“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would
smell as sweet.”—_Shakspeare._
Shakspeare was mistaken. There is a great deal—there is almost every
thing in names. Their influence is felt at all times, and under all
circumstances. In war and peace—in morals, literature and religion—in
the world of fashion—and above all, in politics, the despotism of
names is all powerful, universal and irresistible. Nay, Shakspeare
himself is authority against Shakspeare. Does he not make the gentle
Juliet say to her lover, “'Tis but thy _name_ that is my enemy”—that
fatal name which separated two devoted hearts—which planted thick
sorrows in their path, and finally shrouded them in one common
sepulchre! Does he not put into the mouth of one of Antony's captains,
“I'll humbly signify what in his _name_, that _magical word of war_,
we have effected.” And again, speaking of the great Pompey, “his
_name_ strikes more than could his war resisted.” Names indeed govern
the world; and it is not among the least ingenious of all human
contrivances that the world should be so governed. I do not wish to
speak of the moral guilt and future accountability of those who
combine to delude the ignorant—who chain mens' minds to some false
idol, or enlist them in some scheme of abomination, whose iniquities
are artfully veiled under the names of virtue, patriotism, and the
like. If the denunciations of the eloquent Hebrew prophet against
those who call evil good, and good evil—who put darkness for light,
and light for darkness—who call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter—are not
sufficient to alarm such delinquents, it would avail nothing for
uninspired tongues and pens to attempt their conviction and reform.
In _literature_, how remarkable and how injurious is the influence of
names, apart from any actual or intrinsic merit. How common is it to
estimate an opinion or sentiment, not by the wisdom of the one or the
purity of the other, but by the authority of him who pronounces {550}
it. A false, immoral, or stupid passage in a book, which bears on its
title-page the name of a popular writer, is often received with favor,
when precisely the same offence in an unknown author would be almost
certain to bring down upon him the lash of criticism. Take for example
one of England's most renowned bards—one, not more known even in his
own country than on this side of the Atlantic—whose “Melodies” are
lisped by our amorous youths and sentimental maidens, and whose name
has become a “household word”—a passport to every festival where
music, love and wine are the sources of enjoyment. Among his “National
Airs” so called, Mr. Moore has written the following lines, which have
no doubt been admired by every pretty miss in the country, as the very
perfection of poetry, sentiment, and even good sense.
Flow on, thou shining river,
But, ere thou reach the sea,
Seek Ella's bower, and give her
The wreaths I fling o'er thee.
And tell her thus, if she'll be mine,
The current of our lives shall be,
With joys along their course to shine,
Like those sweet flowers on thee.
But if, in wandering thither,
Thou find'st she mocks my prayer,
Then leave those wreaths to wither
Upon the cold bank there.
And tell her thus, when youth is o'er,
Her lone and loveless charms shall be
Thrown by upon life's weedy shore,
Like those sweet flowers from thee.
Now the plain English prose of all this, when divested of the magic of
Mr. Moore's numbers, is something like the following. “Take, gentle
river, these pretty flowers which I fling upon thy surface, and before
thou reachest the great ocean, be pleased to flow into the bower of my
fair Ella; and if it be not miracle enough, good river, for thee to
rush into a lady's bower, without either drowning her or wetting her
garments, be pleased to perform another wonderful feat and _speak to
her_—tell her if she will only marry me, our joys whilst we are
floating down life's current, shall resemble these wreaths which are
borne upon thy bosom. But mark me, river!—if this insensible girl is
resolved that she will not accept a good offer, why then roar like
another cataract, toss these worthless wreaths on the shore to wither
and rot, and tell this cruel Ella that she will live and die an ugly,
neglected old maid.”
Now, whilst it is fully conceded that the figure of _personification_
is perfectly legitimate, especially in poetry; yet there are certain
degrees of it which should never be attempted, unless connected with
subjects of great dignity, or which inspire powerful emotion—and it
must not be forgotten that the excellence of poetry does not consist
so much in the form or arrangement of its words as in the value and
beauty of the thoughts and sentiments which it expresses. A gentle
zephyr stealing into a lady's bower and lulling her into repose, or
whispering in her ear the sighs of an absent lover, is natural and
agreeable enough; but a river, or even rivulet, turning from its
course and performing the same office, is a conception which would be
very ridiculous in any other than a _popular_ poet. It would be
tedious to point out other examples of similar extravagance in Moore,
and one only shall suffice—a song which has occasioned abundant
fluttering in female hearts, and which for impious hyperbole was never
excelled:
Why does azure deck the sky,
But to be like thine eyes of blue?
Why is red the rose's dye?
Because it is thy blush's hue, &c. &c.
In which said song the poet very calmly shows that all that is bright,
and fair, and sweet in creation, was made purposely to resemble some
young lady of his acquaintance. And yet all these trifles and
absurdities, to say nothing of the frequent obscene allusions of the
same author, have acquired an extensive popularity under the influence
of a popular _name_.
It would be no difficult task to extend these remarks so as to embrace
a long list of distinguished writers, both in prose and verse, who
have perpetrated various offences against sound morals as well as good
sense, but with whom the lustre of reputation, like the mantle of
charity, has not only shielded them from censure, but imparted a kind
of dignity and splendor to their failings. Enough perhaps has been
said to illustrate the influence of names in the empire of literature.
How is it in the empire of the church? But here I tread upon sacred
ground, and must use both brevity and caution. That truth exists in
religious doctrine as well as in other things, will not be denied,
except by unthinking scepticism or perverted reason. The difficulty
has always been in finding her out—in distinguishing her sacred
vestments and celestial carriage from the skilful imitations of
imposture. The diamond may be known, by the tests of experiment, from
the gems which mimic its lustre; but there is no moral chemistry which
can separate truth from error, and resolve each into its proper
elements. In fact, it seems to be one of the fallacies which have
obtained currency among mankind, that truth and error are natural
antagonists. So far from it, they are scarcely ever to be found in a
state of disunion or repulsion. Error winds itself around the stately
column of truth, as the creeper folds in its poisonous embrace the
sturdy oak of the forest. Not that they are not in themselves
essentially different—but so are the gasses which are found in
combination in the water we drink, or in the atmosphere we breathe.
What tremendous influence has been wielded by the simple word
_church_, from the very first ages of christianity down to the present
time! That name alone has covered a multitude of sins, and sanctified
innumerable crimes. What torrents of blood have been shed under the
crimson banner of _orthodoxy_, and how many meek and conscientious
_heretics_ have fled from the tender embraces of that holy and
infallible mother, who has assumed the supreme government of the soul
in this world, as well as the direction of its immortal destiny
hereafter. But I only dwell upon this subject in order to show how
much we are deceived by empty, unmeaning names. That there is such a
treasure as “pure and undefiled religion,” none but the hardened
infidel or remorseless libertine will deny. That it is always
necessarily found under the priestly robe, or connected with the
“sober brow,” neither candor nor charity itself will contend for—and
yet, some how or other, the world has identified the sacred gift with
a certain sanctimonious exterior, and with certain peculiar
ceremonials, and there are few, perhaps, who reflect that it may be
more frequently traced in the abodes {551} of humility and
wretchedness, in the sighs of a contrite heart, and in the tears of
penitential guilt.
But how is it in the world of _fashion_? What is fashion? Many
attempts have been made to define what in truth is undefinable. It is
an empty _name_—a mere shadow, and yet is of substance sufficient to
be felt and seen and understood almost every where. A popular English
novelist, writing of his own country, says—“The middle classes
interest themselves in grave matters: the aggregate of their
sentiments is called OPINION. The great interest themselves in
frivolities, and the aggregate of _their_ sentiments is termed
FASHION. The first is the moral representative of the popular mind—the
last of the aristocratic.” But this definition is unsatisfactory.
Fashion executes its decrees with as much energy and effect upon those
who are excluded from its mystic circle, as upon them who reside
within its pale; upon the popular mind as well as the aristocratic.
Its frivolities bewilder and dazzle the multitude who abjure them, as
well as the chosen few with whom they originate. Imagine this
mysterious agent, or whatever it may be called, personified, and
endowed with the majesty and power of a queen,—and what are her
attributes? A fickle, inconstant, inscrutable and unscrupulous
being—selecting her subjects from every rank and condition, and with
every diversity in morals and intellect—yet investing them with an
uniform and exclusive badge of distinction; exacting from her
followers the most unbounded homage, and repaying them often with the
sacrifice of peace, health, fortune, self-respect and virtue;
instilling into those who throng around her throne the poison of
impure and corrupting pleasures, and in those who are banished to the
outer courts, awakening the worst passions of envy, discontent and
hatred, added to a debasing sense of inferiority. Fortune is not more
capricious in dispensing her favors than this empress of smiles and
frowns. By her command, dullness is transformed into wit, and
deformity into grace. The withered maiden of forty is arrayed in the
matchless charms of blooming seventeen, and the notorious libertine
becomes transmuted into the fascinating and agreeable companion. If a
despot of bodily shape and form, were to cause his power and caprice
to be felt in all the minute concerns and occupations of society; if
he were to ordain laws regulating the dress—furniture—social
intercourse and amusements of his subjects, and in so doing should
levy an oppressive tax upon their fortunes, time and comforts—the
spirit of freedom would circulate like the electric fluid from one end
of the community to the other; the tyrant would be resisted with
fearless and determined perseverance. And yet doth fashion issue her
imperial decrees equally as despotic and calamitous in their effects,
without other aid than the influence and magic of her name—whilst her
subjects, so far from opposing resistance, render an implicit and
delighted obedience to her mandates. And what is this inexorable
arbitress at last but a _name_? What is this capricious and mysterious
intermeddler in human affairs but a vain shadow? a creature of
imagination only, and yet as powerful as Cæsar and Napoleon in all
their glory! Shakspeare was wrong; there is much—there is every thing
in _names_.
In that great concern of human society—the structure and action of the
_political machine_, how does the matter stand? Are the governed
portion of mankind—I mean a majority of them—influenced by things or
names? The recorded experience of past ages, and our own particular
observation, will answer the question. The master spirits who have
ruled mankind with success, have studied the genius of the people with
whom they lived. National glory was at one time, if it be not now, the
passion of the French, and Napoleon well knew how to avail himself of
a moral lever of such tremendous force. Administering to that all
devouring and never satiated appetite, he found it an easy task to
wade through tears and blood to the goal of his ambition. Preceding
the period of his meteor-like and almost miraculous career, the French
nation had been intoxicated by seraphic dreams of liberty and
equality. Awakening from a long and gloomy night of slavery, they
became suddenly bewitched by the doctrines of a new philosophy, (to
them at least new,) which proclaimed the sovereignty of the people—and
it was long before the horrors of Revolution could dispel the
enchantment. The leaders in that dark and bloody episode of human
history, retained their ascendancy so long as the names of _liberty_
and _equality_ could be skilfully employed for their purposes. An
_appeal to the people_, or a compliment to their sovereign power,
wisdom and virtue, was the daily prologue to those scenes of human
butchery, which posterity will regard as incredible fictions. “Oh
liberty!” said the beautiful Madame Roland, as she bowed her neck to
the guillotine—“what crimes are committed in thy _name_!”
Are we free in our day from these disastrous influences? Have names no
fatal magic with us—sufficiently fatal to unloose the bands of
society—to subvert institutions, long cherished and venerated, and
finally to dissolve the fairest fabric which ever realized the visions
of hope, or the speculations of philosophy? Alas! have we not studied
human nature enough to know, that _all_ men are not honest and
patriotic, and that some are sufficiently selfish, cunning, cruel and
ambitious to work out their own designs, and accomplish their own evil
desires, although calamity should overspread society, and millions go
supperless to bed? Are there not hundreds of demagogues who are
willing to flatter and wheedle and delude the people into final
enslavement, if in the whirlwinds of their own creation they can ride
into power and office? With what calm and shameless effrontery do such
men constantly exert before our eyes a controlling power over the yet
doubtful destinies of this infant republic! To fulfil the purposes of
ambition, the vilest appeals are made to the lowest and basest
passions of the multitude. The _pride of democracy_ is a never failing
chord to be skilfully touched, when some wicked design or atrocious
mischief is meditated. The popular good—the welfare of the dear
people—is the favorite string played upon by worn out political hacks
and corrupt aspirants to office. Does a well tried and virtuous
patriot stand in the way, and refuse his sanction to the bold
assaults, or disguised and no less dangerous encroachments of power?
He is instantly denounced as an odious and insidious _aristocrat_, and
is forthwith delivered over to the tender mercies of the faithful—the
great _democratic republican family_—the self-styled conservators of
the only true and genuine principles of liberty—whose peculiar
province it is to keep the republic pure, by a patriotic monopoly of
all its {552} offices and honors. It would indeed be perfectly
amusing, if it were not at the same time a subject of sad
contemplation, to hear the terms _aristocratic_ and _democratic_, in
the party contests of the day—familiarly applied to things and persons
having no one quality—to justify such idle distinctions. The man for
example who is “clothed in purple and fine linen, and fares
sumptuously every day”—who drives his splendid equipage with liveried
servants, who “lies down in luxury and rises in sloth”—that man is a
member, or if you choose, the leader of the plain republican
party—whilst the humble homespun pedestrian, who walks by the wheels
of the other's chariot—whose bread is earned by the sweat of his brow,
but who is sufficiently independent to think for himself—is denounced
as an _aristocrat_, or what is worse, a _Federalist_ of the genuine
stamp—and is thought unworthy of all communion with the faithful, or
at least of all participation in equal political benefits. _Epithets_
are the powerful weapons with which bad and ambitions men have in all
countries finally succeeded in overturning all that was valuable and
good—all that was wise and beneficent; and unless the people of these
States shall in time become sufficiently enlightened, to distinguish
the _qualities_ of things from their _names_, we shall assuredly ere
long add another to that gloomy procession of republics, WHICH HAVE
VANISHED FOREVER FROM THE EARTH.