Thoughts on Man

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Shakespear we are accustomed to call the most universal genius
that ever existed. He has a truly wonderful variety. It is
almost impossible to pronounce in which he has done best, his
Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, or Othello. He is equally excellent in
his comic vein as his tragic. Falstaff is in his degree to the
full as admirable and astonishing, as what he achieved that is
noblest under the auspices of the graver muse. His poetry and
the fruits of his imagination are unrivalled. His language, in
all that comes from him when his genius is most alive, has a
richness, an unction, and all those signs of a character which
admits not of mortality and decay, for ever fresh as when it was
first uttered, which we recognise, while we can hardly persuade
ourselves that we are not in a delusion. As Anthony Wood
says[4], "By the writings of Shakespear and others of his time,
the English tongue was exceedingly enriched, and made quite
another thing than what it was before." His versification on
these occasions has a melody, a ripeness and variety that no
other pen has reached.

[4] Athenae Oxonienses, vol. i. p. 592.

Yet there were things that Shakespear could not do. He could not
make a hero. Familiar as he was with the evanescent touches of
mind en dishabille, and in its innermost feelings, he could not
sustain the tone of a character, penetrated with a divine
enthusiasm, or fervently devoted to a generous cause, though this
is truly within the compass of our nature, and is more than any
other worthy to be delineated. He could conceive such
sentiments, for there are such in his personage of Brutus; but he
could not fill out and perfect what he has thus sketched. He
seems even to have had a propensity to bring the mountain and the
hill to a level with the plain. Caesar is spiritless, and Cicero
is ridiculous, in his hands. He appears to have written his
Troilus and Cressida partly with a view to degrade, and hold up
to contempt, the heroes of Homer; and he has even disfigured the
pure, heroic affection which the Greek poet has painted as
existing between Achilles and Patroclus with the most odious
imputations.

And, as he could not sustain an heroic character throughout, so
neither could he construct a perfect plot, in which the interest
should be perpetually increasing, and the curiosity of the
spectator kept alive and in suspense to the last moment. Several
of his plays have an unity of subject to which nothing is
wanting; but he has not left us any production that should rival
that boast of Ancient Greece in the conduct of a plot, the
OEdipus Tyrannus, a piece in which each act rises upon the act
before, like a tower that lifts its head story above story to the
skies. He has scarcely ever given to any of his plays a fifth
act, worthy of those that preceded; the interest generally
decreases after the third.

Shakespear is also liable to the charge of obscurity. The most
sagacious critics dispute to this very hour, whether Hamlet is or
is not mad, and whether Falstaff is a brave man or a coward.
This defect is perhaps partly to be imputed to the nature of
dramatic writing. It is next to impossible to make words, put
into the mouth of a character, develop all those things passing
in his mind, which it may be desirable should be known.

I spoke, a short time back, of the language of Shakespear in his
finest passages, as of unrivalled excellence and beauty; I might
almost have called it miraculous. O, si sic omnia! It is to be
lamented that this felicity often deserts him. He is not seldom
cramp, rigid and pedantic. What is best in him is eternal, of
all ages and times; but what is worst, is crusted with an
integument, almost more cumbrous than that of any other writer,
his contemporary, the merits of whose works continue to invite us
to their perusal.

After Shakespear, it is scarcely worth while to bring forward any
other example, of a writer who, notwithstanding his undoubted
claims to excellencies of the highest order, yet in his
productions fully displays the inequality and non-universality of
his genius. One of the most remarkable instances may be alleged
in Richardson, the author of Clarissa. In his delineation of
female delicacy, of high-souled and generous sentiments, of the
subtlest feelings and even mental aberrations of virtuous
distress strained beyond the power of human endurance, nothing
ever equalled this author. But he could not shape out the image
of a perfect gentleman, or of that winning gaiety of soul, which
may indeed be exemplified, but can never be defined, and never be
resisted. His profligate is a man without taste; and his
coquettes are insolent and profoundly revolting. He has no
resemblance of the art, so conspicuous in Fletcher and Farquhar,
of presenting to the reader or spectator an hilarity, bubbling
and spreading forth from a perennial spring, which we love as
surely as we feel, which communicates its own tone to the
bystander, and makes our very hearts dance within us with a
responsive sportiveness. We are astonished however that the
formal pedant has acquitted himself of his uncongenial task with
so great a display of intellectual wealth; and, though he has not
presented to us the genuine picture of an intellectual
profligate, or of that lovely gaiety of the female spirit which
we have all of us seen, but which it is scarcely possible to fix
and to copy, we almost admire the more the astonishing talent,
that, having undertaken a task for which it was so eminently
unfit, yet has been able to substitute for the substance so
amazing a mockery, and has treated with so much copiousness and
power what it was unfit ever to have attempted.

ESSAY IV.
OF THE DURABILITY OF HUMAN ACHIEVEMENTS AND PRODUCTIONS.

There is a view of the character of man, calculated more perhaps
than any other to impress us with reverence and awe.

Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his
natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.

All other animals have but one object in view in their more
considerable actions, the supply of the humbler accommodations of
their nature. Man has a power sufficient for the accomplishment
of this object, and a residue of power beyond, which he is able,
and which he not unfrequently feels himself prompted, to employ
in consecutive efforts, and thus, first by the application and
arrangement of material substances, and afterward by the faculty
he is found to possess of giving a permanent record to his
thoughts, to realise the archetypes and conceptions which
previously existed only in his mind.

One method, calculated to place this fact strongly before us, is,
to suppose ourselves elevated, in a balloon or otherwise, so as
to enable us to take an extensive prospect of the earth on which
we dwell. We shall then see the plains and the everlasting
hills, the forests and the rivers, and all the exuberance of
production which nature brings forth for the supply of her living
progeny. We shall see multitudes of animals, herds of cattle and
of beasts of prey, and all the varieties of the winged tenants of
the air. But we shall also behold, in a manner almost equally
calculated to arrest our attention, the traces and the monuments
of human industry. We shall see castles and churches, and
hamlets and mighty cities. We shall see this strange creature,
man, subjecting all nature to his will. He builds bridges, and
he constructs aqueducts. He "goes down to the sea in ships," and
variegates the ocean with his squadrons and his fleets. To the
person thus mounted in the air to take a wide and magnificent
prospect, there seems to be a sort of contest between the face of
the earth, as it may be supposed to have been at first, and the
ingenuity of man, which shall occupy and possess itself of the
greatest number of acres. We cover immense regions of the globe
with the tokens of human cultivation.

Thus the matter stands as to the exertions of the power of man in
the application and arrangement of material substances.

But there is something to a profound and contemplative mind much
more extraordinary, in the effects produced by the faculty we
possess of giving a permanent record to our thoughts.

From the development of this faculty all human science and
literature take their commencement. Here it is that we most
distinctly, and with the greatest astonishment, perceive that man
is a miracle. Declaimers are perpetually expatiating to us upon
the shortness of human life. And yet all this is performed by
us, when the wants of our nature have already by our industry
been supplied. We manufacture these sublimities and everlasting
monuments out of the bare remnants and shreds of our time.

The labour of the intellect of man is endless. How copious is
the volume, and how extraordinary the variety, of our sciences
and our arts! The number of men is exceedingly great in every
civilised state of society, that make these the sole object of
their occupation. And this has been more or less the condition
of our species in all ages, ever since we left the savage and the
pastoral modes of existence.

From this view of the history of man we are led by an easy
transition to the consideration of the nature and influence of
the love of fame in modifying the actions of the human mind. We
have already stated it to be one of the characteristic
distinctions of our species to erect monuments which outlast the
existence of the persons that produced them. This at first was
accidental, and did not enter the design of the operator. The
man who built himself a shed to protect him from the inclemency
of the seasons, and afterwards exchanged that shed for a somewhat
more commodious dwelling, did not at first advert to the
circumstance that the accommodation might last, when he was no
longer capable to partake of it.

In this way perhaps the wish to extend the memory of ourselves
beyond the term of our mortal existence, and the idea of its
being practicable to gratify that wish, descended upon us
together. In contemplating the brief duration and the
uncertainty of human life, the idea must necessarily have
occurred, that we might survive those we loved, or that they
might survive us. In the first case we inevitably wish more or
less to cherish the memory of the being who once was an object of
affection to us, but of whose society death has deprived us. In
the second case it can scarcely happen but that we desire
ourselves to be kindly recollected by those we leave behind us.
So simple is the first germ of that longing after posthumous
honour, which presents us with so memorable effects in the page
of history.

But, previously to the further consideration of posthumous fame,
let us turn our attention for a moment to the fame, or, as in
that sense it is more usually styled, popularity, which is the
lot of a few favoured individuals while they live. The attending
to the subject in this point of view, will be found to throw
light upon the more extensive prospect of the question to which
we will immediately afterwards proceed.

Popularity is an acquisition more level to the most ordinary
capacities, and therefore is a subject of more general ambition,
than posthumous fame. It addresses itself to the senses.
Applause is a species of good fortune to which perhaps no mortal
ear is indifferent. The persons who constitute the circle in
which we are applauded, receive us with smiles of approbation and
sympathy. They pay their court to us, seem to be made happy by
our bare presence among them, and welcome us to their houses with
congratulation and joy. The vulgar portion of mankind scarcely
understand the question of posthumous fame, they cannot
comprehend how panegyric and honour can "soothe the dull, cold
ear of death:" but they can all conceive the gratification to be
derived from applauding multitudes and loud huzzas.

One of the most obvious features however that attends upon
popularity, is its fugitive nature. No man has once been
popular, and has lived long, without experiencing neglect at
least, if he were not also at some time subjected to the very
intelligible disapprobation and censure of his fellows. The good
will and kindness of the multitude has a devouring appetite, and
is like a wild beast that you should stable under your roof,
which, if you do not feed with a continual supply, will turn
about and attack its protector.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,--
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,
More laud than they will give to gold o'erdusted.

Cromwel well understood the nature of this topic, when he said,
as we are told, to one of his military companions, who called his
attention to the rapturous approbation with which they were
received by the crowd on their return from a successful
expedition, "Ah, my friend, they would accompany us with equal
demonstrations of delight, if, upon no distant occasion, they
were to see us going to be hanged!"

The same thing which happens to the popularity attendant on the
real or imaginary hero of the multitude, happens also in the race
after posthumous fame.

As has already been said, the number of men is exceedingly great
in every civilised state of society, who make the sciences and
arts engendered by the human mind, the sole or the principal
objects of their occupation.

This will perhaps be most strikingly illustrated by a retrospect
of the state of European society in the middle, or, as they are
frequently styled, the dark ages.

It has been a vulgar error to imagine, that the mind of man, so
far as relates to its active and inventive powers, was sunk into
a profound sleep, from which it gradually recovered itself at the
period when Constantinople was taken by the Turks, and the books
and the teachers of the ancient Greek language were dispersed
through Europe. The epoch from which modern invention took its
rise, commenced much earlier. The feudal system, one of the most
interesting contrivances of man in society, was introduced in the
ninth century; and chivalry, the offspring of that system, an
institution to which we are mainly indebted for refinement of
sentiment, and humane and generous demeanour, in the eleventh.
Out of these grew the originality and the poetry of romance.

These were no mean advancements. But perhaps the greatest debt
which after ages have contracted to this remote period, arose out
of the system of monasteries and ecclesiastical celibacy. Owing
to these a numerous race of men succeeded to each other
perpetually, who were separated from the world, cut off from the
endearments of conjugal and parental affection, and who had a
plenitude of leisure for solitary application. To these men we
are indebted for the preservation of the literature of Rome, and
the multiplied copies of the works of the ancients. Nor were
they contented only with the praise of never-ending industry.
They forged many works, that afterwards passed for classical, and
which have demanded all the perspicacity of comparative criticism
to refute. And in these pursuits the indefatigable men who were
dedicated to them, were not even goaded by the love of fame.
They were satisfied with the consciousness of their own
perseverance and ingenuity.

But the most memorable body of men that adorned these ages, were
the Schoolmen. They may be considered as the discoverers of the
art of logic. The ancients possessed in an eminent degree the
gift of genius; but they have little to boast on the score of
arrangement, and discover little skill in the strictness of an
accurate deduction. They rather arrive at truth by means of a
felicity of impulse, than in consequence of having regularly gone
through the process which leads to it. The schools of the middle
ages gave birth to the Irrefragable and the Seraphic doctors, the
subtlety of whose distinctions, and the perseverance of whose
investigations, are among the most wonderful monuments of the
intellectual power of man. The thirteenth century produced
Thomas Aquinas, and Johannes Duns Scotus, and William Occam, and
Roger Bacon. In the century before, Thomas a Becket drew around
him a circle of literary men, whose correspondence has been
handed down to us, and who deemed it their proudest distinction
that they called each other philosophers. The Schoolmen often
bewildered themselves in their subtleties, and often delivered
dogmas and systems that may astonish the common sense of
unsophisticated understandings. But such is man. So great is
his persevering labour, his invincible industry, and the
resolution with which he sets himself, year after year, and
lustre after lustre, to accomplish the task which his judgment
and his zeal have commanded him to pursue.

But I return to the question of literary fame. All these men,
and men of a hundred other classes, who laboured most commendably
and gallantly in their day, may be considered as swept away into
the gulph of oblivion. As Swift humorously says in his
Dedication to Prince Posterity, "I had prepared a copious list of
Titles to present to your highness, as an undisputed argument of
the prolificness of human genius in my own time: the originals
were posted upon all gates and corner's of streets: but,
returning in a very few hours to take a review, they were all
torn down, and fresh ones put in their places. I enquired after
them among readers and booksellers, but in vain: the memorial of
them was lost among men; their place was no more to be found."

It is a just remark that had been made by Hume[5]: "Theories of
abstract philosophy, systems of profound theology, have prevailed
during one age. In a successive period these have been
universally exploded; their absurdity has been detected; other
theories and systems have supplied their place, which again gave
way to their successors; and nothing has been experienced more
liable to the revolutions of chance and fashion than these
pretended decisions of science. The case is not the same with
the beauties of eloquence and poetry. Just expressions of
passion and nature are sure, after a little time, to gain public
applause, which they maintain for ever. Aristotle and Plato and
Epicurus and Descartes may successively yield to each other: but
Terence and Virgil maintain an universal, undisputed empire over
the minds of men. The abstract philosophy of Cicero has lost its
credit: the vehemence of his oratory is still the object of our
admiration."

[5] Essays, Part 1, Essay xxiii.

A few examples of the instability of fame will place this
question in the clearest light.

Nicholas Peiresk was born in the year 1580. His progress in
knowledge was so various and unprecedented, that, from the time
that he was twenty-one years of age, he was universally
considered as holding the helm of learning in his hand, and
guiding the commonwealth of letters. He died at the age of
fifty-seven. The academy of the Humoristi at Rome paid the most
extraordinary honours to his memory; many of the cardinals
assisted at his funeral oration; and a collection of verses in
his praise was published in more than forty languages.

Salmasius was regarded as a prodigy of learning; and various
princes and powers entered into a competition who should be so
fortunate as to secure his residence in their states. Christina,
queen of Sweden, having obtained the preference, received him
with singular reverence and attention; and, Salmasius being taken
ill at Stockholm, and confined to his bed, the queen persisted
with her own hand to prepare his caudles, and mend his fire.
Yet, but for the accident of his having had Milton for his
adversary, his name would now be as little remembered, even by
the generality of the learned, as that of Peiresk.

Du Bartas, in the reign of Henry the Fourth of France, was one of
the most successful poets that ever existed. His poem on the
Creation of the World went through upwards of thirty editions in
the course of five or six years, was translated into most
European languages, and its commentators promised to equal in
copiousness and number the commentators on Homer.

One of the most admired of our English poets about the close of
the sixteenth century, was Donne. Unlike many of those trivial
writers of verse who succeeded him after an interval of forty or
fifty years, and who won for themselves a brilliant reputation by
the smoothness of their numbers, the elegance of their
conceptions, and the politeness of their style, Donne was full of
originality, energy and vigour. No man can read him without
feeling himself called upon for earnest exercise of his thinking
powers, and, even with the most fixed attention and application,
the student is often obliged to confess his inability to take in
the whole of the meaning with which the poet's mind was
perceptibly fraught. Every sentence that Donne writes, whether
in verse or prose, is exclusively his own. In addition to this,
his thoughts are often in the noblest sense of the word poetical;
and passages may be quoted from him that no English poet may
attempt to rival, unless it be Milton and Shakespear. Ben Jonson
observed of him with great truth and a prophetic spirit: "Donne
for not being understood will perish." But this is not all. If
Waller and Suckling and Carew sacrificed every thing to the
Graces, Donne went into the other extreme. With a few splendid
and admirable exceptions, his phraseology and versification are
crabbed and repulsive. And, as poetry is read in the first place
for pleasure, Donne is left undisturbed on the shelf, or rather
in the sepulchre; and not one in an hundred even among persons of
cultivation, can give any account of him, if in reality they ever
heard of his productions.

The name of Shakespear is that before which every knee must bow.
But it was not always so. When the first novelty of his pieces
was gone, they were seldom called into requisition. Only three
or four of his plays were upon the acting list of the principal
company of players during the reign of Charles the Second; and
the productions of Beaumont and Fletcher, and of Shirley, were
acted three times for once of his. At length Betterton revived,
and by his admirable representation gave popularity to, Macbeth,
Hamlet and Lear, a popularity they have ever since retained. But
Macbeth was not revived (with music, and alterations by sir
William Davenant) till 1674; and Lear a few years later, with
love scenes and a happy catastrophe by Nahum Tate.

In the latter part of the reign of Charles the Second, Dryden and
Otway and Lee held the undisputed supremacy in the serious drama.

Such was the insensibility of the English public to nature, and
her high priest, Shakespear. The only one of their productions
that has survived upon the theatre, is Venice Preserved: and why
it has done so it is difficult to say; or rather it would be
impossible to assign a just and honourable reason for it. All
the personages in this piece are of an abandoned and profligate
character. Pierre is a man resolved to destroy and root up the
republic by which he was employed, because his mistress, a
courtesan, is mercenary, and endures the amorous visits of an
impotent old lecher. Jaffier, without even the profession of any
public principle, joins in the conspiracy, because he has been
accustomed to luxury and prodigal expence and is poor. He has
however no sooner entered into the plot, than he betrays it, and
turns informer to the government against his associates.
Belvidera instigates him to this treachery, because she cannot
bear the thought of having her father murdered, and is absurd
enough to imagine that she and her husband shall be tender and
happy lovers ever after. Their love in the latter acts of the
play is a continued tirade of bombast and sounding nonsense,
without one real sentiment, one just reflection, or one strong
emotion working from the heart, and analysing the nature of man.
The folly of this love can only be exceeded, by the abject and
despicable crouching and fawning of Jaffier to the man he had so
basely betrayed, and their subsequent reconciliation. There is
not a production in the whole realms of fiction, that has less
pretension to manly, or even endurable feeling, or to common
propriety. The total defect of a moral sense in this piece is
strongly characteristic of the reign in which it was written. It
has in the mean while a richness of melody, and a picturesqueness
of action, that enables it to delude, and that even draws tears
from the eyes of, persons who can be won over by the eye and the
ear, with almost no participation of the understanding. And this
unmeaning rant and senseless declamation sufficed for the time to
throw into shade those exquisite delineations of character, those
transcendent bursts of passion, and that perfect anatomy of the
human heart, which render the master-pieces of Shakespear a
property for all nations and all times.

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