Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66 No.406, August 1849», sayfa 16

 
"England, with all thy faults, I love Thee still."
 

There Cowper speaks to both at once – the faults are of the men only – moral – for he does not mean fogs, and March east winds, and fever and agues. I love thee – is to the green fields and the white cliffs, as well as to all that still survives of the English heart and thought and character. And this absorption, sir, and compenetration of the two ideas – land into people, people into land – the exposition of which might, in good hands, be made beautiful – is a fruitful germ of Patriotism – an infinite blending of the spiritual and the corporeal. To Virgil, Rome the City was also Rome the Romans; and, therefore, sir, those Houses and Palaces, and that Wall, were to him, as those green fields, and hills, and streams, and towns, and those cliffs are to Us. The girdled-in compendium of the Heaven's Favour and the Earth's Glory and Power.

 
"Scilicet et Rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,
Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces."
 

Do you all comprehend and adopt my explanation, gentlemen?

TALBOYS.

I do.

BULLER.

I – do.

SEWARD.

I ask myself whether Virgil's "Rerum Pulcherrima" may not mean "Fairest of Things" – of Creatures – of earthly existences? To a young English reader, probably that is the first impression. It was, I think, mine. But fairest of earthly States and Seats of State is so much more idiomatic and to the purpose, that I conceive it – indubitable.

NORTH.

You all remember what Horatio sayeth to the soldiers in Hamlet, on the coming and going of the Ghost.

 
'In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell;
Disasters veiled the sun, and the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to Doomsday with eclipse.'
 

What does Horatio mean by high and palmy state? That Rome was in a flourishing condition?

BULLER.

That, I believe, sir, is the common impression. Hitherto it has been mine.

NORTH.

Let it be erased henceforth and for ever.

BULLER.

It is erased – I erase it.

NORTH.

Read henceforth and for ever high and palmy State. Write henceforth and for ever State with a towering Capital. Res! "Most high and palmy State" is precisely and literally "Rerum Pulcherrima."

SEWARD.

At your bidding – you cannot err.

NORTH.

I err not unfrequently – but not now, nor I believe this evening. Horatio, the Scholar, speaks to the two Danish Soldiers. They have brought him to be of their watch because he is a Scholar – and they are none. This relation of distinction is indeed the ground and life of the Scene.

 
"Therefore I have entreated him, along
With us to watch the minutes of the night;
That if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes, and speak to it."
 

TALBOYS.

 
"Thou art a Scholar – speak to it, Horatio."
 

NORTH.

You know, Talboys, that Scholars were actual Conjurors, in the mediæval belief, which has tales enow about Scholars in that capacity. Horatio comes, then, possessed with an especial Power; he knows how to deal with Ghosts – he could lay one, if need were. He is not merely a man of superior and cultivated intellect, whom intellectual inferiors engage to assist them in an emergency above their grasp – but he is the very man for the work.

TALBOYS.

Have not the Commentators said as much, sir?

NORTH.

Perhaps – probably – who? If they have in plenitude, I say it again – because I once did not know it – or think of it – and I suppose that a great many persons die believing that the Two resort in the way of general dependence merely on Horatio.

TALBOYS.

I believed, but I shall not die believing so.

NORTH.

Therefore, the scholarship of Horatio, and the non-scholarship of Bernardo and Marcellus, strikes into the life, soul, essence, ground, foundation, fabric, and organisation of this First Ghost Scene – sustain and build the whole Play.

TALBOYS.

Eh?

NORTH.

Eh? Yes. But to the point in hand. The Ghost has come and gone; and the Scholar addresses his Mates the two Non-Scholars. And show me the living Scholar who could speak as Horatio spake. Touching the matter that is in all their minds oppressively, he will transport their minds a flight suddenly off a thousand years, and a thousand miles or leagues – their untutored minds into the Region of History. He will take them to Rome – "a little ere" – and, therefore, before naming Rome, he lifts and he directs their imagination – "In the most high and palmy State." There had been Four Great Empires of the World – and he will by these few words evoke in their minds the Image of the last and greatest. And now observe with what decision, as well as with what majesty, the nomination ensues – of Rome.

TALBOYS.

I feel it, sir.

NORTH.

Try, Talboys, to render "State" by any other word, and you will be put to it. You may analogise. It is for the Republic and City, what Realm or Kingdom is to us – at once Place and indwelling Power. "State" – properly Republic – here specifically and pointedly means Reigning City. The Ghosts walked in the City – not in the Republic.

TALBOYS.

I think I have you, sir – am not sure.

NORTH.

You have me – you are sure. Now suppose that, instead of the solemn, ceremonious, and stately robes in which Horatio attires the Glorious Rome, he had said simply, "in Rome," or "at Rome," where then his ψυχαγωγια – his leading of their spirits? Where his own scholar-enthusiasm, and love, and joy, and wonder? All gone! And where, Talboys, are they who, by here understanding "state" for "condition" – which every man alive does —

TALBOYS.

Every man alive?

NORTH.

Yes, you did – confess you did. Where are they, I ask, who thus oblige Horatio to introduce his nomination of Rome – thus nakedly – and prosaically? Every hackneyer of this phrase —state– as every man alive hackneys it – is a nine-fold Murderer. He murders the Phrase – he murders the Speech – he murders Horatio – he murders the Ghost – he murders the Scene – he murders the Play – he murders Rome – he murders Shakspeare – and he murders Me.

TALBOYS.

I am innocent.

NORTH.

Why, suppose Horatio to mean – "in the most glorious and victorious condition of Rome, on the Eve of Cæsar's death, the graves stood tenantless" – You ask – Where? See where you have got. A story told with two determinations of Time, and none of Place! Is that the way that Shakspeare, the intelligent and intelligible, recites a fact? No. But my explanation shows the Congruity or Parallelism. "In the most high and palmy State," – that is, City of Rome – ceremonious determination of Place – "a little ere the mightiest Julius fell," – ceremonious determination of Time.

TALBOYS.

But is not the use of State, sir, for City, bold and singular?

NORTH.

It is. For Verse has her own Speech – though Wordsworth denies it in his Preface – and proves it by his Poetry, like his brethren Shakspeare and Milton. The language of Verse is rapid – abrept and abrupt. Horatio wants the notion of Republic; because properly the Republic is high and palmy, and not the wood, stone, and marble. So he manages an expeditious word that shall include both, and strike you at once. The word of a Poet strikes like a flash of lightning – it penetrates – it does not stay to be scanned – "probed, vexed, and criticised," – it illuminates and is gone. But you must have eyes – and suffer nobody to shut them. I ask, then – Can any lawful, well-behaved Citizen, having weighed all this, and reviewed all these things, again violate the Poesy of the Avonian Swan, and his own muse-enlightened intelligence, by lending hand or tongue to the convicted and condemned Vulgarism?

TALBOYS.

Now, then, and not till now, we Three know the full power of the lines —

 
"Scilicet et Rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,
Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces."
 

NORTH.

Another word anent Virgil. Mr Alison says – "There is a still more surprising instance of this fault in one of the most pathetic passages of the whole Poem, in the description of the disease among the cattle, which concludes the Third Georgic. The passage is as follows: —

 
"Ecce autem duro fumans sub vomere Taurus
Concidit, et mixtum spumis vomit ore cruorem
Extremosque ciet gemitus; it tristis arator,
Mœrentem abjungens fraternâ morte juvencum,
Atque opere in medio defixa relinquit aratra."
 

The unhappy image in the second line is less calculated to excite compassion than disgust, and is singularly ill-suited to the tone of tenderness and delicacy which the Poet has everywhere else so successfully maintained, in describing the progress of the loathsome disease." The line here objected to is the life of the description – and instead of offence, it is the clenching of the pathos. First of all, it is that which the Poet always will have and the Critics wont – the Necessitated– the Thing itself – the Matter in hand. It shapes – features – characterises that particular Murrain. Leave it out – 'the one Ox drops dead in the furrow, and the Ploughman detaches the other.' It's a great pity, and very surprising – but that is NO PLAGUE. Suddenly he falls, and blood and foam gush mixed with his expiring breath. That is a plague. It has terror – affright – sensible horror – life vitiated, poisoned in its fountains. Vomit– a settled word, and one of the foremost, of the reversed, unnatural vital function. Besides, it is the true and proper word. Besides, it is vivid and picturesque, being the word of the Mouth. Effundit (which they would prefer) – (I do not mean it would stand in the verse) is general – might be from the ears. Vomit in itself says mouth. The poor mouth! whose function is to breathe, and to eat grass, and to caress – the visible organ of life – of vivification – and now of mortification. Taken from the dominion of the holy powers, and given up to the dark and nameless destroyer. "Vomit ore cruorem!" The verse moans and groans for him – it may have in it a death-rattle. How much more helpless and hopeless the real picture makes Arator's distress! Now, "it tristis" comes with effect.

SEWARD.

Yes, Virgil, as in duty bound to do, faced the Cattle Plague in all its horrors. Had he not, he would have been false to Pales, the Goddess of Shepherds – to Apollo, who fed the herds of Admetus. So did his Master, Lucretius – whom he emulated – equalled, but not surpassed, in execution of the dismal but inevitable work. The whole land groaned under the visitation – nor was it confined to Cattle – it seemed as if the brute creation were about to perish. But his tender heart, near the close, singled out, from the thousands, one yoke of Steers – in two lines and a half told the death of one – in two lines and a half told the sadness of its owner – and in as many lines more told, too, of the survivor sinking, because his brother "was not" – and in as many more a lament for the cruel sufferings of the harmless creature – lines which, Scaliger says, he would rather have written than have been honoured by the Lydian or the Persian king.

BULLER.

Perhaps you have said enough, Seward. It might have been better, perhaps, to have recited the whole passage.

NORTH.

Here is a sentence or two about Homer.

BULLER.

Then you are off. Oh! sir – why not for an hour imitate that Moon and those Stars? How silently they shine! But what care you for the heavenly luminaries? In the majestic beauty of the nocturnal heavens vain man will not hold his peace.

SEWARD.

Is that the murmur of the far-off sea?

NORTH.

It is – the tide, may be, is on its return – is at "Connal's raging Ferry" – from Loch Etive – yet this is not its hour – 'tis but the mysterious voice of Night.

BULLER.

Hush!

NORTH.

By moonlight and starlight, and to the voice of Night, I read these words from Mr Alison – "In the speech of Agamemnon to Idomeneus, in the Fourth Book of the Iliad, a circumstance is introduced altogether inconsistent both with the dignity of the speech, and the Majesty of Epic Poetry: —

 
'Divine Idomeneus! what thanks we owe
To worth like thine, what praise shall we bestow!
To Thee the foremost honours are decreed,
First in the fight, and every graceful deed.
For this, in banquets, when the generous bowls
Restore our blood, and raise the warriors' souls,
Though all the rest with stated rules be bound,
Unmixed, unmeasured, are thy goblets crowned.'"
 

SEWARD.

That is Pope. Do you remember Homer himself, sir?

NORTH.

I do.

 
Ιδομενεὑ, φερι μἑν σε θιω Δαναὡν ταχυφωλων,
ἡμἑν ἑνἱ πτολἑμω ἡδ' ἁλλοἱω ἑφι ἑργω,
ηδ' ἑν δαἱθ', ὁτε φερ τε γεροὑσιον αἱθοπα οἱνον
'Αργεἱων οἱ ἁριστοι ἑνἱ κρηθηρσι κἑρωνται.
εἱπερ γἁρ τ' ἁλλοι γε καρηκομὁωντες 'Αχαιοἱ
δαιτῥον φινωσιν, σὁν δἑ πλεἱον δἑπας αἱεἱ
ἑστηχ', ὡσπερ ἑμοἱ, πιἑειν, ὁτε θυμὁς ἁνὡγοι.
ἁλλ' ὁρσευ φολεμὁνδ', οἱος φαρος εὑχεο εἱναι.P/
I believe you will find that in general men praise more truly, that is
justly, deservedly, than they condemn. They praise from an impulse of love – that
is, from a capacity. Nature protects love more than hate. Their condemnation
is often mere incapacity – want of insight. Mr Alison had elegance
of apprehension – truth of taste – a fine sense of the beautiful – a sense of the
sublime. His instances for praise are always well – often newly chosen, from
an attraction felt in his own genial and noble breast. The true chord struck
then. But he was somewhat too dainty-schooled – school-nursed, and school-born.
A judge and critic of Poetry should have been caught wild, and tamed;
he should carry about him to the last some relish of the wood and the
wilderness, as if he were ever in some danger of breaking away, and relapsing
to them. He should know Poetry as a great power of the Universe – a sun – of
which the Song – whosesoever – only catches and fixes a few rays. How
different in thought was Epos to him and to Homer! Homer paints Manners – archaic,
simple manners. Everybody feels – everybody says this – Mr
Alison must have known it – and could have said it as well as the best —
SEWARD.
But the best often forget it. They seem to hold to this knowledge better
now, Mr North; and they do not make Homer answerable as a Poet, for the
facts of which he is the Historian – Why not rather accept than criticise?
NORTH.
I am sorry, Seward, for the Achæan Chiefs who had to drink δαιτρον – that is
all. I had hoped that they helped themselves.
SEWARD.
Perhaps, sir, the Stint was a custom of only the οινον γερουσιον – a ceremonious
Bowl – and if so, undoubtedly with religious institution. The Feast is not
honorary – only the Bowl: for anything that appears, Agamemnon, feasting his
Princes, might say, "Now, for the Bowl of Honour" – and Idomeneus alone
drinks. Or let the whole Feast be honorific, and the Bowl the sealing, and
crowning, and characterising solemnity. Now, the distinction of the Stint, and
the Full Bowl, selected for a signal of different honouring, has to me no
longer anything irksome. It is no longer a grudged and scanted cheer – but
lawful Assignment of Place.
TALBOYS.
The moment you take it for Ceremonial, sir, you don't know what profound
meaning may, or may not be in it. The phrase is very remarkable.
NORTH.
When the "Best of the Argives" mix in the Bowl "the honorific dark-glowing
wine," or the dark-glowing wine of honour – when ὁτε – quite a specific and
peculiar occasion, and confined to the wine – you would almost think that the
Chiefs themselves are the wine-mixers, and not the usual ministrants – which
would perhaps express the descent of an antique use from a time and manners
of still greater simplicity than those which Homer describes. Or take it
merely, that in great solemnities, high persons do the functions proper to
Servants. This we do know, that usually a servant, the Ταμιευς, or the
οινοχοος, does mix the Bowl. By the way, Talboys, I think you will be not a
little amused with old Chapman's translation of the passage.
TALBOYS.
A fiery old Chap was George.
NORTH.
It runs thus —
"O Idomen, I ever loved thyself past all the Greeks,
In war, or any work of peace, at table, everywhere;
For when the best of Greeks, besides, mix ever at our cheer
My good old ardent wine with small, and our inferior mates
Drink ever that mixt wine measured too, thou drink'st without those rates
Our old wine neat; and ever more thy bowl stands like to mine;
To drink still when and what thou wilt; then rouse that heart of thine;
And whatsoever heretofore thou hast assumed to be,
This day be greater."
 

TALBOYS.

Well done, Old Buck! This fervour and particularity are admirable. But, methinks, if I caught the words rightly, that George mistakes the meaning of γερουσων – honorary; he has γερων γεροντος, an old man, singing in his ears; but old for wine would be quite a different word.

NORTH.

And he makes Agamemnon commend Idomeneus for drinking generously and honestly, whilst the others are afraid of their cups – as Claudius, King of Denmark, might praise one of his strong-headed courtiers, and laugh at Polonius. Agamemnon does not say that Idomeneus' goblet was not mixed – was neat– rather we use to think that wine was always mixed – but whether "with small," as old Chapman says, or with water, I don't know – but I fancied water! But perhaps, Seward, the investigation of a Grecian Feast in heroic time, and in Attic, becomes an exigency. Chapman is at least determined – and wisely – to show that he is not afraid of the matter – that he saw nothing in it "altogether inconsistent with the dignity of the speech and the majesty of Epic Poetry."

SEWARD.

Dignity! Majesty! They stand, sir, in the whole together – in the Manners taken collectively by themselves throughout the entire Iliad – and then taken as a part of the total delineation. Apply our modern notions of dignity and majesty to the Homeric Poetry, and we shall get a shock in every other page.

NORTH.

The Homeric, heroic manners! Heyne has a Treatise or Excursus – as you know – on the ἁυταρκεια – I think he calls it – of the Homeric Heroes – their waiting on themselves, or their self-sufficiency – where I think that he collects the picture.

SEWARD.

I am ashamed to say I do not know it.

NORTH.

No matter. You see how this connects with the scheme of the Poem – in which, prevalent or conspicuous by the amplitude of the space which it occupies, is the individual prowess of heroes in field – conspicuous, too, by its moment in action. This is another and loftier mode of the ἁυταρκεια. The human bosom is a seat or fountain of power. Power goes forth, emanates in all directions, high and low, right and left. The Man is a terrestrial God. He takes counsel with his own heart, and he acts. "He conversed with his own magnanimous spirit" – or as Milton says of Abdiel meeting Satan – "And thus his own undaunted heart explored."

SEWARD.

Yes, Mr North, the Man is as a terrestrial God; but – with continual recognition by the Poet and his heroes – as under the celestial Gods. And I apprehend, sir, that this two-fold way of representing man, in himself and towards them, is that which first separates the Homeric from and above all other Poetry, is its proper element of grandeur, in which we never bathe without coming out aggrandised.

NORTH.

Seward, you instruct me by —

SEWARD.

Oh, no, sir! You instruct me —

NORTH.

We instruct each other. For this the heroes are all Demigods – that is, the son of a God, or Goddess, or the Descendant at a few Generations. Sarpedon is the Son of Jupiter, and his death by Patroclus is perhaps the passage of the whole Iliad that most specially and energetically, and most profoundly and pathetically, makes the Gods intimate to the life and being of men – presents the conduct of divinity and humanity with condescension there, and for elevation here. I do not mean that there is not more pomp of glorification about Achilles, for whom Jupiter comes from Olympus to Ida, and Vulcan forges arms – whose Mother-Goddess is Messenger to and from Jupiter, and into whose lips, when he is faint with toil and want of nourishment – abstaining in his passion of sorrow and vengeance – Minerva, descending, instils Nectar. But I doubt if there be anything so touching —under this relation– and so intimately aggrandising as that other whole place – the hesitation of Jupiter whether he shall violate Fate, in order to save his own flesh and blood from its decreed stroke – the consolatory device of Juno (in remonstrating and dissuading) that he shall send Apollo to call Death and Sleep – a God-Messenger to God-Ministers – to bear the dead body from the battle-field to his own land and kin for due obsequies. And, lastly, those drops of blood which fall from the sky to the earth, as if the heart-tears of the Sire of all the worlds and their inhabitants.

BULLER.

You are always great, sir, on Homer. But, pray, have you any intention of returning to the ἁυταρκεια?

NORTH.

Ha! Buller – do you speak? I have not wandered from it. But since you seem to think I have, think of Patroclus lighting a fire under a tripod with his own hands, to boil meat for Achilles' guests – of Achilles himself helping to lay the ransomed body of Hector on the car that was to take it away. This last is honorific and pathetic. Ministrations of all degrees for themselves, in their own affairs, characterise them all. From the least of these to Achilles fighting the River-God – which is an excess – all holds together – is of one meaning – and here, as everywhere, the least, and the familiar, and most homely, attests, vouches, makes evident, probable, and facile to credence, the highest, most uncouth, remote, and difficult otherwise of acceptation. Pitching the speculation lower, plenitude of the most robust, ardent, vigorous life overflows the Iliad – up from the animal to the divine – from the beautiful tall poplar by the river-side, which the wheelwright or wainwright fells. Eating, drinking, sleeping, thrusting through with spears, and hacking the live flesh off the bone – all go together and help one another – and make the "Majesty and Dignity" – or what not – of the Homeric Epos. But I see, Buller, that you are timing me– and I am ashamed to confess that I have exceeded the assigned limit. Gentlemen, I ask all your pardons.

BULLER.

Timing you – my dear sir! Look – 'tis only my snuff-box – your own gift – with your own haunted Head on the lid – inspired work of Laurence Macdonald.

NORTH.

Give it me – why there – there – by your own unhappy awkwardness – it has gone – gone – to the bottom of the deepest part of the Loch!

BULLER.

I don't care. It was my chronometer! The Box is safe.

NORTH.

And so is the Chronometer. Here it is – I was laughing at you – in my sleeve.

BULLER.

Another Herman Boaz! – Bless my eyes, there is Kilchurn! It must be – there is no other such huge Castle, surely, at the head of the Loch – and no other such mountains —

NORTH.

You promised solemnly, sir, not to say a single word about Loch Awe or its appurtenance, this Evening – so did every mother's son of us at your order – and t'was well – for we have seen them and felt them all – at times not the less profoundly – as the visionary pomp keeps all the while gliding slowly by – perpetual accompaniment of our discourse, not uninspired, perhaps, by the beauty or the grandeur, as our imagination was among the ideal creations of genius – with the far-off in place and in time – with generations and empires

 
"When dark oblivion swallows cities up,
And mighty States, characterless, are grated
To dusty nothing!"
 

SEWARD.

In the declining light I wonder your eyes can see to read print.

NORTH.

My eyes are at a loss with Small Pica – but veritable Pica I can master, yet, after sunset. Indeed, I am sharpest-sighted by twilight, like a cat or an owl.

BULLER.

Have you any more annotations on Alison?

NORTH.

Many. The flaws are few. I verily believe these are all. To elucidate his Truths – in Taste and in Morals – would require from us Four a far longer Dialogue. Alison's Essays should be reprinted in one Pocket Volume – wisdom and Goodness are in that family hereditary – the editing would be a Work of Love – and in Bohn's Standard Library they would confer benefit on thousands who now know but their name.

SEWARD.

My dear sir, last time we voyaged the Loch, you said a few words – perhaps you may remember it – about those philosophers – Alison – the "Man of Taste," as Thomas Campbell loved to call him – assuredly is not of the number – who have insisted on the natural Beauty of Virtue, and natural Deformity of Vice, and have appeared to place our capacity of distinguishing Right from Wrong chiefly, if not solely, on the sense of this Beauty and of this Deformity —

NORTH.

I remember saying, my dear Seward, that they have drawn their views too much from the consideration of the state of these feelings in men who had been long exercised in the pure speculative contemplation of moral Goodness and Truth, as well as in the calmness and purity of a tranquil, virtuous life. Was it so?

SEWARD.

It was.

NORTH.

In such minds, when all the calm faculties of the soul are wedded in happy union to the image of Virtue, there is, I have no doubt, that habitual feeling for which the term Beauty furnishes a natural and just expression. But I apprehend that this is not the true expression of that serious and solemn feeling which accompanies the understanding of the qualities of Moral Action in the minds of the generality of men. They who in the midst of their own unhappy perversions, are visited with knowledge of those immutable distinctions, and they who in the ordinary struggles and trials incident to our condition, maintain their conduct in unison with their strongly grounded principles and better aspirations, would seldom, I apprehend, employ this language for the description of feelings which can hardly be separated, from the ideas of an awful responsibility involving the happiness and misery of the accountable subjects of a moral order of Government.

SEWARD.

You think, sir, that to assign this perception of Beauty and Deformity, as the groundwork of our Moral Nature, is to rest on too slight a foundation that part of man's constitution which is first in importance to his welfare?

NORTH.

Assuredly, my dear friend, I do. Nay, I do not fear to say that the Emotion, which may properly be termed a Feeling of Beauty in Virtue, takes place at those times when the deepest affection of our souls towards Good and Evil acts less strongly, and when the Emotion we feel is derived more from Imagination – and —

SEWARD.

And may I venture to suggest, sir, that as Imagination, which is so strong a principle in our minds, will take its temper from any prevalent feelings, and even from any fixed and permanent habits of mind, so our Feeling of Beauty and Deformity shall be different to different men, either according to the predominant strength of natural principles, or according to their course of life?

NORTH.

Even so. And therefore this general disposition of Imagination to receive its character will apply, no doubt, where the prevailing feelings and habits are of a Moral cast; and hence in minds engaged in calm intellectual speculation, and maintaining their own moral nature rather in innocence and simplicity of life than in the midst of difficult and trying situations and in conflict with passions, there can be no doubt that the Imagination will give itself up to this general Moral Cast of Mind, and feel Beauty and Deformity vividly and uniformly in the contemplation of the moral quality of actions and moral states of character.

SEWARD.

But your words imply – do they not, sir? that such is the temper of their calmer minds, and not the emotion which is known when, from any great act of Virtue or Crime, which comes suddenly upon them, their Moral Spirit rises up in its native strength, to declare its own Affection and its own Judgment?

NORTH.

Just so. Besides, my excellent friend, if you consider well the feeling which takes possession of us, on contemplating some splendid act of heroic and self-devoting Virtue, we shall find that the sort of enthusiastic transport which may kindle towards him who has performed it, is not properly a moral transport at all; but it is a burst of love and admiration. Take out, then, from any such emotion, what Imagination, and Love, and Sympathy have supplied, and leave only what the Moral Spirit recognises of Moral Will in the act, and you will find that much of that dazzling and splendid Beauty which produced the transport of loving admiration is removed.

SEWARD.

And if so, sir, then must it be very important that we should not deceive ourselves, and rely upon the warmth of emotion we may feel towards generous and heroic actions as evidence of the force of the Moral Principle in our own breasts, which requires to be ascertained by a very different test —

NORTH.

Ay, Seward; and it is important also, that we should learn to acknowledge and to respect, in those who, without the capacity of such vivid feelings, are yet conscientiously faithful to the known Moral Law, the merit and dignity of their Moral Obedience. We must allow to Virtue, my dearest Seward, all that is her due – her countenance beautiful in its sweet serenity – her voice gentle and mild – her demeanour graceful – and a simple majesty in the flowing folds of her stainless raiment. So may we picture her to our imagination, and to our hearts. But we must beware of making such abstractions fantastic and visionary, lest we come at last to think of emotions of Virtue and Taste as one and the same – a fatal error indeed – and that would rob human life of much of its melancholy grandeur. The beauty of Virtue is but the smile on her celestial countenance – and may be admired – loved – by those who hold but little communion with her inner heart – and it may be overlooked by those who pay to her the most devout worship.

TALBOYS.

Methinks, sir, that the moral emotion with which we regard actions greatly right or greatly wrong, is no transport; it is an earnest, solemn feeling of a mind knowing there is no peace for living souls, except in their Moral Obedience, and therefore receiving a deep and grateful assurance of the peace of one soul more, in witnessing its adherence to its virtue; and the pain which is suffered from crime is much more allied to sorrow, in contemplating the wilful departure of a spirit from its only possible Good, than to those feelings of repugnance and hate which characterise the temper of our common human emotion towards crimes offering violence and outrage to humanity.