_ COLLOQUY VI. THE LIBRARY
I was in my library, making room upon the shelves for some books which had just arrived from New England, removing to a less conspicuous station others which were of less value and in worse dress, when Sir Thomas entered. You are employed, said he, to your heart's content. Why, Montesinos, with these books, and the delight you take in their constant society, what have you to covet or desire?
_Montesinos_.--Nothing, except more books.
_Sir Thomas More_.--
"Crescit, indulgens sibi, dirus hydrops." _Montesinos_.--Nay, nay, my ghostly monitor, this at least is no diseased desire. If I covet more, it is for the want I feel and the use which I should make of them. "Libraries," says my good old friend George Dyer, a man as learned as he is benevolent, "libraries are the wardrobes of literature, whence men, properly informed, might bring forth something for ornament, much for curiosity, and more for use." These books of mine, as you well know, are not drawn up here for display, however much the pride of the eye may be gratified in beholding them, they are on actual service. Whenever they may be dispersed, there is not one among them that will ever be more comfortably lodged, or more highly prized by its possessor; and generations may pass away before some of them will again find a reader. It is well that we do not moralise too much upon such subjects.
"For foresight is a melancholy gift,
Which bares the bald, and speeds the all-too-swift."
H. T.
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. _