But the dispersion of a library, whether in retrospect or in
anticipation, is always to me a melancholy thing.
_Sir Thomas More_.--How many such dispersions must have taken place to
have made it possible that these books should thus be brought together
here among the Cumberland mountains.
_Montesinos_.--Many, indeed; and in many instances most disastrous ones.
Not a few of these volumes have been cast up from the wreck of the family
or convent libraries during the late Revolution. Yonder "Acta Sanctorum"
belonged to the Capuchins, at Ghent. This book of St. Bridget's
Revelations, in which not only all the initial letters are illuminated,
but every capital throughout the volume was coloured, came from the
Carmelite Nunnery at Bruges. That copy of Alain Chartier, from the
Jesuits' College at Louvain; that _Imago Primi Saeculi Societatis_, from
their college at Ruremond. Here are books from Colbert's library, here
others from the Lamoignon one. And here are two volumes of a work, not
more rare than valuable for its contents, divorced, unhappily, and it is
to be feared for ever, from the one which should stand between them; they
were printed in a convent at Manila, and brought from thence when that
city was taken by Sir William Draper; they have given me, perhaps, as
many pleasurable hours (passed in acquiring information which I could not
otherwise have obtained), as Sir William spent years of anxiety and
vexation in vainly soliciting the reward of his conquest.
About a score of the more out-of-the-way works in my possession belonged
to some unknown person, who seems carefully to have gleaned the
bookstalls a little before and after the year 1790. He marked them with
certain ciphers, always at the end of the volume. They are in various
languages, and I never found his mark in any book that was not worth
buying, or that I should not have bought without that indication to
induce me. All were in ragged condition, and having been dispersed, upon
the owner's death probably, as of no value, to the stalls they had
returned; and there I found this portion of them just before my old
haunts as a book-hunter in the metropolis were disforested, to make room
for the improvements between Westminster and Oxford Road. I have
endeavoured without success to discover the name of their former
possessor. He must have been a remarkable man, and the whole of his
collection, judging of it by that part which has come into my hands, must
have been singularly curious. A book is the more valuable to me when I
know to whom it has belonged, and through what "scenes and changes" it
has passed.
_Sir Thomas More_.--You would have its history recorded in the fly-leaf
as carefully as the pedigree of a racehorse is preserved.
_Montesinos_.--I confess that I have much of that feeling in which the
superstition concerning relics has originated, and I am sorry when I see
the name of a former owner obliterated in a book, or the plate of his
arms defaced. Poor memorials though they be, yet they are something
saved for a while from oblivion, and I should be almost as unwilling to
destroy them as to efface the _Hic jacet_ of a tombstone. There may be
sometimes a pleasure in recognising them, sometimes a salutary sadness.
Yonder Chronicle of King D. Manoel, by Damiam de Goes, and yonder
"General History of Spain," by Esteban de Garibay, are signed by their
respective authors. The minds of these laborious and useful scholars are
in their works, but you are brought into a more personal relation with
them when you see the page upon which you know that their eyes have
rested, and the very characters which their hands have traced. This copy
of Casaubon's Epistles was sent to me from Florence by Walter Landor. He
had perused it carefully, and to that perusal we are indebted for one of
the most pleasing of his Conversations; these letters had carried him in
spirit to the age of their writer, and shown James I. to him in the light
wherein James was regarded by contemporary scholars, and under the
impression thus produced Landor has written of him in his happiest mood,
calmly, philosophically, feelingly, and with no more of favourable
leaning than justice will always manifest when justice is in good humour
and in charity with all men. The book came from the palace library at
Milan, how or when abstracted I know not, but this beautiful dialogue
would never have been written had it remained there in its place upon the
shelf, for the worms to finish the work which they had begun. Isaac
Casaubon must be in your society, Sir Thomas, for where Erasmus is you
will be, and there also Casaubon will have his place among the wise and
the good. Tell him, I pray you, that due honour has in these days been
rendered to his name by one who as a scholar is qualified to appreciate
his merits, and whose writings will be more durable than monuments of
brass or marble.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Is there no message to him from Walter Landor's
friend?
_Montesinos_.--Say to him, since you encourage me to such boldness, that
his letters could scarcely have been perused with deeper interest by the
persons to whom they were addressed than they have been by one, at the
foot of Skiddaw, who is never more contentedly employed than when
learning from the living minds of other ages, one who would gladly have
this expression of respect and gratitude conveyed to him, and who trusts
that when his course is finished here he shall see him face to face.
Here is a book with which Lauderdale amused himself, when Cromwell kept
him prisoner in Windsor Castle. He has recorded his state of mind during
that imprisonment by inscribing in it, with his name, and the dates of
time and place, the Latin word _Durate_, and the Greek [Greek text]. Here
is a memorial of a different kind inscribed in this "Rule of Penance of
St. Francis, as it in ordered for religious women." "I beseech my deare
mother humbly to accept of this exposition of our holy rule, the better
to conceive what your poor child ought to be, who daly beges your
blessing. Constantia Francisco." And here in the Apophthegmata,
collected by Conrad Lycosthenes, and published after drastic expurgation
by the Jesuits as a commonplace book, some Portuguese has entered a
hearty vow that he would never part with the book, nor lend it to any
one. Very different was the disposition of my poor old Lisbon
acquaintance, the Abbe, who, after the old humaner form, wrote in all his
books (and he had a rare collection) _Ex libris Francisci Garnier_, _et
amicorum_.
_Sir Thomas More_.--How peaceably they stand together--Papists and
Protestants side by side.
_Montesinos_.--Their very dust reposes not more quietly in the cemetery.
Ancient and modern, Jew and Gentile, Mahommedan and Crusader, French and
English, Spaniards and Portuguese, Dutch and Brazilians, fighting their
own battles, silently now, upon the same shelf: Fernam Lopez and Pedro de
Ayala; John de Laet and Barlaeus, with the historians of Joam Fernandes
Vieira; Foxe's Martyrs and the Three Conversions of Father Parsons;
Cranmer and Stephen Gardiner; Dominican and Franciscan; Jesuit and
Philosophe (equally misnamed); Churchmen and Sectarians; Round-heads and
Cavaliers
"Here are God's conduits, grave divines; and here
Is Nature's secretary, the philosopher:
And wily statesmen, which teach how to tie
The sinews of a city's mystic body;
Here gathering chroniclers; and by them stand
Giddy fantastic poets of each land."--DONNE.
Here I possess these gathered treasures of time, the harvest of so many
generations, laid up in my garners: and when I go to the window there is
the lake, and the circle of the mountains, and the illimitable sky.
_Sir Thomas More_.--
"_Felicemque voco pariter studiique locique_!"
_Montesinos_.--
"--_meritoque probas artesque locumque_."
The simile of the bees,
"_Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes_,"
has often been applied to men who have made literature their profession;
and they among them to whom worldly wealth and worldly honours are
objects of ambition, may have reason enough to acknowledge its
applicability. But it will bear a happier application and with equal
fitness: for, for whom is the purest honey hoarded that the bees of this
world elaborate, if it be not for the man of letters? The exploits of
the kings and heroes of old, serve now to fill story-books for his
amusement and instruction. It was to delight his leisure and call forth
his admiration that Homer sung and Alexander conquered. It is to gratify
his curiosity that adventurers have traversed deserts and savage
countries, and navigators have explored the seas from pole to pole. The
revolutions of the planet which he inhabits are but matters for his
speculation; and the deluges and conflagrations which it has undergone,
problems to exercise his philosophy, or fancy. He is the inheritor of
whatever has been discovered by persevering labour, or created by
inventive genius. The wise of all ages have heaped up a treasure for
him, which rust doth not corrupt, and which thieves cannot break through
and steal. I must leave out the moth, for even in this climate care is
required against its ravages.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Yet, Montesinos, how often does the worm-eaten volume
outlast the reputation of the worm-eaten author!
_Montesinos_.--Of the living one also; for many there are of whom it may
be said, in the words of Vida, that--
"--_ipsi_
_Saepe suis superant monumentis_; _illaudatique_
_Extremum ante diem faetus flevere caducos_,
_Viventesque suae viderunt funera famae_."
Some literary reputations die in the birth; a few are nibbled to death by
critics, but they are weakly ones that perish thus, such only as must
otherwise soon have come to a natural death. Somewhat more numerous are
those which are overfed with praise, and die of the surfeit. Brisk
reputations, indeed, are like bottled twopenny, or pop "they sparkle, are
exhaled, and fly"--not to heaven, but to the Limbo. To live among books,
is in this respect like living among the tombs; you have in them speaking
remembrancers of mortality. "Behold this also is vanity!"
_Sir Thomas More_.--Has it proved to you "vexation of spirit" also?
_Montesinos_.--Oh, no! for never can any man's life have been passed more
in accord with his own inclinations, nor more answerably to his own
desires. Excepting that peace which, through God's infinite mercy, is
derived from a higher source, it is to literature, humanly speaking, that
I am beholden, not only for the means of subsistence, but for every
blessing which I enjoy; health of mind and activity of mind, contentment,
cheerfulness, continual employment, and therewith continual pleasure.
_Sua vissima vita indies_, _sentire se fieri meliorem_; and this as Bacon
has said, and Clarendon repeated, is the benefit that a studious man
enjoys in retirement. To the studies which I have faithfully pursued I
am indebted for friends with whom, hereafter, it will be deemed an honour
to have lived in friendship; and as for the enemies which they have
procured to me in sufficient numbers, happily I am not of the
thin-skinned race: they might as well fire small-shot at a rhinoceros, as
direct their attacks upon me. _In omnibus requiem quaesivi_, said Thomas
a Kempis, _sed non inveni nisi in angulis et libellis_. I too have found
repose where he did, in books and retirement, but it was there alone I
sought it: to these my nature, under the direction of a merciful
Providence, led me betimes, and the world can offer nothing which should
tempt me from them.
_Sir Thomas More_.--If wisdom were to be found in the multitude of books,
what a progress must this nation have made in it since my head was cut
off! A man in my days might offer to dispute _de omni scibile_, and in
accepting the challenge I, as a young man, was not guilty of any
extraordinary presumption, for all which books could teach was, at that
time, within the compass of a diligent and ardent student. Even then we
had difficulties to contend with which were unknown to the ancients. The
curse of Babel fell lightly upon them. The Greeks despised other nations
too much to think of acquiring their languages for the love of knowledge,
and the Romans contented themselves with learning only the Greek. But
tongues which, in my lifetime, were hardly formed, have since been
refined and cultivated, and are become fertile in authors; and others,
the very names of which were then unknown in Europe, have been discovered
and mastered by European scholars, and have been found rich in
literature. The circle of knowledge has thus widened in every
generation; and you cannot now touch the circumference of what might
formerly have been clasped.
_Montesinos_.--We are fortunate, methinks, who live in an age when books
are accessible and numerous, and yet not so multiplied, as to render a
competent, not to say thorough, acquaintance with any one branch of
literature, impossible. He has it yet in his power to know much, who can
be contented to remain in ignorance of more, and to say with Scaliger,
_non sum ex illis gloriosulis qui nihil ignorant_.
_Sir Thomas More_.--If one of the most learned men whom the world has
ever seen felt it becoming in him to say this two centuries ago, how
infinitely smaller in these days must the share of learning which the
most indefatigable student can hope to attain, be in proportion to what
he must wish to learn! The sciences are simplified as they are improved;
old rubbish and demolished fabrics serve there to make a foundation for
new scaffolding, and more enduring superstructures; and every discoverer
in physics bequeaths to those who follow him greater advantages than he
possessed at the commencement of his labours. The reverse of this is
felt in all the higher branches of literature. You have to acquire what
the learned of the last age acquired, and in addition to it, what they
themselves have added to the stock of learning. Thus the task is greater
in every succeeding generation, and in a very few more it must become
manifestly impossible.
_Montesinos_. Pope Ganganelli is said to have expressed a whimsical
opinion that all the books in the world might be reduced to six thousand
volumes in folio--by epitomising, expurgating, and destroying whatever
the chosen and plenipotential committee of literature should in their
wisdom think proper to condemn. It is some consolation to know that no
Pope, or Nero, or Bonaparte, however great their power, can ever think
such a scheme sufficiently within the bounds of possibility for them to
dream of attempting it; otherwise the will would not be wanting. The
evil which you anticipate is already perceptible in its effects. Well
would it be if men were as moderate in their desire of wealth, as those
who enter the ranks of literature, and lay claim to distinction there,
are in their desire of knowledge! A slender capital suffices to begin
with, upon the strength of which they claim credit, and obtain it as
readily as their fellow adventurers in trade. If they succeed in setting
up a present reputation, their ambition extends no further. The very
vanity which finds its present food produces in them a practical contempt
for any fame beyond what they can live to enjoy; and this sense of its
insignificance to themselves is what better minds hardly attain, even in
their saddest wisdom, till this world darkens upon them, and they feel
that they are on the confines of eternity. But every age has had its
sciolists, and will continue to have them; and in every age literature
has also had, and will continue to have its sincere and devoted
followers, few in number, but enough to trim the everlasting lamp. It is
when sciolists meddle with State affairs that they become the pests of a
nation; and this evil, for the reason which you have assigned, is more
likely to increase than to be diminished. In your days all extant
history lay within compassable bounds: it is a fearful thing to consider
now what length of time would be required to make studious man as
conversant with the history of Europe since those days, as he ought to
be, if he would be properly qualified for holding a place in the councils
of a kingdom. Men who take the course of public life will not, nor can
they be expected to, wait for this. Youth and ardour, and ambition and
impatience, are here in accord with worldly prudence; if they would reach
the goal for which they start, they must begin the career betimes; and
such among them as may be conscious that their stock of knowledge is less
than it ought to be for such a profession, would not hesitate on that
account to take an active part in public affairs, because they have a
more comfortable consciousness that they are quite as well informed as
the contemporaries, with whom they shall have to act, or to contend. The
_quantulum_ at which Oxenstern admired would be a large allowance now.
For any such person to suspect himself of deficiency would, in this age
of pretension, be a hopeful symptom; but should he endeavour to supply
it, he is like a mail-coach traveller, who is to be conveyed over
macadamised roads at the rate of nine miles an hour, including stoppages,
and must therefore take at his minuted meals whatever food is readiest.
He must get information for immediate use, and with the smallest cost of
time; and therefore it is sought in abstracts and epitomes, which afford
meagre food to the intellect, though they take away the uneasy sense of
inanition. _Tout abrege sur un bon livre est un sot abrege_, says
Montaigne; and of all abridgments there are none by which a reader is
liable, and so likely, to be deceived as by epitomised histories.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Call to mind, I pray you, my foliophagous friend,
what was the extent of Michael Montaigne's library; and that if you had
passed a winter in his chateau you must, with that appetite of yours,
have but yourself upon short allowance there. Historical knowledge is
not the first thing needful for a statesman, nor the second. And yet do
not hastily conclude that I am about to disparage its importance. A
sailor might as well put to sea without chart or compass as a minister
venture to steer the ship of the State without it. For as "the strong
and strange varieties" in human nature are repeated in every age, so "the
thing which hath been, it is that which shall be. Is there anything
whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old
time which was before us."
_Montesinos_.--
"For things forepast are precedents to us,
Whereby we may things present now, discuss,"
as the old poet said who brought together a tragical collection of
precedents in the mirror of magistrates. This is what Lord Brooke calls
"the second light of government
Which stories yield, and no time can disseason:"
"the common standard of man's reason," he holds to be the first light
which the founders of a new state, or the governors of an old one, ought
to follow.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Rightly, for though the most sagacious author that
ever deduced maxims of policy from the experience of former ages has said
that the misgovernment of States, and the evils consequent thereon, have
arisen more from the neglect of that experience--that is, from historical
ignorance--than from any other cause, the sum and substance of historical
knowledge for practical purposes consists in certain general principles;
and he who understands those principles, and has a due sense of their
importance, has always, in the darkest circumstances, a star in sight by
which he may direct his course surely.
_Montesinos_.--The British ministers who began and conducted the first
war against revolutionary France, were once reminded, in a memorable
speech, that if they had known, or knowing had borne in mind, three
maxims of Machiavelli, they would not have committed the errors which
cost this country so dearly. They would not have relied upon bringing
the war to a successful end by aid of a party among the French: they
would not have confided in the reports of emigrants; and they would not
have supposed that because the French finances were in confusion, France
was therefore incapable of carrying on war with vigour and ability; men
and not money being the sinews of war, as Machiavelli had taught, and the
revolutionary rulers and Buonaparte after them had learnt. Each of these
errors they committed, though all were marked upon the chart!
_Sir Thomas More_.--Such maxims are like beacons on a dangerous shore,
not the less necessary, because the seaman may sometimes be deceived by
false lights, and sometimes mistaken in his distances; but the
possibility of being so misled will be borne in mind by the cautious.
Machiavelli is always sagacious, but the tree of knowledge of which he
had gathered grew not in Paradise; it had a bitter root, and the fruit
savours thereof, even to deadliness. He believed men to be so malignant
by nature that they always act malevolently from choice, and never well
except by compulsion, a devilish doctrine, to be accounted for rather
than excused by the circumstances of his age and country. For he lived
in a land where intellect was highly cultivated, and morals thoroughly
corrupted, the Papal Church having by its doctrines, its practices, and
its example, made one part of the Italians heathenism and superstitious,
the other impious, and both wicked.
The rule of policy as well as of private morals is to be found in the
Gospel; and a religious sense of duty towards God and man is the first
thing needful in a statesman: herein he has an unerring guide when
knowledge fails him, and experience affords no light. This, with a clear
head and a single heart, will carry him through all difficulties; and the
just confidence which, having these, he will then have in himself, will
obtain for him the confidence of the nation. In every nation, indeed,
which is conscious of its strength, the minister who takes the highest
tone will invariably be the most popular; let him uphold, even haughtily,
the character of his country, and the heart and voice of the people will
be with him. But haughtiness implies always something that is hollow:
the tone of a wise minister will be firm but calm. He will neither
truckle to his enemies in the vain hope of conciliating them by a
specious candour, which they at the same time flatter and despise; nor
will he stand aloof from his friends, lest he should be accused of
regarding them with partiality; and thus while he secures the attachment
of the one he will command the respect of the other. He will not, like
the Lacedemonians, think any measures honourable which accord with his
inclinations, and just if they promote his views; but in all cases he
will do that which is lawful and right, holding this for a certain truth,
that in politics the straight path is the sure one! Such a minister will
hope for the best, and expect the best; by acting openly, steadily, and
bravely, he will act always for the best: and so acting, be the issue
what it may, he will never dishonour himself or his country, nor fall
under the "sharp judgment" of which they that are in "high places" are in
danger.
_Montesinos_.--I am pleased to hear you include hopefulness among the
needful qualifications.
_Sir Thomas More_.--It was a Jewish maxim that the spirit of prophecy
rests only upon eminent, happy, and cheerful men.
_Montesinos_.--A wise woman, by which I do not mean in vulgar parlance
one who pretends to prophecy, has a maxim to the same effect: _Toma este
aviso_, she says, _guardate de aquel que no tiene esperanza de bien_!
take care of him who hath no hope of good!
_Sir Thomas More_.--"Of whole heart cometh hope," says old Piers Plowman.
And these maxims are warranted by philosophy, divine and human; by human
wisdom, because he who hopes little will attempt little--fear is "a
betrayal of the succours which reason offereth," and in difficult times,
_pericula magna non nisi periculis depelli solent_; by religion, because
the ways of providence are not so changed under the dispensation of Grace
from what they were under the old law but that he who means well, and
acts well, and is not wanting to himself, may rightfully look for a
blessing upon the course which he pursues. The upright individual may
rest his heal in peace upon this hope; the upright minister who conducts
the affairs of a nation may trust in it; for as national sins bring after
them in sure consequence their merited punishment, so national virtue,
which is national wisdom, obtains in like manner its temporal and visible
reward.
Blessings and curses are before you, and which are to be your portion
depends upon the direction of public opinion. The march of intellect is
proceeding at quick time; and if its progress be not accompanied by a
corresponding improvement in morals and religion, the faster it proceeds,
with the more violence will you be hurried down the road to ruin.
One of the first effects of printing was to make proud men look upon
learning as disgraced by being thus brought within reach of the common
people. Till that time learning, such as it was, had been confined to
courts and convents, the low birth of the clergy being overlooked because
they were privileged by their order. But when laymen in humble life were
enabled to procure books the pride of aristocracy took an absurd course,
insomuch that at one time it was deemed derogatory for a nobleman if he
could read or write. Even scholars themselves complained that the
reputation of learning, and the respect due to it, and its rewards were
lowered when it was thrown open to all men; and it was seriously proposed
to prohibit the printing of any book that could be afforded for sale
below the price of three _soldi_. This base and invidious feeling was
perhaps never so directly avowed in other countries as in Italy, the land
where literature was first restored; and yet in this more liberal island
ignorance was for some generations considered to be a mark of
distinction, by which a man of gentle birth chose, not unfrequently, to
make it apparent that he was no more obliged to live by the toil of his
brain, than by the sweat of his brow. The same changes in society which
rendered it no longer possible for this class of men to pass their lives
in idleness have completely put an end to this barbarous pride. It is as
obsolete as the fashion of long finger-nails, which in some parts of the
East are still the distinctive mark of those who labour not with their
hands. All classes are now brought within the reach of your current
literature, that literature which, like a moral atmosphere, is as it were
the medium of intellectual life, and on the quality of which, according
as it may be salubrious or noxious, the health of the public mind
depends. There is, if not a general desire for knowledge, a general
appearance of such a desire. Authors of all kinds have increased and are
increasing among you. Romancers--
_Montesinos_.--Some of whom attempt things which had hitherto been
unattempted yet in prose or rhyme, because among all the extravagant
intellects with which the world has teemed none were ever before so
utterly extravagant as to choose for themselves themes of such revolting
monstrosity.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Poets--
_Montesinos_.--
"Tanti Rome non ha preti, o dottori
_Bologna_."
_Sir Thomas More_.--Critics--
_Montesinos_.--More numerous yet; for this is a corps in which many who
are destined for better things engage, till they are ashamed of the
service; and a much greater number who endeavour to distinguish
themselves in higher walks of literature, and fail, take shelter in it;
as they cannot attain reputation themselves they endeavour to prevent
others from being more successful, and find in the gratification of envy
some recompense for disappointed vanity.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Philosophers--
_Montesinos_.--True and false; the philosophers and the philosophists;
some of the former so full, that it would require, as the rabbis say of a
certain pedigree in the Book of Chronicles, four hundred camel loads of
commentaries to expound the difficulties in their text; others so empty,
that nothing can approximate so nearly to the notion of an infinitesimal
quantity as their meaning.
_Sir Thomas More_.--With this multiplication of books, which in its
proportionate increase marvellously exceeds that of your growing
population, are you a wiser, a more intellectual, or more imaginative
people than when, as in my days, the man of learning, while he sat at his
desk, had his whole library within arm's-length?
_Montesinos_.--If we are not wiser, it must be because the means of
knowledge, which are now both abundant and accessible, are either
neglected or misused.
The sciences are not here to be considered: in these our progress has
been so great, that seeing the moral and religious improvement of the
nation has in no degree kept pace with it, you have reasonably questioned
whether we have not advanced in certain branches, farther and faster than
is conducive to, or perhaps consistent with, the general good. But there
can be no question that great advancement has been made in many
departments of literature conducive to innocent recreation (which would
be alone no trifling good, even were it not, as it is, itself conducive
to health both of body and of mind), to sound knowledge, and to moral and
political improvement. There are now few portions of the habitable earth
which have not been explored, and with a zeal and perseverance which had
slept from the first age of maritime discovery till it was revived under
George III. in consequence of this revival, and the awakened spirit of
curiosity and enterprise, every year adds to our ample store of books
relating to the manners of other nations, and the condition of men in
states and stages of society different to our own. And of such books we
cannot have too many; the idlest reader may find amusement in them of a
more satisfactory kind than he can gather from the novel of the day or
the criticism of the day; and there are few among them so entirely
worthless that the most studious man may not derive from them some
information for which he ought to be thankful. Some memorable instances
we have had in this generation of the absurdities and errors, sometimes
affecting seriously the public service and the national character, which
have arisen from the want of such knowledge as by means of such books is
now generally diffused. Skates and warming-pans will not again be sent
out as ventures to Brazil. The Board of Admiralty will never again
attempt to ruin an enemy's port by sinking a stone-ship, to the great
amusement of that enemy, in a tide harbour. Nor will a cabinet minister
think it sufficient excuse for himself and his colleagues, to confess
that they were no better informed than other people, and had everything
to learn concerning the interior of a country into which they had sent an
army.
_Sir Thomas More_.--This is but a prospective benefit; and of a humble
kind, if it extend no further than to save you from any future exposure
of an ignorance which might deserve to be called disgraceful. We
profited more by our knowledge of other countries in the age when
"Hops and turkeys, carp and beer,
Came into England all in one year."
_Montesinos_.--And yet in that age you profited slowly by the commodities
which the eastern and western parts of the world afforded. Gold, pearls,
and spices were your first imports. For the honour of science and of
humanity, medicinal plants were soon sought for. But two centuries
elapsed before tea and potatoes--the most valuable products of the East
and West--which have contributed far more to the general good than all
their spices and gems and precious metals--came into common use; nor have
they yet been generally adopted on the Continent, while tobacco found its
way to Europe a hundred years earlier; and its filthy abuse, though here
happily less than in former times, prevails everywhere.
_Sir Thomas More_.--_Pro pudor_! There is a snuff-box on the
mantelpiece--and thou revilest tobacco!
_Montesinos_.--Distinguish, I pray you, gentle ghost! I condemn the
abuse of tobacco as filthy, implying in those words that it has its
allowable and proper use. To smoke, is, in certain circumstances, a
wholesome practice; it may be regarded with a moral complacency as the
poor man's luxury, and with liking by any one who follows a lighted pipe
in the open air. But whatever may be pleaded for its soothing and
intellectualising effects, the odour within doors of a defunct pipe is
such an abomination, that I join in anathematising it with James, the
best-natured of kings, and Joshua Sylvester, the most voluble of poets.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Thou hast written verses praise of snuff!
_Montesinos_.--And if thy nose, sir Spirit, were anything more than the
ghost of an olfactor, I would offer it a propitiatory pinch, that you
might the more feelingly understand the merit of the said verses, and
admire them accordingly. But I am no more to be deemed a snuff-taker
because I carry a snuff-box when travelling, and keep one at hand for
occasional use, than I am to be reckoned a casuist or a pupil of the
Jesuits because the "Moral Philosophy" of Escobar and the "Spiritual
Exercises" of St. Ignatius Loyola are on my shelves. Thank Heaven, I
bear about with me no habits which I cannot lay aside as easily as my
clothes.
The age is past in which travellers could add much to the improvement,
the comfort, or the embellishment of this country by imparting anything
which they have newly observed in foreign parts. We have happily more to
communicate now than to receive. Yet when I tell you that since the
commencement of the present century there have been every year, upon an
average, more than a hundred and fifty plants which were previously
unknown here introduced into the nurseries and market-gardens about
London, you will acknowledge that in this branch at least, a constant
desire is shown of enriching ourselves with the produce of other hands.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Philosophers of old travelled to observe the manners
of men and study their institutions. I know not whether they found more
pleasure in the study, or derived more advantages from it, than the
adventurers reap who, in these latter times, have crossed the seas and
exposed themselves to dangers of every kind, for the purpose of extending
the catalogue of plants.
_Montesinos_.--Of all travels, those of the mere botanist are the least
instructive--
_Sir Thomas More_.--To any but botanists--but for them alone they are
written. Do not depreciate any pursuit which leads men to contemplate
the works of their Creator! The Linnean traveller who, when you look
over the pages of his journal, seems to you a mere botanist, has in his
pursuit, as you have in yours, an object that occupies his time, and
fills his mind, and satisfies his heart. It is as innocent as yours, and
as disinterested--perhaps more so, because it is not so ambitious. Nor
is the pleasure which he partakes in investigating the structure of a
plant less pure, or less worthy, than what you derive from perusing the
noblest productions of human genius. You look at me as if you thought
this reprehension were undeserved!
_Montesinos_.--The eye, then, Sir Thomas, is proditorious, and I will not
gainsay its honest testimony: yet would I rather endeavour to profit by
the reprehension than seek to show that it was uncalled for. If I know
myself I am never prone to undervalue either the advantages or
acquirements which I do not possess. That knowledge is said to be of all
others the most difficult; whether it be the most useful the Greeks
themselves differ, for if one of their wise men left the words [Greek
text] as his maxim to posterity, a poet, who perhaps may have been not
less deserving of the title, has controverted it, and told us that for
the uses of the world it is more advantageous for us to understand the
character of others than to know ourselves.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Here lies the truth; he who best understands himself
is least likely to be deceived in others; you judge of others by
yourselves, and therefore measure them by an erroneous standard whenever
your autometry is false. This is one reason why the empty critic is
usually contumelious and flippant, the competent one as generally
equitable and humane.
_Montesinos_.--This justice I would render to the Linnean school, that it
produced our first devoted travellers; the race to which they succeeded
employed themselves chiefly in visiting museums and cataloguing pictures,
and now and then copying inscriptions; even in their books notices are
found for which they who follow them may be thankful; and facts are
sometimes, as if by accident, preserved, for useful application. They
went abroad to accomplish or to amuse themselves--to improve their time,
or to get rid of it; the botanists travelled for the sake of their
favourite science, and many of them, in the prime of life, fell victims
to their ardour in the unwholesome climates to which they were led.
Latterly we have seen this ardour united with the highest genius, the
most comprehensive knowledge, and the rarest qualities of perseverance,
prudence, and enduring patience. This generation will not leave behind
it two names more entitled to the admiration of after ages than
Burckhardt and Humboldt. The former purchased this pre-eminence at the
cost of his life; the latter lives, and long may he live to enjoy it.
_Sir Thomas More_.--This very important branch of literature can scarcely
be said to have existed in my time; the press was then too much occupied
in preserving such precious remains of antiquity as could be rescued from
destruction, and in matters which inflamed the minds of men, as indeed
they concerned their dearest and most momentous interests. Moreover
reviving literature took the natural course of imitation, and the
ancients had left nothing in this kind to be imitated. Nothing therefore
appeared in it, except the first inestimable relations of the discoveries
in the East and West, and these belong rather to the department of
history. As travels we had only the chance notices which occurred in the
Latin correspondence of learned men when their letters found their way to
the public.
_Montesinos_.--Precious remains these are, but all too few. The first
travellers whose journals or memoirs have been preserved were
ambassadors; then came the adventurer of whom you speak; and it is
remarkable that two centuries afterwards we should find men of the same
stamp among the buccaneers, who recorded in like manner with faithful
dilligence whatever they had opportunity of observing in their wild and
nefarious course of life.
_Sir Thomas More_.--You may deduce from thence two conclusions,
apparently contrarient, yet both warranted by the fact which you have
noticed. It may be presumed that men who, while engaged in such an
occupation, could thus meritoriously employ their leisure, were rather
compelled by disastrous circumstances to such a course than engaged in it
by inclination: that it was their misfortune rather than their fault if
they were not the benefactors and ornaments of society, instead of being
its outlaws; and that under a wise and parental government such persons
never would be lost. This is a charitable consideration, nor will I
attempt to impugn it; the other may seem less so, but is of more
practical importance. For these examples are proof, if proof were
needed, that intellectual attainments and habits are no security for good
conduct unless they are supported by religious principles; without
religion the highest endowments of intellect can only render the
possessor more dangerous if he be ill disposed, if well disposed only
more unhappy.
The conquerors, as they called themselves, were followed by missionaries.
_Montesinos_.--Our knowledge of the remoter parts of the world, during
the first part of the seventeenth century, must chiefly be obtained from
their recitals. And there is no difficulty in separating what may be
believed from their fables, because their falsehoods being systematically
devised and circulated in pursuance of what they regarded as part of
their professional duty, they told truth when they had no motive for
deceiving the reader. Let any person compare the relations of our
Protestant missionaries with those of the Jesuits, Dominicans,
Franciscans, or any other Romish order, and the difference which he
cannot fail to perceive between the plain truth of the one and the
audacious and elaborate mendacity of the other may lead him to a just
inference concerning the two churches.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Their fables were designed, by exciting admiration,
to call forth money for the support of missions, which, notwithstanding
such false pretences, were piously undertaken and heroically pursued.
They scrupled therefore as little at interlarding their chronicles and
annual letters with such miracles, as poets at the use of machinery in
their verses. Think not that I am excusing them; but thus it was that
they justified their system of imposition to themselves, and this part of
it must not be condemned as if it proceeded from an evil intention.
_Montesinos_.--Yet, Sir Thomas, the best of those missionaries are not
more to be admired for their exemplary virtue, and pitied for the
superstition which debased their faith, than others of their respective
orders are to be abominated for the deliberate wickedness with which, in
pursuance of the same system, they imposed the most blasphemous and
atrocious legends upon the credulous, and persecuted with fire and sword
those who opposed their deceitful villainy. One reason wherefore so few
travels were written in the age of which we are speaking is, that no
Englishman, unless he were a Papist, could venture into Italy, or any
other country where the Romish religion was established in full power,
without the danger of being seized by the Inquisition!
Other dangers, by sea and by land, from corsairs and banditti, including
too the chances of war and of pestilence, were so great in that age, that
it was not unusual for men when they set out upon their travels to put
out a sum upon their own lives, which if they died upon the journey was
to be the underwriter's gain, but to be repaid if they returned, within
such increase as might cover their intervening expenses. The chances
against them seem to have been considered as nearly three to one. But
danger, within a certain degree, is more likely to provoke adventurers
than to deter them.
_Sir Thomas More_.--There thou hast uttered a comprehensive truth. No
legislator has yet so graduated his scale of punishment as to ascertain
that degree which shall neither encourage hope nor excite the audacity of
desperate guilt. It is certain that there are states of mind in which
the consciousness that he is about to play for life or death stimulates a
gamester to the throw. This will apply to most of those crimes which are
committed for cupidity, and not attended with violence.
_Montesinos_.--Well then may these hazards have acted as incentives where
there was the desire of honour, the spirit of generous enterprise, or
even the love of notoriety. By the first of these motives Pietro della
Valle (the most romantic in his adventures of all true travellers) was
led abroad, the latter spring set in motion my comical countryman, Tom
Coriat, who by the engraver's help has represented himself at one time in
full dress, making a leg to a courtesan at Venice, and at another
dropping from his rags the all-too lively proofs of prolific poverty.
Perhaps literature has never been so directly benefited by the spirit of
trade as it was in the seventeenth century, when European jewellers found
their most liberal customers in the courts of the East. Some of the best
travels which we possess, as well as the best materials for Persian and
Indian history, have been left us by persons engaged in that trade. From
that time travelling became less dangerous and more frequent in every
generation, except during the late years when Englishmen were excluded
from the Continent by the military tyrant whom (with God's blessing on a
rightful cause) we have beaten from his imperial throne. And now it is
more customary for females in the middle rank of life to visit Italy than
it was for them in your days to move twenty miles from home.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Is this a salutary or an injurious fashion?
_Montesinos_.--According to the subject, and to the old school maxim
_quicquid recipitur_, _recipitur in modum recipientis_. The wise come
back wiser, the well-informed with richer stores of knowledge, the empty
and the vain return as they went, and there are some who bring home
foreign vanities and vices in addition to their own.
_Sir Thomas More_.--And what has been imported by such travellers for the
good of their country?
_Montesinos_.--Coffee in the seventeenth century, inoculation in that
which followed; since which we have had now and then a new dance and a
new game at cards, curry and mullagatawny soup from the East Indies,
turtle from the West, and that earthly nectar to which the East
contributes its arrack, and the West its limes and its rum. In the
language of men it is called Punch; I know not what may be its name in
the Olympian speech. But tell not the Englishmen of George the Second's
age, lest they should be troubled for the degeneracy of their
grandchildren, that the punchbowl is now become a relic of antiquity, and
their beloved beverage almost as obsolete as metheglin, hippocras, chary,
or morat!
_Sir Thomas More_.--It is well for thee that thou art not a young beagle
instead of a grey-headed bookman, or that rambling vein of thine would
often bring thee under the lash of the whipper-in! Off thou art and away
in pursuit of the smallest game that rises before thee.
_Montesinos_.--Good Ghost, there was once a wise Lord Chancellor, who in
a dialogue upon weighty matters thought it not unbecoming to amuse
himself with discursive merriment concerning St. Appollonia and St.
Uncumber.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Good Flesh and Blood, that was a nipping reply! And
happy man is his dole who retains in grave years, and even to grey hairs,
enough of green youth's redundant spirits for such excursiveness! He who
never relaxes into sportiveness is a wearisome companion, but beware of
him who jests at everything! Such men disparage by some ludicrous
association all objects which are presented to their thoughts, and
thereby render themselves incapable of any emotion which can either
elevate or soften them, they bring upon their moral being an influence
more withering than the blast of the desert. A countenance, if it be
wrinkled either with smiles or with frowns, is to be shunned; the furrows
which the latter leave show that the soil is sour, those of the former
are symptomatic of a hollow heart.
None of your travellers have reached Utopia, and brought from thence a
fuller account of its institutions?
_Montesinos_.--There was one, methinks, who must have had it in view when
he walked over the world to discover the source of moral motion. He was
afflicted with a tympany of mind produced by metaphysics, which was at
that time a common complaint, though attended in him with unusual
symptoms, but his heart was healthy and strong, and might in former ages
have enabled him to acquire a distinguished place among the saints of the
Thebais or the philosophers of Greece.
But although we have now no travellers employed in seeking undiscoverable
countries, and although Eldorado, the city of the Cesares, and the
Sabbatical River, are expunged even from the maps of credulity and
imagination, Welshmen have gone in search of Madoc's descendants, and
scarcely a year passes without adding to the melancholy list of those who
have perished in exploring the interior of Africa.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Whenever there shall exist a civilised and Christian
negro state Providence will open that country to civilisation and
Christianity, meantime to risk strength and enterprise and science
against climate is contending against the course of nature. Have these
travellers yet obtained for you the secret of the Psylli?
_Montesinos_.--We have learnt from savages the mode of preparing their
deadliest poisons. The more useful knowledge by which they render the
human body proof against the most venomous serpents has not been sought
with equal diligence; there are, however, scattered notices which may
perhaps afford some clue to the discovery. The writings of travellers
are not more rich in materials for the poet and the historian than they
are in useful notices, deposited there like seeds which lie deep in the
earth till some chance brings them within reach of air, and then they
germinate. These are fields in which something may always be found by
the gleaner, and therefore those general collections in which the works
are curtailed would be to be reprobated, even if epitomisers did not seem
to possess a certain instinct of generic doltishness which leads them
curiously to omit whatever ought especially to be preserved.
_Sir Thomas More_.--If ever there come a time, Montesinos, when
beneficence shall be as intelligent, and wisdom as active, as the spirit
of trade, you will then draw from foreign countries other things beside
those which now pay duties at the custom-house, or are cultivated in
nurseries for the conservatories of the wealthy. Not that I regard with
dissatisfaction these latter importations of luxury, however far they may
be brought, or at whatever cost; for of all mere pleasures those of a
garden are the most salutary, and approach nearest to a moral enjoyment.
But you will then (should that time come) seek and find in the laws,
usages and experience of other nations palliatives for some of those
evils and diseases which have hitherto been inseparable from society and
human nature, and remedies, perhaps, for others.
_Montesinos_.--Happy the travellers who shall be found instrumental to
such good! One advantage belongs to authors of this description; because
they contribute to the instruction of the learned, their reputation
suffers no diminution by the course of time: age rather enhances their
value. In this respect they resemble historians, to whom, indeed, their
labours are in a great degree subsidiary.
_Sir Thomas More_.--They have an advantage over them, my friend, in this,
that rarely can they leave evil works behind them, which either from a
mischievous persuasion, or a malignant purpose, may heap condemnation
upon their own souls as long as such works survive them. Even if they
should manifest pernicious opinions and a wicked will, the venom is in a
great degree sheathed by the vehicle in which it is administered. And
this is something; for let me tell thee, thou consumer of goose quills,
that of all the Devil's laboratories there is none in which more poison
is concocted for mankind than in the inkstand!
_Montesinos_.--"My withers are unwrung!"
_Sir Thomas More_.--Be thankful, therefore, in life, as thou wilt in
death.
A principle of compensation may be observed in literary pursuits as in
other things. Reputations that never flame continue to glimmer for
centuries after those which blaze highest have gone out. And what is of
more moment, the humblest occupations are morally the safest.
Rhadamanthus never puts on his black cap to pronounce sentence upon a
dictionary-maker or the compiler of a county history.
_Montesinos_. I am to understand, then, that in the archangel's balance
a little book may sink the scale toward the pit; while all the tomes of
Thomas Hearne and good old John Nichols will be weighed among their good
works!
_Sir Thomas More_.--Sport as thou wilt in allusions to allegory and
fable; but bear always in thy most serious mind this truth, that men hold
under an awful responsibility the talents with which they are entrusted.
Kings have not so serious an account to render as they who exercise an
intellectual influence over the minds of men!
_Montesinos_.--If evil works, so long as they continue to produce evil,
heap up condemnation upon the authors, it is well for some of the
wickedest writers that their works do not survive them.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Such men, my friend, even by the most perishable of
their wicked works, lay up sufficient condemnation for themselves. The
maxim that _malitia supplet aetatem_ is rightfully admitted in human
laws: should there not then, by parity of justice, be cases where, when
the secrets of the heart are seen, the intention shall be regarded rather
than the act?
The greatest portion of your literature, at any given time, is ephemeral;
indeed, it has ever been so since the discovery of printing; and this
portion it is which is most influential, consequently that by which most
good or mischief is done.
_Montesinos_.--Ephemeral it truly may be called; it is now looked for by
the public as regularly as their food; and, like food, it affects the
recipient surely and permanently, even when its effect is slow, according
as it is wholesome or noxious. But how great is the difference between
the current literature of this and of any former time!
_Sir Thomas More_.--From that complacent tone it may be presumed that you
see in it proof both of moral and intellectual improvement. Montesinos,
I must disturb that comfortable opinion, and call upon you to examine how
much of this refinement which passes for improvement is superficial. True
it is that controversy is carried on with more decency than it was by
Martin Lutherand a certain Lord Chancellor, to whom you just now alluded;
but if more courtesy is to be found in polemical writers, who are less
sincere than either the one or the other, there is as much acerbity of
feeling and as much bitterness of heart. You have a class of miscreants
which had no existence in those days--the panders of the press, who live
by administering to the vilest passions of the people, and encouraging
their most dangerous errors, practising upon their ignorance, and
inculcating whatever is most pernicious in principle and most dangerous
to society. This is their golden age; for though such men would in any
age have taken to some villainy or other, never could they have found a
course at once so gainful and so safe. Long impunity has taught them to
despise the laws which they defy, and the institutions which they are
labouring to subvert; any further responsibility enters not into their
creed, if that may be called a creed, in which all the articles are
negative. I? we turn from politics to what should be humaner literature,
and look at the self-constituted censors of whatever has passed the
press, there also we shall find that they who are the most incompetent
assume the most authority, and that the public favour such pretensions;
for in quackery of every kind, whether medical, political, critical, or
hypocritical, _quo quis impudentior eo doctior habetur_.
_Montesinos_.--The pleasure which men take in acting maliciously is
properly called by Barrow a _rascally_ delight. But this is no new form
of malice. "_Avant nous_," says the sagacious but iron-hearted
Montluc--"_avant nous ces envies ont regne_, _et regneront encore apres
nous_, _si Dieu ne nous voulait tous refondre_." Its worst effect is
that which Ben Jonson remarked: "The gentle reader," says he, "rests
happy to hear the worthiest works misrepresented, the clearest actions
obscured, the innocentest life traduced; and in such a licence of lying,
a field so fruitful of slanders, how can there be matter wanting to his
laughter? Hence comes the epidemical infection: for how can they escape
the contagion of the writings whom the virulency of the calumnies hath
not staved off from reading?"
There is another mischief, arising out of ephemeral literature, which was
noticed by the same great author. "Wheresoever manners and fashions are
corrupted," says he, "language is. It imitates the public riot. The
excess of feasts and apparel are the notes of a sick state; and the
wantonness of language of a sick mind." This was the observation of a
man well versed in the history of the ancients and in their literature.
The evil prevailed in his time to a considerable degree; but it was not
permanent, because it proceeded rather from the affectation of a few
individuals than from any general cause: the great poets were free from
it; and our prose writers then, and till the end of that century, were
preserved, by their sound studies and logical habits of mind, from any of
those faults into which men fall who write loosely because they think
loosely. The pedantry of one class and the colloquial vulgarity of
another had their day; the faults of each were strongly contrasted, and
better writers kept the mean between them. More lasting effect was
produced by translators, who in later times have corrupted our idiom as
much as, in early ones, they enriched our vocabulary; and to this injury
the Scotch have greatly contributed; for composing in a language which is
not their mother tongue, they necessarily acquired an artificial and
formal style, which, not so much through the merit of a few as owing to
the perseverance of others, who for half a century seated themselves on
the bench of criticism, has almost superseded the vernacular English of
Addison and Swift. Our journals, indeed, have been the great corrupters
of our style, and continue to be so, and not for this reason only. Men
who write in newspapers, and magazines, and reviews, write for present
effect; in most cases this is as much their natural and proper aim as it
would be in public speaking; but when it is so they consider, like public
speakers, not so much what is accurate or just, either in matter or
manner, as what will be acceptable to those whom they address. Writing
also under the excitement of emulation and rivalry, they seek, by all the
artifices and efforts of an ambitious style, to dazzle their readers; and
they are wise in their generation, experience having shown that common
minds are taken by glittering faults, both in prose and verse, as larks
are with looking-glasses.
In this school it is that most writers are now trained; and after such
training anything like an easy and natural movement is as little to be
looked for in their compositions as in the step of a dancing master. To
the vices of style which are thus generated there must be added the
inaccuracies inevitably arising from haste, when a certain quantity of
matter is to be supplied for a daily or weekly publication which allows
of no delay--the slovenliness that confidence, as well as fatigue and
inattention, will produce--and the barbarisms, which are the effect of
ignorance, or that smattering of knowledge which serves only to render
ignorance presumptuous. These are the causes of corruption in our
current style; and when these are considered there would be ground for
apprehending that the best writings of the last century might become as
obsolete as yours in the like process of time, if we had not in our
Liturgy and our Bible a standard from which it will not be possible
wholly to depart.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Will the Liturgy and the Bible keep the language at
that standard in the colonies, where little or no use is made of the one,
and not much, it may be feared, of the other?
_Montesinos_.--A sort of hybrid speech, a _Lingua Anglica_, more debased,
perhaps, than the _Lingua Franca_ of the Levant, or the Portuguese of
Malabar, is likely enough to grow up among the South Sea Islands; like
the mixture of Spanish with some of the native languages in South
America, or the mingle-mangle which the negroes have made with French and
English, and probably with other European tongues in the colonies of
their respective states. The spirit of mercantile adventure may produce
in this part of the new world a process analogous to what took place
throughout Europe on the breaking up of the Western Empire; and in the
next millennium these derivatives may become so many cultivated tongues,
having each its literature. These will be like varieties in a flower-
garden, which the florist raises from seed; but in the colonies, as in
our orchards, the graft takes with it, and will preserve, the true
characteristics of the stock.
_Sir Thomas More_.--But the same causes of deterioration will be at work
there also.
_Montesinos_.--Not nearly in the same degree, nor to an equal extent. Now
and then a word with the American impress comes over to us which has not
been struck in the mint of analogy. But the Americans are more likely to
be infected by the corruption of our written language than we are to have
it debased by any importations of this kind from them.
_Sir Thomas More_.--There is a more important consideration belonging to
this subject. The cause which you have noticed as the principal one of
this corruption must have a farther and more mischievous effect. For it
is not in the vices of an ambitious style that these ephemeral writers,
who live upon the breath of popular applause, will rest. Great and
lasting reputations, both in ancient and modern times, have been raised
notwithstanding that defect, when the ambition from which it proceeded
was of a worthy kind, and was sustained by great powers and adequate
acquirements. But this ambition, which looks beyond the morrow, has no
place in the writers of a day. Present effect is their end and aim; and
too many of them, especially the ablest, who have wanted only moral worth
to make them capable of better things, are persons who can "desire no
other mercy from after ages than silence and oblivion." Even with the
better part of the public that author will always obtain the most
favourable reception, who keeps most upon a level with them in
intellectuals, and puts them to the least trouble of thinking. He who
addresses himself with the whole endeavours of a powerful mind to the
understanding faculty may find fit readers; but they will be few. He who
labours for posterity in the fields of research, must look to posterity
for his reward. Nay, even they whose business is with the feelings and
the fancy, catch most fish when they angle in shallow waters. Is it not
so, Piscator?
_Montesinos_.--In such honest anglers, Sir Thomas, I should look for as
many virtues, as good old happy Izaak Walton found in his brethren of the
rod and line. Nor will you, I think, disparage them; for you were of the
Rhymers' Company, and at a time when things appear to us in their true
colours and proportion (if ever while we are yet in the body), you
remembered your verses with more satisfaction than your controversial
writings, even though you had no misgivings concerning the part which you
had chosen.
_Sir Thomas More_.--My verses, friend, had none of the _athanasia_ in
their composition. Though they have not yet perished, they cannot be
said to have a living existence; even you, I suspect, have sought for
them rather because of our personal acquaintance than for any other
motive. Had I been only a poet, those poems, such as they were, would
have preserved my name; but being remembered for other grounds, better
and worse, the name which I have left has been one cause why they have
passed into oblivion, sooner than their perishable nature would have
carried them thither. If in the latter part of my mortal existence I had
misgivings concerning any of my writings, they were of the single one,
which is still a living work, and which will continue so to be. I feared
that speculative opinions, which had been intended for the possible but
remote benefit of mankind, might, by unhappy circumstances, be rendered
instrumental to great and immediate evil; an apprehension, however, which
was altogether free from self-reproach.
But my verses will continue to exist in their mummy state, long after the
worms shall have consumed many of those poetical reputations which are at
this time in the cherry-cheeked bloom of health and youth. Old poets
will always retain their value for antiquaries and philologists, modern
ones are far too numerous ever to acquire an accidental usefulness of
this kind, even if the language were to undergo greater changes than any
circumstances are likely to produce. There will now be more poets in
every generation than in that which preceded it; they will increase
faster than your population; and as their number increases, so must the
proportion of those who will be remembered necessarily diminish. Tell
the Fitz-Muses this! It is a consideration, Sir Poet, which may serve as
a refrigerant for their ardour. Those of the tribe who may flourish
hereafter (as the flourishing phrase is) in any particular age, will be
little more remembered in the next than the Lord Mayors and Sheriffs who
were their contemporaries.
_Montesinos_.--Father in verse, if you had not put off flesh and blood so
long, you would not imagine that this consideration will diminish their
number. I am sure it would not have affected me forty years ago, had I
seen this truth then as clearly as I perceive and feel it now. Though it
were manifest to all men that not one poet in an age, in a century, a
millennium, could establish his claim to be for ever known, every
aspirant would persuade himself that he is the happy person for whom the
inheritance of fame is reserved. And when the dream of immortality is
dispersed, motives enough remain for reasonable ambition.
It is related of some good man (I forget who), that upon his death-bed he
recommended his son to employ himself in cultivating a garden, and in
composing verses, thinking these to be at once the happiest and the most
harmless of all pursuits. Poetry may be, and too often has been,
wickedly perverted to evil purposes; what indeed is there that may not,
when religion itself is not safe from such abuses! but the good which it
does inestimably exceeds the evil. It is no trifling good to provide
means of innocent and intellectual enjoyment for so many thousands in a
state like ours; an enjoyment, heightened, as in every instance it is
within some little circle, by personal considerations, raising it to a
degree which may deserve to be called happiness. It is no trifling good
to win the ear of children with verses which foster in them the seeds of
humanity and tenderness and piety, awaken their fancy, and exercise
pleasurably and wholesomely their imaginative and meditative powers. It
is no trifling benefit to provide a ready mirror for the young, in which
they may see their own best feelings reflected, and wherein "whatsoever
things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are
pure, whatsoever things are lovely," are presented to them in the most
attractive form. It is no trifling benefit to send abroad strains which
may assist in preparing the heart for its trials, and in supporting it
under them. But there is a greater good than this, a farther benefit.
Although it is in verse that the most consummate skill in composition is
to be looked for, and all the artifice of language displayed, yet it is
in verse only that we throw off the yoke of the world, and are as it were
privileged to utter our deepest and holiest feelings. Poetry in this
respect may be called the salt of the earth; we express in it, and
receive in it, sentiments for which, were it not for this permitted
medium, the usages of the world would neither allow utterance nor
acceptance. And who can tell in our heart-chilling and heart-hardening
society, how much more selfish, how much more debased, how much worse we
should have been, in all moral and intellectual respects, had it not been
for the unnoticed and unsuspected influence of this preservative? Even
much of that poetry, which is in its composition worthless, or absolutely
bad, contributes to this good.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Such poetry, then, according to your view, is to be
regarded with indulgence.
_Montesinos_.--Thank Heaven, Sir Thomas, I am no farther critical than
every author must necessarily be who makes a careful study of his own
art. To understand the principles of criticism is one thing; to be what
is called critical, is another; the first is like being versed in
jurisprudence, the other like being litigious. Even those poets who
contribute to the mere amusement of their readers, while that amusement
is harmless, are to be regarded with complacency, if not respect. They
are the butterflies of literature, who during the short season of their
summer, enliven the garden and the field. It were pity to touch them
even with a tender hand, lest we should brush the down from their wings.
_Sir Thomas More_.--These are they of whom I spake as angling in shallow
waters. You will not regard with the same complacency those who trouble
the stream; still less those who poison it.
_Montesinos_.--
"_Vesanum tetigisse timent_, _fugiuntque poetam_
_Qui sapiunt_; _agitant pueri_, _incautique sequuntur_."
_Sir Thomas More_.--This brings us again to the point at which you
bolted. The desire of producing present effect, the craving for
immediate reputation, have led to another vice, analogous to and
connected with that of the vicious style, which the same causes are
producing, but of worse consequences. The corruption extends from the
manner to the matter; and they who brew for the press, like some of those
who brew for the publicans, care not, if the potion has but its desired
strength, how deleterious may be the ingredients which they use. Horrors
at which the innocent heart quails, and the healthy stomachs heaves in
loathing, are among the least hurtful of their stimulants.
_Montesinos_.--This too, Sir Thomas, is no new evil. An appetite for
horrors is one of the diseased cravings of the human mind; and in old
times the tragedies which most abounded in them, were for that reason the
most popular. The dramatists of our best age, great Ben and greater
Shakespeare excepted, were guilty of a farther sin, with which the
writers whom you censure are also to be reproached; they excited their
auditors by the representation of monstrous crimes--crimes out of the
course of nature. Such fables might lawfully be brought upon the Grecian
stage, because the belief of the people divested them of their odious and
dangerous character; there they were well known stories, regarded with a
religious persuasion of their truth; and the personages, being
represented as under the overruling influence of dreadful destiny, were
regarded therefore with solemn commiseration, not as voluntary and guilty
agents. There is nothing of this to palliate or excuse the production of
such stories in later times; the choice, and, in a still greater degree,
the invention of any such, implies in the author, not merely a want of
judgment, but a defect in moral feeling. Here, however, the dramatists
of that age stopped. They desired to excite in their audience the
pleasure of horror, and this was an abuse of the poet's art: but they
never aimed at disturbing their moral perceptions, at presenting
wickedness in an attractive form, exciting sympathy with guilt, and
admiration for villainy, thereby confounding the distinctions between
right and wrong. This has been done in our days; and it has accorded so
well with the tendency of other things, that the moral drift of a book is
no longer regarded, and the severest censure which can be passed upon it
is to say that it is in bad taste; such is the phrase--and the phrase is
not confined to books alone. Anything may be written, said, or done, in
bad feeling and with a wicked intent; and the public are so tolerant of
these, that he who should express a displeasure on that score would be
censured for bad taste himself!
_Sir Thomas More_.--And yet you talked of the improvement of the age, and
of the current literature as exceeding in worth that of any former time
_Montesinos_.--The portion of it which shall reach to future times will
justify me; for we have living minds who have done their duty to their
own age and to posterity.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Has the age in return done its duty to them?
_Montesinos_.--They complain not of the age, but they complain of an
anomalous injustice in the laws. They complain that authors are deprived
of a perpetual property in the produce of their own labours, when all
other persons enjoy it as an indefeasible and acknowledged right. And
they ask upon what principle, with what equity, or under what pretence of
public good they are subjected to this injurious enactment? Is it
because their labour is so light, the endowments which are required for
it so common, the attainments so cheaply and easily acquired, and the
present remuneration in all cases so adequate, so ample, and so certain?
The act whereby authors are deprived of that property in their own works
which, upon every principle of reason, natural justice, and common law,
they ought to enjoy, is so curiously injurious in its operation, that it
bears with most hardship upon the best works. For books of great
immediate popularity have their run and come to a dead stop: the hardship
is upon those which win their way slowly and difficultly, but keep the
field at last. And it will not appear surprising that this should
generally have been the case with books of the highest merit, if we
consider what obstacles to the success of a work may be opposed by the
circumstances and obscurity of the author, when he presents himself as a
candidate for fame, by the humour or the fashion of the times; the taste
of the public, more likely to be erroneous than right at any time; and
the incompetence, or personal malevolence of some unprincipled critic,
who may take upon himself to guide the public opinion, and who if he
feels in his own heart that the fame of the man whom he hates is
invulnerable, lays in wait for that reason the more vigilantly to wound
him in his fortunes. In such cases, when the copyright as by the
existing law departs from the author's family at his death, or at the end
of twenty-eight years from the first publication of every work, (if he
dies before the expiration of that term,) his representatives are
deprived of their property just as it would begin to prove a valuable
inheritance.
The last descendants of Milton died in poverty. The descendants of
Shakespeare are living in poverty, and in the lowest condition of life.
Is this just to these individuals? Is it grateful to the memory of those
who are the pride and boast of their country? Is it honourable, or
becoming to us as a nation, holding--the better part of us assuredly, and
the majority affecting to hold--the names of Shakespeare and Milton in
veneration?
To have placed the descendants of Shakespeare and Milton in
respectability and comfort--in that sphere of life where, with a full
provision for our natural wants and social enjoyments, free scope is
given to the growth of our intellectual and immortal part, simple justice
was all that was required, only that they should have possessed the
perpetual copyright of their ancestors' works, only that they should not
have been deprived of their proper inheritance.
The decision which time pronounces upon the reputation of authors, and
upon the permanent rank which they are to hold in the estimation of
posterity, is unerring and final. Restore to them that perpetuity in the
property of their works, of which the law has deprived them, and the
reward of literary labour will ultimately be in just proportion to its
deserts.
However slight may be the hope of obtaining any speedy redress, there is
some satisfaction in earnestly protesting against this injustice. And
believing as I do, that if society continues to improve, no injustice
will long be permitted to continue after it has been fairly exposed, and
is clearly apprehended, I cannot but believe that a time must come when
the rights of literature will be acknowledged and its wrongs redressed;
and that those authors hereafter who shall deserve well of posterity,
will have no cause to reproach themselves for having sacrificed the
interests of their children when they disregarded the pursuit of fortune
for themselves.