Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850

To appreciate the book as a whole – and its purpose, thought, and sentiment impart to it a unity of the highest kind – it must be not only read but studied. A few citations, however, gleaned here and there at random, may convey some notion of the characteristic beauties and felicities of thought and expression which are scattered through every page of it.

socrates

Socrates was, in truth, not very fond of subtle and refined speculations; and upon the intellectual part of our nature, little or nothing of his opinions is recorded. If we may infer any thing from the clearness and simplicity of his opinions on moral subjects, and from the bent which his genius had received for the useful and the practical, he would certainly have laid a strong foundation for rational metaphysics. The slight sketch I have given of his moral doctrines contains nothing very new or very brilliant, but comprehends those moral doctrines which every person of education has been accustomed to hear from his childhood; but two thousand years ago they were great discoveries, two thousand years since, common sense was not invented. If Orpheus, or Linus, or any of those melodious moralists, sung, in bad verses, such advice as a grandmamma would now give to a child of six years old, he was thought to be inspired by the gods, and statues and altars were erected to his memory. In Hesiod there is a very grave exhortation to mankind to wash their faces: and I have discovered a very strong analogy between the precepts of Pythagoras and Mrs. Trimmer; both think that a son ought to obey his father, and both are clear that a good man is better than a bad one. Therefore, to measure aright this extraordinary man, we must remember the period at which he lived; that he was the first who called the attention of mankind from the pernicious subtleties which engaged and perplexed their wandering understandings to the practical rules of life; he was the great father and inventor of common sense, as Ceres was of the plow, and Bacchus of intoxication. First, he taught his contemporaries that they did not know what they pretended to know; then he showed them that they knew nothing; then he told them what they ought to know. Lastly, to sum the praise of Socrates, remember that two thousand years ago, while men were worshiping the stones on which they trod, and the insects which crawled beneath their feet; two thousand years ago, with the bowl of poison in his hand, Socrates said, "I am persuaded that my death, which is now just coming, will conduct me into the presence of the gods, who are the most righteous governors, and into the society of just and good men; and I derive confidence from the hope that something of man remains after death, and that the condition of good men will then be much better than that of the bad." Soon after this he covered himself up with his cloak and expired.

plato

Of all the disciples of Socrates, Plato, though he calls himself the least, was certainly the most celebrated. As long as philosophy continued to be studied among the Greeks and Romans, his doctrines were taught, and his name revered. Even to the present day his writings give a tinge to the language and speculations of philosophy and theology. Of the majestic beauty of Plato's style, it is almost impossible to convey an adequate idea. He keeps the understanding up to a high pitch of enthusiasm longer than any existing writer; and, in reading Plato, zeal and animation seem rather to be the regular feelings than the casual effervescence of the mind. He appears almost disdaining the mutability and imperfection of the earth on which he treads, to be drawing down fire from heaven, and to be seeking among the gods above, for the permanent, the beautiful, and the grand! In contrasting the vigor and the magnitude of his conceptions with the extravagance of his philosophical tenets, it is almost impossible to avoid wishing that he had confined himself to the practice of eloquence; and, in this way giving range and expansion to the mind which was struggling within him, had become one of those famous orators who

"Wielded at will that fierce democratic,
Shook th' arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne."

After having said so much of his language, I am afraid I must proceed to his philosophy; observing always, that, in stating it, I do not always pretend to understand it, and do not even engage to defend it. In comparing the very few marks of sobriety and discretion with the splendor of his genius, I have often exclaimed as Prince Henry did about Falstaff's bill, "Oh, monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!"

dr. reid

In answer to these metaphysical lunacies, Dr. Reid has contended that, for all reasoning, there must be some first principles from whence such reasoning originates, and which must necessarily be incapable of proof or they would not be first principles; and that facts so irresistibly ingrafted upon human belief as the existence of mind and matter, must be assumed for truths, and reasoned upon as such. All that these skeptics have said of the outer and the inner world may, with equal justice, be applied to every other radical truth. Who can prove his own personal identity? A man may think himself a clergyman, and believe he has preached for these ten years last past; but I defy him to offer any sort of proof that he has not been a fishmonger all the time … ever doubt that all reasoning must end in arbitrary belief; that we must, at last, come to that point where the only reply can be, "I am so– this belief is the constitution of my nature – God willed it." I grant that this reasoning is a ready asylum for ignorance and imbecility, and that it affords too easy a relief from the pain of rendering a reason: but the most unwearied vigor of human talents must at last end there; the wisdom of ages can get no further; here, after all, the Porch, the Garden, the Academy, the Lyceum, must close their labors.

Much as we are indebted to Dr. Reid for preaching up this doctrine, he has certainly executed it very badly; and nothing can be more imperfect than the table of first principles which he has given us – an enumeration of which is still a desideratum of the highest importance. The skeptics may then call the philosophy of the human mind merely hypothetical; but if it be so, all other knowledge must, of course, be hypothetical also; and if it be so, and all is erroneous, it will do quite as well as reality, if we keep up a certain proportion in our errors: for there may be no such things as lunar tables, no sea, and no ships; but, by falling into one of these errors after the other, we avoid shipwreck, or, what is the same thing, as it gives the same pain, the idea of shipwreck. So with the philosophy of the human mind: I may have no memory, and no imagination – they may be mistakes; but if I cultivate them both, I derive honor and respect from my fellow-creatures, which may be mistakes also; but they harmonize so well together, that they are quite as good as realities. The only evil of errors is, that they are never supported by consequences; if they were, they would be as good as realities. Great merit is given to Dr. Reid for his destruction of what is called the ideal system, but I confess I can not see the important consequences to which it has yet led.

puns

I have mentioned puns. They are, I believe, what I have denominated them – the wit of words. They are exactly the same to words which wit is to ideas, and consist in the sudden discovery of relations in language. A pun, to be perfect in its kind, should contain two distinct meanings; the one common and obvious; the other, more remote; and in the notice which the mind takes of the relation between these two sets of words, and in the surprise which that relation excites, the pleasure of a pun consists. Miss Hamilton, in her book on Education, mentions the instance of a boy so very neglectful, that he could never be brought to read the word patriarchs; but whenever he met with it he always pronounced it partridges. A friend of the writer observed to her, that it could hardly be considered as a mere piece of negligence, for it appeared to him that the boy, in calling them partridges, was making game of the patriarchs. Now, here are two distinct meanings contained in the same phrase; for to make game of the patriarchs is to laugh at them; or to make game of them is, by a very extravagant and laughable sort of ignorance of words, to rank them among pheasants, partridges, and other such delicacies, which the law takes under its protection and calls game; and the whole pleasure derived from this pun consists in the sudden discovery that two such different meanings are referable to one form of expression. I have very little to say about puns; they are in very bad repute, and so they ought to be. The wit of language is so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly driven out of good company. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance which seems for a moment to redeem its species; but we must not be deceived by them; it is a radically bad race of wit. By unremitting persecution, it has been at last got under, and driven into cloisters – from whence it must never again be suffered to emerge into the light of the world.

importance of being able to despise ridicule

I know of no principle which it is of more importance to fix in the minds of young people than that of the most determined resistance to the encroachment of ridicule. Give up to the world, and to the ridicule with which the world enforces its dominion, every trifling question of manner and appearance; it is to toss courage and firmness to the winds, to combat with the mass upon such subjects as these. But learn from the earliest days to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule: you can no more exercise your reason, if you live in the constant dread of laughter, than you can enjoy your life, if you are in the constant terror of death. If you think it right to differ from the times, and to make a stand for any valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic, however antiquated, however pedantic it may appear – do it, not for insolence, but seriously and grandly– as a man who wore a soul of his own in his bosom, and did not wait till it was breathed into him by the breath of fashion. Let men call you mean, if you know you are just; hypocritical, if you are honestly religious; pusillanimous, if you feel that you are firm: resistance soon converts unprincipled wit into sincere respect; and no after-time can tear from you those feelings which every man carries within him who has made a noble and successful exertion in a virtuous cause.

bulls and charades

A bull – which must by no means be passed over in this recapitulation of the family of wit and humor – a bull is exactly the counterpart of a witticism: for as wit discovers real relations that are not apparent, bulls admit apparent relations that are not real. The pleasure arising from bulls, proceeds from our surprise at suddenly discovering two things to be dissimilar in which a resemblance might have been suspected. The same doctrine will apply to wit and bulls in action. Practical wit discovers connection or relation between actions, in which duller understandings discover none; and practical bulls originate from an apparent relation between two actions which more correct understandings immediately perceive to have none at all. In the late rebellion in Ireland, the rebels, who had conceived a high degree of indignation against some great banker, passed a resolution that they would burn his notes; which they accordingly did, with great assiduity; forgetting, that in burning his notes they were destroying his debts, and that for every note which went into the flames, a correspondent value went into the banker's pocket. A gentleman, in speaking of a nobleman's wife of great rank and fortune, lamented very much that she had no children. A medical gentleman who was present observed, that to have no children was a great misfortune, but he thought he had remarked it was hereditary in some families. Take any instance of this branch of the ridiculous, and you will always find an apparent relation of ideas leading to a complete inconsistency.

I shall say nothing of charades, and such sort of unpardonable trumpery: if charades are made at all, they should be made without benefit of clergy, the offender should instantly be hurried off to execution, and be cut off in the middle of his dullness, without being allowed to explain to the executioner why his first is like his second, or what is the resemblance between his fourth and his ninth.

wit and professed wits

I wish, after all I have said about wit and humor, I could satisfy myself of their good effects upon the character and disposition; but I am convinced the probable tendency of both is, to corrupt the understanding and the heart. I am not speaking of wit where it is kept down by more serious qualities of mind, and thrown into the background of the picture; but where it stands out boldly and emphatically, and is evidently the master quality in any particular mind. Professed wits, though they are generally courted for the amusement they afford, are seldom respected for the qualities they possess. The habit of seeing things in a witty point of view, increases, and makes incursions from its own proper regions, upon principles and opinions which are ever held sacred by the wise and good. A witty man is a dramatic performer: in process of time, he can no more exist without applause than he can exist without air; if his audience be small, or if they are inattentive, or if a new wit defrauds him of any portion of his admiration, it is all over with him – he sickens, and is extinguished. The applauses of the theatre on which he performs are so essential to him, that he must obtain them at the expense of decency, friendship, and good feeling. It must always be probable, too, that a mere wit is a person of light and frivolous understanding. His business is not to discover relations of ideas that are useful, and have a real influence upon life, but to discover the more trifling relations which are only amusing; he never looks at things with the naked eye of common sense, but is always gazing at the world through a Claude Lorraine glass – discovering a thousand appearances which are created only by the instrument of inspection, and covering every object with factitious and unnatural colors. In short, the character of a mere wit it is impossible to consider as very amiable, very respectable, or very safe. So far the world, in judging of wit where it has swallowed up all other qualities, judge aright; but I doubt if they are sufficiently indulgent to this faculty where it exists in a lesser degree, and as one out of many other ingredients of the understanding. There is an association in men's minds between dullness and wisdom, amusement and folly, which has a very powerful influence in decision upon character, and is not overcome without considerable difficulty. The reason is, that the outward signs of a dull man and a wise man are the same, and so are the outward signs of a frivolous man and a witty man; and we are not to expect that the majority will be disposed to look to much more than the outward sign. I believe the fact to be, that wit is very seldom the only eminent quality which resides in the mind of any man; it is commonly accompanied by many other talents of every description, and ought to be considered as a strong evidence of a fertile and superior understanding. Almost all the great poets, orators, and statesmen of all times, have been witty, Cæsar, Alexander, Aristotle, Descartes, and Lord Bacon, were witty men; so were Cicero, Shakspeare, Demosthenes, Boileau, Pope, Dryden, Fontenelle, Jonson, Waller, Cowley, Solon, Socrates, Dr. Johnson, and almost every man who has made a distinguished figure in the House of Commons. I have talked of the danger of wit: I do not mean by that to enter into commonplace declamation against faculties because they are dangerous; wit is dangerous, eloquence is dangerous, a talent for observation is dangerous, every thing is dangerous that has efficacy and vigor for its characteristics: nothing is safe but mediocrity. The business is, in conducting the understanding well, to risk something; to aim at uniting things that are commonly incompatible. The meaning of an extraordinary man is, that he is eight men, not one man; that he has as much wit as if he had no sense, and as much sense as if he had no wit; that his conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of human beings, and his imagination as brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined. But when wit is combined with sense and information; when it is softened by benevolence, and restrained by strong principle; when it is in the hands of a man who can use it and despise it, who can be witty and something much better than witty, who loves honor, justice, decency, good-nature, morality, and religion, ten thousand times better than wit; wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of our nature. There is no more interesting spectacle than to see the effects of wit upon the different characters of men; than to observe it expanding caution, relaxing dignity, unfreezing coldness – teaching age, and care, and pain to smile – extorting reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and charming even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it penetrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually bringing men nearer together, and, like the combined force of wine and oil, giving every man a glad heart and a shining countenance. Genuine and innocent wit like this, is surely the flavor of the mind! Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavor, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to "charm his pained steps over the burning marl."

influence of association

I remember once seeing an advertisement in the papers, with which I was much struck; and which I will take the liberty of reading: "Lost, in the Temple Coffee-house, and supposed to be taken away by mistake, an oaken stick, which has supported its master not only over the greatest part of Europe, but has been his companion in his journeys over the inhospitable deserts of Africa: whoever will restore it to the waiter, will confer a very serious obligation on the advertiser; or, if that be any object, shall receive a recompense very much above the value of the article restored." Now, here is a man, who buys a sixpenny stick, because it is useful; and, totally forgetting the trifling causes which first made his stick of any consequence, speaks of it with warmth and affection; calls it his companion; and would hardly have changed it, perhaps, for the gold stick which is carried before the king. But the best and the strongest example of this, and of the customary progress of association, is in the passion of avarice. A child only loves a guinea because it shines; and, as it is equally splendid, he loves a gilt button as well. In after-life, he begins to love wealth, because it affords him the comforts of existence; and then loves it so well, that he denies himself the common comforts of life to increase it. The uniting idea is so totally forgotten, that it is completely sacrificed to the ideas which it unites. Two friends unite against the person to whose introduction they are indebted for their knowledge of each other; exclude him their society, and ruin him by their combination.

indestructibility of enjoyment

Mankind are always happier for having been happy; so that if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence, by the memory of it. A childhood passed with a due mixture of rational indulgence, under fond and wise parents, diffuses over the whole of life a feeling of calm pleasure; and, in extreme old age, is the very last remembrance which time can erase from the mind of man. No enjoyment, however inconsiderable, is confined to the present moment. A man is the happier for life, from having made once an agreeable tour, or lived for any length of time with pleasant people, or enjoyed any considerable interval of innocent pleasure: and it is most probably the recollection of their past pleasures, which contributes to render old men so inattentive to the scenes before them; and carries them back to a world that is past, and to scenes never to be renewed again.

happiness as a moral agent

That virtue gives happiness we all know; but if it be true that happiness contributes to virtue, the principle furnishes us with some sort of excuse for the errors and excesses of able young man, at the bottom of life, fretting with impatience under their obscurity, and hatching a thousand chimeras of being neglected and overlooked by the world. The natural cure for these errors is the sunshine of prosperity: as they get happier, they get better, and learn, from the respect which they receive from others, to respect themselves. "Whenever," says Mr. Lancaster (in his book just published), "I met with a boy particularly mischievous, I made him a monitor: I never knew this fail." The cause for the promotion, and the kind of encouragement it must occasion, I confess appear rather singular, but of the effect, I have no sort of doubt.

power of habit

Habit uniformly and constantly strengthens all our active exertions: whatever we do often, we become more and more apt to do. A snuff-taker begins with a pinch of snuff per day, and ends with a pound or two every month. Swearing begins in anger; it ends by mingling itself with ordinary conversation. Such-like instances are of too common notoriety to need that they be adduced; but, as I before observed, at the very time that the tendency to do the thing is every day increasing, the pleasure resulting from it is, by the blunted sensibility of the bodily organ, diminished, and the desire is irresistible, though the gratification is nothing. There is rather an entertaining example of this in Fielding's "Life of Jonathan Wild," in that scene where he is represented as playing at cards with the count, a professed gambler. "Such," says Mr. Fielding, "was the power of habit over the minds of these illustrious persons, that Mr. Wild could not keep his hands out of the count's pockets, though he knew they were empty; nor could the count abstain from palming a card, though he was well aware Mr. Wild had no money to pay him."

the use of the passions

The passions are in morals, what motion is in physics; they create, preserve, and animate, and without them all would be silence and death. Avarice guides men across the deserts of the ocean; pride covers the earth with trophies, and mausoleums, and pyramids; love turns men from their savage rudeness; ambition shakes the very foundations of kingdoms. By the love of glory, weak nations swell into magnitude and strength. Whatever there is of terrible, whatever there is of beautiful in human events, all that shakes the soul to and fro, and is remembered while thought and flesh cling together, all these have their origin from the passions. As it is only in storms, and when their coming waters are driven up into the air, that we catch a sight of the depths of the sea, it is only in the season of perturbation that we have a glimpse of the real internal nature of man. It is then only that the might of these eruptions, shaking his frame, dissipates all the feeble coverings of opinion, and rends in pieces that cobweb vail with which fashion hides the feelings of the heart. It is then only that Nature speaks her genuine feelings; and, as at the last night of Troy, when Venus illumined the darkness, Æneas saw the gods themselves at work, so may we, when the blaze of passion is flung upon man's nature, mark in him the signs of a celestial origin, and tremble at the invisible agents of God!

Look at great men in critical and perilous moments, when every cold and little spirit is extinguished: their passions always bring them out harmless, and at the very moment when they seem to perish, they emerge into greater glory. Alexander in the midst of his mutinous soldiers; Frederick of Prussia, combating against the armies of three kingdoms; Cortes, breaking in pieces the Mexican empire: their passions led all these great men to fix their attention strongly upon the objects of their desires; they saw them under aspects unknown to, and unseen by common men, and which enabled them to conceive and execute those hardy enterprises, deemed rash and foolish, till their wisdom was established by their success. It is, in fact, the great passions alone which enable men to distinguish between what is difficult and what is impossible; a distinction always confounded by merely sensible men, who do not even suspect the existence of those means which men of genius employ to effect their object. It is only passion which gives a man that high enthusiasm for his country, and makes him regard it as the only object worthy of human attention; an enthusiasm which to common eyes appears madness and extravagance, but which always creates fresh powers of mind, and commonly insures their ultimate success. In fact, it is only the great passions which, tearing us away from the seductions of indolence, endow us with that continuity of attention, to which alone superiority of mind is attached. It is to their passions alone, under the providence of God, that nations must trust, when perils gather thick about them, and their last moments seem to be at hand. The history of the world shows us that men are not to be counted by their numbers, but by the fire and vigor of their passions; by their deep sense of injury; by their memory of past glory; by their eagerness for fresh fame; by their clear and steady resolution of ceasing to live, or of achieving a particular object, which, when it is once formed, strikes off a load of manacles and chains, and gives free space to all heavenly and heroic feelings. All great and extraordinary actions come from the heart. There are seasons in human affairs, when qualities fit enough to conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless, and when men must trust to emotion for that safety which reason at such times can never give. These are the feelings which led the ten thousand over the Carduchian mountains; these are the feelings by which a handful of Greeks broke in pieces the power of Persia: they have, by turns, humbled Austria, reduced Spain; and in the fens of the Dutch, and on the mountains of the Swiss, defended the happiness, and revenged the oppressions of man! God calls all the passions out in their keenness and vigor for the present safety of mankind. Anger, and revenge, and the heroic mind, and a readiness to suffer; all the secret strength, all the invisible array of the feelings, all that nature has reserved for the great scenes of the world. For the usual hopes and the common aids of man are all gone! Kings have perished, armies are subdued, nations mouldered away! Nothing remains, under God, but those passions which have often proved the best ministers of His vengeance, and the surest protectors of the world.

In that, and similar passages, a sustained feeling and expression not ordinarily associated with Sydney Smith, impresses the reader with its unaffected eloquence and emotion. We close the book reluctantly, for we leave many things unquoted that had the most forcibly impressed us. In the two chapters on the conduct of the understanding, there are most masterly disquisitions on labor and study as connected with the manifestations of genius; on the importance of men adhering to the particular line of their powers or talents, and on the tendency of all varieties of human accomplishment to the same great object of exalting and gladdening life. We would also particularly mention a happy and noble recommendation of the uses of classical study at the close of the chapter on the sublime.

YOUNG POET'S PLAINT

God, release our dying sister!
Beauteous blight hath sadly kiss'd her
Whiter than the wild, white roses,
Famine in her face discloses
Mute submission, patience holy,
Passing fair! but passing slowly.

Though she said, "You know I'm dying."
In her heart green trees are sighing;
Not of them hath pain bereft her,
In the city, where we left her:
"Bring," she said, "a hedgeside blossom!"
Love shall lay it on her bosom.

    Elliott.
Alexander after the retreat from Lutzen. – "The Emperor of Russia passed the night of the battle at Pegau, whither his britcka containing his papers and camp-bed had been brought; and, after having been twenty-four hours on horseback, Lord Cathcart and his staff found the bare floor of a cottage so comfortable a couch, without even the luxury of straw, that no one seemed in a hurry to rise when we were informed soon after daylight, that his imperial majesty was about to mount and depart, and that the enemy were approaching to dislodge us. The emperor slowly rode some miles toward the rear, along the Altenburg road, conversing with Lord Cathcart about the battle: he laid great stress upon the report of the commandant of artillery as to the want of ammunition, which he assigned as the principal reason for not renewing the action; he spoke of the result as a victory gained on our side; and it was afterward the fashion in the army to consider it as such, though not perhaps a victory so important in its consequences, or so decisive as could have been wished. At length the emperor observed that he did not like to be seen riding, fast to the rear, and that it was now necessary for him to go to Dresden with all expedition, and prepare for ulterior operations: he then entered his little traveling-carriage, which was drawn by relays of Cossack horses, and proceeded by Altenburg to Penig." —Cathcart.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

SONNETS FROM THE ITALIAN

upon the death of the redeemer

by minzoni

When, in that last, loud wail, the Son of God
Rent open graves and shook the mountain's steep —
Adam, affrighted from his world-long sleep,
Raised up his head; then stark and upright stood:
With fear and wonder filled, he moved around
His troubled eyes – then asked, with throbbing heart,
Who was that awful One who hung apart,
Gore-stained and lifeless, on the curst tree bound.
Soon as he learned, his penitent hand defiled