the people,
the king is either oppressing the people without control, or contending
with the nobility, as their protectors; and the people are frequently
in arms against both king and nobles, till at last one of the three
estates becomes master of the other two, or till they so mutually weaken
one another, that either they fall a prey to some more potent
government, or naturally grow into a commonwealth--therefore mixed
monarchy is not a perfect government; but if no such parties can
possibly exist in OCEANA, then it is the most equal, perfect, and
immortal commonwealth. _Quod erat demonstrandum._"
The "equality" of Harrington, however, was not fashioned to any vulgar
notions of a levelling democracy. He maintained the distinctions of
orders in society. The great founder of a commonwealth was first a
_gentleman_, from Moses downwards; though, he says, "there be great
divines, poets, lawyers, great men in all professions, the genius of a
great politician is peculiar to _the genius of a gentleman_." And
further, "An army may as well consist of soldiers without officers, or
of officers without soldiers, as a commonwealth (especially such an one
as is capable of greatness) consist of a people without gentry, or of a
gentry without a people."
A work of such original invention, replete with the most curious
developments of all former political institutions, of which the author
proposed to resume the advantages and to supply the deficiencies, from
the ancient commonwealth of Moses to the recent republic of the
Hollanders, and moreover throwing out some novel general views of our
own national history, formed a volume opportune to engage public
attention. It was enlivened by the pleasing form of a romance, where, in
the council of the legislators, the debaters plead for their favourite
form of government with infinite spirit.
The publication of "Oceana" was, however, long retarded; first, by the
honesty of our sage, and, secondly, by the influence of two very
opposite parties equally alarmed. Harrington was anxious that his
proselytes should debate his opinions, and even partially promulgate
them in their pamphlets, before he ventured to publish them. What he
ably elucidated they faithfully repeated: the consequence of this
indiscretion was, that the novelty had lost its gloss; and, when finally
his great discovery of empire following the balance of property
appeared, the author was reproached for its obviousness. Every great
principle appears obvious when once ascertained. The vague rumours that
had spread that a new model of government was about to appear, made the
Cromwellites and the cavaliers alike alert in their opposition; the
bashaws of the great sultan, the new lords and major-generals of the
Protector, sate uneasy in their usurped seats; the cavaliers, who knew
Harrington's predisposition for republican institutions, loudly
remonstrated. The author was compelled to send his papers to the
printers by stealth and by snatches, dispersing them among different
presses. The first edition of "Oceana" exhibits a strange appearance, in
a confusion of all sorts of types and characters--black letter, Italian
and Roman, accompanied by an unparalleled "List of Errors of the Press,"
being several folio pages with double columns! The author has even
marked the lacerations of his panting and hunted volume from "a spaniel
questing who hath sprung my book out of one press into two other." The
myrmidons of Oliver hunted down their game from press to press, and at
length pounced on their prey, and, with a Pyrrhic triumph, bore it to
Whitehall.
All solicitations of the author to retrieve his endeared volume proved
fruitless; in despair he ventured on a singular expedient. Lady
Claypole, the daughter of the Protector, studied to be exceedingly
gracious, and to play the princess. Unacquainted with her ladyship,
Harrington requested an audience; waiting in the antechamber, her little
daughter soon attracted his attention; carrying her in his arms, he
entered the presence-chamber, and declared that he had a design to steal
the young lady--not from love, but for revenge.
"Have I injured you?"
"Not at all! but your father has stolen my child, and then you would
have interceded for its restoration."
The parable of the parental author was easily explained; the pleasing
manners of the elegant cavalier, which were not commonly seen in the new
court of the protectorate, doubtless assisted the petitioner with the
recent princess of the revolution. "Are you sure," she earnestly
inquired, "that your book contains nothing against my father's
government?"
"It is a political romance! to be dedicated to your father, and the
first copy to be opened by yourself."
Lady Claypole conceived there could not be any treason in a romance. She
persuaded Oliver to look it over himself; the Protector, who there found
himself as "the Lord Archon of Oceana," and probably with his sharp
judgment deeming the whole a "romance," returned it, drily observing,
that "the power which he had got by the sword he would not quit for a
little paper-shot:" but he added, with his accustomed sanctimonious
policy, that "he as little approved as the gentleman of the government
of a _single person_, but that he had been compelled to take the office
of High-Constable to preserve the peace among all parties who could
never agree among themselves."
"Oceana" was published at a crisis when the people were still to be
enchanted by the name of "Commonwealth," though they began to think that
they had been mistaken in their choice, since their grievances had been
heavier than under the old monarchy which they had dissolved. Harrington
familiarly compared their present unquiet state to that of a company of
puppy-dogs cramped up in a bag, when finding themselves ill at ease for
want of room, every one of them bites the tail or the foot of his
neighbour, supposing that to be the source of his misery. To such a
restless people, a continual change of rulers on the rotatory system
seemed a great relief; any worse than their present masters they would
not suppose. "The Rota" of Harrington became so popular, that a club was
established bearing its name; and they held their debates every evening
with doors open for auditors or orators.
This political club was the resort of the finest geniuses of the age,
many of whom have left their eminent names in our history and our
literature. The members sat at a circular table--the table of ancient
knighthood and modern equality, which left a passage open within its
circuit to have their coffee delivered hot without any interruption to
the speaker or "the state of the nation." A contemporary assures us that
these debates were more ingenious and spirited than he had ever heard,
and that those in parliament were flat to them. Every decision how
affairs should be carried was left to the balloting-box--"a box in
which there is no cogging," observes the master-genius of "the Rota."
This "balloting" and the principle of "rotation" were hateful to the
parliamentarians; for, as we are told, "they were cursed tyrants, in
love with their power, and this was death to them." HENRY NEVILLE, the
author of "Plato Redivivus," the constant associate of Harrington, and
who, Hobbes (alluding to the "Oceana") said, "had a finger in the pye,"
had the boldness to propose the system of "rotation" to the House,
warning them that, if they did not accept that model of government, they
would shortly fall into ruins. In their then ticklish condition, the
House had the decency to return their thanks, and the intrepidity to
keep their places.
This perfectioned model of a government, when opened for the inspection
of mankind, exhibited a glorious framework; but it seemed questionable
whether this political clockwork or intellectual mechanism could perform
its exact librations, depending on a number of "balances" to preserve
its nice equilibrium; and whether it could last for perpetuity by that
"rotatory" motion by wheels which were never to cease. Some objected,
that the author in the science of politics had been fascinated, as some
in mechanics, who imagined that they had discovered "the perpetual
motion." But this objection the constructor of this "political
architecture" indignantly rejected. He knew that the capacity of matter
can only work as long as it lasts, and therefore there can be no
perpetual motion; but "the mathematician must not take God to be such as
he is. The equal commonwealth is built up by the understandings of the
people. Now the people never die--they are not brute matter. This
movement of theirs comes from the hands of the Eternal Mover, even God
himself."
This romance of politics has been pronounced by a high authority as "one
of the boasts of English literature;" and the philosophic Hume has even
ventured to pronounce the work as "the _only valuable model of a
commonwealth_ that has yet been offered to the public." Perhaps the
historian would pass it off as "the only valuable one," from a
conviction that it was perfectly harmless. It is worthy of remark, that
when, in 1688, a grand _auto da fe_ was performed by the university of
Oxford on certain political works--when they condemned to the flames
Baxter's "Holy Commonwealth," written against Harrington's "Heathen
Commonwealth," as Baxter calls "Oceana," with Hobbes, and Milton, and
others--no one proposed this condign punishment to the manes of
Harrington, considering, no doubt, that a romance was too impracticable
as a political system. Yet the republican party has always held to
"Oceana" as their text-book; and it was with this view that TOLAND
edited this great work, and, in his life of Milton, has declared
"Oceana" to be an unrivalled model of a commonwealth, for its
_practicableness_, _equality_, and completeness; and once HOLLIS, during
the fervour of founding a republic in Corsica, recommended by public
advertisement "Oceana" as the most perfect model of a free government.
"OCEANA" has perpetuated a thoughtful politician's dreams. But are there
no realities in dreams? Even in dreaming, a great artist often combines
conceptions too fugitive, too mysterious, too beauteous, for his
palpable canvas. And thus the fanciful pictures of our philosophical
politician were the results of his deep and varied studies in the
ancient and modern writings on the science of politics--from Aristotle
to Machiavel, from Machiavel to Hobbes. His pages are studded with
axioms of policy, and impress us by many an enduring truth. His style is
not always polished, and is sometimes perplexed; but no writer has
exceeded him in the felicity and boldness of his phrases; and his pen,
though busied on higher matters, sparkles with imagery and illustration.
That a mind so sagacious and even predictive as was that of Harrington's
in the uncertainty of human events should be led away by theoretical
fallacies, is an useful example for political speculators.[3] Constantly
he extols the dark mysterious dominion of aristocratic Venice, "being a
commonwealth having no causes of dissolution." He dwells on "the
rotation of its senate," and its prompt, remedial, concealed power. "It
is immortal in its nature; and to this day she stands with one thousand
years of tranquillity on her back: notwithstanding," he thoughtfully
adds, "that this government consists of men not without sin."
A single day of treason sufficed to terminate this immortal commonwealth
of Venice, with all its "ballotings" and "its rotations," and its hidden
and horrible dictature, where sate the council of "Three" in their dark
conclave, like the sister-fates, the arbiters of every soul in Venice.
Alas for that folly of the wise, who, in the delusion of a theory, to
support the edifice of imagination disguise the truths which might shake
it! The advocate of a free state, he who pretends to draw sovereignty
from the hands of a people, is the perpetual eulogist of the most
refined tyranny that ever swayed the destiny of a people. Spirit of
Harrington! meditate in thy sepulchral city, motionless and naked as she
lies, there to correct so many passages of admiration which spread their
illusion in thy "OCEANA!"
Harrington was equally fallible on the strength of his political axiom,
"that the balance of power depends on that of property;" applying it to
his own critical period, he pronounced that it was impossible ever to
re-establish monarchy among English commonwealth-men. Property had
changed possessors; it could never revert to its former owners. Four
years after "Oceana" was published, and "the Rota Club" was still
illumining the nation, the commonwealth returned to monarchy by a beck,
and without a word!
Theoretical politicians too often omit in their artificial
constructions, and their moral calculations, something more prompt to
act in the conduct of men than even their interests--the stirring
passions of ambition, of faction, and the vacillations of "the sovereign
people," now maddening for a republic, now rushing into a monarchy,
"tumbling and tossing upon their bed of sickness."
When the Restoration arrived, however it may have deranged the system,
it seems not to have disturbed the systematiser. He observed, that "the
king comes in; if he calls a parliament of the cavaliers on our great
estates, let them sit seven years, and they will all turn
commonwealth-men." He retained in all its force his master-passion of
ideal politics. He now decided to reduce "Oceana" into plain axioms,
divested of tedious argumentation, and formal demonstration, adapted to
the most vulgar capacities. He was easily induced to offer some
immediate instructions for the king's service. A paper was first shown
to some of the courtiers, who suspected treason in any scheme where
their particular interests were not at all consulted. One morning, when
Harrington was busily engaged, with all his aphorisms lying loose on a
table before him, suddenly entered Sir William Poulteney, and other
officers, to seize on the philosopher and the philosophy "for
treasonable designs and practices." As they were huddling together the
scattered members of the "Oceanic" mind, the innocent philosopher,
innocent of treason, begged the favour of "stitching them together"
before they were taken to Whitehall. The derangement of his system
appeared to him more dreadful than seeing himself hurried to the Tower.
Harrington had kept up his intimacy with old friends, among whom were
many commonwealth-men, from Major Wildman, an intriguing Cromwellite,
down to the notorious Barebones, on whom he declared, however, that he
had only called, "at his shop" thrice in his life. He was now involved
in a pretended plot, which the Chancellor himself, though furnished with
accounts of the meetings of certain parties, declared that he could make
nothing of. A speculative politician was a very suspicious person in the
days of restoration. Harrington, assuredly, was no plotter. Our
philosopher contrived to send his sisters his examination before his
relative Lord Lauderdale and others, curious for its topics of
discussion, and the poignancy of the dialogue. I cannot pass by one
singular passage.
"You charge me with being eminent in principles contrary to the king's
government, and the laws of this nation. Some, my lord, say, that I,
being a private man, have been so mad as to meddle with politics; what
had a private man to do with government? My lord, there is not any
_public_ person, not any _magistrate_ that has written in politics,
worth a button. All they that have been excellent in this way have been
private men, as private men as myself. There is Plato, there is
Aristotle, there is Livy, there is Machiavel. My lord, I can sum up
Aristotle's politics in a very few words; he says there is the barbarous
monarchy, such a one where the people have no votes in making the laws;
he says there is the heroic monarchy, such a one where the people have
their votes in making the laws; and then he says there is democracy, and
affirms that a man cannot be said to have liberty but in a democracy
only."
My Lord Lauderdale, who thus far had been very attentive, at this showed
some impatience.
_Har._--"I say Aristotle says so; I have not said so much. And under
what prince was it? Was it not under Alexander, the greatest prince in
the world? Did Alexander hang up Aristotle, did he molest him?" And he
proceeds with Livy, who wrote under Caesar, and the commonwealth-man,
Machiavel, under the Medici, unmolested.
"I wrote under an usurper, Oliver. He having started up into the throne,
his officers kept a murmuring for a commonwealth. He told them that he
knew not what they meant, but let any one show him that there was any
such thing as a commonwealth, they should see that he sought not
himself; the Lord knew he only sought to make good the cause. Upon this
some sober men thought that if any in England could show what a
commonwealth was, it was myself. I wrote, and after I had written,
Oliver never answered his officers as he had done before; therefore I
wrote not against the king's government; and if the law could have
punished me, Oliver had done it; therefore my writing was not obnoxious
to the law. After Oliver, the parliament said they were a commonwealth;
I said they were not; and proved it, insomuch that the parliament
accounted me a cavalier, and one that had no other design in my writing
than to bring in the king; and now the king, first of any man, makes me
a Roundhead!"
Certainly no theoretical politician has ever more lucidly set before us
the cruel dilemmas of speculative science.
The story of HARRINGTON now becomes calamitous. In vain his sisters
petitioned that the prisoner, for his justification, should be brought
to trial,--no one dared to present the petition to parliament. He was
suddenly carried off to St. Nicholas Island, near Plymouth, and by
favour afterwards was lodged in Plymouth Castle, where the governor
treated the state-prisoner with the kindness he had long wanted. His
health gradually gave way; his mind fell into disorder; his high spirit
and his heated brain could not brook this tormenting durance; his
intellect was at times clouded by some singular delusions; and his
family imagined that it was intended that he should never more write
"Oceanas." The physician of the castle had prescribed constant doses of
guaiacum taken in coffee. At length, other physicians were despatched by
his family; they found an emaciated patient deprived of sleep, and under
their hands testified that the copious use of this deleterious beverage,
with such drying drugs, was sufficient to occasion hypochondriasm, and
even frenzy, in any one who had not even a predisposition. The surly
physician of the state-prison insisted that Harrington counterfeited
madness.
His delusions never left him, yet otherwise his faculties remained
unaltered. He had strange fancies about the operations of the animal
spirits, good and evil, and often alarmed his friends by his vivacious
descriptions of these invisible agencies. "Nature," he said, "which
works under a veil, is the heart of God." But how are we to account, in
a mind otherwise sane, for his notion that his thoughts transpired from
him, and took the shapes of flies or bees? Aubrey has given a gossiper's
account of this ludicrous hypochondriasm. Harrington had a summer-house
revolving on a pivot, which he turned at will to face the sun; there sat
the great author of "Oceana," whisking a fox's brush to disperse this
annoyance of his transpired thoughts in the flies or bees, which,
whenever they issued from crevices, he would appeal to those present,
whether it was not evident to them that they had emerged from his
brain? An eminent physician had flattered himself that he would be able
to out-reason this delusion, by that force of argument and positive
demonstration to which his illustrious patient only would attend; but
the physician discovered that no argument could avail with the most
invincible disputant in Europe. The sanity of the man only strengthened
his insanity. Besides, our philosopher believed that he had discovered a
new system of physiology, in what he called "The Mechanics of Nature."
Harrington declared that his fate was that of Democritus, who, having
made a great discovery in anatomy, was deemed mad by his associates,
till Hippocrates appeared, and attested the glorious truth, confounding
the laughers for ever! He now resolved to prove against his doctors,
that his notions were not, as they alleged, hypochondriacal whims, or
fanciful delusions. Among his manuscripts was found this promised
treatise, thus opening--"Having been for nine months, some say, in a
disease, I in a cure, I have been the wonder of physicians, and they
mine!" It is much to be regretted that the first part of this singular
design has only reached us, wherein he has laid down his axioms, many of
which are indisputable, coherent, and philosophical, however chimerical
might have been their application to his particular notions. The
narrative of his own disorder, which was to form the second part, would
have been a great psychological curiosity, for the philosopher was there
to have told us, how "he had felt and saw Nature; that is, how she came
first into his senses, and by the senses into the understanding," and
"to speak to men that have had the same sensations as himself." The
logical deliriums of Harrington, it is not impossible, might have thrown
a beam of light on "The Human Nature" of Hobbes, and "The Understanding"
of Locke.
It is for the medical character to develop the mysteries of this
condition of man; but this moral phenomenon of the partial delusions of
the noblest intellect remains an enigma they have not yet solved.
Harrington never recovered his physical energy, while his
"Understanding" betrayed no symptoms of any decay in the exercise of his
vigorous faculties.
There is one dark cloud which dusks the lustre of the name of
HARRINGTON. Opening the volume of his works, we are startled by an
elaborate treatise on "The Grounds and Reasons of Monarchy." It is not
merely one of the most eloquent invectives against monarchical
institutions, but it overflows with the most withering defamations, such
as were prevalent at that distempered season, when the popular writers
accumulated horrors on the memories of their late sovereigns, to
metamorphose their monarchs into monsters. In this terrible state-libel,
all kings are anathematised: James the First was the murderer of his
son; Charles the First was a parricide. Of that "resolute tyrant
Charles," we have an allusion to "his actions of the day; his actions of
the night;"--from which we must infer that they were equally criminal.
The reader, already acquainted with the intimate intercourse of our
author with Charles the First, and with all his permanent emotions,
which probably induced his mental disorder, must start at the disparity
of the writing with the writer. A thorough-paced partisan has here acted
on the base principle of reviling the individual, whom he privately
acknowledged to be wholly of an opposite character. It would be a
solecism in human nature, had Harrington sent forth an historical
calumny, which only to have read must have inflicted a deep pang in his
heart. He was a philosopher, who neither flattered nor vilified the
prince nor the people; their common calamities he ascribes to inevitable
causes, which had been long working those changes independent of either.
In the reigns of James and Charles, according to his favourite
principle, "The English Balance," in favour of "popularity," was
"running like a bowl down hill." He does justice to the sagacity of the
indolent James, who, he tells us, "not seldom prophesied sad things to
his successors;" and of Charles the First, on succeeding to his father,
Harrington has expressed himself with the utmost political wisdom and
felicity of illustration. "There remained nothing to the destruction of
a monarchy, retaining but the name, more than a prince who, by
contending, should make the people to feel those advantages which they
could not see. And this happened to the next king (Charles), who, too
secure in that undoubted right whereby he was advanced to the throne
which had no foundation, dared to put this to an unseasonable trial, on
whom, therefore, fell the tower in Silo. Nor may we think they on whom
this tower fell were sinners above all men; but that we, unless we
repent and look better to the true foundations, must likewise
perish."[4] All that our philosopher had to deliver to the world on the
many contested points of that unhappy reign, was the illustration of his
principle, and not the infamy of vulgar calumny. With the philosophic
Harrington, Charles the First was but "a doomed man;" not more a sinner,
because the tower of Silo had fallen upon his head, than those who stood
without. This was true philosophy, the other was faction.
The treatise on "The Grounds and Reasons of Monarchy," prominently
placed at the opening of the works of Harrington, and inseparably
combined with his opinions by the reference in the general index--this
treatise which has settled like a gangrene on the fair character of the
author of "Oceana," which has called down on his devoted head the
execrations of honourable men,[5] and which has misled many generations
of readers, is the composition of a salaried party writer, in no way
connected with our author. Toland, the first editor of Harrington's
works, introduced into the volume this anonymous invective, which has
thus come down to us sanctioned by the philosopher's name. There was no
plea of any connexion between the two authors, and much less between
their writings. The editor of the edition of 1771 has silently
introduced the name of the real author in the table of contents, but
without prefixing it to the tract, or without any further indication to
inform the reader.
Whether zeal for "the cause" led Toland to this editorial delinquency,
or whether he fell into this inadvertence from deficient acumen, it
remains a literary calamity not easily paralleled, for a great author is
condemned for what he never could have written.