No More Learning

*****




ON THE ATHENIAN ORATORS. (August 1824. )

"To the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne. " --Milton.

The celebrity of the great classical writers is confined within no
limits, except those which separate civilised from savage man. Their
works are the common property of every polished nation. They have
furnished subjects for the painter, and models for the poet. In the
minds of the educated classes throughout Europe, their names
are indissolubly associated with the endearing recollections of
childhood,--the old school-room,--the dog-eared grammar,--the first
prize,--the tears so often shed and so quickly dried. So great is the
veneration with which they are regarded, that even the editors and
commentators who perform the lowest menial offices to their memory, are
considered, like the equerries and chamberlains of sovereign princes,
as entitled to a high rank in the table of literary precedence. It is,
therefore, somewhat singular that their productions should so rarely
have been examined on just and philosophical principles of criticism.

The ancient writers themselves afford us but little assistance.
When they particularise, they are commonly trivial: when they would
generalise, they become indistinct. An exception must, indeed, be made
in favour of Aristotle. Both in analysis and in combination, that great
man was without a rival. No philosopher has ever possessed, in an equal
degree, the talent either of separating established systems into their
primary elements, or of connecting detached phenomena in harmonious
systems. He was the great fashioner of the intellectual chaos; he
changed its darkness into light, and its discord into order. He brought
to literary researches the same vigour and amplitude of mind to which
both physical and metaphysical science are so greatly indebted. His
fundamental principles of criticism are excellent. To cite only a
single instance:--the doctrine which he established, that poetry is an
imitative art, when justly understood, is to the critic what the compass
is to the navigator. With it he may venture upon the most extensive
excursions. Without it he must creep cautiously along the coast, or lose
himself in a trackless expanse, and trust, at best, to the guidance of
an occasional star. It is a discovery which changes a caprice into a
science.

The general propositions of Aristotle are valuable. But the merit of the
superstructure bears no proportion to that of the foundation. This is
partly to be ascribed to the character of the philosopher, who, though
qualified to do all that could be done by the resolving and combining
powers of the understanding, seems not to have possessed much of
sensibility or imagination. Partly, also, it may be attributed to the
deficiency of materials. The great works of genius which then existed
were not either sufficiently numerous or sufficiently varied to enable
any man to form a perfect code of literature. To require that a critic
should conceive classes of composition which had never existed, and then
investigate their principles, would be as unreasonable as the demand of
Nebuchadnezzar, who expected his magicians first to tell him his dream
and then to interpret it.

With all his deficiencies, Aristotle was the most enlightened and
profound critic of antiquity. Dionysius was far from possessing the same
exquisite subtilty, or the same vast comprehension. But he had access
to a much greater number of specimens; and he had devoted himself, as
it appears, more exclusively to the study of elegant literature. His
peculiar judgments are of more value than his general principles. He is
only the historian of literature. Aristotle is its philosopher.

Quintilian applied to general literature the same principles by which he
had been accustomed to judge of the declamations of his pupils. He looks
for nothing but rhetoric, and rhetoric not of the highest order. He
speaks coldly of the incomparable works of Aeschylus. He admires, beyond
expression, those inexhaustible mines of common-places, the plays of
Euripides. He bestows a few vague words on the poetical character of
Homer. He then proceeds to consider him merely as an orator. An orator
Homer doubtless was, and a great orator. But surely nothing is more
remarkable, in his admirable works, than the art with which his
oratorical powers are made subservient to the purposes of poetry. Nor
can I think Quintilian a great critic in his own province. Just as are
many of his remarks, beautiful as are many of his illustrations, we
can perpetually detect in his thoughts that flavour which the soil of
despotism generally communicates to all the fruits of genius. Eloquence
was, in his time, little more than a condiment which served to stimulate
in a despot the jaded appetite for panegyric, an amusement for
the travelled nobles and the blue-stocking matrons of Rome. It is,
therefore, with him, rather a sport than a war; it is a contest of
foils, not of swords. He appears to think more of the grace of the
attitude than of the direction and vigour of the thrust. It must be
acknowledged, in justice to Quintilian, that this is an error to which
Cicero has too often given the sanction, both of his precept and of his
example.

Longinus seems to have had great sensibility, but little discrimination.
He gives us eloquent sentences, but no principles. It was happily
said that Montesquieu ought to have changed the name of his book from
"L'Esprit des Lois" to "L'Esprit sur les Lois". In the same manner
the philosopher of Palmyra ought to have entitled his famous work, not
"Longinus on the Sublime," but "The Sublimities of Longinus. " The origin
of the sublime is one of the most curious and interesting subjects of
inquiry that can occupy the attention of a critic. In our own country it
has been discussed, with great ability, and, I think, with very little
success, by Burke and Dugald Stuart. Longinus dispenses himself from all
investigations of this nature, by telling his friend Terentianus that he
already knows everything that can be said upon the question. It is to be
regretted that Terentianus did not impart some of his knowledge to
his instructor: for from Longinus we learn only that sublimity means
height--or elevation. (Akrotes kai exoche tis logon esti ta uoe. ) This
name, so commodiously vague, is applied indifferently to the noble
prayer of Ajax in the Iliad, and to a passage of Plato about the human
body, as full of conceits as an ode of Cowley. Having no fixed standard,
Longinus is right only by accident. He is rather a fancier than a
critic.

Modern writers have been prevented by many causes from supplying the
deficiencies of their classical predecessors. At the time of the revival
of literature, no man could, without great and painful labour, acquire
an accurate and elegant knowledge of the ancient languages. And,
unfortunately, those grammatical and philological studies, without which
it was impossible to understand the great works of Athenian and Roman
genius, have a tendency to contract the views and deaden the sensibility
of those who follow them with extreme assiduity. A powerful mind, which
has been long employed in such studies, may be compared to the gigantic
spirit in the Arabian tale, who was persuaded to contract himself to
small dimensions in order to enter within the enchanted vessel, and,
when his prison had been closed upon him, found himself unable to escape
from the narrow boundaries to the measure of which he had reduced his
stature. When the means have long been the objects of application, they
are naturally substituted for the end. It was said, by Eugene of Savoy,
that the greatest generals have commonly been those who have been at
once raised to command, and introduced to the great operations of war,
without being employed in the petty calculations and manoeuvres which
employ the time of an inferior officer. In literature the principle is
equally sound. The great tactics of criticism will, in general, be best
understood by those who have not had much practice in drilling syllables
and particles.

I remember to have observed among the French Anas a ludicrous instance
of this. A scholar, doubtless of great learning, recommends the study
of some long Latin treatise, of which I now forget the name, on the
religion, manners, government, and language of the early Greeks. "For
there," says he, "you will learn everything of importance that is
contained in the Iliad and Odyssey, without the trouble of reading two
such tedious books. " Alas! it had not occurred to the poor gentleman
that all the knowledge to which he attached so much value was useful
only as it illustrated the great poems which he despised, and would be
as worthless for any other purpose as the mythology of Caffraria, or the
vocabulary of Otaheite.

Of those scholars who have disdained to confine themselves to verbal
criticism few have been successful. The ancient languages have,
generally, a magical influence on their faculties. They were "fools
called into a circle by Greek invocations. " The Iliad and Aeneid were to
them not books but curiosities, or rather reliques. They no more admired
those works for their merits than a good Catholic venerates the house of
the Virgin at Loretto for its architecture. Whatever was classical was
good. Homer was a great poet, and so was Callimachus. The epistles of
Cicero were fine, and so were those of Phalaris. Even with respect to
questions of evidence they fell into the same error. The authority of
all narrations, written in Greek or Latin, was the same with them. It
never crossed their minds that the lapse of five hundred years, or
the distance of five hundred leagues, could affect the accuracy of
a narration;--that Livy could be a less veracious historian than
Polybius;--or that Plutarch could know less about the friends of
Xenophon than Xenophon himself. Deceived by the distance of time, they
seem to consider all the Classics as contemporaries; just as I have
known people in England, deceived by the distance of place, take it for
granted that all persons who live in India are neighbours, and ask an
inhabitant of Bombay about the health of an acquaintance at Calcutta.
It is to be hoped that no barbarian deluge will ever again pass over
Europe. But should such a calamity happen, it seems not improbable that
some future Rollin or Gillies will compile a history of England from
Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, Miss Lee's Recess, and Sir Nathaniel
Wraxall's Memoirs.

It is surely time that ancient literature should be examined in a
different manner, without pedantical prepossessions, but with a just
allowance, at the same time, for the difference of circumstances and
manners. I am far from pretending to the knowledge or ability which
such a task would require. All that I mean to offer is a collection of
desultory remarks upon a most interesting portion of Greek literature.

It may be doubted whether any compositions which have ever been produced
in the world are equally perfect in their kind with the great Athenian
orations. Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the
production of cotton and molasses. The supply adjusts itself to the
demand. The quantity may be diminished by restrictions, and multiplied
by bounties. The singular excellence to which eloquence attained at
Athens is to be mainly attributed to the influence which it exerted
there. In turbulent times, under a constitution purely democratic,
among a people educated exactly to that point at which men are most
susceptible of strong and sudden impressions, acute, but not sound
reasoners, warm in their feelings, unfixed in their principles,
and passionate admirers of fine composition, oratory received such
encouragement as it has never since obtained.

The taste and knowledge of the Athenian people was a favourite object of
the contemptuous derision of Samuel Johnson; a man who knew nothing of
Greek literature beyond the common school-books, and who seems to have
brought to what he had read scarcely more than the discernment of a
common school-boy. He used to assert, with that arrogant absurdity
which, in spite of his great abilities and virtues, renders him, perhaps
the most ridiculous character in literary history, that Demosthenes
spoke to a people of brutes;--to a barbarous people;--that there could
have been no civilisation before the invention of printing. Johnson
was a keen but a very narrow-minded observer of mankind. He perpetually
confounded their general nature with their particular circumstances. He
knew London intimately. The sagacity of his remarks on its society is
perfectly astonishing. But Fleet Street was the world to him. He
saw that Londoners who did not read were profoundly ignorant; and
he inferred that a Greek, who had few or no books, must have been as
uninformed as one of Mr Thrale's draymen.

There seems to be, on the contrary, every reason to believe, that, in
general intelligence, the Athenian populace far surpassed the lower
orders of any community that has ever existed. It must be considered,
that to be a citizen was to be a legislator,--a soldier,--a judge,--one
upon whose voice might depend the fate of the wealthiest tributary
state, of the most eminent public man. The lowest offices, both of
agriculture and of trade, were, in common, performed by slaves. The
commonwealth supplied its meanest members with the support of life, the
opportunity of leisure, and the means of amusement. Books were indeed
few: but they were excellent; and they were accurately known. It is
not by turning over libraries, but by repeatedly perusing and intently
contemplating a few great models, that the mind is best disciplined. A
man of letters must now read much that he soon forgets, and much from
which he learns nothing worthy to be remembered. The best works employ,
in general, but a small portion of his time. Demosthenes is said to have
transcribed six times the history of Thucydides. If he had been a young
politician of the present age, he might in the same space of time have
skimmed innumerable newspapers and pamphlets. I do not condemn that
desultory mode of study which the state of things, in our day, renders
a matter of necessity. But I may be allowed to doubt whether the changes
on which the admirers of modern institutions delight to dwell have
improved our condition so much in reality as in appearance. Rumford,
it is said, proposed to the Elector of Bavaria a scheme for feeding his
soldiers at a much cheaper rate than formerly. His plan was simply to
compel them to masticate their food thoroughly. A small quantity, thus
eaten, would, according to that famous projector, afford more sustenance
than a large meal hastily devoured. I do not know how Rumford's
proposition was received; but to the mind, I believe, it will be found
more nutritious to digest a page than to devour a volume.

Books, however, were the least part of the education of an Athenian
citizen. Let us, for a moment, transport ourselves in thought, to that
glorious city. Let us imagine that we are entering its gates, in the
time of its power and glory. A crowd is assembled round a portico. All
are gazing with delight at the entablature; for Phidias is putting up
the frieze. We turn into another street; a rhapsodist is reciting there:
men, women, children are thronging round him: the tears are running down
their cheeks: their eyes are fixed: their very breath is still; for
he is telling how Priam fell at the feet of Achilles, and kissed those
hands,--the terrible--the murderous,--which had slain so many of his
sons. (--kai kuse cheiras, deinas, anorophonous, ai oi poleas ktanon
uias. )

We enter the public place; there is a ring of youths, all leaning
forward, with sparkling eyes, and gestures of expectation. Socrates is
pitted against the famous atheist, from Ionia, and has just brought
him to a contradiction in terms. But we are interrupted. The herald is
crying--"Room for the Prytanes. " The general assembly is to meet. The
people are swarming in on every side. Proclamation is made--"Who wishes
to speak? " There is a shout, and a clapping of hands: Pericles is
mounting the stand. Then for a play of Sophocles; and away to sup with
Aspasia. I know of no modern university which has so excellent a system
of education.

Knowledge thus acquired and opinions thus formed were, indeed, likely
to be, in some respects, defective. Propositions which are advanced
in discourse generally result from a partial view of the question, and
cannot be kept under examination long enough to be corrected. Men of
great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of
lively sophistry and exaggeration, which deceives, for the moment, both
themselves and their auditors. Thus we see doctrines, which cannot bear
a close inspection, triumph perpetually in drawing-rooms, in debating
societies, and even in legislative or judicial assemblies. To the
conversational education of the Athenians I am inclined to attribute
the great looseness of reasoning which is remarkable in most of their
scientific writings. Even the most illogical of modern writers would
stand perfectly aghast at the puerile fallacies which seem to have
deluded some of the greatest men of antiquity. Sir Thomas Lethbridge
would stare at the political economy of Xenophon; and the author of
"Soirees de Petersbourg" would be ashamed of some of the metaphysical
arguments of Plato. But the very circumstances which retarded the growth
of science were peculiarly favourable to the cultivation of eloquence.
From the early habit of taking a share in animated discussion the
intelligent student would derive that readiness of resource, that
copiousness of language, and that knowledge of the temper and
understanding of an audience, which are far more valuable to an orator
than the greatest logical powers.

Horace has prettily compared poems to those paintings of which the
effect varies as the spectator changes his stand. The same remark
applies with at least equal justice to speeches. They must be read
with the temper of those to whom they were addressed, or they must
necessarily appear to offend against the laws of taste and reason; as
the finest picture, seen in a light different from that for which it was
designed, will appear fit only for a sign. This is perpetually forgotten
by those who criticise oratory. Because they are reading at leisure,
pausing at every line, reconsidering every argument, they forget that
the hearers were hurried from point to point too rapidly to detect the
fallacies through which they were conducted; that they had no time to
disentangle sophisms, or to notice slight inaccuracies of expression;
that elaborate excellence, either of reasoning or of language, would
have been absolutely thrown away. To recur to the analogy of the sister
art, these connoisseurs examine a panorama through a microscope, and
quarrel with a scene-painter because he does not give to his work the
exquisite finish of Gerard Dow.

Oratory is to be estimated on principles different from those which
are applied to other productions. Truth is the object of philosophy and
history. Truth is the object even of those works which are peculiarly
called works of fiction, but which, in fact, bear the same relation to
history which algebra bears to arithmetic. The merit of poetry, in
its wildest forms, still consists in its truth,--truth conveyed to the
understanding, not directly by the words, but circuitously by means of
imaginative associations, which serve as its conductors. The object
of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion. The admiration of the
multitude does not make Moore a greater poet than Coleridge, or Beattie
a greater philosopher than Berkeley. But the criterion of eloquence is
different. A speaker who exhausts the whole philosophy of a question,
who displays every grace of style, yet produces no effect on his
audience, may be a great essayist, a great statesman, a great master of
composition; but he is not an orator. If he miss the mark, it makes no
difference whether he have taken aim too high or too low.

The effect of the great freedom of the press in England has been, in a
great measure, to destroy this distinction, and to leave among us little
of what I call Oratory Proper. Our legislators, our candidates, on great
occasions even our advocates, address themselves less to the audience
than to the reporters. They think less of the few hearers than of the
innumerable readers. At Athens the case was different; there the only
object of the speaker was immediate conviction and persuasion. He,
therefore, who would justly appreciate the merit of the Grecian orators
should place himself, as nearly as possible, in the situation of
their auditors: he should divest himself of his modern feelings and
acquirements, and make the prejudices and interests of the Athenian
citizen his own. He who studies their works in this spirit will find
that many of those things which, to an English reader, appear to be
blemishes,--the frequent violation of those excellent rules of
evidence by which our courts of law are regulated,--the introduction
of extraneous matter,--the reference to considerations of political
expediency in judicial investigations,--the assertions, without
proof,--the passionate entreaties,--the furious invectives,--are really
proofs of the prudence and address of the speakers. He must not
dwell maliciously on arguments or phrases, but acquiesce in his first
impressions. It requires repeated perusal and reflection to decide
rightly on any other portion of literature. But with respect to works
of which the merit depends on their instantaneous effect the most hasty
judgment is likely to be best.

The history of eloquence at Athens is remarkable. From a very early
period great speakers had flourished there. Pisistratus and Themistocles
are said to have owed much of their influence to their talents for
debate. We learn, with more certainty, that Pericles was distinguished
by extraordinary oratorical powers. The substance of some of his
speeches is transmitted to us by Thucydides; and that excellent writer
has doubtless faithfully reported the general line of his arguments. But
the manner, which in oratory is of at least as much consequence as the
matter, was of no importance to his narration. It is evident that he has
not attempted to preserve it. Throughout his work, every speech on every
subject, whatever may have been the character of the dialect of the
speaker, is in exactly the same form. The grave king of Sparta, the
furious demagogue of Athens, the general encouraging his army, the
captive supplicating for his life, all are represented as speakers
in one unvaried style,--a style moreover wholly unfit for oratorical
purposes. His mode of reasoning is singularly elliptical,--in reality
most consecutive,--yet in appearance often incoherent. His meaning, in
itself sufficiently perplexing, is compressed into the fewest possible
words. His great fondness for antithetical expression has not a little
conduced to this effect. Every one must have observed how much more the
sense is condensed in the verses of Pope and his imitators, who never
ventured to continue the same clause from couplet to couplet, than
in those of poets who allow themselves that license. Every artificial
division, which is strongly marked, and which frequently recurs, has
the same tendency. The natural and perspicuous expression which
spontaneously rises to the mind will often refuse to accommodate itself
to such a form. It is necessary either to expand it into weakness, or
to compress it into almost impenetrable density. The latter is generally
the choice of an able man, and was assuredly the choice of Thucydides.

It is scarcely necessary to say that such speeches could never have been
delivered. They are perhaps among the most difficult passages in the
Greek language, and would probably have been scarcely more intelligible
to an Athenian auditor than to a modern reader. Their obscurity was
acknowledged by Cicero, who was as intimate with the literature and
language of Greece as the most accomplished of its natives, and who
seems to have held a respectable rank among the Greek authors. Their
difficulty to a modern reader lies, not in the words, but in the
reasoning. A dictionary is of far less use in studying them than a clear
head and a close attention to the context. They are valuable to the
scholar as displaying, beyond almost any other compositions, the powers
of the finest of languages: they are valuable to the philosopher as
illustrating the morals and manners of a most interesting age: they
abound in just thought and energetic expression. But they do not
enable us to form any accurate opinion on the merits of the early Greek
orators.

Though it cannot be doubted that, before the Persian wars, Athens had
produced eminent speakers, yet the period during which eloquence most
flourished among her citizens was by no means that of her greatest power
and glory. It commenced at the close of the Peloponnesian war. In
fact, the steps by which Athenian oratory approached to its finished
excellence seem to have been almost contemporaneous with those by which
the Athenian character and the Athenian empire sunk to degradation. At
the time when the little commonwealth achieved those victories which
twenty-five eventful centuries have left unequalled, eloquence was
in its infancy. The deliverers of Greece became its plunderers and
oppressors. Unmeasured exaction, atrocious vengeance, the madness of the
multitude, the tyranny of the great, filled the Cyclades with tears,
and blood, and mourning.
The sword unpeopled whole islands in a day.
The plough passed over the ruins of famous cities. The imperial
republic sent forth her children by thousands to pine in the quarries
of Syracuse, or to feed the vultures of Aegospotami. She was at length
reduced by famine and slaughter to humble herself before her enemies,
and to purchase existence by the sacrifice of her empire and her laws.
During these disastrous and gloomy years, oratory was advancing towards
its highest excellence. And it was when the moral, the political, and
the military character of the people was most utterly degraded, it was
when the viceroy of a Macedonian sovereign gave law to Greece, that the
courts of Athens witnessed the most splendid contest of eloquence that
the world has ever known.

The causes of this phenomenon it is not, I think, difficult to assign.
The division of labour operates on the productions of the orator as it
does on those of the mechanic. It was remarked by the ancients that the
Pentathlete, who divided his attention between several exercises, though
he could not vie with a boxer in the use of the cestus, or with one who
had confined his attention to running in the contest of the stadium,
yet enjoyed far greater general vigour and health than either. It is
the same with the mind. The superiority in technical skill is often more
than compensated by the inferiority in general intelligence. And this is
peculiarly the case in politics. States have always been best governed
by men who have taken a wide view of public affairs, and who have rather
a general acquaintance with many sciences than a perfect mastery of
one. The union of the political and military departments in Greece
contributed not a little to the splendour of its early history. After
their separation more skilful generals and greater speakers appeared;
but the breed of statesmen dwindled and became almost extinct.
Themistocles or Pericles would have been no match for Demosthenes in
the assembly, or for Iphicrates in the field. But surely they were
incomparably better fitted than either for the supreme direction of
affairs.

There is indeed a remarkable coincidence between the progress of the
art of war, and that of the art of oratory, among the Greeks. They
both advanced to perfection by contemporaneous steps, and from similar
causes. The early speakers, like the early warriors of Greece, were
merely a militia. It was found that in both employments practice and
discipline gave superiority. (It has often occurred to me, that to the
circumstances mentioned in the text is to be referred one of the most
remarkable events in Grecian history; I mean the silent but rapid
downfall of the Lacedaemonian power. Soon after the termination of the
Peloponnesian war, the strength of Lacedaemon began to decline. Its
military discipline, its social institutions, were the same. Agesilaus,
during whose reign the change took place, was the ablest of its kings.
Yet the Spartan armies were frequently defeated in pitched battles,--an
occurrence considered impossible in the earlier ages of Greece. They are
allowed to have fought most bravely; yet they were no longer attended by
the success to which they had formerly been accustomed. No solution of
these circumstances is offered, as far as I know, by any ancient author.
The real cause, I conceive, was this. The Lacedaemonians, alone among
the Greeks, formed a permanent standing army. While the citizens of
other commonwealths were engaged in agriculture and trade, they had no
employment whatever but the study of military discipline. Hence, during
the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, they had that advantage over their
neighbours which regular troops always possess over militia. This
advantage they lost, when other states began, at a later period, to
employ mercenary forces, who were probably as superior to them in the
art of war as they had hitherto been to their antagonists. ) Each pursuit
therefore became first an art, and then a trade. In proportion as the
professors of each became more expert in their particular craft, they
became less respectable in their general character. Their skill had been
obtained at too great expense to be employed only from disinterested
views. Thus, the soldiers forgot that they were citizens, and the
orators that they were statesmen. I know not to what Demosthenes and his
famous contemporaries can be so justly compared as to those mercenary
troops who, in their time, overran Greece; or those who, from
similar causes, were some centuries ago the scourge of the Italian
republics,--perfectly acquainted with every part of their profession,
irresistible in the field, powerful to defend or to destroy, but
defending without love, and destroying without hatred. We may despise
the characters of these political Condottieri; but is impossible
to examine the system of their tactics without being amazed at its
perfection.

I had intended to proceed to this examination, and to consider
separately the remains of Lysias, of Aeschines, of Demosthenes, and of
Isocrates, who, though strictly speaking he was rather a pamphleteer
than an orator, deserves, on many accounts, a place in such a
disquisition. The length of my prolegomena and digressions compels me
to postpone this part of the subject to another occasion. A Magazine is
certainly a delightful invention for a very idle or a very busy man. He
is not compelled to complete his plan or to adhere to his subject. He
may ramble as far as he is inclined, and stop as soon as he is tired.
No one takes the trouble to recollect his contradictory opinions or his
unredeemed pledges. He may be as superficial, as inconsistent, and as
careless as he chooses. Magazines resemble those little angels, who,
according to the pretty Rabbinical tradition, are generated every
morning by the brook which rolls over the flowers of Paradise,--whose
life is a song,--who warble till sunset, and then sink back without
regret into nothingness. Such spirits have nothing to do with the
detecting spear of Ithuriel or the victorious sword of Michael. It is
enough for them to please and be forgotten.

*****




A PROPHETIC ACCOUNT OF A GRAND NATIONAL EPIC POEM, TO BE ENTITLED "THE
WELLINGTONIAD," AND TO BE PUBLISHED A. D. 2824. (November 1824. )

How I became a prophet it is not very important to the reader to know.
Nevertheless I feel all the anxiety which, under similar circumstances,
troubled the sensitive mind of Sidrophel; and, like him, am eager to
vindicate myself from the suspicion of having practised forbidden arts,
or held intercourse with beings of another world. I solemnly declare,
therefore, that I never saw a ghost, like Lord Lyttleton; consulted a
gipsy, like Josephine; or heard my name pronounced by an absent person,
like Dr Johnson. Though it is now almost as usual for gentlemen to
appear at the moment of their death to their friends as to call on them
during their life, none of my acquaintance have been so polite as to pay
me that customary attention. I have derived my knowledge neither from
the dead nor from the living; neither from the lines of a hand, nor from
the grounds of a tea-cup; neither from the stars of the firmament, nor
from the fiends of the abyss. I have never, like the Wesley family,
heard "that mighty leading angel," who "drew after him the third part of
heaven's sons," scratching in my cupboard. I have never been enticed
to sign any of those delusive bonds which have been the ruin of so many
poor creatures; and, having always been an indifferent horse man, I have
been careful not to venture myself on a broomstick.

My insight into futurity, like that of George Fox the quaker, and that
of our great and philosophic poet, Lord Byron, is derived from simple
presentiment. This is a far less artificial process than those which are
employed by some others. Yet my predictions will, I believe, be found
more correct than theirs, or, at all events, as Sir Benjamin Back bite
says in the play, "more circumstantial. "

I prophesy then, that, in the year 2824, according to our present
reckoning, a grand national Epic Poem, worthy to be compared with the
Iliad, the Aeneid, or the Jerusalem, will be published in London.

Men naturally take an interest in the adventures of every eminent
writer. I will, therefore, gratify the laudable curiosity, which, on
this occasion, will doubtless be universal, by pre fixing to my account
of the poem a concise memoir of the poet.

Richard Quongti will be born at Westminster on the 1st of July, 2786.
He will be the younger son of the younger branch of one of the most
respectable families in England. He will be linearly descended from
Quongti, the famous Chinese liberal, who, after the failure of the
heroic attempt of his party to obtain a constitution from the Emperor
Fim Fam, will take refuge in England, in the twenty-third century. Here
his descendants will obtain considerable note; and one branch of the
family will be raised to the peerage.

Richard, however, though destined to exalt his family to distinction
far nobler than any which wealth or titles can bestow, will be born to
a very scanty fortune. He will display in his early youth such striking
talents as will attract the notice of Viscount Quongti, his third
cousin, then secretary of state for the Steam Department. At the expense
of this eminent nobleman, he will be sent to prosecute his studies at
the university of Tombuctoo. To that illustrious seat of the muses all
the ingenuous youth of every country will then be attracted by the high
scientific character of Professor Quashaboo, and the eminent literary
attainments of Professor Kissey Kickey. In spite of this formidable
competition, however, Quongti will acquire the highest honours in every
department of knowledge, and will obtain the esteem of his associates by
his amiable and unaffected manners. The guardians of the young Duke of
Carrington, premier peer of England, and the last remaining scion of the
ancient and illustrious house of Smith, will be desirous to secure so
able an instructor for their ward. With the Duke, Quongti will perform
the grand tour, and visit the polished courts of Sydney and Capetown.
After prevailing on his pupil, with great difficulty, to subdue a
violent and imprudent passion which he had conceived for a Hottentot
lady, of great beauty and accomplishments indeed, but of dubious
character, he will travel with him to the United States of America. But
that tremendous war which will be fatal to American liberty will, at
that time, be raging through the whole federation. At New York the
travellers will hear of the final defeat and death of the illustrious
champion of freedom, Jonathon Higginbottom, and of the elevation of
Ebenezer Hogsflesh to the perpetual Presidency. They will not choose
to proceed in a journey which would expose them to the insults of that
brutal soldiery, whose cruelty and rapacity will have devastated Mexico
and Colombia, and now, at length, enslaved their own country.

On their return to England, A. D. 2810, the death of the Duke will compel
his preceptor to seek for a subsistence by literary labours. His fame
will be raised by many small productions of considerable merit; and he
will at last obtain a permanent place in the highest class of writers by
his great epic poem.

The celebrated work will become, with unexampled rapidity, a popular
favourite. The sale will be so beneficial to the author that, instead of
going about the dirty streets on his velocipede, he will be enabled to
set up his balloon.

The character of this noble poem will be so finely and justly given
in the Tombuctoo Review for April 2825, that I cannot refrain from
translating the passage. The author will be our poet's old preceptor,
Professor Kissey Kickey.

"In pathos, in splendour of language, in sweetness of versification, Mr
Quongti has long been considered as unrivalled. In his exquisite poem on
the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus all these qualities are displayed in their
greatest perfection. How exquisitely does that work arrest and embody
the undefined and vague shadows which flit over an imaginative mind. The
cold worldling may not comprehend it; but it will find a response in the
bosom of every youthful poet, of every enthusiastic lover, who has seen
an Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus by moonlight. But we were yet to learn that
he possessed the comprehension, the judgment, and the fertility of mind
indispensable to the epic poet.

"It is difficult to conceive a plot more perfect than that of the
'Wellingtoniad. ' It is most faithful to the manners of the age to which
it relates. It preserves exactly all the historical circumstances,
and interweaves them most artfully with all the speciosa miracula of
supernatural agency. "

Thus far the learned Professor of Humanity in the university of
Tombuctoo. I fear that the critics of our time will form an opinion
diametrically opposite as to these every points. Some will, I fear,
be disgusted by the machinery, which is derived from the mythology of
ancient Greece. I can only say that, in the twenty-ninth century, that
machinery will be universally in use among poets; and that Quongti will
use it, partly in conformity with the general practice, and partly from
a veneration, perhaps excessive, for the great remains of classical
antiquity, which will then, as now, be assiduously read by every man of
education; though Tom Moore's songs will be forgotten, and only three
copies of Lord Byron's works will exist: one in the possession of King
George the Nineteenth, one in the Duke of Carrington's collection,
and one in the library of the British Museum. Finally, should any good
people be concerned to hear that Pagan fictions will so long retain
their influence over literature, let them reflect that, as the Bishop
of St David's says, in his "Proofs of the Inspiration of the Sibylline
Verses," read at the last meeting of the Royal Society of Literature,
"at all events, a Pagan is not a Papist. "

Some readers of the present day may think that Quongti is by no means
entitled to the compliments which his Negro critic pays him on his
adherence to the historical circumstances of the time in which he has
chosen his subject; that, where he introduces any trait of our manners,
it is in the wrong place, and that he confounds the customs of our age
with those of much more remote periods. I can only say that the
charge is infinitely more applicable to Homer, Virgil, and Tasso. If,
therefore, the reader should detect, in the following abstract of the
plot, any little deviation from strict historical accuracy, let him
reflect, for a moment, whether Agamemnon would not have found as much to
censure in the Iliad,--Dido in the Aeneid,--or Godfrey in the Jerusalem.
Let him not suffer his opinions to depend on circumstances which cannot
possibly affect the truth or falsehood of the representation. If it
be impossible for a single man to kill hundreds in battle, the
impossibility is not diminished by distance of time. If it be as certain
that Rinaldo never disenchanted a forest in Palestine as it is that the
Duke of Wellington never disenchanted the forest of Soignies, can we, as
rational men, tolerate the one story and ridicule the other? Of this, at
least, I am certain, that whatever excuse we have for admiring the plots
of those famous poems our children will have for extolling that of the
"Wellingtoniad. "

I shall proceed to give a sketch of the narrative. The subject is "The
Reign of the Hundred Days. "


BOOK I.

The poem commences, in form, with a solemn proposition of the subject.
Then the muse is invoked to give the poet accurate information as to the
causes of so terrible a commotion. The answer to this question, being,
it is to be supposed, the joint production of the poet and the muse,
ascribes the event to circumstances which have hitherto eluded all the
research of political writers, namely, the influence of the god Mars,
who, we are told, had some forty years before usurped the conjugal
rights of old Carlo Buonaparte, and given birth to Napoleon. By his
incitement it was that the emperor with his devoted companions was
now on the sea, returning to his ancient dominions. The gods were at
present, fortunately for the adventurer, feasting with the Ethiopians,
whose entertainments, according to the ancient custom described by
Homer, they annually attended, with the same sort of condescending
gluttony which now carries the cabinet to Guildhall on the 9th of
November. Neptune was, in consequence, absent, and unable to prevent
the enemy of his favourite island from crossing his element. Boreas,
however, who had his abode on the banks of the Russian ocean, and who,
like Thetis in the Iliad, was not of sufficient quality to have an
invitation to Ethiopia, resolves to destroy the armament which brings
war and danger to his beloved Alexander. He accordingly raises a storm
which is most powerfully described. Napoleon bewails the inglorious fate
for which he seems to be reserved. "Oh! thrice happy," says he, "those
who were frozen to death at Krasnoi, or slaughtered at Leipsic. Oh,
Kutusoff, bravest of the Russians, wherefore was I not permitted to fall
by thy victorious sword? " He then offers a prayer to Aeolus, and vows
to him a sacrifice of a black ram. In consequence, the god recalls his
turbulent subject; the sea is calmed; and the ship anchors in the port
of Frejus. Napoleon and Bertrand, who is always called the faithful
Bertrand, land to explore the country; Mars meets them disguised as
a lancer of the guard, wearing the cross of the legion of honour. He
advises them to apply for necessaries of all kinds to the governor,
shows them the way, and disappears with a strong smell of gunpowder.
Napoleon makes a pathetic speech, and enters the governor's house. Here
he sees hanging up a fine print of the battle of Austerlitz, himself
in the foreground giving his orders. This puts him in high spirits; he
advances and salutes the governor, who receives him most loyally, gives
him an entertainment, and, according to the usage of all epic hosts,
insists after dinner on a full narration of all that has happened to him
since the battle of Leipsic.


BOOK II.

Napoleon carries his narrative from the battle of Leipsic to his
abdication. But, as we shall have a great quantity of fighting on our
hands, I think it best to omit the details.


BOOK III.

Napoleon describes his sojourn at Elba, and his return; how he was
driven by stress of weather to Sardinia, and fought with the harpies
there; how he was then carried southward to Sicily, where he generously
took on board an English sailor, whom a man-of-war had unhappily left
there, and who was in imminent danger of being devoured by the Cyclops;
how he landed in the bay of Naples, saw the Sibyl, and descended to
Tartarus; how he held a long and pathetic conversation with Poniatowski,
whom he found wandering unburied on the banks of Styx; how he swore to
give him a splendid funeral; how he had also an affectionate interview
with Desaix; how Moreau and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fled at the sight
of him. He relates that he then re-embarked, and met with nothing of
importance till the commencement of the storm with which the poem opens.


BOOK IV.

The scene changes to Paris. Fame, in the garb of an express, brings
intelligence of the landing of Napoleon. The king performs a sacrifice:
but the entrails are unfavourable; and the victim is without a heart.
He prepares to encounter the invader. A young captain of the guard,--the
son of Maria Antoinette by Apollo,--in the shape of a fiddler, rushes
in to tell him that Napoleon is approaching with a vast army. The
royal forces are drawn out for battle. Full catalogues are given of
the regiments on both sides; their colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and
uniform.


BOOK V.

The king comes forward and defies Napoleon to single combat. Napoleon
accepts it. Sacrifices are offered. The ground is measured by Ney and
Macdonald. The combatants advance. Louis snaps his pistol in vain. The
bullet of Napoleon, on the contrary, carries off the tip of the king's
ear. Napoleon then rushes on him sword in hand. But Louis snatches up a
stone, such as ten men of those degenerate days will be unable to move,
and hurls it at his antagonist. Mars averts it. Napoleon then seizes
Louis, and is about to strike a fatal blow, when Bacchus intervenes,
like Venus in the third book of the Iliad, bears off the king in a thick
cloud, and seats him in an hotel at Lille, with a bottle of Maraschino
and a basin of soup before him. Both armies instantly proclaim Napoleon
emperor.


BOOK VI.

Neptune, returned from his Ethiopian revels, sees with rage the events
which have taken place in Europe. He flies to the cave of Alecto,
and drags out the fiend, commanding her to excite universal hostility
against Napoleon. The Fury repairs to Lord Castlereagh; and, as, when
she visited Turnus, she assumed the form of an old woman, she here
appears in the kindred shape of Mr Vansittart, and in an impassioned
address exhorts his lordship to war. His lordship, like Turnus, treats
this unwonted monitor with great disrespect, tells him that he is an old
doting fool, and advises him to look after the ways and means, and leave
questions of peace and war to his betters. The Fury then displays all
her terrors. The neat powdered hair bristles up into snakes; the black
stockings appear clotted with blood; and, brandishing a torch, she
announces her name and mission. Lord Castlereagh, seized with fury,
flies instantly to the Parliament, and recommends war with a torrent
of eloquent invective. All the members instantly clamour for vengeance,
seize their arms which are hanging round the walls of the house, and
rush forth to prepare for instant hostilities.


BOOK VII.

In this book intelligence arrives at London of the flight of the Duchess
d'Angouleme from France. It is stated that this heroine, armed from head
to foot, defended Bordeaux against the adherents of Napoleon, and that
she fought hand to hand with Clausel, and beat him down with an enormous
stone. Deserted by her followers, she at last, like Turnus, plunged,
armed as she was, into the Garonne, and swam to an English ship which
lay off the coast. This intelligence yet more inflames the English to
war.

A yet bolder flight than any which has been mentioned follows. The Duke
of Wellington goes to take leave of the duchess; and a scene passes
quite equal to the famous interview of Hector and Andromache. Lord Douro
is frightened at his father's feather, but begs for his epaulette.


BOOK VIII.

Neptune, trembling for the event of the war, implores Venus, who, as
the offspring of his element, naturally venerates him, to procure from
Vulcan a deadly sword and a pair of unerring pistols for the Duke. They
are accordingly made, and superbly decorated. The sheath of the sword,
like the shield of Achilles, is carved, in exquisitely fine miniature,
with scenes from the common life of the period; a dance at Almack's a
boxing match at the Fives-court, a lord mayor's procession, and a man
hanging. All these are fully and elegantly described. The Duke thus
armed hastens to Brussels.


BOOK IX.

The Duke is received at Brussels by the King of the Netherlands with
great magnificence. He is informed of the approach of the armies of all
the confederate kings. The poet, however, with a laudable zeal for
the glory of his country, completely passes over the exploits of the
Austrians in Italy, and the discussions of the congress. England
and France, Wellington and Napoleon, almost exclusively occupy his
attention. Several days are spent at Brussels in revelry. The English
heroes astonish their allies by exhibiting splendid games, similar to
those which draw the flower of the British aristocracy to Newmarket and
Moulsey Hurst, and which will be considered by our descendants with
as much veneration as the Olympian and Isthmian contests by classical
students of the present time. In the combat of the cestus, Shaw, the
lifeguardsman, vanquishes the Prince of Orange, and obtains a bull as a
prize. In the horse-race, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Uxbridge ride
against each other; the Duke is victorious, and is rewarded with twelve
opera-girls. On the last day of the festivities, a splendid dance takes
place, at which all the heroes attend.


BOOK X.

Mars, seeing the English army thus inactive, hastens to rouse Napoleon,
who, conducted by Night and Silence, unexpectedly attacks the Prussians.
The slaughter is immense. Napoleon kills many whose histories and
families are happily particularised. He slays Herman, the craniologist,
who dwelt by the linden-shadowed Elbe, and measured with his eye the
skulls of all who walked through the streets of Berlin. Alas! his own
skull is now cleft by the Corsican sword. Four pupils of the University
of Jena advance together to encounter the Emperor; at four blows he
destroys them all. Blucher rushes to arrest the devastation; Napoleon
strikes him to the ground, and is on the point of killing him, but
Gneisenau, Ziethen, Bulow, and all the other heroes of the Prussian
army, gather round him, and bear the venerable chief to a distance
from the field. The slaughter is continued till night.