Page images
PDF
EPUB

and nimis poeta,' if we may believe Catullus, as much as betwixt a modest behavior and affectation. The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not harmonious to us; but it is like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends-it was auribus istius temporis accommodata. They who lived with him and sometime after him, thought it musical, and it continues so even in our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lydgate and Gower, his contemporaries: there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect. It is true, I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of him; for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse, where we find but nine. But this opinion is not worth confuting; it is so gross and obvious an error, that common sense (which is a rule in every thing but matters of faith and revelation) must convince the reader, that equality of numbers in every verse which we call heroic, was either not known, or not always practised in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make otherwise. We can only say, that he lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first. We must be children, before we grow men. There was an Ennius, and in process of time a Lucilius and a Lucretius, before Virgil and Horace. Even after Chaucer, there was a Spenser, a Harrington, a Fairfax, before Waller and Denham were in being; and our numbers were in their nonage till these last appeared.

THE HEATHEN-REASON AND REVELATION.

It has always been my thought, that heathens who never did, nor without miracle could, hear of the name of Christ, were yet in a possibility of salvation. Neither will it enter easily into my belief, that before the coming of our Saviour, the whole world, excepting only the Jewish nation, should lie under the inevitable necessity of everlasting punishment, for want of that revelation, which was confined to so small a spot of ground as that of Palestine. Among the sons of Noah we read of one only who was accursed; and if a blessing in the ripeness of time was reserved for Japhet, (of whose progeny we are,) it seems unaccountable to me, why so many generations of the same offspring as preceded our Saviour in the flesh, should be all involved in one common con

1 "A poet and too much of a poet:" by the latter expression is meant conceit and affectation in poetry.

2 "Adapted to the ears of the times."

3 Speght, in 1597.

4 This position, however, has been completely disproved by Mr. Tyrwhitt, who, in his edition of the Canterbury Tales, has admirably explained the versification and language of Chaucer, and shown the former to be in general correct.

demnation, and yet that their posterity should be entitled to the hopes of salvation: as if a bill of exclusion had passed only on the fathers, which debarred not the sons from their succession. O that so many ages had been delivered over to hell, and so many reserved for heaven, and that the devil had the first choice, and God the next. Truly, I am apt to think, that the revealed religion which was taught by Noah to all his sons, might continue for some ages in the whole posterity. That afterwards it was included wholly in the family of Sem, is manifest; but when the progenies of Cham and Japhet swarmed into colonies, and those colonies were subdivided into many others, ir "rocess of time their descendants lost by little and little the primitive and purer rites of divine worship, retaining only the notion of one deity; to which succeeding generations added others, for men took their degrees in those ages from conquerors to gods. Revelation being thus eclipsed to almost all mankind, the light of nature, as the next in dignity, was substituted; and that is it which St. Paul concludes to be the rule of the heathens, and by which they are hereafter to be judged. If my supposition be true, then the consequence which I have assumed in my poem may be also true; namely, that Deism, or the principles of natural worship, are only the faint remnants or dying flames of revealed religion in the posterity of Noah: and that our modern philosophers, nay, and some of our philosophizing divines, have too much exalted the faculties of our souls, when they have maintained that, by their force, mankind has been able to find out that there is one supreme agent or intellectual being, which we call God: that praise and prayer are his due worship; and the rest of those deducements, which I am confident are the remote effects of revelation, and unattainable by our discourse; I mean as simply considered, and without the benefit of divine illumination. So that we have not lifted up ourselves to God, by the weak pinions of our reason, but he has been pleased to descend to us; and what Socrates said of him, what Plato writ, and the rest of the heathen philosophers of several nations, is all no more than the twilight of revelation, after the sun of it was set in the race of Noah. That there is something above us, some principle of motion, our reason can apprehend, though it cannot discover what it is by its own virtue. And indeed it is very im probable, that we, who by the strength of our faculties cannot enter into the knowledge of any Being, not so much as of our own, should be able to find out, by them, that supreme nature, which we cannot otherwise define than by saying it is infinite; as if infinite were definable, or infinity a subject for our narrow understanding. They who would prove religion by reason, do but weaken the cause which they endeavor to support: it is to take away the pillars from our faith, and to prop it only with a twig;

it is to design a tower like that of Babel, which, if it were possible, as it is not, to reach heaven, would come to nothing by the confusion of the workmen. For every man is building a several way; impotently conceited of his own model and his own materials: reason is always striving, and always at a loss; and of necessity it must so come to pass, while it is exercised about that which is not its proper object. Let us be content at last to know God by his own methods; at least, so much of him as he is pleased to reveal to us in the sacred Scriptures: to apprehend them to be the word of God, is all our reason has to do; for all beyond it is the work of faith, which is the seal of heaven impressed upon our human understanding.

JOHN LOCKE. 1632-1704.

JOHN LOCKE, the eminent philosophical writer, was born at Wrington, in Somersetshire, on the 29th of August, 1632. He was educated at Westminster school, and at the age of nineteen entered the University of Oxford. He applied himself with great diligence to the study of classical literature, and to the philosophical works of Bacon and Descartes. He made choice of medicine as a profession, and after taking his degrees in the arts, he practised for a short time in the university. But he was soon compelled to relinquish it from the weakness of his constitution.

In 1664 he visited Berlin, as secretary to the English minister; but after a year he returned to Oxford, where he formed an acquaintance with Lord Ashley, afterwards the Earl of Shaftesbury, and accepted his invitation to reside in his house; where he became acquainted with some of the most eminent men of the day. Here he drew up a constitution for the government of South Carolina, which province had been granted by Charles II. to Lord Ashley, with seven others. In 1670 he commenced his investigations in metaphysical philosophy, and laid the plan of that great work, his «Essay on the Human Understanding." In 1675, being apprehensive of consumption, Locke went to Montpelier, in France, and after residing there four years, he was invited to England by the Earl of Shaftesbury, who had been restored to favor and appointed president of the new council. But this prosperity was not of long duration, for in 1682 the earl was obliged to flee to Holland, to avoid a prosecution for high treason. Locke followed his patron, where, even after his death, he continued to reside, for the hostility felt towards Shaftesbury was transferred to Locke. On the Revolution of 1688, he returned with the fleet hat brought over the Prince of Orange; and accepted the offer of apartments in the house of his friend Sir Francis Masham, in Oates, in Essex, where he resided for the remainder of his life, devoting it mostly to the study of the Scriptures, and died on the 28th of October, 1704.

1 The main provisions of his constitution were, that "all men are free and equal by nature." and that "the object of government is the security of persons and property." What a melancholy reflection it is, that a state which can trace its constitutional history to such a man as John Locke, should hold more than half of its population as "chattels personal, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever."

The great work of Locke, and that which has immortalized his name, is (1.) his "Essay concerning Human Understanding." It applies the Baconian method of observation and experience to establish a theory of human know ledge, showing that we have no innate ideas; that the only source of our knowledge is experience; that this experience is twofold, either internal or external, according as it is employed about sensible objects or the operations of our minds; and hence that there are two kinds of ideas,—ideas of sensa tion, and ideas of reflection. These positions, with many others collateral and connected, this great work establishes on a basis that can never be shaken.1

His other works, scarcely inferior in value and importance to his " Essay," are, (2.) "On the Reasonableness of Christianity," published in 1695. This was intended to aid the reigning monarch, William III., in his design to reconcile and unite all sects of professing Christians; and accordingly, the object of the tract was to determine what, amid so many conflicting views of religion, were the points of belief common to all. (3.) Letters on Toleration." (4.) "Two Treatises on Civil Government," in defence of the Revolution, and in answer to the partisans of the exiled king, who called the existing government a usurpation. In this he maintains conclusively, that the legiti macy of a government depends solely and ultimately on the popular sanction, or the consent of men, making use of their reason, to unite and form societies. (5.) "Thoughts on Education." (6.) “A Discourse on Miracles." (7.) "araphrases, with notes, of the Epistles of St. Paul," together with, (8.) an "Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul's Epistles, by consulting St. Paul himself." To these were added many minor treatises, with that most useful book, entitled "A New Method of a Common-Place Book."

As to the style of Locke, Dr. Drake makes the following just remarks: "The diction he has adopted is, in general, such as does honor to his judg ment. Relinquishing ornament and studied cadences, he is merely solicitous to convey his ideas with perspicuity and precision. No affectation, no conceits, no daring metaphors or inverted periods, disfigure his pages; all is clear, easy, and natural, exhibiting a plain and simple style accommodated to the purposes of philosophy."

As to his personal character, it was in complete harmony with the opinions, political, moral, and religious, which he so zealously and so ably advocated. A more happy combination of the Christian, the gentleman, and the scholar, has, perhaps, never been exhibited than in the person of this distinguished philosopher. While his talents were devoted to works which take the highest rank in English literature, his pure and virtuous life gave the most satisfactory proof of the practical efficacy of a piety, the sincerity of which was clearly proved by his efforts to show that all the parts of the Christian system are reconcilable to human reason.2

PRACTICE AND HABIT.

We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of any hing, such at least as would carry us farther than can be easily

1 "Few books," says Sir James Mackintosh, "have contributed more to rectify prejudice, to undermine established errors, to diffuse a just mode of thinking, to excite a fearless spirit of inquiry, and yet to contain it within the boundaries which nature has prescribed to the human understanding." 2 "His writings have diffused throughout the civilized world the love of civil liberty; the spirit of toleration and charity in religious differences; the disposition to reject whatever is obscure, fantas tic, or hypothetical in speculation; to abandon problems which admit of no solution; to distrust whatever cannot be clearly expressed; and to prefer those studies which most directly contribute to human happiness."-Sir James Mackintosh.

imagined; but it is only the exercise of those powers which gives us ability and skill in any thing, and leads us towards perfection.

A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever be brought to the carriage and language of a gentleman, though his body be as well proportioned, and his joints as supple, and his natural parts not any way inferior. The legs of a dancing-master, and the fingers of a musician, fall, as it were, naturally, without thought or pains, into regular and admirable motions. Bid them change their parts, and they will in vain endeavor to produce like motions in the members not used to them, and it will require length of time and long practice to attain but some degrees of a like ability. What incredible and astonishing actions do we find rope-dancers and tumblers bring their bodies to! not but that sundry in almost all manual arts are as wonderful; but I name those which the world takes notice of for such, because, on that very account, they give money to see them. All these admired motions, beyond the reach and almost the conception of unpractised spectators, are nothing but the mere effects of use and industry in men, whose bodies have nothing peculiar in them from those of the amazed lookers on.

As it is in the body, so it is in the mind; practice makes it what it is; and most even of those excellencies which are locked on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions. Some men are remarked for pleasantness in raillery, others for apologues and apposite diverting stories. This is apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature, and that the rather, because it is not got by rules, and those who excel in either of them, never purposely set themselves to the study of it as an art to be learnt. But yet it is true, that at first some lucky hit which took with somebody, and gained him commendation, encouraged him to try again, inclined his thoughts and endeavors that way, till at last he insensibly got a facility in it without perceiving how; and that is attributed wholly to nature, which was much more the effect of use and practice. I do not deny that natural disposition may often give the first rise to it; but that never carries a man far without use and exercise, and it is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind as well as those of the body to their perfection. Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never produces any thing for want of improvement. We see the ways of discourse and reasoning are very different, even concerning the same matter, at court and in the university. And he that will go but from Westminster Hall to the Exchange, will find a different genius and turn in their ways of talking; and one cannot think that all whose lot fell in the city were born with different parts from those who were bred at the university or inns of court.

« PreviousContinue »