CHAPTER XLII
CONCLUSION
Lord Anophel one morning paid Anthelia his usual visit. ‘You must be aware, Miss Melincourt,’ said he, ‘that if your friends could have found you out, they would have done it before this; but they have searched the whole country far and near, and have now gone home in despair.’
Anthelia. That, my Lord, I cannot believe; for there is one, at least, who I am confident will never be weary of seeking me, and who, I am equally confident, will not always seek in vain.
Lord Anophel Achthar. If you mean the young lunatic of Redrose Abbey, or his friend the dumb Baronet, they are both gone to London to attend the opening of the Honourable House; and if you doubt my word, I will show you their names in the Morning Post, among the Fashionable Arrivals at Wildman’s Hotel.
Anthelia. Your Lordship’s word is quite as good as the authority you have quoted.
Lord Anophel Achthar. Well, then, Miss Melincourt, I presume you perceive that you are completely in my power, and that I have gone too far to recede. If, indeed, I had supposed myself an object of such very great repugnance to you, which I must say (looking at himself in a glass) is quite unaccountable, I might not, perhaps, have laid this little scheme, which I thought would be only settling the affair in a compendious way; for that any woman in England would consider it a very great hardship to be Lady Achthar, and hereafter Marchioness of Agaric, and would feel any very mortal resentment for means that tended to make her so, was an idea, egad, that never entered my head. However, as I have already observed, you are completely in my power: both our characters are compromised, and there is only one way to mend the matter, which is to call in Grovelgrub, and make him strike up ‘Dearly beloved.’
Preparing to administer natural justice by throwing him out at the window.
Anthelia. As to your character, Lord Anophel, that must be your concern. Mine is in my own keeping; for, having practised all my life a system of uniform sincerity, which gives me a right to be believed by all who know me, and more especially by all who love me, I am perfectly indifferent to private malice or public misrepresentation.
Lord Anophel Achthar. There is such a thing, Miss Melincourt, as tiring out a man’s patience; and, ‘pon honour, if gentle means don’t succeed with you, I must have recourse to rough ones, ‘pon honour.
Anthelia. My Lord!
Lord Anophel Achthar. I am serious, curse me. You will be glad enough to hush all up, then, and we’ll go to court together in due form.
Anthelia. What you mean by hushing up, Lord Anophel, I know not: but of this be assured, that under no circumstances will I ever be your wife; and that whatever happens to me in any time or place, shall be known to all who are interested in my welfare. I know too well the difference between the true quality of a pure and simple mind and the false affected modesty which goes by that name in the world, to be intimidated by threats which can only be dictated by a supposition that your wickedness would be my disgrace, and that false shame would induce me to conceal what both truth and justice would command me to make known.
We shall leave them to run ad libitum.
Lord Anophel stood aghast for a few minutes, at the declaration of such unfashionable sentiments. At length saying, ‘Ay, preaching is one thing, and practice another, as Grovelgrub can testify,’ he seized her hand with violence, and threw his arm round her waist. Anthelia screamed, and at that very moment a violent noise of ascending steps was heard on the stairs; the door was burst open, and Sir Oran Haut-ton appeared in the aperture, with the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub in custody, whom he dragged into the apartment, followed by Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax. Mr. Forester flew to Anthelia, who threw herself into his arms, hid her face in his bosom, and burst into tears: which when Sir Oran saw, his wrath grew boundless, and quitting his hold of the Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub (who immediately ran downstairs, and out of the castle, as fast as a pair of short thick legs could carry him), seized on Lord Anophel Achthar, and was preparing to administer natural justice by throwing him out at the window; but Mr. Fax interposed, and calling Mr. Forester’s attention, which was totally engaged with Anthelia, they succeeded in rescuing the terrified sprig of nobility; who immediately, leaving the enemy in free possession, flew downstairs after his reverend tutor; whom, on issuing from the castle, he discovered at an immense distance on the sands, still running with all his might. Lord Anophel gave him chase, and after a long time came within hail of him, and shouted to him to stop. But this only served to quicken the reverend gentleman’s speed; who, hearing the voice of pursuit, and too much terrified to look back, concluded that the dumb Baronet had found his voice, and was then in the very act of gaining on his flight. Therefore, the more Lord Anophel shouted ‘Stop!’ the more nimbly the reverend gentleman sped along the sands, running and roaring all the way, like Falstaff on Gadshill; his Lordship still exerting all his powers of speed in the rear, and gaining on his flying Mentor by very imperceptible gradations: where we shall leave them to run ad libitum, while we account for the sudden appearance of Mr. Forester and his friends.
‘He would confess all.’
We left them walking along the shore of the sea, which they followed till they arrived in the vicinity of Alga Castle, from which the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub emerged in evil hour, to take a meditative walk on the sands. The keen sight of the natural man descried him from far. Sir Oran darted on his prey; and though it is supposed that he could not have overtaken the swift-footed Achilles,[133] he had very little difficulty in overtaking the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, who had begun to run for his life as soon as he was aware of the foe. Sir Oran shook his stick over his head, and the reverend gentleman dropping on his knees, put his hands together, and entreated for mercy, saying ‘he would confess all.’ Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax came up in time to hear the proposal: the former restrained the rage of Sir Oran, who, however, still held his prisoner fast by the arm; and the reluctant divine, with many a heavy groan, conducted his unwelcome company to the door of Anthelia’s apartments.
‘O Forester!’ said Anthelia, ‘you have realised all my wishes. I have found you the friend of the poor, the enthusiast of truth, the disinterested cultivator of the rural virtues, the active promoter of the cause of human liberty. It only remained that you should emancipate a captive damsel, who, however, will but change the mode of her durance, and become your captive for life.’
It was not long after this event, before the Reverend Mr. Portpipe and the old chapel of Melincourt Castle were put in requisition, to make a mystical unit of Anthelia and Mr. Forester. The day was celebrated with great festivity throughout their respective estates, and the Reverend Mr. Portpipe was voti compos, that is to say, he had taken a resolution on the day of Anthelia’s christening, that he would on the day of her marriage drink one bottle more than he had ever taken at one sitting on any other occasion; which resolution he had now the satisfaction of carrying into effect.
Sir Oran Haut-ton continued to reside with Mr. Forester and Anthelia. They discovered in the progress of time that he had formed for the latter the same kind of reverential attachment as the Satyr in Fletcher forms for the Holy Shepherdess:[134] and Anthelia might have said to him in the words of Corin:
His greatest happiness was in listening to the music of her harp and voice: in the absence of which he solaced himself, as usual, with his flute and French horn. He became likewise a proficient in drawing; but what progress he made in the art of speech we have not been able to ascertain.
Mr. Fax was a frequent visitor at Melincourt, and there was always a cover at the table for the Reverend Mr. Portpipe.
Mr. Hippy felt half inclined to make proposals to Miss Evergreen; but understanding from Mr. Forester that, from the death of her lover in early youth, that lady had irrevocably determined on a single life,[135] he comforted himself with passing half his time at Melincourt Castle, and dancing the little Foresters on his knee, whom he taught to call him ‘grandpapa Hippy,’ and seemed extremely proud of the imaginary relationship.
Mr. Forester disposed of Redrose Abbey to Sir Telegraph Paxarett, who, after wearing the willow twelve months, married, left off driving, and became a very respectable specimen of an English country gentleman.
We must not conclude without informing those among our tender-hearted readers who would be much grieved if Miss Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney should have been disappointed in her principal object of making a good match, that she had at length the satisfaction, through the skilful management of her mother, of making the happiest of men of Lord Anophel Achthar.
1. The following is the motto of the title-page of the first edition:—‘Nous nous moquons des Paladins! quand ces maximes romanesques commencèrent à devenir ridicules, ce changement fut moins l’ouvrage de la raison que celui des mauvaises mœurs.’—Rousseau.
2. Written in 1817.—Published in 1818.
3. Hor. Epist. I. ii. 27–30.
4. Junius.
5. For Lucy Gray and Alice Fell, see Mr. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads.
6. Coleridge’s ‘Friend.’
7. ‘There is not any burden that some would gladlier post off to another than the charge and care of their religion. There be of Protestants and professors who live and die in as arrant and implicit faith as any lay Papist of Loretto. A wealthy man, addicted to his pleasure and to his profits, finds religion to be a traffic so entangled and of so many peddling accounts, that, of all mysteries, he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. What should he do? Fain would he have the name to be religious: fain would he bear up with his neighbours in that. What does he, therefore, but resolves to give over toiling, and to find himself out some factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole management of his religious affairs; some divine of note and estimation that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole warehouse of his religion, with all the locks and keys, into his custody, and, indeed, makes the very person of that man his religion, esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say, his religion is now no more within himself, but is become a dividual movable, and goes and comes near him according as that good man frequents the house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him: his religion comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and sumptuously laid to sleep, rises, is saluted, and after the malmsey, or some well-spiced brewage, and better breakfasted than he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem, his religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop, trading all day without his religion.’—Milton’s Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.
8. ‘I think I have established his humanity by proof that ought to satisfy every one who gives credit to human testimony.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. p. 40.
‘I have brought myself to a perfect conviction that the oran outang is a human creature as much as any of us.’—Ibid.
‘Nihil humani ei deesse diceres praeter loquelam.’—Bontius.
‘The fact truly is, that the man is easily distinguishable in him; nor are there any differences betwixt him and us, but what may be accounted for in so satisfactory a manner that it would be extraordinary and unnatural if they were not to be found. His body, which is of the same shape as ours, is bigger and stronger than ours, ... according to that general law of nature above observed (that all animals thrive best in their natural state). His mind is such as that of a man must be, uncultivated by arts and sciences, and living wild in the woods.... One thing, at least, is certain: that if ever men were in that state which I call natural, it must have been in such a country and climate as Africa, where they could live without art upon the natural fruits of the earth. “Such countries,” Linnaeus says, “are the native country of man; there he lives naturally; in other countries, non nisi coacte, that is, by force of art.” If this be so, then the short history of man is, that the race, having begun in those fine climates, and having, as is natural, multiplied there so much that the spontaneous productions of the earth could not support them, they migrated into other countries, where they were obliged to invent arts for their subsistence; and with such arts, language, in process of time, would necessarily come.... That my facts and arguments are so convincing as to leave no doubt of the humanity of the oran outang, I will not take upon me to say; but thus much I will venture to affirm, that I have said enough to make the philosopher consider it as problematical, and a subject deserving to be inquired into. For, as to the vulgar, I can never expect that they should acknowledge any relation to those inhabitants of the woods of Angola; but that they should continue, through a false pride, to think highly derogatory from human nature what the philosopher, on the contrary, will think the greatest praise of man, that from the savage state in which the oran outang is, he should, by his own sagacity and industry, have arrived at the state in which we now see him.’—Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 5.
9. ‘L’Oran Outang, ou l’homme des bois, est un être particulier à la zone torride de notre hémisphère: le Pline de la nation qui l’a rangé dans la classe de singes ne me paroît pas conséquent; car il résulte des principaux traits de sa description que c’est un homme dégénère.’—Philosophie de la Nature.
10. ‘The dispositions and affections of his mind are mild, gentle, and humane.’—Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 4.
‘The oran outang whom Buffon himself saw was of a sweet temper.’—Ibid.
11. ‘But though I hold the oran outang to be of our species, it must not be supposed that I think the monkey or ape, with or without a tail, participates of our nature: on the contrary, I maintain that, however much his form may resemble man’s, yet he is, as Linnaeus says, of the Troglodyte, nec nostri generis nec sanguinis. For as the mind, or internal principle, is the chief part of every animal, it is by it principally that the ancients have distinguished the several species. Now it is laid down by Mr. Buffon, and I believe it to be a fact that cannot be contested, that neither monkey, ape, nor baboon, have anything mild or gentle, tractable or docile, benevolent or humane in their dispositions; but, on the contrary, are malicious and untractable, to be governed only by force and fear, and without any gravity or composure in their gait or behaviour, such as the oran outang has.’—Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 4.
12. ‘He is capable of the greatest affection, not only to his brother oran outangs, but to such among us as use him kindly. And it is a fact well attested to me by a gentleman who was an eye-witness of it, that an oran outang on board his ship conceived such an affection for the cook, that when upon some occasion he left the ship to go ashore, the gentleman saw the oran outang shed tears in great abundance.’—Ibid. book ii. chap. 4.
13. ‘One of them was taken, and brought with some negro slaves to the capital of the kingdom of Malemba. He was a young one, but six feet and a half tall. Before he came to this city he had been kept some months in company with the negro slaves, and during that time was tame and gentle, and took his victuals very quietly; but when he was brought into the town, such crowds of people came about him to gaze at him, that he could not bear it, but grew sullen, abstained from food, and died in four or five days.’—Ibid. book ii. chap. 4.
14. ‘He has the capacity of being a musician, and has actually learned to play upon the pipe and harp: a fact attested, not by a common traveller, but by a man of science, Mr. Peiresc, and who relates it, not as a hearsay, but as a fact consisting with his own knowledge. And this is the more to be attended to, as it shows that the oran outang has a perception of numbers, measure, and melody, which has always been accounted peculiar to our species. But the learning to speak, as well as the learning music, must depend upon particular circumstances; and men living as the oran outangs do, upon the natural fruits of the earth, with few or no arts, are not in a situation that is proper for the invention of language. The oran outangs who played upon the pipe had certainly not invented this art in the woods, but they had learned it from the negroes or the Europeans; and that they had not at the same time learned to speak, may be accounted for in one or other of two ways: either the same pains had not been taken to teach them articulation; or, secondly, music is more natural to man, and more easily acquired than speech.’—Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 5.
15. ‘Ces animaux,’ dit M. de la Brosse, ‘ont l’instinct de s’asseoir à table comme les hommes; ils mangent de tout sans distinction; ils se servent du couteau, de la cuillère, et de la fourchette, pour prendre et couper ce qu’on sert sur l’assiette: ils boivent du vin et d’autres liqueurs: nous les portâmes à bord; quand ils étoient à table ils se faisoient entendre des mousses lorsqu’ils avoient besoin de quelque chose.’—Buffon.
16. ‘If I can believe the newspapers, there was an oran outang of the great kind, that was some time ago shipped aboard a French East India ship. I hope he has had a safe voyage to Europe, and that his education will be taken care of.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. p. 40.
17. Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 4.
18. ‘Homo nocturnus, Troglodytes, silvestris, orang outang Bontii. Corpus album, incessu erectum.... Loquitur sibilo, cogitat, ratiocinatur, credit sui causa factam tellurem, se aliquando iterum fore imperantem.’—Linnaeus.
19. ‘Il n’a point de queue: ses bras, ses mains, ses doigts, ses ongles, sont pareils aux nôtres: il marche toujours debout: il a des traits approchans de ceux de l’homme, des oreilles de la même forme, des cheveux sur la tête, de la barbe au menton, et du poil ni plus ni moins que l’homme en a dans l’état de nature. Aussi les habitans de son pays, les Indiens policés, n’ont pas hésité de l’associer à l’espèce humaine, par le nom d’oran outang, homme sauvage. Si l’on ne faisoit attention qu’à la figure, on pourroit regarder l’oran outang comme le premier des singes ou le dernier des hommes, parce qu’à l’exception de l’âme, il ne lui manque rien de tout ce que nous avons, et parce qu’il diffère moins de l’homme pour le corps qu’il ne diffère des autres animaux auxquels on a donné le même nom de singe.—S’il y avoit un degré par lequel on pût descendre de la nature humaine à celle des animaux, si l’essence de cette nature consistoit en entier dans la forme du corps et dépendoit de son organisation, l’oran outang se trouveroit plus près de l’homme que d’aucun animal: assis au second rang des êtres, s’il ne pouvoit commander en premier, il feroit au moins sentir aux autres sa supériorité, et s’efforceroit à ne pas obéir: si l’imitation qui semble copier de si près la pensée en étoit le vrai signe ou l’un des résultats, il se trouveroit encore à une plus grande distance des animaux et plus voisin de l’homme.’—Buffon.
‘On est tout étonné, d’après tous ces aveux, que M. de Buffon ne fasse de l’oran outang qu’une espèce de magot, essentiellement circonscrit dans les bornes de l’animalité: il falloit, ou infirmer les rélations des voyageurs, ou s’en tenir à leurs résultats.—Quand on lit dans ce naturaliste l’histoire du Nègre blanc, on voit que ce bipède diffère de nous bien plus que l’oran outang, soit par l’organisation, soit par l’intelligence, et cependant on ne balance pas à le mettre dans la classe des hommes.’—Philosophie de la Nature.
20. ‘Les jugemens précipités, et qui ne sont point le fruit d’une raison éclairée, sont sujets à donner dans l’excès. Nos voyageurs font sans façon des bêtes, sous les noms de pongos, de mandrills, d’oran outangs, de ces mêmes êtres, dont, sous le nom de satyres, de faunes, de sylvains, les anciens faisoient des divinités. Peut-être, après des recherches plus exactes, trouvera-t-on que ce sont des hommes.’—Rousseau, Discours sur l’Inégalité, note 8.
‘Il est presque démontré que les faunes, les satyres, les sylvains, les ægipans, et toute cette foule de demi-dieux, difformes et libertins, à qui les filles des Phocion et des Paul Émile s’avisèrent de rendre hommage, ne furent dans l’origine que des oran outangs. Dans la suite, les poëtes chargèrent le portrait de l’homme des bois, en lui donnant des pieds de chèvre, une queue et des cornes; mais le type primordial resta, et le philosophe l’apperçoit dans les monumens les plus défigurés par l’imagination d’Ovide et le ciseau de Phidias. Les anciens, très embarrassés de trouver la filiation de leurs sylvains, et de leurs satyres, se tirèrent d’affaire en leur donnant des dieux pour pères: les dieux étoient d’un grand secours aux philosophes des temps reculés, pour résoudre les problèmes d’histoire naturelle; ils leur servoient comme les cycles et les épicycles dans le système planétaire de Ptolomée: avec des cycles et des dieux on répond à tout, quoiqu’on ne satisfasse personne.’—Philosophie de la Nature.
21. Orphica, Hymn. XI. (X Gesn.)
22. The words in italics are from the Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. pp. 41, 42. Lord Monboddo adds: ‘I hold it to be impossible to convince any philosopher, or any man of common sense, who has bestowed any time to consider the mechanism of speech, that such various actions and configurations of the organs of speech as are necessary for articulation can be natural to man. Whoever thinks this possible, should go and see, as I have done, Mr. Braidwood of Edinburgh, or the Abbé de l’Epée in Paris, teach the dumb to speak; and when he has observed all the different actions of the organs, which those professors are obliged to mark distinctly to their pupils with a great deal of pains and labour, so far from thinking articulation natural to man, he will rather wonder how, by any teaching or imitation, he should attain to the ready performance of such various and complicated operations.’
‘Quoique l’organe de la parole soit naturel à l’homme, la parole elle-même ne lui est pourtant pas naturelle.’—Rousseau, Discours sur l’Inégalité, note 8.
‘The oran outang, so accurately dissected by Tyson, had exactly the same organs of voice that a man has.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. p. 44.
‘I have been told that the oran outang who is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever’s collection, had learned before he died to articulate some words.’—Ibid. p. 40.
23. ‘I desire any philosopher to tell me the specific difference between an oran outang sitting at table, and behaving as M. de la Brosse or M. Buffon himself has described him, and one of our dumb persons; and in general I believe it will be very difficult, or rather impossible, for a man who is accustomed to divide things according to specific marks, not individual differences, to draw the line betwixt the oran outang and the dumb persons among us: they have both their organs of pronunciation, and both show signs of intelligence by their actions.’—Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 4.
24. Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iv. p. 55.
25. ‘Toute la terre est couverte de nations, dont nous ne connoissons que les noms, et nous nous mêlons de juger le genre humain! Supposons un Montesquieu, un Buffon, un Diderot, un Duclos, un d’Alembert, un Condillac, ou des hommes de cette trempe, voyageant pour instruire leurs compatriotes, observant et décrivant comme ils sçavent faire, la Turquie, l’Égypte, la Barbarie, l’Empire de Maroc, la Guinée, le pays des Caffres, l’intérieur de l’Afrique et ses côtes orientales, les Malabares, le Mogol, les rives du Gange, les royaumes de Siam, de Pégu et d’Ava, la Chine, la Tartarie, et sur-tout le Japon; puis dans l’autre hémisphère le Méxique, le Pérou, le Chili, les Terres Magellaniques, sans oublier les Patagons vrais ou faux, le Tucuman, le Paraguai, s’il étoit possible, le Brésil, enfin les Caraïbes, la Floride, et toutes les contrées sauvages, voyage le plus important de tous, et celui qu’il faudroit faire avec le plus de soin; supposons que ces nouveaux Hercules, de retour de ces courses mémorables, fissent à loisir l’histoire naturelle, morale, et politique de ce qu’ils auroient vus, nous verrions nous-mêmes sortir un monde nouveau de dessous leur plume, et nous apprendrions ainsi à connoître le nôtre: je dis que quand de pareils observateurs affirmeront d’un tel animal que c’est un homme, et d’un autre que c’est une bête, il faudra les en croire: mais ce seroit une grande simplicité de s’en rapporter là-dessus à des voyageurs grossiers, sur lesquels on seroit quelquefois tenté de faire la même question qu’ils se mêlent de résoudre sur d’autres animaux.’—Rousseau, Discours sur l’Inégalité, note 8.
26. ΑΝΩΦΕΛον ΑΧΘος ΑΡουρας. Terrae pondus inutile.
27. Agaricus, in Botany, a genus of plants of the class Cryptogamia, comprehending the mushroom, and a copious variety of toadstools.
28. ἐγγυς γαρ νυκτος τε και ἡματος εἰσι κελευθοι.
29. ‘Ils sont si robustes, dit le traducteur de l’Histoire des Voyages, que dix hommes ne suffiroient pas pour les arrêter.’—Rousseau.
‘The oran outang is prodigiously strong.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iv. p. 51; vol. v. p. 4.
‘I have heard the natives say, he can throw down a palm-tree, by his amazing strength, to come at the wine.’—Letter of a Bristol Merchant in a note to the Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 4.
30. See Louvet’s Récit de mes Périls.
31. Rousseau, Émile, liv. 5.
32. ‘L’issue aucthorise souvent une tres-inepte conduitte. Nostre entremise n’est quasy qu’une routine, et plus communement consideration d’usage et d’exemple que de raison.... L’heur et le malheur sont à mon gré deux souveraines puissances. C’est imprudence d’estimer que l’humaine prudence puisse remplir le roolle de la fortune. Et vaine est l’entreprinse de celuy qui presume d’embrasser et causes et consequences, et meiner par la main le progrez de son faict.... Qu’on reguarde qui sont les plus puissans aux villes, et qui font mieulx leurs besongnes, on trouvera ordinairement que ce sont les moins habiles.... Nous attribuons les effects de leur bonne fortune à leur prudence.... Parquoy je dy bien, en toutes façons, que les evenements sont maigres tesmoings de nostre prix et capacité.’—Montaigne, liv. iii. chap. 8.
33. Ecclesiastes, chap. iv.
34. Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 4.
35. ‘I have endeavoured to support the ancient definition of man, and to show that it belongs to the oran outang, though he have not the use of speech. And indeed it appears surprising to me that any man, pretending to be a philosopher, should not be satisfied with the expression of intelligence in the most useful way for the purposes of life; I mean by actions; but should require likewise the expression of them, by those signs of arbitrary institution we call words, before they will allow an animal to deserve the name of man. Suppose that, upon inquiry, it should be found that the oran outangs have not only invented the art of building huts, and of attacking and defending with sticks, but also have contrived a way of communicating to the absent, and recording their ideas by the method of painting or drawing, as is practised by many barbarous nations (and the supposition is not at all impossible, or even improbable); and suppose they should have contrived some form of government, and should elect kings or rulers, which is possible, and, according to the information of the Bristol merchant above mentioned, is reported to be actually the case, what would Mr. Buffon then say? Must they still be accounted brutes, because they have not yet fallen upon the method of communication by articulate sounds?’—Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 4.
36. Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey.’
37. The Iliad.
38. The Odyssey.
39. The Prometheus of Aeschylus.
40. The Philoctetes of Sophocles.
41. The Hippolytus of Euripides.
42. ‘Je l’ai vu présenter sa main pour reconduire les gens qui venoient le visiter; se promener gravement avec eux et comme de compagnie, etc.’—Buffon. H. N. de l’Oran Outang.
43. Fletcher’s ‘Sea Voyage.’
44. Anima certe, quia spiritus est, in sicco habitare non potest.
45. Edinburgh Review, No. liii. p. 10.
46. See the preface to the third volume of the Ancient Metaphysics. See also Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality and that on the Arts and Sciences.
47.
48. ‘They use an artificial weapon for attack and defence, viz. a stick, which no animal merely brute is known to do.’—Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 4.
49. ‘There is a story of one of them, which seems to show they have a sense of justice as well as honour. For a negro having shot a female of this kind, that was feeding among his Indian corn, the male, whom our author calls the husband of this female, pursued the negro into his house, of which having forced open the door, he seized the negro and dragged him out of the house to the place where his wife lay dead or wounded, and the people of the neighbourhood could not rescue the negro, nor force the oran to quit his hold of him, till they shot him likewise.’—Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 4.
50. See Chap. IV.
51. ‘Homer has said nothing, positively, of the size of any of his heroes, but only comparatively, as I shall presently observe: nor is this to be wondered at; for I know no historian, ancient or modern, that says anything of the size of the men of his own nation, except comparatively with that of other nations. But in that fine episode of his, called by the ancient critics the Τειχοσκοπια or Prospect from the Walls, he has given us a very accurate description of the persons of several of the Greek heroes; which I am persuaded he had from very good information. In this description he tells us that Ulysses was shorter than Agamemnon by the head, shorter than Menelaus by the head and shoulders, and that Ajax was taller than any of the Greeks by the head and shoulders; consequently, Ulysses was shorter than Ajax by two heads and shoulders, which we cannot reckon less than four feet. Now, if we suppose heroes to have been no bigger than we, then Ajax must have been a man about six feet and a half, or at most seven feet; and if so Ulysses must have been most contemptibly short, not more than three feet, which is certainly not the truth, but a most absurd and ridiculous fiction, such as we cannot suppose in Homer: whereas, if we allow Ajax to have been twelve or thirteen feet high, and, much more, if we suppose him to have been eleven cubits, as Philostratus makes him, Ulysses, though four feet short of him, would have been of a good size, and, with the extraordinary breadth which Homer observes he had, may have been as strong a man as Ajax.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. p. 146.
52. ‘It was only in after-ages, when the size of men was greatly decreased, that the bodies of those heroes, if they happened to be discovered, were, as was natural, admired and exactly measured. Such a thing happened in Laconia, where the body of Orestes was discovered, and found to be of length seven cubits, that is, ten feet and a half. The story is most pleasantly told by Herodotus, and is to this effect: The Lacedemonians were engaged in a war with the Tegeatae, a people of Arcadia, in which they were unsuccessful. They consulted the oracle at Delphi, what they should do in order to be more successful. The oracle answered ‘That they must bring to Sparta the bones of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon.’ But these bones they could not find, and therefore they sent again to the oracle to inquire where Orestes lay buried. The god answered in hexameter verse, but so obscurely and enigmatically that they could not understand what he meant. They went about inquiring everywhere for the bones of Orestes, till at last a wise man among them, called by Herodotus Liches, found them out, partly by good fortune, and partly by good understanding; for, happening to come one day to a smith’s shop in the country of the Tegeatae, with whom at that time there was a truce and intercourse betwixt the two nations, he looked at the operations of the smith, and seemed to admire them very much; which the smith observing, stopped his work, and, “Stranger,” says he, “you that seem to admire so much the working of iron would have wondered much more if you had seen what I saw lately; for, as I was digging for a well in this court here, I fell upon a coffin that was seven cubits long; but believing that there never were at any time bigger men than the present, I opened the coffin, and found there a dead body as long as the coffin, which having measured I again buried.” Hearing this, the Spartan conjectured that the words of the oracle would apply to a smith’s shop, and to the operations there performed; but taking care not to make this discovery to the smith, he prevailed on him, with much difficulty, to give him a lease of the court; which having obtained, he opened the coffin, and carried the bones to Sparta. After which, says our author, the Spartans were upon every occasion superior in fight to the Tegeatae.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. p. 146.
‘The most of our philosophers at present are, I believe, of the opinion of the smith in Herodotus, who might be excused for having that opinion at a time when perhaps no other heroic body had been discovered. But in later times, I believe there was not the most vulgar man in Greece, who did not believe that those heroes were very much superior, both in mind and body, to the men of after-times. Indeed, they were not considered as mere men, but as something betwixt gods and men, and had heroic honours paid them, which were next to the divine. On the stage they were represented as of extraordinary size, both as to length and breadth; for the actor was not only raised upon very high shoes, which they called cothurns, but he was put into a case that swelled his size prodigiously (and I have somewhere read a very ridiculous story of one of them, who, coming upon the stage, fell and broke his case, so that all the trash with which it was stuffed, came out and was scattered upon the stage in the view of the whole people). This accounts for the high style of ancient tragedy, in which the heroes speak a language so uncommon, that, if I considered them as men nowise superior to us, I should think it little better than fustian, and should be apt to apply to it what Falstaff says to Pistol: “Pr’ythee, Pistol, speak like a man of this world.” And I apply the same observation to Homer’s poems. If I considered his heroes as no more than men of this world, I should consider the things he relates of them as quite ridiculous; but believing them to be men very much superior to us, I read Homer with the highest admiration, not only as a poet, but as the historian of the noblest race of men that ever existed. Thus, by having right notions of the superiority of men in former times, we both improve our philosophy of man and our taste in poetry.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. p. 150.