The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 07 (of 12)

LETTER

MR. DOWDESWELL'S BILL FOR EXPLAINING THE POWERS OF JURIES IN PROSECUTIONS FOR LIBELS.[2]

An improper and injurious account of the bill brought into the House of Commons by Mr. Dowdeswell has lately appeared in one of the public papers. I am not at all surprised at it, as I am not a stranger to the views and politics of those who have caused it to be inserted.

Mr. Dowdeswell did not bring in an enacting bill to give to juries, as the account expresses it, a power to try law and fact in matter of libel. Mr. Dowdeswell brought in a bill to put an end to those doubts and controversies upon that subject which have unhappily distracted our courts, to the great detriment of the public, and to the great dishonor of the national justice.

That it is the province of the jury, in informations and indictments for libels, to try nothing more than the fact of the composing and of the publishing averments and innuendoes is a doctrine held at present by all the judges of the King's Bench, probably by most of the judges of the kingdom. The same doctrine has been held pretty uniformly since the Revolution; and it prevails more or less with the jury, according to the degree of respect with which they are disposed to receive the opinions of the bench.

This doctrine, which, when it prevails, tends to annihilate the benefit of trial by jury, and when it is rejected by juries, tends to weaken and disgrace the authority of the judge, is not a doctrine proper for an English judicature. For the sake both of judge and jury, the controversy ought to be quieted, and the law ought to be settled in a manner clear, definitive, and constitutional, by the only authority competent to it, the authority of the legislature.

Mr. Dowdeswell's bill was brought in for that purpose. It gives to the jury no new powers; but, after reciting the doubts and controversies, (which nobody denies actually to subsist,) and after stating, that, if juries are not reputed competent to try the whole matter, the benefit of trial by jury will be of none or imperfect effect, it enacts, not that the jury shall have the power, but that they shall be held and reputed in law and right competent to try the whole matter laid in the information. The bill is directing to the judges concerning the opinion in law which they are known to hold upon this subject,—and does not in the least imply that the jury were to derive a new right and power from that bill, if it should have passed into an act of Parliament. The implication is directly the contrary, and is as strongly conveyed as it is possible for those to do who state a doubt and controversy without charging with criminality those persons who so doubted and so controverted.

Such a style is frequent in acts of this nature, and is that only which is suited to the occasion. An insidious use has been made of the words enact and declare, as if they were formal and operative words of force to distinguish different species of laws producing different effects. Nothing is more groundless; and I am persuaded no lawyer will stand to such an assertion. The gentlemen who say that a bill ought to have been brought in upon the principle and in the style of the Petition of Right and Declaration of Right ought to consider how far the circumstances are the same in the two cases, and how far they are prepared to go the whole lengths of the reason of those remarkable laws. Mr. Dowdeswell and his friends are of opinion that the circumstances are not the same, and that therefore the bill ought not to be the same.

It has been always disagreeable to the persons who compose that connection to engage wantonly in a paper war, especially with gentlemen for whom they have an esteem, and who seem to agree with them in the great grounds of their public conduct; but they can never consent to purchase any assistance from any persons by the forfeiture of their own reputation. They respect public opinion; and therefore, whenever they shall be called upon, they are ready to meet their adversaries, as soon as they please, before the tribunal of the public, and there to justify the constitutional nature and tendency, the propriety, the prudence, and the policy of their bill. They are equally ready to explain and to justify all their proceedings in the conduct of it,—equally ready to defend their resolution to make it one object (if ever they should have the power) in a plan of public reformation.

Your correspondent ought to have been satisfied with the assistance which his friends have lent to administration in defeating that bill. He ought not to make a feeble endeavor (I dare say, much to the displeasure of those friends) to disgrace the gentleman who brought it in. A measure proposed by Mr. Dowdeswell, seconded by Sir George Savile, and supported by their friends, will stand fair with the public, even though it should have been opposed by that list of names (respectable names, I admit) which have been printed with so much parade and ostentation in your papers.

It is not true that Mr. Burke spoke in praise of Lord Mansfield. If he had found anything in Lord Mansfield praiseworthy, I fancy he is not disposed to make an apology to anybody for doing justice. Your correspondent's reason for asserting it is visible enough; and it is altogether in the strain of other misrepresentations. That gentlemen spoke decently of the judges, and he did no more; most of the gentlemen who debated, on both sides, held the same language; and nobody will think their zeal the less warm, or the less effectual, because it is not attended with scurrility and virulence.

LIBEL BILL.

SPEECH

ON

A BILL FOR THE REPEAL OF THE MARRIAGE ACT.

JUNE 15, 1781.

This act [the Marriage Act] stands upon two principles: one, that the power of marrying without consent of parents should not take place till twenty-one years of age; the other, that all marriages should be public.

The proposition of the honorable mover goes to the first; and undoubtedly his motives are fair and honorable; and even, in that measure by which he would take away paternal power, he is influenced to it by filial piety; and he is led into it by a natural, and to him inevitable, but real mistake,—that the ordinary race of mankind advance as fast towards maturity of judgment and understanding as he does.

The question is not now, whether the law ought to acknowledge and protect such a state of life as minority, nor whether the continuance which is fixed for that state be not improperly prolonged in the law of England. Neither of these in general are questioned. The only question, is, whether matrimony is to be taken out of the general rule, and whether the minors of both sexes, without the consent of their parents, ought to have a capacity of contracting the matrimonial, whilst they have not the capacity of contracting any other engagement. Now it appears to me very clear that they ought not. It is a great mistake to think that mere animal propagation is the sole end of matrimony. Matrimony is instituted not only for the propagation of men, but for their nutrition, their education, their establishment, and for the answering of all the purposes of a rational and moral being; and it is not the duty of the community to consider alone of how many, but how useful citizens it shall be composed.

It is most certain that men are well qualified for propagation long before they are sufficiently qualified even by bodily strength, much less by mental prudence, and by acquired skill in trades and professions, for the maintenance of a family. Therefore to enable and authorize any man to introduce citizens into the commonwealth, before a rational security can be given that he may provide for them and educate them as citizens ought to be provided for and educated, is totally incongruous with the whole order of society. Nay, it is fundamentally unjust; for a man that breeds a family without competent means of maintenance incumbers other men with his children, and disables them so far from maintaining their own. The improvident marriage of one man becomes a tax upon the orderly and regular marriage of all the rest. Therefore those laws are wisely constituted that give a man the use of all his faculties at one time, that they may be mutually subservient, aiding and assisting to each other: that the time of his completing his bodily strength, the time of mental discretion, the time of his having learned his trade, and the time at which he has the disposition of his fortune, should be likewise the time in which he is permitted to introduce citizens into the state, and to charge the community with their maintenance. To give a man a family during his apprenticeship, whilst his very labor belongs to another,—to give him a family, when you do not give him a fortune to maintain it,—to give him a family before he can contract any one of those engagements without which no business can be carried on, would be to burden the state with families without any security for their maintenance. When parents themselves marry their children, they become in some sort security to prevent the ill consequences. You have this security in parental consent; the state takes its security in the knowledge of human nature. Parents ordinarily consider little the passion of their children and their present gratification. Don't fear the power of a father: it is kind to passion to give it time to cool. But their censures sometimes make me smile,—sometimes, for I am very infirm, make me angry: sæpe bilem, sæpe jocum movent.

It gives me pain to differ on this occasion from many, if not most, of those whom I honor and esteem. To suffer the grave animadversion and censorial rebuke of the honorable gentleman who made the motion, of him whose good-nature and good sense the House look upon with a particular partiality, whose approbation would have been one of the highest objects of my ambition,—this hurts me. It is said the Marriage Act is aristocratic. I am accused, I am told abroad, of being a man of aristocratic principles. If by aristocracy they mean the peers, I have no vulgar admiration, nor any vulgar antipathy towards them; I hold their order in cold and decent respect. I hold them to be of an absolute necessity in the Constitution; but I think they are only good when kept within their proper bounds. I trust, whenever there has been a dispute between these Houses, the part I have taken has not been equivocal. If by the aristocracy (which, indeed, comes nearer to the point) they mean an adherence to the rich and powerful against the poor and weak, this would, indeed, be a very extraordinary part. I have incurred the odium of gentlemen in this House for not paying sufficient regard to men of ample property. When, indeed, the smallest rights of the poorest people in the kingdom are in question, I would set my face against any act of pride and power countenanced by the highest that are in it; and if it should come to the last extremity, and to a contest of blood,—God forbid! God forbid!—my part is taken: I would take my fate with the poor and low and feeble. But if these people came to turn their liberty into a cloak for maliciousness, and to seek a privilege of exemption, not from power, but from the rules of morality and virtuous discipline, then I would join my hand to make them feel the force which a few united in a good cause have over a multitude of the profligate and ferocious.

I wish the nature of the ground of repeal were considered with a little attention. It is said the act tends to accumulate, to keep up the power of great families, and to add wealth to wealth. It may be that it does so. It is impossible that any principle of law or government useful to the community should be established without an advantage to those who have the greatest stake in the country. Even some vices arise from it. The same laws which secure property encourage avarice; and the fences made about honest acquisition are the strong bars which secure the hoards of the miser. The dignities of magistracy are encouragements to ambition, with all the black train of villanies which attend that wicked passion. But still we must have laws to secure property, and still we must have ranks and distinctions and magistracy in the state, notwithstanding their manifest tendency to encourage avarice and ambition.

By affirming the parental authority throughout the state, parents in high rank will generally aim at, and will sometimes have the means, too, of preserving their minor children from any but wealthy or splendid matches. But this authority preserves from a thousand misfortunes which embitter every part of every man's domestic life, and tear to pieces the dearest lies in human society.

I am no peer, nor like to be,—but am in middle life, in the mass of citizens; yet I should feel for a son who married a prostituted woman, or a daughter who married a dishonorable and prostituted man, as much as any peer in the realm.

You are afraid of the avaricious principle of fathers. But observe that the avaricious principle is here mitigated very considerably. It is avarice by proxy; it is avarice not working by itself or for itself, but through the medium of parental affection, meaning to procure good to its offspring. But the contest is not between love and avarice.

While you would guard against the possible operation of this species of benevolent avarice, the avarice of the father, you let loose another species of avarice,—that of the fortune-hunter, unmitigated, unqualified. To show the motives, who has heard of a man running away with a woman not worth sixpence? Do not call this by the name of the sweet and best passion,—love. It is robbery,—not a jot better than any other.

Would you suffer the sworn enemy of his family, his life, and his honor, possibly the shame and scandal and blot of human society, to debauch from his care and protection the dearest pledge that he has on earth, the sole comfort of his declining years, almost in infantine imbecility,—and with it to carry into the hands of his enemy, and the disgrace of Nature, the dear-earned substance of a careful and laborious life? Think of the daughter of an honest, virtuous parent allied to vice and infamy. Think of the hopeful son tied for life by the meretricious arts of the refuse of mercenary and promiscuous lewdness. Have mercy on the youth of both sexes; protect them from their ignorance and inexperience; protect one part of life by the wisdom of another; protect them by the wisdom of laws and the care of Nature.

If I considered this bill as an attack upon the Church, brought in for the purpose of impoverishing and weakening the clergy, I should be one of the foremost in an early and vigorous opposition to it.

I admit, the same reasons do not press for limiting the claims of the Church that existed for limiting the crown, by that wisest of all laws which, has secured the property, the peace, and the freedom of this country from the most dangerous mode of attack which could be made upon them all.

I am very sensible of the propriety of maintaining that venerable body with decency,—and with more than mere decency. I would maintain it according to the ranks wisely established in it, with that sober and temperate splendor that is suitable to a sacred character invested with high dignity.

There ought to be a symmetry between all the parts and orders of a state. A poor clergy in an opulent nation can have little correspondence with the body it is to instruct, and it is a disgrace to the public sentiments of religion. Such irreligious frugality is even bad economy, as the little that is given is entirely thrown away. Such an impoverished and degraded clergy in quiet tunes could never execute their duty, and in time of disorder would infinitely aggravate the public confusions.

That the property of the Church is a favored and privileged property I readily admit. It is made with great wisdom; since a perpetual body, with a perpetual duty, ought to have a perpetual provision.

The question is not, the property of the Church, or its security. The question is, whether you will render the principle of prescription a principle of the law of this laud, and incorporate it with the whole of your jurisprudence,—whether, having given it first against the laity, then against the crown, you will now extend it to the Church.

The acts which were made, giving limitation against the laity, were not acts against the property of those who might be precluded by limitations. The act of quiet against the crown was not against the interests of the crown, but against a power of vexation.

If the principle of prescription be not a constitution of positive law, but a principle of natural equity, then to hold it out against any man is not doing him injustice.

That tithes are due of common right is readily granted; and if this principle had been kept in its original straitness, it might, indeed, be supposed that to plead an exemption was to plead a long-continued fraud, and that no man could be deceived in such a title,—as the moment he bought land, he must know that he bought land tithed: prescription could not aid him, for prescription can only attach on a supposed bonâ fide possession. But the fact is, that the principle has been broken in upon.

Here it is necessary to distinguish two sorts of property.

1. Land carries no mark on it to distinguish it as ecclesiastical, as tithes do, which are a charge on land; therefore, though it had been made inalienable, it ought perhaps to be subject to limitation. It might bonâ fide be held.

But, first, it was not originally inalienable, no, not by the Canon Law, until the restraining act of the 11th [1st?] of Elizabeth. But the great revolution of the dissolution of monasteries, by the 31st Hen., ch. 13, has so mixed and confounded ecclesiastical with lay property, that a man may by every rule of good faith be possessed of it. The statute of Queen Elizabeth, ann. 1, ch. 1, [?] gave away the bishop's lands.

So far as to lands.

As to tithes, they are not things in their own nature subject to be barred by prescription upon the general principle. But tithes and Church lands, by the statutes of Henry VIII. and the 11th [1st?] Eliz., have become objects in commercio: for by coming to the crown they became grantable in that way to the subject, and a great part of the Church lands passed through the crown to the people.

By passing to the king, tithes became property to a mixed party; by passing from the king, they became absolutely lay property: the partition-wall was broken down, and tithes and Church possession became no longer synonymous terms. No [A?] man, therefore, might become a fair purchaser of tithes, and of exemption from tithes.

By the statute of Elizabeth, the lands took the same course, (I will not inquire by what justice, good policy, and decency,) but they passed into lay lands, became the object of purchases for valuable consideration, and of marriage settlements.

Now, if tithes might come to a layman, land in the hands of a layman might be also tithe-free. So that there was an object which a layman might become seized of equitably and bonâ fide; there was something on which a prescription might attach, the end of which is, to secure the natural well-meaning ignorance of men, and to secure property by the best of all principles, continuance.

I have therefore shown that a layman may be equitably seized of Church lands,—2. of tithes,—3. of exemption from tithes; and you will not contend that there should be no prescription. Will you say that the alienations made before the 11th of Elizabeth shall not stand good?

I do not mean anything against the Church, her dignities, her honors, her privileges, or her possessions. I should wish even to enlarge them all: not that the Church of England is incompetently endowed. This is to take nothing from her but the power of making herself odious. If she be secure herself, she can have no objection to the security of others. For I hope she is secure from lay-bigotry and anti-priestcraft, for certainly such things there are. I heartily wish to see the Church secure in such possessions as will not only enable her ministers to preach the Gospel with ease, but of such a kind as will enable them to preach it with its full effect, so that the pastor shall not have the inauspicious appearance of a tax-gatherer,—such a maintenance as is compatible with the civil prosperity and improvement of their country.

HINTS

FOR

AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMA.

NOTE.

These hints appear to have been first thoughts, which were probably intended to be amplified and connected, and so worked up into a regular dissertation. No date appears of the time when they were written, but it was probably before the year 1765.

HINTS

FOR AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMA.

It is generally observed that no species of writing is so difficult as the dramatic. It must, indeed, appear so, were we to consider it upon one side only. It is a dialogue, or species of composition which in itself requires all the mastery of a complete writer with grace and spirit to support. We may add, that it must have a fable, too, which necessarily requires invention, one of the rarest qualities of the human mind. It would surprise us, if we were to examine the thing critically, how few good original stories there are in the world. The most celebrated borrow from each other, and are content with some new turn, some corrective, addition, or embellishment. Many of the most celebrated writers in that way can claim no other merit. I do not think La Fontaine has one original story. And if we pursue him to those who were his originals, the Italian writers of tales and novels, we shall find most even of them drawing from antiquity, or borrowing from the Eastern world, or adopting and decorating the little popular stories they found current and traditionary in their country. Sometimes they laid the foundation of their tale in real fact. Even after all their borrowing from so many funds, they are still far from opulent. How few stories has Boccace which are tolerable, and how much fewer are there which you would desire to read twice! But this general difficulty is greatly increased, when we come to the drama. Here a fable is essential,—a fable which is to be conducted with rapidity, clearness, consistency, and surprise, without any, or certainly with very little, aid from narrative. This is the reason that generally nothing is more dull in telling than the plot of a play. It is seldom or never a good story in itself; and in this particular, some of the greatest writers, both in ancient and modern theatres, have failed in the most miserable manner. It is well a play has still so many requisites to complete it, that, though the writer should not succeed in these particulars, and therefore should be so far from perfection, there are still enough left in which he may please, at less expense of labor to himself, and perhaps, too, with more real advantage to his auditory. It is, indeed, very difficult happily to excite the passions and draw the characters of men; but our nature leads us more directly to such paintings than to the invention of a story. We are imitative animals; and we are more naturally led to imitate the exertions of character and passion than to observe and describe a series of events, and to discover those relations and dependencies in them which will please. Nothing can be more rare than this quality. Herein, as I believe, consists the difference between the inventive and the descriptive genius. By the inventive genius I mean the creator of agreeable facts and incidents; by the descriptive, the delineator of characters, manners, and passions. Imitation calls us to this; we are in some cases almost forced to it, and it is comparatively easy. More observe the characters of men than the order of things: to the one we are formed by Nature, and by that sympathy from which we are so strongly led to take a part in the passions and manners of our fellow-men; the other is, as it were, foreign and extrinsical. Neither, indeed, can anything be done, even in this, without invention; but it is obvious that this invention is of a kind altogether different from the former. However, though the more sublime genius and the greatest art are required for the former, yet the latter, as it is more common and more easy, so it is more useful, and administers more directly to the great business of life.

If the drama requires such a combination of talents, the most common of which is very rarely to be found and difficult to be exerted, it is not surprising, at a time when almost all kinds of poetry are cultivated with little success, to find that we have done no great matters in this. Many causes may be assigned for our present weakness in that oldest and most excellent branch of philosophy, poetical learning, and particularly in what regards the theatre. I shall here only consider what appears to me to be one of these causes: I mean the wrong notion of the art itself, which begins to grow fashionable, especially among people of an elegant turn of mind with a weak understanding; and these are they that form the great body of the idle part of every polite and civilized nation. The prevailing system of that class of mankind is indolence. This gives them an aversion to all strong movements. It infuses a delicacy of sentiment, which, when it is real, and accompanied with a justness of thought, is an amiable quality, and favorable to the fine arts; but when it comes to make the whole of the character, it injures things more excellent than those which it improves, and degenerates into a false refinement, which diffuses a languor and breathes a frivolous air over everything which it can influence....

Having differed in my opinion about dramatic composition, and particularly in regard to comedy, with a gentleman for whose character and talents I have a very high respect, I thought myself obliged, on account of that difference, to a new and more exact examination of the grounds upon which I had formed my opinions. I thought it would be impossible to come to any clear and definite idea on this subject, without remounting to the natural passions or dispositions of men, which first gave rise to this species of writing; for from these alone its nature, its limits, and its true character can be determined.

There are but four general principles which can move men to interest themselves in the characters of others, and they may be classed under the heads of good and ill opinion: on the side of the first may be classed admiration and love, hatred and contempt on the other. And these have accordingly divided poetry into two very different kinds,—the panegyrical, and the satirical; under one of which heads all genuine poetry falls (for I do not reckon the didactic as poetry, in the strictness of speech).

Without question, the subject of all poetry was originally direct and personal. Fictitious character is a refinement, and comparatively modern; for abstraction is in its nature slow, and always follows the progress of philosophy. Men had always friends and enemies before they knew the exact nature of vice and virtue; they naturally, and with their best powers of eloquence, whether in prose or verse, magnified and set off the one, vilified and traduced the other.

The first species of composition in either way was probably some general, indefinite topic of praise or blame, expressed in a song or hymn, which is the most common and simple kind of panegyric and satire. But as nothing tended to set their hero or subject in a more forcible light than some story to their advantage or prejudice, they soon introduced a narrative, and thus improved the composition into a greater variety of pleasure to the hearer, and to a more forcible instrument of honor or disgrace to the subject.

It is natural with men, when they relate any action with any degree of warmth, to represent the parties to it talking as the occasion requires; and this produces that mixed species of poetry, composed of narrative and dialogue, which is very universal in all languages, and of which Homer is the noblest example in any. This mixed kind of poetry seems also to be most perfect, as it takes in a variety of situations, circumstances, reflections, and descriptions, which must be rejected on a more limited plan.

It must be equally obvious, that men, in relating a story in a forcible manner, do very frequently mimic the looks, gesture, and voice of the person concerned, and for the time, as it were, put themselves into his place. This gave the hint to the drama, or acting; and observing the powerful effect of this in public exhibitions....

But the drama, the most artificial and complicated of all the poetical machines, was not yet brought to perfection; and like those animals which change their state, some parts of the old narrative still adhered. It still had a chorus, it still had a prologue to explain the design; and the perfect drama, an automaton supported and moved without any foreign help, was formed late and gradually. Nay, there are still several parts of the world in which it is not, and probably never may be, formed. The Chinese drama.

The drama, being at length formed, naturally adhered to the first division of poetry, the satirical and panegyrical, which made tragedy and comedy.

Men, in praising, naturally applaud the dead. Tragedy celebrated the dead.

Great men are never sufficiently shown but in struggles. Tragedy turned, therefore, on melancholy and affecting subjects,—a sort of threnodia,—its passions, therefore, admiration, terror, and pity.

Comedy was satirical. Satire is best on the living.

It was soon found that the best way to depress an hated character was to turn it into ridicule; and therefore the greater vices, which in the beginning were lashed, gave place to the contemptible. Its passion, therefore, became ridicule.

Every writing must have its characteristic passion. What is that of comedy, if not ridicule?

Comedy, therefore, is a satirical poem, representing an action carried on by dialogue, to excite laughter by describing ludicrous characters. See Aristotle.

Therefore, to preserve this definition, the ridicule must be either in the action or characters, or both.

An action may be ludicrous, independent of the characters, by the ludicrous situations and accidents which may happen to the characters.

But the action is not so important as the characters. We see this every day upon the stage.

What are the characters fit for comedy?

It appears that no part of human life which may be subject to ridicule is exempted from comedy; for wherever men run into the absurd, whether high or low, they may be the subject of satire, and consequently of comedy. Indeed, some characters, as kings, are exempted through decency; others might be too insignificant. Some are of opinion that persons in better life are so polished that their tone characters and the real bent of their humor cannot appear. For my own part, I cannot give entire credit to this remark. For, in the first place, I believe that good-breeding is not so universal or strong in any part of life as to overrule the real characters and strong passions of such men as would be proper objects of the drama. Secondly, it is not the ordinary, commonplace discourse of assemblies that is to be represented in comedy. The parties are to be put in situations in which their passions are roused, and their real characters called forth; and if their situations are judiciously adapted to the characters, there is no doubt but they will appear in all their force, choose what situation of life you please. Let the politest man alive game, and feel at loss; let this be his character; and his politeness will never hide it, nay, it will put it forward with greater violence, and make a more forcible contrast.[3]

But genteel comedy puts these characters, not in their passionate, but in their genteel light; makes elegant cold conversation, and virtuous personages.[4] Such sort of pictures disagreeable.

Virtue and politeness not proper for comedy; for they have too much or no movement.

They are not good in tragedy, much less here.

The greater virtues, fortitude, justice, and the like, too serious and sublime.

It is not every story, every character, every incident, but those only which answer their end.—Painting of artificial things not good; a thing being useful does not therefore make it most pleasing in picture.—Natural manners, good and bad.—Sentiment. In common affairs and common life, virtuous sentiments are not even the character of virtuous men; we cannot bear these sentiments, but when they are pressed out, as it were, by great exigencies, and a certain contention which is above the general style of comedy....

The first character of propriety the Lawsuit possesses in an eminent degree. The plot of the play is an iniquitous suit; there can be no fitter persons to be concerned in the active part of it than low, necessitous lawyers of bad character, and profligates of desperate fortune. On the other hand, in the passive part, if an honest and virtuous man had been made the object of their designs, or a weak man of good intentions, every successful step they should take against him ought rather to fill the audience with horror than pleasure and mirth; and if in the conclusion their plots should be baffled, even this would come too late to prevent that ill impression. But in the Lawsuit this is admirably avoided: for the character chosen is a rich, avaricious usurer: the pecuniary distresses of such a person can never be looked upon with horror; and if he should be even handled unjustly, we always wait his delivery with patience.

Now with regard to the display of the character, which is the essential part of the plot, nothing can be more finely imagined than to draw a miser in law. If you draw him inclined to love and marriage, you depart from the height of his character in some measure, as Molière has done. Expenses of this kind he may easily avoid. If you draw him in law, to advance brings expense, to draw back brings expense; and the character is tortured and brought out at every moment.

A sort of notion has prevailed that a comedy might subsist without humor. It is an idle disquisition, whether a story in private life, represented in dialogues, may not be carried on with some degree of merit without humor. It may unquestionably; but what shines chiefly in comedy, the painting the manners of life, must be in a great measure wanting. A character which has nothing extravagant, wrong, or singular in it can affect but very little: and this is what makes Aristotle draw the great line of distinction between tragedy and comedy. Ἐν αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ διαφορᾷ καὶ ἡ τραγῳδία, &c. Arist. Poet. Ch. II.

There is not a more absurd mistake than that whatever may not unnaturally happen in an action is of course to be admitted into every painting of it. In Nature, the great and the little, the serious and the ludicrous, things the most disproportionate the one to the other, are frequently huddled together in much confusion, And what then? It is the business of Art first to choose some determinate end and purpose, and then to select those parts of Nature, and those only, which conduce to that end, avoiding with most religious exactness the intermixture of anything which would contradict it. Else the whole idea of propriety, that is, the only distinction between the just and chimerical in the arts, would be utterly lost. An hero eats, drinks, and sleeps, like other men; but to introduce such scenes on the stage, because they are natural, would be ridiculous. And why? Because they have nothing to do with the end for which the play is written. The design of a piece might be utterly destroyed by the most natural incidents in the world. Boileau has somewhere criticized with what surely is a very just severity on Ariosto, for introducing a ludicrous tale from his host to one of the principal persons of his poem, though the story has great merit in its way. Indeed, that famous piece is so monstrous and extravagant in all its parts that one is not particularly shocked with this indecorum. But, as Boileau has observed, if Virgil had introduced Æneas listening to a bawdy story from his host, what an episode had this formed in that divine poem! Suppose, instead of Æneas, he had represented the impious Mezentius as entertaining himself in that manner; such a thing would not have been without probability, but it would have clashed with the very first principles of taste, and, I would say, of common sense.

I have heard of a celebrated picture of the Last Supper,—and if I do not mistake, it is said to be the work of some of the Flemish masters: in this picture all the personages are drawn in a manner suitable to the solemnity of the occasion; but the painter has filled the void under the table with a dog gnawing bones. Who does not see the possibility of such an incident, and, at the same time, the absurdity of introducing it on such an occasion! Innumerable such cases might be stated. It is not the incompatibility or agreeableness of incidents, characters, or sentiments with the probable in fact, but with propriety in design, that admits or excludes them from a place in any composition. We may as well urge that stones, sand, clay, and metals lie in a certain manner in the earth, as a reason for building with these materials and in that manner, as for writing according to the accidental disposition of characters in Nature. I have, I am afraid, been longer than it might seem necessary in refuting such a notion; but such authority can only be opposed by a good deal of reason. We are not to forget that a play is, or ought to be, a very short composition; that, if one passion or disposition is to be wrought up with tolerable success, I believe it is as much as can in any reason be expected. If there be scenes of distress and scenes of humor, they must either be in a double or single plot. If there be a double plot, there are in fact two. If they be in checkered scenes of serious and comic, you are obliged continually to break both the thread of the story and the continuity of the passion,—if in the same scene, as Mrs. V. seems to recommend, it is needless to observe how absurd the mixture must be, and how little adapted to answer the genuine end of any passion. It is odd to observe the progress of bad taste: for this mixed passion being universally proscribed in the regions of tragedy, it has taken refuge and shelter in comedy, where it seems firmly established, though no reason can be assigned why we may not laugh in the one as well as weep in the other. The true reason of this mixture is to be sought for in the manners which are prevalent amongst a people. It has become very fashionable to affect delicacy, tenderness of heart, and fine feeling, and to shun all imputation of rusticity. Much mirth is very foreign to this character; they have introduced, therefore, a sort of neutral writing.

Now as to characters, they have dealt in them as in the passions. There are none but lords and footmen. One objection to characters in high life is, that almost all wants, and a thousand happy circumstances arising from them, being removed from it, their whole mode of life is too artificial, and not so fit for painting; and the contrary opinion has arisen from a mistake, that whatever has merit in the reality necessarily must have it in the representation. I have observed that persons, and especially women, in lower life, and of no breeding, are fond of such representations. It seems like introducing them into good company, and the honor compensates the dulness of the entertainment.

Fashionable manners being fluctuating is another reason for not choosing them.—Sensible comedy,—talking sense a dull thing—....

AN

ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

CAUSES OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ROMANS AND BRITONS.—CAESAR'S TWO INVASIONS OF BRITAIN.

In order to obtain a clear notion of the state of Europe before the universal prevalence of the Roman power, the whole region is to be divided into two principal parts, which we shall call Northern and Southern Europe. The northern part is everywhere separated from the southern by immense and continued chains of mountains. From Greece it is divided by Mount Hæmus; from Spain by the Pyrenees; from Italy by the Alps. This division is not made by an arbitrary or casual distribution of countries. The limits are marked out by Nature, and in these early ages were yet further distinguished by a considerable difference in the manners and usages of the nations they divided.

If we turn our eyes to the northward of these boundaries, a vast mass of solid continent lies before us, stretched out from the remotest shore of Tartary quite to the Atlantic Ocean. A line drawn through this extent, from east to west, would pass over the greatest body of unbroken land that is anywhere known upon the globe. This tract, in a course of some degrees to the northward, is not interrupted by any sea; neither are the mountains so disposed as to form any considerable obstacle to hostile incursions. Originally it was all inhabited but by one sort of people, known by one common denomination of Scythians. As the several tribes of this comprehensive name lay in many parts greatly exposed, and as by their situation and customs they were much inclined to attack, and by both ill qualified for defence, throughout the whole of that immense region there was for many ages a perpetual flux and reflux of barbarous nations. None of their commonwealths continued long enough established on any particular spot to settle and to subside into a regular order, one tribe continually overpowering or thrusting out another. But as these were only the mixtures of Scythians with Scythians, the triumphs of barbarians over barbarians, there were revolutions in empire, but none in manners. The Northern Europe, until some parts of it were subdued by the progress of the Roman arms, remained almost equally covered with all the ruggedness of primitive barbarism.

The southern part was differently circumstanced. Divided, as we have said, from the northern by great mountains, it is further divided within itself by considerable seas. Spain, Greece, and Italy are peninsulas. By these advantages of situation the inhabitants were preserved from those great and sudden revolutions to which the Northern world had been always liable; and being confined within a space comparatively narrow, they were restrained from wandering into a pastoral and unsettled life. It was upon one side only that they could be invaded by land. Whoever made an attempt on any other part must necessarily have arrived in ships of some magnitude, and must therefore have in a degree been cultivated, if not by the liberal, at least by the mechanic arts. In fact, the principal colonies-which we find these countries to have received were sent from Phœnicia, or the Lesser Asia, or Egypt, the great fountains of the ancient civility and learning. And they became more or less, earlier or later, polished, as they were situated nearer to or further from these celebrated sources. Though I am satisfied, from a comparison of the Celtic tongues with the Greek and Roman, that the original inhabitants of Italy and Greece were of the same race with the people of Northern Europe, yet it is certain they profited so much by their guarded situation, by the mildness of their climate favorable to humanity, and by the foreign infusions, that they came greatly to excel the Northern nations in every respect, and particularly in the art and discipline of war. For, not being so strong in their bodies, partly from the temperature of their climate, partly from a degree of softness induced by a more cultivated life, they applied themselves to remove the few inconveniences of a settled society by the advantages which it affords in art, disposition, and obedience; and as they consisted of many small states, their people were well exercised in arms, and sharpened against each other by continual war.

Such was the situation of Greece and Italy from a very remote period. The Gauls and other Northern nations, envious of their wealth, and despising the effeminacy of their manners, often invaded them with, numerous, though ill-formed armies. But their greatest and most frequent attempts were against Italy, their connection with which country alone we shall here consider. In the course of these wars, the superiority of the Roman discipline over the Gallic ferocity was at length demonstrated. The Gauls, notwithstanding the numbers with which their irruptions were made, and the impetuous courage by which that nation was distinguished, had no permanent success. They were altogether unskilful either in improving their victories or repairing their defeats. But the Romans, being governed by a most wise order of men, perfected by a traditionary experience in the policy of conquest, drew some advantage from every turn of fortune, and, victorious or vanquished, persisted in one uniform and comprehensive plan of breaking to pieces everything which endangered their safety or obstructed their greatness. For, after having more than once expelled the Northern invaders out of Italy, they pursued them over the Alps; and carrying the war into the country of their enemy, under several able generals, and at last under Caius Cæsar, they reduced all the Gauls from the Mediterranean Sea to the Rhine and the Ocean. During the progress of this decisive war, some of the maritime nations of Gaul had recourse for assistance to the neighboring island of Britain. Prom thence they received considerable succors; by which means this island first came to be known with any exactness by the Romans, and first drew upon it the attention of that victorious people.

Though Cæsar had reduced Gaul, he perceived clearly that a great deal was still wanting to make his conquest secure and lasting. That extensive country, inhabited by a multitude of populous and fierce nations, had been rather overrun than conquered. The Gauls were not yet broken to the yoke, which they bore with murmuring and discontent. The ruins of their own strength were still considerable; and they had hopes that the Germans, famous for their invincible courage and their ardent love of liberty, would be at hand powerfully to second any endeavors for the recovery of their freedom; they trusted that the Britons, of their own blood, allied in manners and religion, and whose help they had lately experienced, would not then be wanting to the same cause. Cæsar was not ignorant of these dispositions. He therefore judged, that, if he could confine the attention of the Germans and Britons to their own defence, so that the Gauls, on which side soever they turned, should meet nothing but the Roman arms, they must soon be deprived of all hope, and compelled to seek their safety in an entire submission.

These were the public reasons which made the invasion of Britain and Germany an undertaking, at that particular time, not unworthy a wise and able general. But these enterprises, though reasonable in themselves, were only subservient to purposes of more importance, and which he had more at heart. Whatever measures he thought proper to pursue on the side of Germany, or on that of Britain, it was towards Rome that he always looked, and to the furtherance of his interest there that all his motions were really directed. That republic had receded from many of those maxims by which her freedom had been hitherto preserved under the weight of so vast an empire. Rome now contained many citizens of immense wealth, eloquence, and ability. Particular men were more considered than the republic; and the fortune and genius of the Roman people, which formerly had been thought equal to everything, came now to be less relied upon than the abilities of a few popular men. The war with the Gauls, as the old and most dangerous enemy of Rome, was of the last importance; and Cæsar had the address to obtain the conduct of it for a term of years, contrary to one of the most established principles of their government. But this war was finished before that term was expired, and before the designs which he entertained against the liberty of his country were fully ripened. It was therefore necessary to find some pretext for keeping his army on foot; it was necessary to employ them in some enterprise that might at once raise his character, keep his interest alive at Rome, endear him to his troops, and by that means weaken the ties which held them to their country.

From this motive, colored by reasons plausible and fit to be avowed, he resolved in one and the same year, and even when that was almost expired, upon two expeditions, the objects of which lay at a great distance from each other, and were as yet untouched by the Roman arms. And first he resolved to pass the Rhine, and penetrate into Germany.

Cæsar spent but twenty-eight days in his German expedition. In ten he built his admirable bridge across the Rhine; in eighteen he performed all he proposed by entering that country. When the Germans saw the barrier of their river so easily overcome, and Nature herself, as it were, submitted to the yoke, they were struck with astonishment, and never after ventured to oppose the Romans in the field. The most obnoxious of the German countries were ravaged, the strong awed, the weak taken into protection. Thus an alliance being formed, always the first step of the Roman policy, and not only a pretence, but a means, being thereby acquired of entering the country upon any future occasion, he marched back through Gaul to execute a design of much the same nature and extent in Britain.

The inhabitants of that island, who were divided into a great number of petty nations, under a very coarse and disorderly frame of government, did not find it easy to plan any effectual measures for their defence.B.C. 55. In order, however, to gain time in this exigency, they sent ambassadors to Cæsar with terms of submission. Cæsar could not colorably reject their offers. But as their submission rather clashed than coincided with his real designs, he still persisted in his resolution of passing over into Britain; and accordingly embarked with the infantry of two legions at the port of Itium.[5] His landing was obstinately disputed by the natives, and brought on a very hot and doubtful engagement. But the superior dispositions of so accomplished a commander, the resources of the Roman discipline, and the effect of the military engines on the unpractised minds of a barbarous people prevailed at length over the best resistance which could be made by rude numbers and mere bravery. The place where the Romans first entered this island was somewhere near Deal, and the time fifty-five years before the birth of Christ.

The Britons, who defended their country with so much resolution in the engagement, immediately after it lost all their spirit. They had laid no regular plan, for their defence. Upon their first failure they seamed to have no resources left. On the slightest loss they betook themselves to treaty and submission; upon the least appearance in their favor they were as ready to resume their arms, without any regard to their former engagements: a conduct which demonstrates that our British ancestors had no regular polity with a standing coercive power. The ambassadors which they sent to Cæsar laid all the blame of a war carried on by great armies upon the rashness of their young men, and they declared that the ruling people had no share in these hostilities. This is exactly the excuse which the savages of America, who have no regular government, make at this day upon the like occasions; but it would be a strange apology from one of the modern states of Europe that had employed armies against another. Cæsar reprimanded them for the inconstancy of their behavior, and ordered them to bring hostages to secure their fidelity, together with provisions for his army. But whilst the Britons were engaged in the treaty, and on that account had free access to the Roman camp, they easily observed that the army of the invaders was neither numerous nor well provided; and having about the same time received intelligence that the Roman fleet had suffered in a storm, they again changed their measures, and came to a resolution of renewing the war. Some prosperous actions against the Roman foraging parties inspired them with great confidence. They were betrayed by their success into a general action in the open field. Here the disciplined troops obtained an easy and complete victory; and the Britons were taught the error of their conduct at the expense of a terrible slaughter.

Twice defeated, they had recourse once more to submission. Cæsar, who found the winter approaching, provisions scarce, and his fleet not fit to contend with that rough and tempestuous sea in a winter voyage, hearkened to their proposals, exacting double the number of the former hostages. He then set sail with his whole army.

In this first expedition into Britain, Cæsar did not make, nor indeed could he expect, any considerable advantage. He acquired a knowledge of the sea-coast, and of the country contiguous to it; and he became acquainted with the force, the manner of fighting, and the military character of the people. To compass these purposes he did not think a part of the summer ill-bestowed. But early in the next he prepared to make a more effective use of the experience he had gained. He embarked again at the same port, but with a more numerous army. The Britons, on their part, had prepared more regularly for their defence in this than the former year. Several of those states which were nearest and most exposed to the danger had, during Cæsar's absence, combined for their common safety, and chosen Cassibelan, a chief of power and reputation, for the leader of their union. They seemed resolved to dispute the landing of the Romans with their former intrepidity. But when they beheld the sea covered, as far as the eye could reach, with the multitude of the enemy's ships, (for they were eight hundred sail,) they despaired of defending the coast, they retired into the woods' and fastnesses, and Cæsar landed his army without opposition.

The Britons now saw the necessity of altering their former method of war. They no longer, therefore, opposed the Romans in the open field; they formed frequent ambuscades; they divided themselves into light flying parties, and continually harassed the enemy on his march. This plan, though in their circumstances the most judicious, was attended with no great success. Cæsar forced some of their strongest intrenchments, and then carried the war directly into the territories of Cassibelan.

The only fordable passage which he could find over the Thames was defended by a row of palisadoes which lined the opposite bank; another row of sharpened stakes stood under water along the middle of the stream. Some remains of these works long subsisted, and were to be discerned in the river[6] down almost to the present times. The Britons had made the best of the situation; but the Romans plunged into the water, tore away the stakes and palisadoes, and obtained a complete victory. The capital, or rather chief fastness, of Cassibelan was then taken, with a number of cattle, the wealth of this barbarous city. After these misfortunes the Britons were no longer in a condition to act with effect. Their ill-success in the field soon dissolved the ill-cemented union of their councils. They split into factions, and some of them chose the common enemy for their protector, insomuch that, after some feeble and desultory efforts, most of the tribes to the southward of the Thames submitted themselves to the conqueror. Cassibelan, worsted in so many encounters, and deserted by his allies, was driven at length to sue for peace. A tribute was imposed; and as the summer began to wear away, Cæsar, having finished the war to his satisfaction, embarked for Gaul.

The whole of Cæsar's conduct in these two campaigns sufficiently demonstrates that he had no intention of making an absolute conquest of any part of Britain. Is it to be believed, that, if he had formed such a design, he would have left Britain without an army, without a legion, without a single cohort, to secure his conquest, and that he should sit down contented with an empty glory and the tribute of an indigent people, without any proper means of securing a continuance of that small acquisition? This is not credible. But his conduct here, as well as in Germany, discovers his purpose in both expeditions: for by them he confirmed the Roman dominion in Gaul, he gained time to mature his designs, and he afforded his party in Rome an opportunity of promoting his interest and exaggerating his exploits, which they did in such a manner as to draw from the Senate a decree for a very remarkable acknowledgment of his services in a supplication or thanksgiving of twenty days. This attempt, not being pursued, stands single, and has little or no connection with the subsequent events.

Therefore I shall in this place, where the narrative will be the least broken, insert from the best authorities which are left, and the best conjectures which in so obscure a matter I am able to form, some account of the first peopling of this island, the manners of its inhabitants, their art of war, their religious and civil discipline. These are matters not only worthy of attention as containing a very remarkable piece of antiquity, but as not wholly unnecessary towards comprehending the great change made in all these points, when the Roman conquest came afterwards to be completed.