The writers of that age raise their style by a pompous description of this spectacle; the most magnificent that had ever appeared upon the ocean, infusing equal terror and admiration into the minds of all beholders. The lofty masts, the swelling sails, and the towering prows of the Spanish galleons seem impossible to be justly painted, but by assuming the colors of poetry; and an eloquent historian of Italy, in imitation of Camden, has asserted that the Armada, tho the ships bore every sail, yet advanced with a slow motion; as if the ocean groaned with supporting, and the winds were tired with impelling, so enormous a weight. The truth, however, is, that the largest of the Spanish vessels would scarcely pass for third rates in the present navy of England; yet were they so ill framed or so ill governed, that they were quite unwieldy, and could not sail upon a wind, nor tack on occasion, nor be managed in stormy weather, by the seamen. Neither the mechanics of shipbuilding, nor the experience of mariners, had attained so great perfection as could serve for the security and government of such bulky vessels; and the English, who had already had experience how unserviceable they commonly were, beheld without dismay their tremendous appearance.

Effingham gave orders not to come to close fight with the Spaniards; where the size of the ships, he inspected, and the numbers of the soldiers, would be a disadvantage to the English; but to cannonade them at a distance, and to wait the opportunity which winds, currents, or various accidents, must afford him, of intercepting some scattered vessels of the enemy. Nor was it long before the event answered expectation. A great ship of Biscay, on board of which was a considerable part of the Spanish money, took fire by accident; and while all hands were employed in extinguishing the flames, she fell behind the rest of the Armada. The great galleon of Andalusia was detained by the springing of her mast, and both these vessels were taken, after some resistance, by Sir Francis Drake. As the Armada advanced up the channel, the English hung upon its rear, and still infested it with skirmishes. Each trial abated the confidence of the Spaniards, and added courage to the English; and the latter soon found, that even in close fight the size of the Spanish ships was no advantage to them. Their bulk exposed them the more to the fire of the enemy; while their cannon, placed too high, shot over the heads of the English. The alarm having now reached the coast of England, the nobility and gentry hastened out with their vessels from every harbor, and reenforced the admiral. The Earls of Oxford, Northumberland, and Cumberland, Sir Thomas Cecil, Sir Robert Cecil, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas Vavasor, Sir Thomas Gerrard, Sir Charles Blount, with many others, distinguished themselves by this generous and disinterested service of their country. The English fleet, after the conjunction of those ships, amounted to a hundred and forty sail.

The Armada had now reached Calais, and cast anchor before that place in expectation that the Duke of Parma, who had gotten intelligence of their approach, would put to sea and join his forces to them. The English admiral practised here a successful stratagem upon the Spaniards. He took eight of his smaller ships, and filling them with all combustible materials, sent them one after another into the midst of the enemy. The Spaniards fancied that they were fireships of the same contrivance with a famous vessel which had lately done so much execution in the Schelde near Antwerp; and they immediately cut their cables, and took to flight with the greatest disorder and precipitation. The English fell upon them next morning while in confusion; and besides doing great damage to other ships, they took or destroyed about twelve of the enemy.

By this time it was become apparent, that the intention for which these preparations were made by the Spaniards was entirely frustrated. The vessels provided by the Duke of Parma were made for transporting soldiers, not for fighting; and that general, when urged to leave the harbor, positively refused to expose his flourishing army to such apparent hazard; while the English not only were able to keep the sea, but seemed even to triumph over their enemy. The Spanish admiral found, in many recounters, that while he lost so considerable a part of his own navy, he had destroyed only one small vessel of the English; and he foresaw that by continuing so unequal a combat, he must draw inevitable destruction on all the remainder. He prepared therefore to return homeward; but as the wind was contrary to his passage through the channel, he resolved to sail northward, and making the tour of the island, reach the Spanish harbors by the ocean. The English fleet followed him during some time; and had not their ammunition fallen short, by the negligence of the officers in supplying them, they had obliged the whole Armada to surrender at discretion. The Duke of Medina[32] had once taken that resolution; but was diverted from it by the advice of his confessor. This conclusion of the enterprise would have been more glorious to the English; but the event proved almost equally fatal to the Spaniards. A violent tempest overtook the Armada after it passed the Orkneys. The ships had already lost their anchors, and were obliged to keep to sea. The mariners, unaccustomed to such hardships, and not able to govern such unwieldy vessels, yielded to the fury of the storm, and allowed their ships to drive either on the western isles of Scotland, or on the coast of Ireland, where they were miserably wrecked. Not a half of the navy returned to Spain; and the seamen as well as soldiers who remained were so overcome with hardships and fatigue, and so dispirited by their discomfiture, that they filled all Spain with accounts of the desperate valor of the English, and of the tempestuous violence of that ocean which surrounds them.



III

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT

Nothing appears more surprizing to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. The soldan of Egypt, or the emperor of Rome, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts, against their sentiments and inclination; but he must, at least, have led his mamelukes, or praetorian bands, like men, by their opinions.

Opinion is of two kinds, to wit, opinion of interest, and opinion of right. By opinion of interest, I chiefly understand the sense of the general advantage which is reaped from government, together with the persuasion that the particular government, which is established, is equally advantageous with any other that could easily be settled. When this opinion prevails among the generality of a state, or among those who have the force in their hands, it will give great security to any government.

Right is of two kinds, right to Power and right to Property. What prevalence opinion of the first kind has over mankind may easily be understood by observing the attachment which all nations have to their ancient government, and even to those names which have had the sanction of antiquity. Antiquity always begets the opinion of right; and whatever disadvantageous sentiments we may entertain of mankind, they are always found to be prodigal both of blood and treasure in the maintenance of public justice. There is, indeed, no particular in which, at first sight, there may appear a greater contradiction in the frame of the human mind than the present. When men act in a faction, they are apt, without shame or remorse, to neglect all the ties of honor and morality, in order to serve their party; and yet when a faction is formed upon a point of right or principle, there is no occasion where men discover a greater obstinacy, and a more determined sense of justice and equity. The same social disposition of mankind is the cause of these contradictory appearances.

It is sufficiently understood that the opinion of right to property is of moment in all matters of government. A noted author has made property the foundation of all government; and most of our political writers seem inclined to follow him in that particular. This is carrying the matter too far; but still it must be owned that the opinion of right to property has a great influence in this subject.

Upon these three opinions, therefore, of public interest, of right to power, and of right to property, are all governments founded, and all authority of the few over the many. There are, indeed, other principles, which add force to these, and determine, limit, or alter their operation—such as self-interest, fear, and affection; but still we may assert that these other principles can have no influence alone, but suppose the antecedent influence of those opinions above mentioned. They are, therefore, to be esteemed the secondary, not the original principles of government.

For, first, as to self-interest, by which I mean the expectation of particular rewards, distinct from the general protection which we receive from government, it is evident that the magistrate's authority must be antecedently established, at least be hoped for, in order to produce this expectation. The prospect of reward may augment his authority with regard to some particular persons; but can never give birth to it, with regard to the public. Men naturally look for the greatest favors from their friends and acquaintance; and, therefore, the hopes of any considerable number of the state would never center in any particular set of men, if these men had no other title to magistracy, and had no separate influence over the opinions of mankind. The same observation may be extended to the other two principles of fear and affection. No man would have any reason to fear the fury of a tyrant, if he had no authority over any but from fear; since, as a single man, his bodily force can reach but a small way, and all the further power he possesses must be founded either on our own opinion, or on the presumed opinion of others. And tho affection to wisdom and virtue in a sovereign extends very far, and has great influence, yet he must antecedently be supposed invested with a public character, otherwise the public esteem will serve him in no stead, nor will his virtue have any influence beyond a narrow sphere.

A government may endure for several ages, tho the balance of power and the balance of property do not coincide. This chiefly happens where any rank or order of the state has acquired a large share in the property; but, from the original constitution of the government, has no share in the power. Under what pretense would any individual of that order assume authority in public affairs? As men are commonly much attached to their ancient government, it is not to be expected that the public would ever favor such usurpations. But where the original constitution allows any share of power, tho small, to an order of men, who possess a large share of the property, it is easy for them gradually to stretch their authority, and bring the balance of power to coincide with that of property. This has been the case with the House of Commons in England.

Most writers that have treated of the British Government have supposed that, as the Lower House represents all the commons of Great Britain, its weight in the scale is proportioned to the property and power of all whom it represents. But this principle must not be received as absolutely true. For tho the people are apt to attach themselves more to the House of Commons than to any other member of the constitution, the House being chosen by them as their representatives, and as the public guardians of their liberty, yet are there instances where the House, even when in opposition to the crown, has not been followed by the people; as we may particularly observe of the Tory House of Commons in the reign of King William. Were the members obliged to receive instructions from their constituents, like the Dutch deputies, this would entirely alter the case; and if such immense power and riches, as those of all the commons of Great Britain, were brought into the scale, it is not easy to conceive that the crown could either influence that multitude of people, or withstand that balance of property. It is true the crown has great influence over the collective body in the elections of members; but were this influence, which at present is only exerted once in seven years, to be employed in bringing over the people to every vote, it would soon be wasted, and no skill, popularity, or revenue could support it. I must, therefore, be of opinion that an alteration in this particular would introduce a total alteration in our government, and would soon reduce it to a pure republic—and, perhaps, to a republic of no inconvenient form. For tho the people, collected in a body like the Roman tribes, be quite unfit for government, yet, when dispersed in small bodies, they are more susceptible both of reason and order; the force of popular currents and tides is, in a great measure, broken; and the public interest may be pursued with some method and constancy. But it is needless to reason any further concerning a form of government which is never likely to have place.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 29: From Chapter 44 of the "History of England."]

[Footnote 30: From Chapter 42 of the "History of England."]

[Footnote 31: Lord Howard, of Effingham, admiral of the English fleet.]

[Footnote 32: The Duke of Medina-Sidonia commanded the Armada, as successor to Santa Cruz, "the ablest seaman of Spain," who had died just as the ships were ready to sail. Medina-Sidonia is understood to have taken the command reluctantly, as if aware of his unfitness for so great a task, as indeed was proved by the event.]



LAURENCE STERNE

Born in 1713, died in 1768; his father an officer in one of Marlborough's regiments; educated at Cambridge, admitted to holy orders in 1738; became Prebendary of York, published "Tristram Shandy" in 1760; visited France in 1762 and Italy in 1765; published "The Sentimental Journey" in 1768, and died the same year.



I

THE STARLING IN CAPTIVITY[33]

And as for the Bastile, the terror is in the word. Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a tower, and a tower is but another word for a house you can't get out of. Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year; but with nine livres a day, and pen, and ink, and paper, and patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within, at least for a month or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

I had some occasion—I forget what—to step into the courtyard as I settled this account; and remember I walked down-stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. Beshrew the somber pencil, said I vauntingly, for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a coloring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them. "'Tis true," said I, correcting the proposition, "the Bastile is not an evil to be despised; but strip it of its towers, fill up the fosse, unbarricade the doors, call it simply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper and not of a man which holds you in it, the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint." I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get out." I looked up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman nor child, I went out without further attention.

In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage; "I can't get out, I can't get out," said the starling. I stood looking at the bird; and to every person who came through the passage, it ran fluttering to the side toward which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its captivity: "I can't get out," said the starling. "God help thee!" said I, "but I'll let thee out, cost what it will"; so I turned about the cage to get the door. It was twisted and double-twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. I took both hands to it. The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, prest his breast against it as if impatient. "I fear, poor creature," said I, "I can not set thee at liberty." "No," said the starling, "I can't get out; I can't get out," said the starling. I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; or do I remember an incident in my life where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked up-stairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them.

"Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery," said I, "still thou art a bitter draft; and tho thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. 'Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess," addressing myself to liberty, "whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change; no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chemic power turn thy scepter into iron; with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven!" cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent, "grant me but health, thou great bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion, and shower down thy miters, if it seem good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them."

The bird in his cage pursued me into my room. I sat down close to my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination. I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow creatures born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me, I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture. I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer I saw him pale and feverish; in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood; he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time, nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice; his children—but here my heart began to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait. He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed; a little calendar of small sticks lay at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there; he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye toward the door, then cast it down, shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep sigh: I saw the iron enter into his soul. I burst into tears: I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn.



II

TO MOULINES WITH MARIA[34]

When Maria had come a little to herself, I asked her if she remembered a pale thin person of a man who had sat down betwixt her and her goat about two years before? She said she was unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts; that, ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her: and next, that her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and that she had beat him for the theft. "She had washed it," she said, "in the brook, and kept it ever since in her pocket to restore it to him in case she should ever see him again, which," she added, "he had half promised her."

As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to let me see it: she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine-leaves, tied around with a tendril: on opening it, I saw an S. marked in one of the corners.

She had since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked around St. Peter's once, and returned back: that she found her way alone across the Apennines, had traveled over all Lombardy without money, and through the flinty roads of Savoy without shoes: how she had borne it, and how she had got supported she could not tell: "But, 'God tempers the wind,'" said Maria, "'to the shorn lamb.'"

"Shorn, indeed, and to the quick," said I: "and wast thou in my own land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter thee; thou shouldst eat of my own bread, and drink of my own cup: I would be kind to thy Sylvio; in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee, and bring thee back; when the sun went down, I would say my prayers; and when I had done, thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heaven along with that of a broken heart!"

Nature melted within me as I uttered this: and Maria observing, as I took out my handkerchief, that it was steeped too much already to be of use, would needs go wash it in the stream. "And where will you dry it, Maria?" said I.

"I'll dry it in my bosom," said she: "'twill do me good."

"And is your heart still so warm, Maria?" said I.

I touched upon a string on which hung all her sorrows: she looked with wistful disorder for some time in my face; and then, without saying anything, took her pipe, and played her service to the Virgin. The string I had touched ceased to vibrate; in a moment or two, Maria returned to herself, let her pipe fall, and rose up.

"And where are you going, Maria?" said I.

She said, "To Moulines."

"Let us go," said I, "together."

Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening the string to let the dog follow, in that order we entered Moulines.



III

THE DEATH OF LE FEVRE[35]

"In a fortnight or three weeks," added my uncle Toby, smiling, "he might march."

"He will never march, an' please your Honor, in this world," said the Corporal.

"He will march," said my uncle Toby, rising up from the side of the bed with one shoe off.

"An' please your Honor," said the Corporal, "he will never march but to his grave."

"He shall march," cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, tho without advancing an inch—"he shall march to his regiment."

"He can not stand it," said the Corporal.

"He shall be supported," said my uncle Toby.

"He'll drop at last," said the Corporal, "and what will become of his body?"

"He shall not drop," said my uncle Toby firmly.

"Ah, well—a—day!—do what we can for him," said Trim, maintaining his point, "the poor soul will die."

"He shall not die, by G—," cried my uncle Toby.

The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropt a tear upon the word, and blotted it out forever.

My uncle Toby went to his bureau, put his purse into his breeches-pocket, and, having ordered the Corporal to go early in the morning for a physician, he went to bed and fell asleep. The sun looked bright the morning after to every eye in the village but to Le Fevre's and his afflicted son's; the hand of death prest heavy upon his eyelids; and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its circle, when my uncle Toby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the Lieutenant's room, and without preface or apology, sat himself down upon the chair by the bedside, and independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother-officer would have done it, and asked him how he did, how he had rested in the night, what was his complaint, where was his pain, and what he could do to help him; and without giving him time to answer any one of these inquiries, went on, and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with Corporal the night before for him.

"You shall go home directly, Le Fevre," said my uncle Toby, "to my house, and we'll send for a doctor to see what's the matter: and we'll have an apothecary; and the Corporal shall be your nurse; and I'll be your servant, Le Fevre."

There was a frankness in my uncle Toby, not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it, which let you at once into his soul, and showed you the goodness of his nature. To this, there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner, super-added, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him; so that, before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son insensibly prest up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it toward him. The blood and spirits of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart, rallied back, the film forsook his eyes for a moment; he looked up wishfully in my uncle Toby's face; then cast a look upon his boy; and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.

Nature instantly ebbed again; the film returned to its place; the pulse fluttered, stopt, went on, throbbed, stopt again, moved, stopt. Shall I go on? No.



IV

PASSAGES FROM THE ROMANCE OF MY UNCLE TOBY AND THE WIDOW[36]

Now, as Widow Wadman did love my uncle Toby, and my uncle Toby did not love Widow Wadman, there was nothing for Widow Wadman to do, but to go on and love my uncle Toby—or let it alone.

Widow Wadman would do neither the one nor the other....

As soon as the Corporal had finished the story of his amour—or rather my uncle Toby for him—Mrs. Wadman silently sallied forth from her arbor, replaced the pin in her mob, passed the wicker-gate, and advanced slowly toward my uncle Toby's sentry-box; the disposition which Trim had made in my uncle Toby's mind was too favorable a crisis to be let slipt.

The attack was determined upon: it was facilitated still more by my uncle Toby's having ordered the Corporal to wheel off the pioneer's shovel, the spade, the pickax, the piquets, and other military stores which lay scattered upon the ground where Dunkirk stood. The Corporal had marched; the field was clear.

Now, consider, sir, what nonsense it is, either in fighting or writing, or anything else (whether in rime to it or not) which a man has occasion to do, to act by plan: for if ever Plan, independent of all circumstances, deserved registering in letters of gold (I mean in the archives of Gotham) it was certainly the Plan of Mrs. Wadman's attack of my uncle Toby in his sentry-box, by Plan. Now, the plan hanging up in it at this juncture, being the Plan of Dunkirk, and the tale of Dunkirk a tale of relaxation, it opposed every impression she could make: and, besides, could she have gone upon it, the maneuver of fingers and hands in the attack of the sentry-box was so outdone by that of the fair Beguine's, in Trim's story, that just then, that particular attack, however successful before, became the most heartless attack that could be made.

Oh! let woman alone for this. Mrs. Wadman had scarce opened the wicker-gate, when her genius sported with the change of circumstances.

She formed a new attack in a moment.

"I am half distracted, Captain Shandy," said Mrs. Wadman, holding up her cambric handkerchief to her left eye, as she approached the door of my uncle Toby's sentry-box; "a mote, or sand, or something I know not what, has got into this eye of mine; do look into it; it is not in the white."

In saying which, Mrs. Wadman edged herself close in beside my uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of his bench, she gave him an opportunity of doing it without rising up. "Do look into it," said she.

Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as much innocency of heart as ever child looked into a raree show-box; and 'twere as much a sin to have hurt thee.

If a man will be peeping of his own accord into things of that nature, I've nothing to say to it.

My uncle Toby never did: and I will answer for him, that he would have sat quietly upon a sofa from June to January (which, you know, takes in both the hot and cold months) with an eye as fine as the Thracian Rhodope's beside him, without being able to tell whether it was a black or a blue one.

The difficulty was, to get my uncle Toby to look at one at all.

'Tis surmounted. And—

I see him yonder, with his pipe pendulous in his hand, and the ashes falling out of it, looking and looking, then rubbing his eyes, and looking again, with twice the good nature that ever Galileo looked for a spot in the sun.

In vain! for, by all the powers which animate the organ, Widow Wadman's left eye shines this moment as lucid as her right; there is neither mote, nor sand, nor dust, nor chaff, nor speck, nor particle of opaque matter floating in it. There is nothing, my dear paternal uncle! but one lambent delicious fire, furtively shooting out from every part of it, in all directions into thine.

If thou lookest, Uncle Toby, in search of this mote one moment longer, thou art undone.

An eye is, for all the world, exactly like a cannon, in this respect, that it is not so much the eye or the cannon, in themselves, as it is the carriage of the eye and the carriage of the cannon; by which both the one and the other are enabled to do so much execution. I don't think the comparison a bad one; however, as 'tis made and placed at the head of the chapter, as much for use as ornament, all I desire in return is, that whenever I speak of Mrs. Wadman's eyes (except once in the next period) that you keep it in your fancy.

"I protest, madam," said my uncle Toby, "I can see nothing whatever in your eye."

"It is not in the white," said Mrs. Wadman. My uncle Toby looked with might and main into the pupil.

Now, of all the eyes which ever were created, from your own, madam, up to those of Venus herself, which certainly were as venereal a pair of eyes as ever stood in a head, there never was an eye of them all so fitted to rob my uncle Toby of his repose as the very eye at which he was looking; it was not, madam, a rolling eye, a romping, or a wanton one; nor was it an eye sparkling, petulant, or imperious, of high claims and terrifying expectations, which would have curdled at once that milk of human nature, of which my uncle Toby was made up; but 'twas an eye full of gentle salutations and soft responses, speaking, not like the trumpet-stop of some ill-made organ, in which many an eye I talk to holds coarse converse, but whispering soft, like that last low accent of an expiring saint, "How can you live comfortless, Captain Shandy, and alone, without a bosom to lean your head on—or trust your cares to?"

It was an eye—

But I shall be in love with it myself, if I say another word about it.

It did my uncle Toby's business....

The world is ashamed of being virtuous. My uncle Toby knew little of the world; and therefore, when he felt he was in love with Widow Wadman, he had no conception that the thing was any more to be made a mystery of than if Mrs. Wadman had given him a cut with a gap'd knife across his finger. Had it been otherwise—yet, as he ever looked upon Trim as a humbler friend, and saw fresh reasons every day of his life to treat him as such—it would have made no variation in the manner in which he informed him of the affair.

"I am in love, Corporal!" quoth my uncle Toby....

Tho the Corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle Toby's great Ramillies wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to produce any great effects from it; it had lain many years squeezed up in the corner of his old campaign-trunk; and as bad forms are not so easy to be got the better of, and the use of candle-ends not so well understood, it was not so pliable a business as one would have wished. The Corporal, with cheery eye and both arms extended, had fallen back perpendicular from it a score times, to inspire it, if possible, with a better air:—had Spleen given a look at it, 'twould have cost her ladyship a smile; it curled everywhere but where the Corporal would have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have done it honor, he could as soon have raised the dead.

Such it was, or rather, such would it have seemed upon any other brow; but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle Toby's assimilated everything around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature had, moreover, wrote gentleman with so fair a hand in every line of his countenance, that even his tarnished gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffeta became him; and, tho not worth a button in themselves, yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, they became serious objects, and, altogether, seemed to have been picked up by the hand of Science to set him off to advantage.

Nothing, in this world could have cooperated more powerfully toward this than my uncle Toby's blue and gold, had not Quantity, in some measure, been necessary to grace. In a period of fifteen or sixteen years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle Toby's life (for he seldom went further than the bowling green), his blue and gold had become so miserably too straight for him that it was with the utmost difficulty the Corporal was able to get him into them; the taking up at the sleeves was of no advantage; they were laced, however, down the back, and at the seams of the sides, etc., in the mode of King William's reign; and to shorten all description, they shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallic and doughty an air with them, that, had my uncle Toby thought of attacking in armor, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination.

As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripped by the tailor between the legs, and left at sixes and sevens.

Yes, madam; but let us govern our fancies. It is enough they were held impracticable the night before; and, as there was no alternative in my uncle Toby's wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush.

The Corporal had arrayed himself in poor Le Fevre's regimental coat; and with his hair tucked up under his Montero-cap, which he had furbished up for the occasion, marched three paces distant from his master; a whiff of military pride had puffed out his shirt at the wrist; and upon that, in a black leather thong clipt into a tassel beyond the knot, hung the Corporal's stick. My uncle Toby carried his cane like a pike.

"It looks well, at least," quoth my father to himself....

When my uncle Toby and the Corporal had marched down to the bottom of the avenue, they recollected their business lay the other way; so they faced about, and marched up straight to Mrs. Wadman's door.

"I warrant your Honor," said the Corporal, touching his Montero-cap with his hand as he passed him in order to give a knock at the door. My uncle Toby, contrary to his invariable way of treating his faithful servant, said nothing good or bad; the truth was, he had not altogether marshaled his ideas; he wished for another conference, and, as the Corporal was mounting up the three steps before the door, he hem'd twice; a portion of my uncle Toby's most modest spirits fled, at each expulsion, toward the Corporal; he stood with the rapper of the door suspended for a full minute in his hand, he scarce knew why. Bridget stood perdue within, with her finger and her thumb upon the latch, benumbed with expectation; and Mrs. Wadman, with an eye ready to be deflowered again, sat breathless behind the window-curtain of her bed-chamber, watching their approach.

"Trim!" said my uncle Toby; but, as he articulated the word, the minute expired, and Trim let fall the rapper.

My uncle Toby, perceiving that all hopes of a conference were knocked on the head by it, whistled Lillabullero.

As Mrs. Bridget opened the door before the Corporal had well given the rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle Toby's introduction into the parlor was so short that Mrs. Wadman had but just time to get from behind the curtain, lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a step or two toward the door to receive him.

My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wadman, after the manner in which women were saluted by men in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirteen; then facing about, he marched up abreast with her to the sofa, and in three plain words, tho not before he was sat down, nor after he was sat down, but as he was sitting down, told her, "he was in love"; so that my uncle Toby strained himself more in the declaration than he needed.

Mrs. Wadman naturally looked down upon a slit she had been darning up in her apron, in expectation every moment that my uncle Toby would go on; but having no talents for amplification, and Love, moreover, of all others, being a subject of which he was the least a master, when he had told Mrs. Wadman once that he loved her, he let it alone, and left the matter to work after its own way.

My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby's, as he falsely called it, and would often say, That could his brother Toby to his process have added but a pipe of tobacco, he had wherewithal to have his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb, toward the hearts of half the women upon the globe.

My uncle Toby never understood what my father meant; nor will I presume to extract more from it than a condemnation of an error which the bulk of the world lie under; but the French, every one of them to a man, who believe in it almost as much as the Real Presence, "That talking of love is making it."

I would as soon set about making a black pudding by the same receipt.

Let us go on: Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my uncle Toby would do so, to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on one side or the other generally becomes indecent; so edging herself a little more toward him, and raising up her eyes, sub-blushing as she did it, she took up the gantlet, or the discourse (if you like it better), and communed with my uncle Toby thus:

"The cares and disquietudes of the marriage-state," quoth Mrs. Wadman, "are very great."

"I suppose so," said my uncle Toby.

"And therefore when a person," continued Mrs. Wadman, "is so much at his ease as you are, so happy, Captain Shandy, in yourself, your friends, and your amusements, I wonder what reasons can incline you to the state?"

"They are written," quoth my uncle Toby, "in the Common Prayer-Book."

Thus far my uncle Toby went on warily, and kept within his depth, leaving Mrs. Wadman to sail upon the gulf as she pleased.

"As for children," said Mrs. Wadman, "tho a principal end, perhaps, of the institution, and the natural wish, I suppose, of every parent, yet do not we all find that they are certain sorrows, and very uncertain comforts? and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the heart-aches, what compensation for the many tender and disquieting apprehensions of a suffering and defenseless mother who brings them into life?"

"I declare," said my uncle Toby, smitten with pity, "I know of none: unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased God ..."

"A fiddlestick!" quoth she....

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 33: From the "Sentimental Journey."]

[Footnote 34: From the "Sentimental Journey."]

[Footnote 35: From "Tristram Shandy."]

[Footnote 36: From "Tristram Shandy."]



THOMAS GRAY

Born in 1716, died in 1771; educated at Eton, where he began a lifelong friendship with Horace Walpole; traveled on the Continent with Walpole in 1739; settled in Cambridge in 1741, where in 1768 he was made professor of Modern History; refused the laureateship in 1757; published his "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" in 1751; his poems and letters collected by Mason in 1775.



I

WARWICK CASTLE[37]

I have been at Warwick, which is a place worth seeing. The town is on an eminence surrounded every way with a fine cultivated valley, through which the Avon winds, and at the distance of five or six miles, a circle of hills, well wooded, and with various objects crowning them, that close the prospect. Out of the town on one side of it, rises a rock that might remind one of your rocks at Durham, but that it is not so savage, or so lofty, and that the river, which, washes its foot, is perfectly clear, and so gentle, that its current is hardly visible. Upon it stands the castle, the noble old residence of the Beauchamps and Nevilles, and now of Earl Brooke. He has sash'd the great apartment that's to be sure (I can't help these things), and being since told, that square sash-windows were not Gothic, he has put certain whim-whams within side the glass, which appearing through are to look like fret-work. Then he has scooped out a little burrow in the massy walls of the place for his little self and his children, which is hung with paper and printed linen, and carved chimney-pieces, in the exact manner of Berkley Square or Argyle buildings. What in short can a lord do nowadays, that is lost in a great old solitary castle, but skulk about, and get into the first hole he finds, as a rat would do in like case.

A pretty long old stone bridge leads you into the town with a mill at the end of it, over which the rock rises with the castle upon it with all its battlements and queer ruined towers, and on your left hand the Avon strays through the park, whose ancient elms seem to remember Sir Philip Sidney, who often walk'd under them, and talk of him to this day. The Beauchamp Earls of Warwick lie under stately monuments in the choir of the great church, and in our lady's chapel adjoining to it. There also lie Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick; and his brother, the famous Lord Leicester, with Lettice, his countess. This chapel is preserved entire, tho the body of the church was burned down sixty years ago, and rebuilt by Sir C. Wren.

I had heard often of Guy-Cliff, two miles from the town; so I walked to see it, and of all improvers commend me to Mr. Greathead, its present owner. He shew'd it me himself, and is literally a fat young man with a head and face much bigger than they are usually worn. It was naturally a very agreeable rock, whose cliffs cover'd with large trees hung beetling over the Avon, which twists twenty ways in sight of it. There was the cell of Guy, Earl of Warwick, cut in the living stone, where he died a hermit (as you may see in a penny history, that hangs upon the rails in Moorfields). There were his fountains bubbling out of the cliff; there was a chantry founded to his memory in Henry the Sixth's time. But behold the trees are cut down to make room for flowering shrubs; the rock is cut up, till it is as smooth and as sleek as satin; the river has a gravel-walk by its side; the cell is a grotto with cockle-shells and looking glass; the fountains have an iron gate before them, and the chantry is a barn, or a little house. Even the poorest bite of nature that remain are daily threatened, for he says (and I am sure, when the Greatheads are once set upon a thing, they will do it) he is determined it shall be all new. These were his words, and they are fate.



II

TO HIS FRIEND MASON ON THE DEATH OF MASON'S MOTHER[38]

I break in upon you at a moment when we least of all are permitted to disturb our friends, only to say that you are daily and hourly present to my thoughts. If the worst be not yet passed, you will neglect and pardon me; but if the last struggle be over, if the poor object of your long anxieties be no longer sensible to your kindness, or to her own sufferings, allow me (at least in idea, for what could I do were I present more than this), to sit by you in silence, and pity from my heart, not her who is at rest, but you who lose her. May He who made us, the Master of our pleasures and of our pains, preserve and support you. Adieu.

I have long understood how little you had to hope.



III

ON HIS OWN WRITINGS[39]

To your friendly accusation I am glad I can plead not guilty with a safe conscience. Dodsley told me in the Spring that the plates from Mr. Bentley's designs were worn out, and he wanted to have them copied and reduced to a smaller scale for a new edition. I dissuaded him from so silly an expense, and desired he would put in no ornaments at all. The "Long Story" was to be totally omitted, as its only use (that of explaining the prints) was gone: but to supply the place of it in bulk, lest my works should be mistaken for the works of a flea, or a pismire, I promised to send him an equal weight of poetry or prose: so, since my return hither, I put up about two ounces of stuff, viz., the "Fatal Sisters," the "Descent of Odin" (of both which you have copies), a bit of something from the Welch, and certain little Notes, partly from justice (to acknowledge the debt where I had borrowed anything), partly from ill temper, just to tell the gentle reader that Edward I was not Oliver Cromwell, nor Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor. This is literally all; and with all this, I shall be but a shrimp of an author. I gave leave also to print the same thing at Glasgow; but I doubt my packet has miscarried, for I hear nothing of its arrival as yet.

To what you say to me so civilly, that I ought to write more, I reply in your own words (like the Pamphleteer, who is going to confute you out of your own mouth), What has one to do when turned of fifty, but really to think of finishing? However, I will be candid (for you seem to be so with me), and avow to you, that till four-score-and-ten, whenever the humor takes me, I will write, because I like it; and because I like myself better when I do so. If I do not write much, it is because I can not. As you have not this last plea, I see no reason why you should not continue as long as it is agreeable to yourself, and to all such as have any curiosity or judgment in the subject you choose to treat. By the way let me tell you (while it is fresh) that Lord Sandwich, who was lately dining at Cambridge, speaking (as I am told) handsomely of your book, said, it was pity you did not know that his cousin Manchester had a genealogy of Kings, which came down no lower than to Richard III, and at the end of it were two portraits of Richard and his son, in which that king appeared to be a handsome man. I tell you it as I heard it; perhaps you may think it worth inquiring into....

Mr. Boswell's book[40] I was going to recommend to you, when I received your letter: it has pleased and moved me strangely, all (I mean) that relates to Paoli. He is a man born two thousand years after his time! The pamphlet proves what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity. Of Mr. Boswell's truth I have not the least suspicion, because I am sure he could invent nothing of this kind. The true title of this part of his work is, a Dialogue between a Green-Goose and a Hero.



IV

HIS FRIENDSHIP FOR BONSTETTEN[41]

Never did I feel, my dear Bonstetten, to what a tedious length the few short moments of our life may be extended by impatience and expectation, till you had left me; nor ever knew before with so strong a conviction how much this frail body sympathizes with the inquietude of the mind. I am grown old in the compass of less than three weeks, like the Sultan in the Turkish tales, that did but plunge his head into a vessel of water and take it out again, as the standers by affirmed, at the command of a Dervish, and found he had passed many years in captivity, and begot a large family of children.

The strength and spirits that now enable me to write to you, are only owing to your last letter a temporary gleam of sunshine. Heaven knows when it may shine again! I did not conceive till now, I own, what it was to lose you, nor felt the solitude and insipidity of my own condition before I possest the happiness of your friendship. I must cite another Greek writer to you, because it is much to my purpose; he is describing the character of a genius truly inclined to philosophy. "It includes," he says, "qualifications rarely united in one single mind, quickness of apprehension and a retentive memory, vivacity and application, gentleness and magnanimity"; to these he adds an invincible love of truth, and consequently of probity and justice. "Such a soul," continues he, "will be little inclined to sensual pleasures, and consequently temperate; a stranger to illiberality and avarice; being accustomed to the most extensive views of things, and sublimest contemplations, it will contract an habitual greatness, will look down with a kind of disregard on human life and on death; consequently, will possess the truest fortitude. Such," says he, "is the mind born to govern the rest of mankind."

But these very endowments, so necessary to a soul formed for philosophy, are often its ruin, especially when joined to the external advantages of wealth, nobility, strength, and beauty; that is, if it light on a bad soil, and want its proper nurture, which nothing but an excellent education can bestow. In this case he is depraved by the public example, the assemblies of the people, the courts of justice, the theaters, that inspire it with false opinions, terrify it with false infamy, or elevate it with false applause; and remember, that extraordinary vices and extraordinary virtues are equally the produce of a vigorous mind: little souls are alike incapable of the one and the other.

If you have ever met with the portrait sketched out by Plato, you will know it again: for my part, to my sorrow I have had that happiness. I see the principal features, and I foresee the dangers with a trembling anxiety. But enough of this, I return to your letter. It proves at least, that in the midst of your new gaieties I still hold some place in your memory, and, what pleases me above all, it had an air of undissembled sincerity. Go on, my best and amiable friend, to shew me your heart simply and without the shadow of disguise, and leave me to weep over it, as I now do, no matter whether from joy or sorrow.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 37: From a letter to Thomas Wharton, dated "Stoke Pogis, September 18, 1754."]

[Footnote 38: Written on March 28, 1767. The tenderness of this brief letter of condolence will recall the inscription which Gray placed on the tomb of his own mother in Stoke Pogis church-yard—the tomb in which he himself was afterward buried "She was the careful, tender mother of many children," says the inscription, "only one of whom had the misfortune to survive her."]

[Footnote 39: From a letter to Horace Walpole, dated "Pembroke College, February 25, 1768."]

[Footnote 40: This refers to Boswell's visit to Corsica in 1766. The book he wrote was his "Journal of a Tour to Corsica, with Memoirs of Pascal Paoli."]

[Footnote 41: From a letter to Bonstetten, dated "Cambridge, April 12, 1770." Bonstetten was a Swiss philosopher and essayist who had formed a close friendship with Gray and many other eminent English men of culture. Bonstetten left England in March of the year in which this letter was written, Gray going with him as far as London, where he pointed out in the street the "great bear," Samuel Johnson, and saw Bonstetten safely into a coach bound for Dover.]



HORACE WALPOLE

Born in 1717, died in 1797; third son of Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister; educated at Eton and Cambridge; traveled with Thomas Gray in 1739-41; entered Parliament in 1741; settled at Strawberry Hill in 1747; made fourth Earl of Orford in 1791; author of many books, but best known now for his letters.



I

HOGARTH[42]

Hogarth was born in the parish of St. Bartholomew, London, the son of a low tradesman, who bound him to a mean engraver of arms on plate; but before his time was expired he felt the impulse of genius, and felt it directed him to painting, tho little apprized at that time of the mode nature had intended he should pursue. His apprenticeship was no sooner expired than he entered into the academy in St. Martin's Lane, and studied drawing from the life, in which he never attained to great excellence. It was character, the passions, the soul, that his genius was given him to copy. In coloring he proved no greater a master; his force lay in expression, not in tints and chiaroscuro. At first he worked for booksellers, and designed and engraved plates for several books; and, which is extraordinary, no symptom of genius dawned in those plates. His "Hudibras" was the first of his works that marked him as a man above the common; yet what made him then noticed now surprizes us, to find so little humor in an undertaking so congenial to his talents. On the success, however, of those plates, he commenced painter, a painter of portraits: the most ill-suited employment imaginable to a man whose turn certainly was not flattery, nor his talent adapted to look on vanity without a sneer. Yet his facility in catching a likeness, and the methods he chose of painting families and conversations in small, then a novelty, drew him prodigious business for some time. It did not last: either from his applying to the real bent of his disposition, or from his customers apprehending that a satirist was too formidable a confessor for the devotees of self-love. He had already dropt a few of his smaller prints on some reigning follies; but as the dates are wanting on most of them, I can not ascertain which, tho those on the South Sea and "Rabbit Woman" prove that he had early discovered his talent for ridicule, tho he did not then think of building his reputation or fortune on its powers.

His "Midnight Modern Conversation" was the first work that showed his command of character; but it was "The Harlot's Progress," published in 1729 or 1730, that established his fame. The pictures were scarce finished, and no sooner exhibited to the public, and the subscription opened, than above twelve hundred names were entered on his book. The familiarity of the subject and the propriety of the execution made it tasted by all ranks of people. Every engraver set himself to copy it, and thousands of imitations were dispersed all over the kingdom. It was made into a pantomime, and performed on the stage. The "Rake's Progress," perhaps superior, had not so much success, from want of novelty; nor, indeed, is the print of "The Arrest" equal in merit to the others.

The curtain was now drawn aside, and his genius stood displayed in its full luster. From time to time he continued to give those works that should be immortal, if the nature of his art will allow it. Even the receipts for his subscriptions had wit in them. Many of his plates he engraved himself, and often expunged faces etched by his assistants when they had not done justice to his ideas.

Not content with shining in a path untrodden before, he was ambitious of distinguishing himself as a painter of history. But not only his coloring and drawing rendered him unequal to the task; the genius that had entered so feelingly into the calamities and crimes of familiar life deserted him in a walk that called for dignity and grace. The burlesque turn of his mind mixt itself with the most serious subjects. In his "Danae," the old nurse tries a coin of the golden shower with her teeth to see if it is true gold; in the "Pool of Bethesda," a servant of a rich ulcerated lady beats back a poor man that sought the same celestial remedy. Both circumstances are justly thought, but rather too ludicrous. It is a much more capital fault that "Danae" herself is a mere nymph of Drury. He seems to have conceived no higher idea of beauty.

So little had he eyes to his own deficiencies, that he believed he had discovered the principle of grace. With the enthusiasm of a discoverer he cried, "Eureka!" This was his famous line of beauty, the groundwork of his "Analysis," a book that has many sensible hints and observations, but that did not carry the conviction nor meet the universal acquiescence he expected. As he treated his contemporaries with scorn, they triumphed over this publication, and imitated him to expose him. Many wretched burlesque prints came out to ridicule his system. There was a better answer to it in one of the two prints that he gave to illustrate his hypothesis. In "The Ball," had he confined himself to such outlines as compose awkwardness and deformity, he would have proved half his assertion; but he has added two samples of grace in a young lord and lady that are strikingly stiff and affected. They are a Bath beau and a country beauty.

But this was the failing of a visionary. He fell afterward into a grosser mistake. From a contempt of the ignorant virtuosi of the age, and from indignation at the impudent tricks of picture-dealers, whom he saw continually recommending and vending vile copies to bubble collectors, and from having never studied, indeed having seen, few good pictures of the great Italian masters, he persuaded himself that the praises bestowed on those glorious works were nothing but the effects of prejudice. He talked this language till he believed it; and having heard it often asserted, as is true, that time gives a mellowness to colors and improves them, he not only denied the proposition, but maintained that pictures only grew black and worse by age, not distinguishing between the degrees in which the proposition might be true or false. He went further; he determined to rival the ancients, and unfortunately chose one of the finest pictures in England as the object of his compensation. This was the celebrated "Sigismonda" of Sir Luke Schaub, now in the possession of the Duke of Newcastle, said to be painted by Correggio, probably by Furino, but no matter by whom. It is impossible to see the picture, or read Dryden's inimitable tale, and not feel that the same soul animated both. After many essays Hogarth at last produced his "Sigismonda," but no more like "Sigismonda" than I to Hercules. Hogarth's performance was more ridiculous than anything he had ever ridiculed. He set the price of L400 on it, and had it returned on his hands by the person for whom it was painted. He took subscriptions for a plate of it, but had the sense at last to suppress it. I make no more apology for this account than for the encomiums I have bestowed on him. Both are dictated by truth, and are the history of a great man's excellences and errors. Milton, it is said, preferred his "Paradise Regained" to his immortal poem.

The last memorable event of our artist's life was his quarrel with Mr. Wilkes; in which, if Mr. Hogarth did not commence direct hostilities on the latter, he at least obliquely gave the first offense by an attack on the friends and party of that gentleman. This conduct was the more surprizing, as he had all his life avoided dipping his pencil in political contests, and had early refused a very lucrative offer that was made to engage him in a set of prints against the head of a court party. Without entering into the merits of the cause, I shall only state the fact. In September, 1762, Mr. Hogarth published his print of The Times. It was answered by Mr. Wilkes in a severe North Briton. On this the painter exhibited the caricature of the writer. Mr. Churchill, the poet, then engaged in the war, and wrote his epistle to Hogarth, not the brightest of his works, and in which the severest strokes fell on a defect that the painter had neither caused nor could amend—his age; and which, however, was neither remarkable nor decrepit, much less had it impaired his talents, as appeared by his having composed but six months before one of his most capital works, the satire on the Methodists. In revenge for this epistle, Hogarth caricatured Churchill under the form of a canonical bear, with a club and a pot of porter—Et vitula tu dignus et hic. Never did two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity.

Mr. Hogarth, in the year 1730, married the only daughter of Sir James Thornhill, by whom he had no children. He died of a dropsy in his breast at his house in Leicester Fields, October 26, 1764.



II

THE WAR IN AMERICA[43]

In spite of all my modesty, I can not help thinking I have a little something of the prophet about me. At least we have not conquered America yet. I did not send you immediate word of our victory at Boston, because the success not only seemed very equivocal, but because the conquerors lost three to one more than the vanquished. The last do not pique themselves upon modern good breeding, but level only at the officers, of whom they have slain a vast number. We are a little disappointed, indeed, at their fighting at all, which was not in our calculation. We knew we could conquer America in Germany, and I doubt had better have gone thither now for that purpose, as it does not appear hitherto to be quite so feasible in America itself. However, we are determined to know the worst, and are sending away all the men and ammunition we can muster. The Congress, not asleep, neither, have appointed a generalissimo, Washington, allowed a very able officer, who distinguished himself in the last war. Well, we had better have gone on robbing the Indies! it was a more lucrative trade.



III

THE DEATH OF GEORGE II[44]

The deaths of kings travel so much faster than any post, that I can not expect to tell you news, when I say your old master is dead. But I can pretty well tell you what I like best to be able to say to you on this occasion, that you are in no danger. Change will scarce reach to Florence when its hand is checked even in the capital. But I will move a little regularly, and then you will form your judgment more easily.

This is Tuesday; on Friday night the King went to bed in perfect health, and rose so the next morning at his usual hour of six; he called for and drank his chocolate. At seven, his valet de chambre heard a groan. He ran in, and in a small room between the closet and bed-chamber he found the King on the floor, who had cut the right side of his face against the edge of a bureau, and who after a gasp expired. Lady Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess Amelia; but they only told the latter that the King was ill and wanted her. She had been confined some days with a rheumatism, but hurried down, ran into the room without further notice, and saw her father extended on the bed. She is very purblind, and more than a little deaf. They had not closed his eyes; she bent down close to his face, and concluded he spoke to her, tho she could not hear him—guess what a shock when she found the truth.

She wrote to the Prince of Wales—but so had one of the valets de chambre first. He came to town, and saw the Duke [of Cumberland] and the Privy Council. He was extremely kind to the first—and in general has behaved with the greatest propriety, dignity, and decency. He read his speech to the Council with much grace, and dismissed the guards on himself to wait on his grandfather's body. It is intimated, that he means to employ the same ministers, but with reserve to himself of more authority than has lately been in fashion. The Duke of York and Lord Bute are named of the Cabinet Council. The late King's will is not yet opened. To-day everybody kissed hands at Leicester House, and this week, I believe, the King will go to St. James's. The body has been opened; the great ventricle of the heart had burst. What an enviable death! In the greatest period of the glory of this country, and of his reign, in perfect tranquillity at home, at seventy-seven, growing blind and deaf, to die without a pang, before any reverse of fortune, or any distasted peace, nay, but two days before a ship-load of bad news: could he have chosen such another moment?

The news is bad indeed! Berlin taken by capitulation, and yet the Austrians behaved so savagely that even Russians felt delicacy, were shocked, and checked them! Nearer home, the hereditary prince has been much beaten by Monsieur de Castries, and forced to raise the siege of Wesel, whither Prince Ferdinand had sent him most unadvisedly: we have scarce an officer unwounded. The secret expedition will now, I conclude, sail, to give an eclat to the new reign. Lord Albemarle does not command it, as I told you, nor Mr. Conway, tho both applied.

Nothing is settled about the Parliament; not even the necessary changes in the Household. Committees of council are regulating the mourning and the funeral. The town, which between armies, militia, and approaching elections, was likely to be a desert all the winter, is filled in a minute, but everything is in the deepest tranquillity. People stare; the only expression. The moment anything is declared, one shall not perceive the novelty of the reign. A nation without parties is soon a nation without curiosity.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 42: From the "Anecdotes of Painting in England."]

[Footnote 43: Letter dated "Strawberry Hill, August 3, 1775."]

[Footnote 44: Letter to Sir Horace Mann, dated "Arlington Street, October 28, 1760."]



GILBERT WHITE

Born in 1720, died in 1793; educated at Oxford and became a fellow of Oriel; later made curate at Selborne; his "Natural History of Selborne," published in 1789.



THE CHIMNEY-SWALLOW[45]

The house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the first comer of all the British hirundines; and appears in general on or about the 13th of April, as I have remarked from many years' observation. Not but now and then a straggler is seen much earlier: and in particular, when I was a boy I observed a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday; which day could not fall out later than the middle of March, and often happened early in February.

It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about lakes and mill-ponds; and it is also very particular, that if these early visitors happen to find frost and snow, as was the case in the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771, they immediately withdraw for a time. A circumstance this, much more in favor of hiding than migration; since it is much more probable that a bird should retire to its hybernaculum just at hand, than return for a week or two to warmer latitudes.

The swallow, tho called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within barns and outhouses against the rafters; and so she did in Virgil's time: "Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo" (the twittering swallow hangs its nest from the beams).

In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called Ladu swala, the barn-swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe, there are no chimneys to houses, except they are English built: in these countries she constructs her nest in porches, and gateways, and galleries, and open halls.

Here and there a bird may affect some odd peculiar place; as we have known a swallow build down a shaft of an old well through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the purpose of manure: but in general with us this hirundo breeds in chimneys, and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a constant fire—no doubt for the sake of warmth. Not that it can subsist in the immediate shaft where there is a fire; but prefers one adjoining to that of the kitchen, and disregards the perpetual smoke of the funnel, as I have often observed with some degree of wonder.

Five or six feet more down the chimney does this little bird begin to form her nest, about the middle of May: which consists, like that of the house-martin, of a crust or shell composed of dirt or mud, mixt with short pieces of straw to render it tough and permanent; with this difference, that whereas the shell of the martin is nearly hemispheric, that of the swallow is open at the top, and like half a deep ditch; this nest is lined with fine grasses, and feathers which are often collected as they float in the air.

Wonderful is the address which this adroit bird shows all day long, in ascending and descending with security through so narrow a pass. When hovering over the mouth of the funnel, the vibration of her wings, acting on the confined air, occasions a rumbling like thunder. It is not improbable that the dam submits to this inconvenient situation so low in the shaft, in order to secure her broods from rapacious birds; and particularly from owls, which frequently fall down chimneys, perhaps in attempting to get at these nestlings.

The swallow lays from four to six white eggs, dotted with red specks; and brings out her first brood about the last week in June, or the first week in July. The progressive method by which the young are introduced into life is very amusing: first they emerge from the shaft with difficulty enough, and often fall down into the rooms below; for a day or so they are fed on the chimney-top, and then are conducted to the dead leafless bough of some tree, where, sitting in a row, they are attended with great assiduity, and may then be called perchers. In a day or two more they become fliers, but are still unable to take their own food; therefore they play about near the place where the dams are hawking for flies: and when a mouthful is collected, at a certain signal given, the dam and the nestling advance, rising toward each other, and meeting at an angle; the young one all the while uttering such a little quick note of gratitude and complacency, that a person must have paid very little regard for the wonders of nature that has not often remarked this feat.

The dam betakes herself immediately to the business of a second brood as soon as she is disengaged from her first, which at once associates with the first broods of house-martins, and with them congregates, clustering on sunny roofs, towers and trees. This hirundo brings out her second brood toward the middle and end of August.

All summer long, the swallow is a most instructive pattern of unwearied industry and affection: for from morning to night, while there is a family to be supported, she spends the whole day in skimming close to the ground, and exerting the most sudden turns and quick evolutions. Avenues, and long walks under the hedges, and pasture-fields, and mown meadows where cattle graze, are her delight, especially if there are trees interspersed; because in such spots insects most abound. When a fly is taken, a smart snap from her bill is heard, resembling the noise at the shutting of a watch-case; but the motion of the mandibles is too quick for the eye.

The swallow, probably the male bird, is the excubitor to house-martins and other little birds; announcing the approach of birds of prey. For as soon as a hawk appears, with a shrill alarming note he calls all the swallows and martins about him; who pursue in a body, and buffet and strike their enemy till they have driven him from the village; darting down from above on his back, and rising in a perpendicular line in perfect security. This bird will also sound the alarm, and strike at cats when they climb on the roofs of houses, or otherwise approach the nest. Each species of hirundo drinks as it flies along, sipping the surface of the water; but the swallow alone in general washes on the wing, by dropping into a pool for many times together: in very hot weather house-martins and bank-martins also dip and wash a little.

The swallow is a delicate songster, and in soft sunny weather sings both perching and flying; on trees in a kind of concert, and on chimney-tops: it is also a bold flier, ranging to distant downs and commons even in windy weather, which the other species seems much to dislike; nay, even frequenting exposed seaport towns, and making little excursions over the salt water. Horsemen on the wide downs are often closely attended by a little party of swallows for miles together, which plays before and behind them, sweeping around and collecting all the skulking insects that are roused by the trampling of the horses' feet: when the wind blows hard, without this expedient, they are often forced to settle to pick up their lurking prey....

A certain swallow built for two years together on the handles of a pair of garden shears that were stuck up against the boards in an outhouse, and therefore must have her nest spoiled whenever that implement was wanted; and what is stranger still, another bird of the same species built its nest on the wings and body of an owl that happened by accident to hang dead and dry from the rafter of a barn. This owl, with the nest on its wings, and with eggs in the nest, was brought as a curiosity worthy of the most elegant private museum in Great Britain.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 45: From "The Natural History of Selborne," being a letter to the Hon. Daines Barrington.]



ADAM SMITH

Born in 1723, died in 1790; educated at Glasgow and Oxford; lecturer in Edinburgh in 1748; professor in Glasgow in 1751; became tutor to the Duke of Buccleuch in 1763; traveled on the Continent in 1764-66; lived afterwards in retirement at Kirkcaldy; became Commissioner of Customs in Edinburgh in 1778; elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1787; his "Moral Sentiments" published in 1759; his "Wealth of Nations" in 1776.



I

OF AMBITION MISDIRECTED[46]

To attain to this envied situation, the candidates for fortune too frequently abandon the paths of virtue; for unhappily, the road which leads to the one, and that which leads to the other, lie sometimes in very opposite directions. But the ambitious man flatters himself that, in the splendid situation to which he advances, he will have so many means of commanding the respect and admiration of mankind, and will be enabled to act with such superior propriety and grace, that the luster of his future conduct will entirely cover or efface the foulness of the steps by which he arrived at that elevation. In many governments the candidates for the highest stations are above the law, and if they can attain the object of their ambition, they have no fear of being called to account for the means by which they acquired it. They often endeavor, therefore, not only by fraud and falsehood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal, but sometimes by the perpetration of the most enormous crimes, by murder and assassination, by rebellion and civil war, to supplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of their greatness. They more frequently miscarry than succeed, and commonly gain nothing but the disgraceful punishment which is due to their crimes.

But tho they should be so lucky as to attain that wished-for greatness, they are always most miserably disappointed in the happiness which they expect to enjoy in it. It is not ease or pleasure, but always honor, of one kind or another, tho frequently an honor very ill understood, that the ambitious man really pursues. But the honor of his exalted station appears, both in his own eyes and in those of other people, polluted and defiled by the baseness of the means through which he rose to it. Tho by the profusion of every liberal expense; tho by excessive indulgence in every profligate pleasure—the wretched but usual resource of ruined characters; tho by the hurry of public business, or by the prouder and more dazzling tumult of war, he may endeavor to efface, both from his own memory and from that of other people, the remembrance of what he has done, that remembrance never fails to pursue him. He invokes in vain the dark and dismal powers of forgetfulness and oblivion. He remembers himself what he has done, and that remembrance tells him that other people must likewise remember it. Amidst all the gaudy pomp of the most ostentatious greatness, amidst the venal and vile adulation of the great and of the learned, amidst the more innocent tho more foolish acclamations of the common people, amidst all the pride of conquest and the triumph of successful war, he is still secretly pursued by the avenging furies of shame and remorse; and while glory seems to surround him on all sides, he himself, in his own imagination, sees black and foul infamy fast pursuing him, and every moment ready to overtake him from behind.

Even the great Caesar, tho he had the magnanimity to dismiss his guards, could not dismiss his suspicions. The remembrance of Pharsalia still haunted and pursued him. When, at the request of the senate, he had the generosity to pardon Marcellus, he told that assembly that he was not unaware of the designs which were carrying on against his life; but that, as he had lived long enough both for nature and for glory, he was contented to die, and therefore despised all conspiracies. He had, perhaps, lived long enough for nature; but the man who felt himself the object of such deadly resentment, from those whose favor he wished to gain, and whom he still wished to consider as his friends, had certainly lived too long for real glory, or for all the happiness which he could ever hope to enjoy in the love and esteem of his equals.



II

THE ADVANTAGES OF A DIVISION OF LABOR[47]

Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or day-laborer in a civilized and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of people, of whose industry a part, tho but a small part, has been employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woolen coat, for example, which covers the day-laborer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the product of the joint labor of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production.

How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others, who often live in a very distant part of the country! How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world! What a variety of labor, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of the meanest of those workmen!

To say nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labor is requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore, the feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brick-maker, the bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the millwright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to produce them.

Were we to examine in the same manner all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him, perhaps, by a long sea and a long land carriage, all the other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which he serves up and divides his victuals, the different hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen employed in producing those different conveniences; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labor is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and cooperation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to what we very falsely imagine the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of a European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute masters of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 46: From the "Theory of Moral Sentiments."]

[Footnote 47: From "The Wealth of Nations."]



SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE

Born in 1723, died in 1780; professor of Common Law at Oxford in 1758; justice in the Court of Common Pleas in 1770; published his "Commentaries" in 1765-68, eight editions appearing in his own lifetime, and innumerable ones since.



PROFESSIONAL SOLDIERS IN FREE COUNTRIES[48]

In a land of liberty it is extremely dangerous to make a distinct order of the profession of arms. In absolute monarchies this is necessary for the safety of the prince, and arises from the main principle of their constitution, which is that of governing by fear; but in free states the profession of a soldier, taken singly and merely as a profession, is justly an object of jealousy. In these no man should take up arms, but with a view to defend his country and its laws; he puts not off the citizen when he enters the camp; but it is because he is a citizen, and would wish to continue so, that he makes himself for a while a soldier. The laws therefore and constitution of these kingdoms know no such state as that of a perpetual standing soldier, bred up to no other profession than that of war; and it was not till the reign of Henry VII that the kings of England had so much as a guard about their persons.

In the time of our Saxon ancestors, as appears from Edward the Confessor's laws, the military force of this kingdom was in the hands of the dukes or heretochs, who were constituted through every province and county in the kingdom; being taken out of the principal nobility, and such as were most remarkable for being "sapientes, fideles, et animosi." Their duty was to lead and regulate the English armies, with a very unlimited power; "prout eis visum fuerit, ad honorem coronae et utilitatem regni." And because of this great power they were elected by the people in their full assembly, or folkmote, in the manner as sheriffs were elected; following still that old fundamental maxim of the Saxon constitution, that where any officer was entrusted with such power, as if abused might tend to the oppression of the people, that power was delegated to him by the vote of the people themselves. So, too, among the ancient Germans, the ancestors of our Saxon forefathers, they had their dukes, as well as kings, with an independent power over the military, as the kings had over the civil state. The dukes were elective, the kings hereditary; for so only can be consistently understood that passage of Tacitus, "reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt"; in constituting their kings, the family or blood royal was regarded; in choosing their dukes or leaders, warlike merit; just as Caesar relates of their ancestors in his time, that whenever they went to war, by way either of attack or defense, they elected leaders to command them. This large share of power, thus conferred by the people, tho intended to preserve the liberty of the subject, was perhaps unreasonably detrimental to the prerogative of the crown; and accordingly we find ill use made of it by Edric, Duke of Mercia, in the reign of King Edmund Ironside, who, by his office of duke or heretoch, was entitled to a large command in the king's army, and by his repeated treacheries at last transferred the crown to Canute the Dane.

It seems universally agreed by all historians, that King Alfred first settled a national militia in this kingdom, and by his prudent discipline made all the subjects of his dominion soldiers; but we are unfortunately left in the dark as to the particulars of this his so celebrated regulation; tho, from what was last observed, the dukes seem to have been left in possession of too large and independent a power; which enabled Duke Harold on the death of Edward the Confessor, tho a stranger to the royal blood, to mount for a short space the throne of this kingdom, in prejudice of Edgar Atheling the rightful heir.

Upon the Norman Conquest the feudal law was introduced here in all its rigor, the whole of which is built on a military plan. I shall not now enter into the particulars of that constitution, which belongs more properly to the next part of our "Commentaries"; but shall only observe that, in consequence thereof, all the lands in the kingdom were divided into what were called knights' fees, in number above sixty thousand (1); and for every knight's fee a knight or soldier, miles, was bound to attend the king in his wars, for forty days in a year (2); in which space of time, before war was reduced to a science, the campaign was generally finished, and a kingdom either conquered or victorious. By this means the king had, without any expense, an army of sixty thousand men always ready at his command. And accordingly we find one, among the laws of William the Conqueror, which in the king's name commands and firmly enjoins the personal attendance of all knights and others: "quod habeant et teneant se semper in armis et equis, ut decet et oportet; et quod semper sint prompti et parati ad servitium suum integrum nobis explendum et peragendum, cum opus adfuerit, secundum quod debent feodis et tenementis suis de jure nobis facere." This personal service in process of time degenerated into pecuniary commutations or aids, and at last the military part of the feudal system was abolished at the Restoration....

As the fashion of keeping standing armies, which was first introduced by Charles VII in France, 1445 A.D., has of late years universally prevailed over Europe (tho some of its potentates, being unable themselves to maintain them, are obliged to have recourse to richer powers, and receive subsidiary pensions for that purpose), it has also for many years past been annually judged necessary by our legislature, for the safety of the kingdom, the defense of the possessions of the crown of Great Britain, and the preservation of the balance of power in Europe, to maintain even in time of peace a standing body of troops, under the command of the crown; who are, however, ipso facto disbanded at the expiration of every year, unless continued by Parliament. And it was enacted by statute (10 W. III, c. 1) that not more than twelve thousand regular forces should be kept on foot in Ireland, tho paid at the charge of that kingdom; which permission is extended by statute (8 Geo. III, c. 13) to 16,235 men, in time of peace.

To prevent the executive power from being able to oppress, says Baron Montesquieu,[49] it is requisite that the armies with which it is entrusted should consist of the people, and have the same spirit with the people; as was the case at Rome, till Marius new modeled the legions by enlisting the rabble of Italy, and laid the foundation of all the military tyranny that ensued. Nothing, then, according to these principles, ought to be more guarded against in a free state, than making the military power, when such a one is necessary to be kept on foot, a body too distinct from the people. Like ours, it should be wholly composed of natural subjects; it ought only to be enlisted for a short and limited time; the soldiers also should live intermixt with the people; no separate camp, no barracks, no inland fortresses should be allowed. And perhaps it might be still better if, by dismissing a stated number, and enlisting others at every renewal of their term, a circulation could be kept up between the army and the people, and the citizen and the soldier be mere intimately connected together.

To keep this body of troops in order, an annual act of Parliament likewise passes, "to punish mutiny and desertion, and for the better payment of the army and their quarters." This regulates the manner in which they are to be dispersed among the several innkeepers and victualers throughout the kingdom, and establishes a law martial for their government. By this, among other things, it is enacted that if any officer or soldier shall excite, or join any mutiny, or, knowing of it, shall not give notice to the commanding officer; or shall desert, or list in any other regiment, or sleep upon his post, or leave it before he is relieved, or hold correspondence with a rebel or enemy, or strike or use violence to his superior officer, or shall disobey his lawful commands; such offender shall suffer such punishment a court martial shall inflict, tho it extend to death itself.

However expedient the most strict regulations may be in time of actual war, yet in times of profound peace a little relaxation of military rigor would not, one should hope, be productive of much inconvenience. And upon this principle, tho by our standing laws (still remaining in force, tho not attended to), desertion in time of war is made felony, without benefit of clergy, and the offense is triable by a jury and before justices at the common law; yet, by our militia laws before mentioned, a much lighter punishment is inflicted for desertion in time of peace. So, by the Roman law also, desertion in time of war was punished with death, but more mildly in time of tranquillity. But our Mutiny Act makes no such distinction; for any of the faults above mentioned are, equally at all times, punishable with death itself, if a court martial shall think proper.

This discretionary power of the court martial is indeed to be guided by the directions of the crown; which, with regard to military offenses, has almost an absolute legislative power. "His Majesty," says the act, "may form articles of war, and constitute courts martial, with power to try any crime by such articles, and inflict penalties by sentence or judgment of the same." A vast and most important trust! an unlimited power to create crimes, and annex to them any punishments, not extending to life or limb! These are indeed forbidden to be inflicted, except for crimes declared to be so punishable by this act; which crimes we have just enumerated, and among which we may observe that any disobedience to lawful commands is one. Perhaps in some future revision of this act, which is in many respects hastily penned, it may be thought worthy the wisdom of Parliament to ascertain the limits of military subjection, and to enact express articles of war for the government of the army, as is done for the government of the navy; especially as, by our constitution, the nobility and the gentry of the kingdom, who serve their country as militia officers, are annually subjected to the same arbitrary rule during their time of exercise.

One of the greatest advantages of our English law is that not only the crimes themselves which it punishes, but also the penalties which it inflicts, are ascertained and notorious; nothing is left to arbitrary discretion; the king by his judges dispenses what the law has previously ordained, but is not himself the legislator. How much therefore is it to be regretted that a set of men, whose bravery has so often preserved the liberties of their country, should be reduced to a state of servitude in the midst of a nation of free men! for Sir Edward Coke[50] will inform us that it is one of the genuine marks of servitude, to have the law, which is our rule of action, either concealed or precarious; "misera est servitus ubi jus est vagum aut incognitum." Nor is this the state of servitude quite consistent with the maxims of sound policy observed by other free nations. For the greater the general liberty is which any state enjoys, the more cautious has it usually been in introducing slavery in any particular order or profession. These men, as Baron Montesquieu observes, seeing the liberty which others possess, and which they themselves are excluded from, are apt (like eunuchs in the eastern seraglios) to live in a state of perpetual envy and hatred toward the rest of the community, and indulge a malignant pleasure in contributing to destroy those privileges to which they can never be admitted. Hence have many free states, by departing from this rule, been endangered by the revolt of their slaves; while in absolute and despotic governments, where no real liberty exists, and consequently no invidious comparisons can be formed, such incidents are extremely rare. Two precautions are therefore advised to be observed in all prudent and free governments: 1. To prevent the introduction of slavery at all; or, 2. If it be already introduced, not to entrust those slaves with arms; who will then find themselves an overmatch for the freemen. Much less ought the soldiery to be an exception to the people in general.