proved, are desirous to give to forms of government a similar progression. From the same anxiety, I have been led to introduce my opinions on this most hazardous subject by a preface of a somewhat personal character. And though the title of my address is general, yet, I own, I direct myself more particularly to those among my readers, who, from various printed and unprinted calumnies, have judged most unfavorably of my political tenets; and to those, whose favor I have chanced to win in consequence of a similar, though not equal, mistake. To both I affirm, that the opinions and arguments I am about to detail, have been the settled convictions of my mind for the last ten or twelve years, with some brief intervals of fluctuation, and those only in lesser points, and known only to the companions of my fireside. From both and from all my readers, I solicit a gracious attention to the following explanations; first, on the congruity of this number with the general plan and object of The Friend, and secondly on the charge of arrogance, which may be adduced against the author for the freedom with which, in this number, and in others that will follow, on other subjects, he presumes to dissent from men of established reputation, or even to doubt of the justice with which the public laurel crown, as symbolical of the first class of genius and intellect, has been awarded to sundry writers since the Revolution, and permitted to wither around the brows of our elder benefactors, from Hooker to Sir Philip Sidney, and from Sir Philip Sidney to Jeremy Taylor and Stillingfleet. First, then, as to the consistency of the subject of the following essay with the proposed plan of my work, let something be allowed to honest personal motives, a justifiable solicitude to stand well with my contemporaries in those points, in which I have remained unreproached by my own conscience. Des aliquid fama. A reason of far greater importance is derived from the well-grounded complaint of sober minds, concerning the mode by which political opinions of greatest hazard have been, of late years, so often propagated. This evil can not be described in more just and lively language than in the words of Paley, which, though by him applied to infidelity, hold equally true of the turbulent errors of political heresy. They are “served up in every shape that is likely to allure, surprise, or beguile the imagination; in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem; in interspersed and broken-hints; remote and oblique surmises; in books of travels, of philosophy, of natural history; in a word, in any form, rather than the right one, that of a professed and regular disquisition."* Now, in claiming for The Friend a fair chance of unsuspected admission into the families of Christian believers and quiet subjects, I can not but deem it incumbent on me to accompany my introduction with a * Moral and Polit. Philosophy, B. V. c. 9.-Ed. full and fair statement of my own political system;-not that any considerable portion of my essays will be devoted to politics in any shape, for rarely shall I recur to them, except as far as they may happen to be involved in some point of private morality; but that the encouragers of this work may possess grounds of assurance, that no tenets of a different tendency from these I am preparing to state, will be met in it. I would fain hope, that even those persons to whose political opinions I may run counter, will not be displeased at seeing the possible objections to their creed calmly set forth by one who, equally with themselves, considers the love of true liberty as a part both of religion and morality, as a necessary condition of their general predominance, and ministering to the same blessed purposes. The development of my persuasions, relatively to religion in its great essentials, will occupy a following number, in which, and throughout these essays, my aim will be, seldom, indeed, to enter the temple of revelation (much less of positive institution), but to lead my readers to its threshold, and to remove the prejudices with which the august euifice may have been contemplated from ill chosen and unfriendly points of view. But, independently of this motive, I deem the subject of politics, so treated as I intend to treat it, strictly congruous with my general plan. For it was and is my prime object to refer men in all their actions, opinions, and even enjoyments, to an appropriate rule, and to aid them with all the means I possess, by the knowledge of the facts on which such rule grounds itself. The rules of political prudence do, indeed, depend on local and temporary circumstances in a much greater degree than those of morality, or even those of taste. Still, however, the circumstances being known, the deductions obey the same law, and must be referred to the same arbiter. In a late summary reperusal of our more celebrated periodical essays, by the contemporaries of Addison and those of Johnson, it appeared to me that the objects of the writers were, either to lead the reader from gross enjoyments and boisterous amusements, by gradually familiarizing them with more quiet and refined pleasures; or to make the habits of domestic life and public demeanor more consistent with decorum and good sense, by laughing away the lesser follies and freaks of self-vexation, or to arm the yet virtuous mind with horror of the direr crimes and vices, by exemplifying their origin, progress, and results, in affecting tales and true or fictitious biography; or where, as in the Rambler, it is intended to strike a yet deeper note, to support the cause of religion and morality by eloquent declamation and dogmatic precept, such as may with propriety be addressed to those, who require to be awakened rather than convinced, whose conduct is incongruous with their own sober convictions; in short, to practical not speculative heretics. Revered forever be the names of these great and good men! Im mortal be their fame; and may love, and honor, and docility of heart in their readers constitute its essentials! Not without cruel injustice should I be accused or suspected of a wish to underrate their merits, because, in journeying toward the same end, I have chosen a different road. Not wantonly, however, have I ventured even on this variation. I have decided on it in consequence of all the observations which I have made on my fellow-creatures, since I have been able to observe in calmness the present age, and to compare its phænomena with the best indications we possess of the character of the ages before us. My time since earliest manhood has been pretty equally divided between deep retirement, with little other society than that of one family, and my library, and the occupations and intercourse of [comparatively at least] public life both abroad and in the British metropolis. But in fact the deepest retirement, in which a well-educated Englishman of active feelings, and no misanthrope, can live at present, supposes few of the disadvantages and negations, which a similar place of residence would have involved a century past. Independently of the essential knowledge to be derived from books, children, housemates, and neighbors, however few and humble,-newspapers, their advertisements, speeches in parliament, law courts, and public meetings, reviews, magazines, obituaries, and [as affording occasional commentaries on all these] the diffusion of uniform opinions, behavior, and appearance, of fashions in things external and internal, have combined to diminish, and often to render evanescent, the distinctions between the enlightened inhabitants of the great city, and the scattered hamlet. From all the facts, however, that have occurred as subjects of reflection within the sphere of my experience, be they few or numerous, I have fully persuaded my own mind, that formerly men were worse than their principles, but that at present the principles are worse than the men. For the former half of the proposition I might, among a thousand other more serious and unpleasant proofs, appeal even to the Spectators and Tatlers. It would not be easy, perhaps, to detect in them any great corruption or debasement of the main foundations of truth and goodness; yet a man -I will not say of delicate mind and pure morals, but-of common good manners, who means to read an essay, which he has opened upon at hazard in these volumes to a mixed company, will find it necessary to take a previous survey of its contents. If stronger illustration be required, I would refer to one of Shadwell's comedies, in connection with its dedication to the Duchess of Newcastle, encouraged as he says, by the high delight with which her Grace had listened to the author's private recitation of the manuscript in her closet. A writer of the present day, who should dare address such a composition to a virtuous matron of high rank, would secure general infamy, and run no small risk of Bridewell or the pillory. Why need I add the plays and poems of Dryden, contrasted with his serious prefaces and declarations of his own religious and moral opinions? Why the little success, except among the heroes and heroines of fashionable life, of the two or three living writers of prurient love-odes [if I may be forgiven for thus profaning the word love] and novels, at once terrific and libidinous? These gentlemen erred both in place and time, and have understood the temper of their age and country as ill as the precepts of that Bible, which, notwithstanding the atrocious blasphemy of one of them, the great majority of their countrymen peruse with safety to their morals, if not improvement. The truth of the latter half of the proposition in its favorable part is evidenced by the general anxiety on the subject of education, the solicitous attention paid to several late works on its general principles, and the unexpected sale of the very numerous large and small volumes, published for the use of parents and instructors, and for the children given or intrusted to their charge. The first ten or twelve leaves of our old almanac books, and the copper-plates of old ladies' magazines, and similar publications, will afford, in the fashions and head-dresses of our grandmothers, contrasted with the present simple ornaments of women in general, a less important, but not less striking elucidation of my meaning. The wide diffusion of moral information, in no slight degree owing to the volumes of our popular essayists, has undoubtedly been on the whole beneficent. But above all, the recent events [say, rather, tremendous explosions], the thunder and earthquakes, and deluge of the political world, have forced habits of great thoughtfulness on the minds of men; particularly in our own island, where the instruction has been acquired without the stupefying influences of terror or actual calamity. We have been compelled to acknowledge [what our fathers would have perhaps called it want of liberality to assert], the close connection between private libertinism and national subversion. To those familiar with the state and morals, and the ordinary subjects of after-dinner conversation, at least among the young men in Oxford and Cambridge, only twenty or twenty-five years back, I might with pleasure point out, in support of my thesis, the present state of our two universities, which has rather superseded, than been produced by any additional vigilance or austerity of discipline. The unwelcome remainder of the proposition, the "feet of iron and clay," the unsteadiness, or falsehood, or abasement of the principles, which are taught and received by the existing generation, it is the chief purpose and general business of The Friend to examine, to evince, and [as far as my own forces extend, increased by the contingents which, I flatter myself, will be occasionally furnished by abler patrons of the same cause] to remedy or alleviate. That my efforts will effect little, I am fully conscious; but by no means admit, that little is to be effected. The squire of low degree may announce the approach of puissant knight, yea, the giant may even condescend to lift up the feeble dwarf, and permit it to blow the horn of defiance on his shoulders. Principles, therefore, their subordination, their connection, and their application, in all the divisions of our duties and of our pleasures-this is my chapter of contents. May I not hope for a candid interpretation of my motive, if I again recur to the possible apprehension on the part of my readers, that The Friend, O'erlaid with black, staid wisdom's hue, with eye fixed in abstruse research, and brow of perpetual wrinkle, is to frown away the light-hearted graces, and unreproved pleasures; or invite his guests to a dinner of herbs in a hermit's cell; if I affirm, that my plan does not in itself exclude either impassioned style or interesting narrative, tale, or allegory, or anecdote; and that the defect will originate in my abilities, not in my wishes or efforts, if I fail to bring forward, Due at my hour prepared For dinner savory fruits, of taste to please In order, so contrived as not to mix Tastes, not well joined, inelegant, but bring Taste after taste upheld with kindliest change.* D. NO. V. THE Comparison of the English with the Anglo-American newspapers will best evince the difference between a lawless press [lawless, at least, in practice and by connivance], and a press at once protected and restrained by law. IBID. Chrysippus, in one of his Stoical Aphorisms, presented by Cicero,t says:-Nature has given to the hog a soul instead of salt, in order to keep it from putrefying. This holds equally true of man considered as an animal. Modern physiologists have substituted the words vital power [vis vita] for that of soul, and not without good reason: for, from the effect we may fairly deduce the inherence of a power pro *Par. Lost, V. 303, 333.-Ed. + De Natura Deorum, II: s. 64.-Ed. |