Schools of every Kind to be found in the Borough--The School for
Infants--The School Preparatory: the Sagacity of the Mistress in
foreseeing Character--Day Schools of the lower Kind--A Master with
Talents adapted to such Pupils: one of superior Qualifications--
Boarding Schools; that for young Ladies; one going first to the
Governess, one finally returning Home--School for Youth: Master and
Teacher; various Dispositions and Capacities--The Miser-Boy--The
Bully-Boy--Sons of Farmers: how amused--What Study will effect,
examined--A College Life: one sent from his College to a Benefice;
one retained there in Dignity--The Advantage in either Case not
considerable--Where, then, the Good of a Literary Life?--Answered--
Conclusion.
To every class we have a School assign'd,
Rules for all ranks and food for every mind:
Yet one there is, that small regard to rule
Or study pays, and still is deem'd a School:
That, where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits,
And awes some thirty infants as she knits;
Infants of humble, busy wives, who pay
Some trifling price for freedom through the day:
At this good matron's hut the children meet,
Who thus becomes the mother of the street:
Her room is small they cannot widely stray, -
Her threshold high they cannot run away:
Though deaf, she sees the rebel-heroes shout, -
Though lame, her white rod nimbly walks about;
With band of yarn she keeps offenders in,
And to her gown the sturdiest rogue can pin:
Aided by these, and spells, and tell-tale birds,
Her power they dread and reverence her words.
To Learning's second seats we now proceed,
Where humming students gilded primers read;
Or books with letters large and pictures gay,
To make their reading but a kind of play -
"Reading made easy," so the titles tell;
But they who read must first begin to spell:
There may be profit in these arts, but still
Learning is labour, call it what you will;
Upon the youthful mind a heavy load,
Nor must we hope to find the royal road.
Some will their easy steps to science show,
And some to heav'n itself their by-way know;
Ah! trust them not,--who fame or bliss would share,
Must learn by labour, and must live by care.
Another matron, of superior kind,
For higher schools prepares the rising mind;
Preparatory she her Learning calls,
The step first made to colleges and halls.
She early sees to what the mind will grow,
Nor abler judge of infant-powers I know:
She sees what soon the lively will impede,
And how the steadier will in turn succeed;
Observes the dawn of wisdom, fancy, taste,
And knows what parts will wear, and what will waste:
She marks the mind too lively, and at once
Sees the gay coxcomb and the rattling dunce.
Long has she lived, and much she loves to trace
Her former pupils, now a lordly race;
Whom when she sees rich robes and furs bedeck,
She marks the pride which once she strove to check.
A Burgess comes, and she remembers well
How hard her task to make his worship spell;
Cold, selfish, dull, inanimate, unkind,
'Twas but by anger he display'd a mind:
Now civil, smiling, complaisant, and gay,
The world has worn th' unsocial crust away:
That sullen spirit now a softness wears,
And, save by fits, e'en dulness disappears:
But still the matron can the man behold,
Dull, selfish, hard, inanimate, and cold.
A Merchant passes,--"Probity and truth,
Prudence and patience, mark'd thee from thy youth."
Thus she observes, but oft retains her fears
For him, who now with name unstain'd appears:
Nor hope relinquishes, for one who yet
Is lost in error and involved in debt;
For latent evil in that heart she found,
More open here, but here the core was sound.
Various our Day-Schools: here behold we one
Empty and still: --the morning duties done,
Soil'd, tatter'd, worn, and thrown in various heaps,
Appear their books, and there confusion sleeps;
The workmen all are from the Babel fled,
And lost their tools, till the return they dread:
Meantime the master, with his wig awry,
Prepares his books for business by-and-by:
Now all th' insignia of the monarch laid
Beside him rest, and none stand by afraid;
He, while his troop light-hearted leap and play,
Is all intent on duties of the day;
No more the tyrant stern or judge severe,
He feels the father's and the husband's fear.
Ah! little think the timid trembling crowd,
That one so wise, so powerful, and so proud,
Should feel himself, and dread the humble ills
Of rent-day charges, and of coalman's bills;
That while they mercy from their judge implore,
He fears himself--a knocking at the door;
And feels the burthen as his neighbour states
His humble portion to the parish-rates.
They sit th' alloted hours, then eager run,
Rushing to pleasure when the duty's done;
His hour of leisure is of different kind,
Then cares domestic rush upon his mind,
And half the ease and comfort he enjoys,
Is when surrounded by slates, books, and boys.
Poor Reuben Dixon has the noisiest school
Of ragged lads, who ever bow'd to rule;
Low in his price--the men who heave our coals,
And clean our causeways, send him boys in shoals;
To see poor Reuben, with his fry beside, -
Their half-check'd rudeness and his half-scorn'd pride, -
Their room, the sty in which th' assembly meet,
In the close lane behind the Northgate-street;
T'observe his vain attempts to keep the peace,
Till tolls the bell, and strife and troubles cease, -
Calls for our praise; his labour praise deserves,
But not our pity; Reuben has no nerves:
'Mid noise and dirt, and stench, and play, and prate,
He calmly cuts the pen or views the slate.
But Leonard!--yes, for Leonard's fate I grieve,
Who loaths the station which he dares not leave:
He cannot dig, he will not beg his bread,
All his dependence rests upon his head;
And deeply skill'd in sciences and arts,
On vulgar lads he wastes superior parts.
Alas! what grief that feeling mind sustains,
In guiding hands and stirring torpid brains;
He whose proud mind from pole to pole will move,
And view the wonders of the worlds above;
Who thinks and reasons strongly: --hard his fate,
Confined for ever to the pen and slate:
True, he submits, and when the long dull day
Has slowly pass'd, in weary tasks, away,
To other worlds with cheerful view he looks,
And parts the night between repose and books.
Amid his labours, he has sometimes tried
To turn a little from his cares aside;
Pope, Milton, Dryden, with delight has seized,
His soul engaged and of his trouble eased:
When, with a heavy eye and ill-done sum,
No part conceived, a stupid boy will come;
Then Leonard first subdues the rising frown,
And bids the blockhead lay his blunders down;
O'er which disgusted he will turn his eye,
To his sad duty his sound mind apply,
And, vex'd in spirit, throw his pleasures by.
Turn we to Schools which more than these afford -
The sound instruction and the wholesome board;
And first our School for Ladies;--pity calls
For one soft sigh, when we behold these walls,
Placed near the town, and where, from window high,
The fair, confined, may our free crowds espy,
With many a stranger gazing up and down,
And all the envied tumult of the town;
May, in the smiling summer-eve, when they
Are sent to sleep the pleasant hours away,
Behold the poor (whom they conceive the bless'd)
Employ'd for hours, and grieved they cannot rest.
Here the fond girl, whose days are sad and few
Since dear mamma pronounced the last adieu,
Looks to the road, and fondly thinks she hears
The carriage-wheels, and struggles with her tears:
All yet is new, the misses great and small,
Madam herself, and teachers, odious all;
From laughter, pity, nay command, she turns,
But melts in softness, or with anger burns;
Nauseates her food, and wonders who can sleep
On such mean beds, where she can only weep:
She scorns condolence--but to all she hates
Slowly at length her mind accommodates;
Then looks on bondage with the same concern
As others felt, and finds that she must learn
As others learn'd--the common lot to share,
To search for comfort and submit to care.
There are, 'tis said, who on these seats attend,
And to these ductile minds destruction vend;
Wretches--(to virtue, peace, and nature, foes) -
To these soft minds, their wicked trash expose;
Seize on the soul, ere passions take the sway,
And lead the heart, ere yet it feels, astray:
Smugglers obscene!--and can there be who take
Infernal pains the sleeping vice to wake?
Can there be those by whom the thought defiled
Enters the spotless bosom of a child?
By whom the ill is to the heart conveyed,
Who lend the foe, not yet in arms, their aid;
And sap the city-walls before the siege be laid?
Oh! rather skulking in the by-ways steal,
And rob the poorest traveller of his meal;
Burst through the humblest trader's bolted door;
Bear from the widow's hut her winter-store;
With stolen steed, on highways take your stand,
Your lips with curses arm'd, with death your hand; -
Take all but life--the virtuous more would say,
Take life itself, dear as it is, away,
Rather than guilty thus the guileless soul betray.
Years pass away--let us suppose them past,
Th' accomplish'd nymph for freedom looks at last;
All hardships over, which a school contains,
The spirit's bondage and the body's pains;
Where teachers make the heartless, trembling set
Of pupils suffer for their own regret;
Where winter's cold, attack'd by one poor fire,
Chills the fair child, commanded to retire;
She felt it keenly in the morning-air,
Keenly she felt it at the evening prayer.
More pleasant summer; but then walks were made,
Not a sweet ramble, but a slow parade;
They moved by pairs beside the hawthorn-hedge,
Only to set their feelings on an edge;
And now at eve, when all their spirits rise,
Are sent to rest, and all their pleasure dies;
Where yet they all the town-alert can see,
And distant plough-boys pacing o'er the lea.
These and the tasks successive masters brought -
The French they conn'd, the curious works they wrought;
The hours they made their taper fingers strike
Note after note, all dull to them alike;
Their drawings, dancings on appointed days,
Playing with globes, and getting parts of plays:
The tender friendships made 'twixt heart and heart,
When the dear friends had nothing to impart: -
All! all! are over;--now th' accomplish'd maid
Longs for the world, of nothing there afraid:
Dreams of delight invade her gentle breast,
And fancied lovers rob the heart of rest;
At the paternal door a carriage stands,
Love knits their hearts and Hymen joins their hands.
Ah! world unknown! how charming is thy view,
Thy pleasures many, and each pleasure new:
Ah! world experienced! what of thee is told?
How few thy pleasures, and those few how old!
Within a silent street, and far apart
From noise of business, from a quay or mart,
Stands an old spacious building, and the din
You hear without, explains the work within;
Unlike the whispering of the nymphs, this noise
Loudly proclaims a "Boarding-School for Boys;"
The master heeds it not, for thirty years
Have render'd all familiar to his ears;
He sits in comfort, 'mid the various sound
Of mingled tones for ever flowing round:
Day after day he to his task attends, -
Unvaried toil, and care that never ends:
Boys in their works proceed; while his employ
Admits no change, or changes but the boy;
Yet time has made it easy;--he beside
Has power supreme, and power is sweet to pride:
But grant him pleasure; what can teachers feel,
Dependent helpers always at the wheel?
Their power despised, their compensation small,
Their labour dull, their life laborious all;
Set after set the lower lads to make
Fit for the class which their superiors take;
The road of learning for a time to track
In roughest state, and then again go back:
Just the same way, on other troops to wait, -
Attendants fix'd at learning's lower gate.
The Day-tasks now are over--to their ground
Rush the gay crowd with joy-compelling sound;
Glad to elude the burthens of the day,
The eager parties hurry to their play:
Then in these hours of liberty we find
The native bias of the opening mind;
They yet possess not skill the mask to place,
And hide the passions glowing in the face;
Yet some are found--the close, the sly, the mean,
Who know already all must not be seen.
Lo! one who walks apart, although so young,
He lays restraint upon his eye and tongue,
Nor will he into scrapes or dangers get,
And half the school are in the stripling's debt:
Suspicious, timid, he is much afraid
Of trick and plot: --he dreads to be betray'd:
He shuns all friendship, for he finds they lend
When lads begin to call each other friend:
Yet self with self has war; the tempting sight
Of fruit on sale provokes his appetite; -
See! how he walks the sweet seduction by;
That he is tempted, costs him first a sigh, -
'Tis dangerous to indulge, 'tis grievous to deny!
This he will choose, and whispering asks the price,
The purchase dreadful, but the portion nice:
Within the pocket he explores the pence;
Without, temptation strikes on either sense,
The sight, the smell;--but then he thinks again
Of money gone! while fruit nor taste remain.
Meantime there comes an eager thoughtless boy,
Who gives the price and only feels the joy:
Example dire: the youthful miser stops
And slowly back the treasured coinage drops:
Heroic deed! for should he now comply,
Can he tomorrow's appetite deny?
Beside, these spendthrifts who so freely live,
Cloy'd with their purchase, will a portion give: -
Here ends debate, he buttons up his store,
And feels the comfort that it burns no more.
Unlike to him the Tyrant-boy, whose sway
All hearts acknowledge; him the crowds obey:
At his command they break through every rule;
Whoever governs, he controls the school:
'Tis not the distant emperor moves their fear,
But the proud viceroy who is ever near.
Verres could do that mischief in a day,
For which not Rome, in all its power, could pay;
And these boy-tyrants will their slaves distress,
And do the wrongs no master can redress:
The mind they load with fear; it feels disdain
For its own baseness; yet it tries in vain
To shake th' admitted power: --the coward comes again:
'Tis more than present pain these tyrants give,
Long as we've life some strong impressions live;
And these young ruffians in the soul will sow
Seeds of all vices that on weakness grow.
Hark! at his word the trembling younglings flee,
Where he is walking none must walk but he;
See! from the winter fire the weak retreat,
His the warm corner, his the favourite seat,
Save when he yields it to some slave to keep
Awhile, then back, at his return, to creep:
At his command his poor dependants fly,
And humbly bribe him as a proud ally;
Flatter'd by all, the notice he bestows,
Is gross abuse, and bantering and blows;
Yet he's a dunce, and, spite of all his fame
Without the desk, within he feels his shame:
For there the weaker boy, who felt his scorn,
For him corrects the blunders of the morn;
And he is taught, unpleasant truth! to find
The trembling body has the prouder mind.
Hark! to that shout, that burst of empty noise,
From a rude set of bluff, obstreperous boys;
They who, like colts let loose, with vigour bound,
And thoughtless spirit, o'er the beaten ground;
Fearless they leap, and every youngster feels
His Alma active in his hands and heels.
These are the sons of farmers, and they come
With partial fondness for the joys of home;
Their minds are coursing in their fathers' fields,
And e'en the dream a lively pleasure yields;
They, much enduring, sit th' allotted hours,
And o'er a grammar waste their sprightly powers;
They dance; but them can measured steps delight,
Whom horse and hounds to daring deeds excite?
Nor could they bear to wait from meal to meal,
Did they not slily to the chamber steal,
And there the produce of the basket seize,
The mother's gift! still studious of their ease.
Poor Alma, thus oppress'd forbears to rise,
But rests or revels in the arms and thighs.
"But is it sure that study will repay
The more attentive and forbearing?"--Nay!
The farm, the ship, the humble shop, have each
Gains which severest studies seldom reach.
At College place a youth, who means to raise
His state by merit and his name by praise;
Still much he hazards; there is serious strife
In the contentions of a scholar's life:
Not all the mind's attention, care, distress,
Nor diligence itself, ensure success:
His jealous heart a rival's powers may dread,
Till its strong feelings have confused his head,
And, after days and months, nay, years of pain,
He finds just lost the object he would gain.
But grant him this and all such life can give,
For other prospects he begins to live;
Begins to feel that man was form'd to look
And long for other objects than a book:
In his mind's eye his house and glebe he sees,
And farms and talks with farmers at his ease;
And time is lost, till fortune sends him forth
To a rude world unconscious of his worth;
There in some petty parish to reside,
The college boast, then turn'd the village guide:
And though awhile his flock and dairy please,
He soon reverts to former joys and ease,
Glad when a friend shall come to break his rest,
And speak of all the pleasures they possess'd,
Of masters, fellows, tutors, all with whom
They shared those pleasures, never more to come;
Till both conceive the times by bliss endear'd,
Which once so dismal and so dull appear'd.
But fix our Scholar, and suppose him crown'd
With all the glory gain'd on classic ground;
Suppose the world without a sigh resign'd,
And to his college all his care confined;
Give him all honours that such states allow,
The freshman's terror and the tradesman's bow;
Let his apartments with his taste agree,
And all his views be those he loves to see;
Let him each day behold the savoury treat,
For which he pays not, but is paid to eat;
These joys and glories soon delight no more,
Although, withheld, the mind is vex'd and sore;
The honour too is to the place confined,
Abroad they know not each superior mind:
Strangers no wranglers in these figures see,
Nor give they worship to a high degree;
Unlike the prophet's is the scholar's case,
His honour all is in his dwelling-place:
And there such honours are familiar things;
What is a monarch in a crowd of kings?
Like other sovereigns he's by forms address'd,
By statutes governed and with rules oppress'd.
When all these forms and duties die away,
And the day passes like the former day,
Then of exterior things at once bereft,
He's to himself and one attendant left;
Nay, John too goes; nor aught of service more
Remains for him; he gladly quits the door,
And, as he whistles to the college-gate,
He kindly pities his poor master's fate.
Books cannot always please, however good;
Minds are not ever craving for their food;
But sleep will soon the weary soul prepare
For cares to-morrow that were this day's care:
For forms, for feasts, that sundry times have past,
And formal feasts that will for ever last.
"But then from Study will no comforts rise?" -
Yes! such as studious minds alone can prize;
Comforts, yea!--joys ineffable they find,
Who seek the prouder pleasures of the mind:
The soul, collected in those happy hours,
Then makes her efforts, then enjoys her powers;
And in those seasons feels herself repaid,
For labours past and honours long delay'd.
No! 'tis not worldly gain, although by chance
The sons of learning may to wealth advance;
Nor station high, though in some favouring hour
The sons of learning may arrive at power;
Nor is it glory, though the public voice
Of honest praise will make the heart rejoice:
But 'tis the mind's own feelings give tho joy,
Pleasures she gathers in her own employ -
Pleasures that gain or praise cannot bestow,
Yet can dilate and raise them when they flow.
For this the Poet looks thy world around,
Where form and life and reasoning man are found;
He loves the mind, in all its modes, to trace,
And all the manners of the changing race;
Silent he walks the road of life along,
And views the aims of its tumultuous throng:
He finds what shapes the Proteus-passions take,
And what strange waste of life and joy they make,
And loves to show them in their varied ways,
With honest blame or with unflattering praise:
'Tis good to know, 'tis pleasant to impart,
These turns and movements of the human heart:
The stronger features of the soul to paint,
And make distinct the latent and the faint;
MAN AS HE IS, to place in all men's view,
Yet none with rancour, none with scorn pursue:
Nor be it ever of my Portraits told -
"Here the strong lines of malice we behold."
---------------------
This let me hope, that when in public view
I bring my Pictures, men may feel them true:
"This is a likeness," may they all declare,
"And I have seen him, but I know not where:"
For I should mourn the mischief I had done,
If as the likeness all would fix on one.
---------------------
Man's Vice and Crime I combat as I can,
But to his GOD and conscience leave the Man;
I search (a Quixote!) all the land about,
To find its Giants and Enchanters out, -
(The Giant-Folly, the Enchanter-Vice,
Whom doubtless I shall vanquish in a trice;) -
But is there man whom I would injure?--No!
I am to him a fellow, not a foe, -
A fellow-sinner, who must rather dread
The bolt, than hurl it at another's head.
No! let the guiltless, if there such be found,
Launch forth the spear, and deal the deadly wound.
How can I so the cause of Virtue aid,
Who am myself attainted and afraid?
Yet as I can, I point the powers of rhyme,
And, sparing criminals, attack the crime.
Footnotes:
{1} Note: Indentation and punctuation as original.
{2} The wants and mortifications of a poor clergyman are the
subjects of one portion of this Letter; and he being represented as
a stranger in the Borough, it may be necessary to make some apology
for his appearance in the Poem. Previous to a late meeting of a
literary society, whose benevolent purpose is well known to the
public, I was induced by a friend to compose a few verses, in which,
with the general commendation of the design, should be introduced a
hint that the bounty might be farther extended; these verses, a
gentleman did me the honour to recite at the meeting, and they were
printed as an extract from the Poem, to which, in fact, they may be
called an appendage.
{3} The account of Coddrington occurs in "The Mirrour for
Magistrates." He suffered in the reign of Richard III.
{4} If I have in this letter praised the good-humour of a man
confessedly too inattentive to business, and if, in another
(AMUSEMENTS), I have written somewhat sarcastically of "the brick-
floored parlour which the butcher lets," be credit given to me,
that, in the one case, I had no intention to apologise for idleness,
nor any design in the other to treat with contempt the resources of
the poor. The good-humour is considered as the consolation of
disappointment; and the room is so mentioned because the lodger is
vain. Most of my readers will perceive this: but I shall be sorry
if by any I am supposed to make pleas for the vices of men, or treat
their wants or infirmities with derision or with disdain.
{5} The Letter on Itinerant Players will to some appear too harshly
written, their profligacy exaggerated, and their distresses
magnified; but though the respectability of a part of these people
may give us a more favourable view of the whole body; though some
actors be sober, and some managers prudent; still there is vice and
misery left more than sufficient to justify my description. But, if
I could find only one woman who (passing forty years on many stages
and sustaining many principal characters) laments in her unrespected
old age, that there was no workhouse to which she could legally sue
for admission; if I could produce only one female, seduced upon the
boards, and starved in her lodging, compelled by her poverty to
sing, and by her sufferings to weep, without any prospect but
misery, or any consolation but death; if I could exhibit only one
youth who sought refuge from parental authority in the licentious
freedom of a wandering company; yet, with three such examples, I
should feel myself justified in the account I have given: --but such
characters and sufferings are common, and there are few of these
societies which could not show members of this description. To
some, indeed, the life has its satisfactions: they never expected
to be free from labour, and their present kind they think is light:
they have no delicate ideas of shame, and therefore duns and hisses
give them no other pain than what arises from the fear of not being
trusted, joined with the apprehension that they may have nothing to
subsist upon except their credit.
{6} For the Alms-house itself, its Governors, and Inhabitants, I
have not much to offer in favour of the subject or of the character.
One of these, Sir Denys Brand, may be considered as too highly
placed for an author, who seldom ventures above middle life, to
delineate; and, indeed, I had some idea of reserving him for another
occasion, where he might have appeared with those in his own rank:
but then it is most uncertain whether he would ever appear, and he
has been so many years prepared for the public, whenever opportunity
might offer that I have at length given him place, and though with
his inferiors, yet as a ruler over them.
{7} Benbow may be thought too low and despicable to be admitted
here; but he is a borough-character, and however disgusting in some
respects a picture may be, it will please some, and be tolerated by
many, if it can boast that one merit of being a faithful likeness.
{8} The characters of the Hospital Directors were written many
years since and, so far as I was capable of judging, are drawn with
fidelity. I mention this circumstance that, if any reader should
find a difference in the versification or expression, he will be
thus enabled to account for it.
{9} The Poor are here almost of necessity introduced, for they must
be considered, in every place, as a large and interesting portion of
its inhabitants. I am aware of the great difficulty of acquiring
just notions on the maintenance and management of this class of our
fellow subjects, and I forbear to express any opinion of the various
modes which have been discussed or adopted: of one method only I
venture to give my sentiments,--that of collecting the poor of a
hundred into one building. This admission of a vast number of
persons, of all ages and both sexes, of very different inclinations,
habits, and capacities, into a society, must, at a first view I
conceive, be looked upon as a cause of both vice and misery; nor
does anything which I have heard or read invalidate the opinion:
happily, the method is not a prevailing one, as these houses are, I
believe, still confined to that part of the kingdom where they
originated.
{10} John Bunyan, in one of the many productions of his zeal, has
ventured to make public this extraordinary sentiment, which the
frigid piety of our Clerk so readily adopted.
{11} The Life of Ellen Orford, though sufficiently burdened with
error and misfortune, has in it little besides which resembles those
of the unhappy men in the preceding Letters, and is still more
unlike that of Grimes, in a subsequent one. There is in this
character cheerfulness and resignation, a more uniform piety, and an
immovable trust in the aid of religion. This, with the light
texture of the introductory part, will, I hope, take off from that
idea of sameness which the repetition of crimes and distresses is
likely to create.
{12} It has been a subject of greater vexation to me than such
trifle ought to be, that I could not, without destroying all
appearance of arrangement, separate these melancholy narratives, and
place the fallen Clerk in Office at a greater distance from the
Clerk of the Parish, especially as they resembled each other in
several particulars; both being tempted, seduced, and wretched. Yet
there are, I conceive, considerable marks of distinction: their
guilt is of different kind; nor would either have committed the
offence of the other. The Clerk of the Parish could break the
commandment, but he could not have been induced to have disowned an
article of that creed for which he had so bravely contended, and on
which he fully relied; and the upright mind of the Clerk in Office
would have secured him from being guilty of wrong and robbery,
though his weak and vacillating intellect could not preserve him
from infidelity and profaneness. Their melancholy is nearly alike,
but not its consequences. Jachin retained hia belief, and though he
hated life, he could never be induced to quit it voluntarily; but
Abel was driven to terminate his misery in a way which the
unfixedness of his religious opinions rather accelerated than
retarded. I am, therefore, not without hope, that the more
observant of my readers will perceive many marks of discrimination
in these characters.
{13} The character of Grimes, his obduracy and apparent want of
feeling, his gloomy kind of misanthropy, the progress of his
madness, and the horrors of his imagination, I must leave to the
judgment and observation of my readers. The mind here exhibited is
one untouched by pity, unstung by remorse, and uncorrected by shame;
yet is this hardihood of temper and spirit broken by want, disease,
solitude, and disappointment: and he becomes the victim of a
distempered and horror-stricken fancy. It is evident, therefore,
that no feeble vision, no half-visible ghost, not the momentary
glance of an unbodied being, nor the half-audible voice of an
invisible one, would be created by the continual workings of
distress on a mind so depraved and flinty. The ruffian of Mr Scott
(Marmion) has a mind of this nature; he has no shame or remorse, but
the corrosion of hopeless want, the wasting of unabating disease,
and the gloom of unvaried solitude, will have their effect on every
nature and the harder that nature is, and the longer time required
to work upon it, so much the more strong and indelible is the
impression. This is all the reason I am able to give, why a man of
feeling so dull should yet become insane, and why the visions of his
distempered brain should be of so horrible a nature.
{14} That a Letter on Prisons should follow the narratives of such
characters as Keene and Grimes is unfortunate, but not to be easily
avoided. I confess it is not pleasant to be detained so long by
subiects so repulsive to the feelings of many as the sufferings of
mankind; but, though I assuredly would have altered this
arrangement, had I been able to have done it by substituting a
better, yet am I not of opinion that my verses, or, indeed, the
verses of any other person,
can so represent the evils and distresses of life as to make any
material impression on the mind, and much less any of injurious
nature. Alas! sufferings real, evident, continually before us, have
not effects very serious or lasting, even in the minds of the more
reflecting and compassionate; nor, indeed, does it seem right that
the pain caused by sympathy should serve for more than a stimulus to
benevolence. If then the strength and solidity of truth placed
before our eyes have effect so feeble and transitory, I need not be
very apprehensive that my representations of Poor-houses and
Prisons, of wants and sufferings, however faithfully taken, will
excite any feelings which can be seriously lamented. It has always
been held as a salutary exercise of the mind to contemplate the
evils and miseries of our nature: I am not therefore without hope
that even this gloomy subject of Imprisonment, and more especially
the Dream of the Condemned Highwayman, will excite in some minds
that mingled pity and abhorrence which, while it is not
unpleasant to the feelings, is useful in its operation. It ties and
binds us to all mankind by sensations common to us all, and in some
degree connects us, without degradation, even to the most miserable
and guilty of our fellow-men.
{15} Our concluding subject is Education; and some attempt is made
to describe its various seminaries, from that of the poor widow who
pronounces the alphabet for infants, to seats whence the light of
learning is shed abroad on the world. If, in this Letter, I
describe the lives of literary men as embittered by much evil; if
they be often disappointed, and sometimes unfitted for the world
they improve; let it be considered that they are described as men
who possess that great pleasure, the exercise of their own talents,
and the delight which flows from their own exertions: they have joy
in their pursuits, and glory in their acquirements of knowledge.
Their victory over difficulties affords the most rational cause of
triumph, and the attainment of new ideas leads to incalculable
riches, such as gratify the glorious avarice of aspiring and
comprehensive minds. Here, then, I place the reward of Learning.
Our Universities produce men of the first scholastic attainments,
who are heirs to large possessions, or descendants from noble
families. Now, to those so favoured, talents and acquirements are
unquestionably means of arriving at the most elevated and important
situations; but these must be the lot of a few: in general, the
diligence, acuteness, and perseverance of a youth at the University,
have no other reward than some college honours and emoluments, which
they desire to exchange, many of them, for very moderate incomes in
the obscurity of some distant village; so that, in stating the
reward of an ardent and powerful mind to consist principally (I
might have said entirely) in its own views, efforts, and excursions,
I place it upon a
sure foundation, though not one so elevated as the more ambitious
aspire to. It is surely some encouragement to a studious man to
reflect that, if he be disappointed, he cannot be without
gratification; and that, if he gets but a very humble portion of
what the world can give, he has a continual fruition of unwearying
enjoyment, of which it has not power to deprive him.