mw !v.-t ). the feudal baron, the French, the Enghsh nobility, the Warwicks, Planta- genets? It is then- absolute self-dependence. I do not wonder at the dislike some of the friends of peace have expressed at Shakspeare. The veriest churl and Jacobin cannot resist the influence of the style and manners of these haughty lords. ,'We are affected, as boys and barbarians are, by the appear- ; ance of a few rich and wilful gentlemen, who take their honor into their own keeping, defy the world, so confident are they of their courage and strength, and whose appearance is the arrival of so much Hfe and virtue. In dangerous times, they are presently tried, and therefore their name is a flourish of trumpets. They, at least, affect us as a reality. They are not shams, but the substance of which that age and world is made. They are true heroes for their time. They make what is in their minds the greatest sacrifice. They will, for an injurious word, peril all their state and wealth, and go to the field. Take away that principle of responsibleness, and they become pirates and ruffians. This self-subsistency is the charm of war ; for this self- subsistency is essential to our idea of man. But another age / comes, a truer rehgion and ethics open, and a man puts himself under the dominion of principles. I see him to be the servant of truth, of love, and of freedom, and immoveable in ^envaves of the crowd. The man of principle, that is, the man who, without any flourish of trumpets, titles of lord- ship, or train of guards, without any notice of his action abroad, expecting none, takes in solitude the right step uni- War. 49 formly, oii his private choice, and disdaining consequences, — does not yield, in my imagination, to any man. He is Avill- ing to be hanged at his own gate, rather than consent to any compromise of his freedom, or the suppression of his con- viction. I regard no longer those names that so tingled in my ear. This is a baron of a better nobility and a stouter stomach. The cause of peace is not .th© cause -of-eowardiee. - If peace is sought to be defended or preserved for the safety of the luxurious and the timid, it is a sham, and the peace will be base. War is better, and the peace will be broken. If peace is to be maintained, it must be by brave men, who have come up to the same height as the hero, namely, the will to carry their life in their hand, and slake it at any instant for their principle, but who have gone one step beyond the hero, and will not seek another man's life ; — men who have, by their intellectual insight, or else by their moral elevation, attained such a perception of their own intrinsic worth, that they do not think property or their own body a sufficient good to be saved by such dereliction of principle as treating a man like a sheep. If the universal cry for reform of so many inveterate abuses, with which society rings, — if the desire of a large class of young men for a faith and hope, intellectual and religious, such as they have not yet found, be an omen to be trusted ; if the disposition to rely more in study, and in action on the unexplored riches of the human constitution, — if the search of the sublime laws of morals and the sources of hope and trust in man, and not in books, — in the present, and not in the past, — proceed ; if the rising generation can be pro- voked to think it unworthy to nestle into every abomination of the past, and shall feel the generous darings of austerity and virtue ; then war has a short day, and human blood wiU cease to flow. It is of little consequence in what manner, through what organs, this purpose of mercy and holiness is effected. The proposition of the Congress of Nations is undoubtedly that at which the present fabric of our society and the present course of events do point. But the mind, once prepared for 7 50 Organization. the reign of principles, will easily find modes of expressing its will. There is the highest fitness in the place and time in which this enterprise is begun. Not in an obscure corner, not in a feudal Europe, not in an antiquated appanage where no onward step can be taken without rebellion, is this seed of benevolence laid in the furrow, with tears of hope ; but in this broad America of God and man, where the forest is only now falhng, or yet to fall, and the green earth opened to the inundation of emigrant men from all quarters of oppression and guilt ; here, where not a family, not a few men, but mankind, shall say what shall be ; here, we ask. Shall it be War, or shall it be Peace ? Aet. IV. — ORGANIZATION. Society cannot remain stationary. It must either go forward or backward. It is a hving organism, composed of living active members, who are always doing something, both in their individual and collective capacities. Every act done, either by individuals or by the social body, has some influence on the existing state of society ; advances or obstructs the general movement ; makes a portion of mankind better or worse ; brings them nearer to, or removes them farther from, their true destinies, as determined by the eternal laws of God. There is no middle ground here. If men are not advancing, they are retrograding ; if society is not improving, we are certain that it does not stand still. But the great question is, how it advances ? What are the laws and characteristics of its progress ? When a change is made in the state of any thing, how do we know that such a change has been for the better ? By what signs do we distinguish an onward from a retrograde movement ? Great changes are constantly taking place in the forms of matter, in the lives of men, in the constitution of states, in the whole structure and working of society. The elements, the pas- sions, discoveries in literature, in art, all produce stupendous revolutions in human affairs. How do we know, that these Organization. 51 various changes are for better or for worse, or that they carry us towards perfection or imperfection ? There is a characteristic, there is a positive internal sign, by which we may detect whether a change in any object has raised it to a higher place of existence, or depressed it to a lower. The mark is this : Its approach to a more or less compact organization. The simple principle of organization, i. e. the adjustment of a variety of parts to a unity of end or result, is the test and measure of perfection in any sphere of existence. By this is meant, that a thing or movement is greater or less, better or worse, an advance or a retrogradation, just in the degree in which the organization of its parts is more or less perfect. If it has no organization, it exists on an exceed- ingly low plane of creation, in fact, on the very lowest plane ; but the more complete, intricate, and perfect its organization, the more eminent, excellent, and good it is. The perfection of an organism depends upon two things: first, that there shaU be a great variety of parts ; and, sec- ondly, that these parts shall act harmoniously towards one end. Where there are few parts, or where those parts, if many, do not co-operate to the same ends, the organization is incomplete, just in the degree in which the conditions are violated. Thus the vegetable kingdom is said to be higher in the order of nature than the mineral, and the animal than the vegetable. But why higher ? Why, in the scale of creation, or the classifications of science, is the tree placed in a more elevated rank than the stone, the Mon than the tree, or man higher than aU ? Simply, because the organization in these cases respectively is more and more complete. The mineral kingdom is a mere aggregation or conglomeration of particles held together by the simplest power of attraction ; as any one may discover, who takes a friable stone in his hand, or knock-s a gem into pieces with a hammer. Again, the vegetable kingdom, though composed essentially of the same matter as the earthy, exhibits a more compact structure and more per- fect forms. Its members cannot be fried in the hands, nor broken by a hammer. The relation of part to part is more 52 Onranization. o' intricate and compact, and the attractive power by which they are united exhibits a greater and more subtle cohesion. Then, the animal kingdom, still composed of the same essen- tial matter, shows a still more compact structure, still more perfect forms ; and its parts are bound by higher powers of attraction, which even resist the attractions of the lower spheres, till man, finally, the summit of all the kingdoms, though made up of the same materials, walks abroad the most complex and concentrated of all structures, the most harmonious and beautiful of aU forms. The progress of na- ture, therefore, from one kingdom to another, from a lower rank in creation to a higher, consists in a gradual passage from a loose and irregular organization to one more compli- cated and concentric. Again, if you take any of the natural kingdoms separately, to consider the relative rank of its different members, we shall find the distinction of degree marked by the same principle. In the mineral region, for instance, the grain of sand may be regarded as one of its lowest forms, and the crystal one of the highest ; because the former exhibits no traces of organiza- tion ; while the latter splits into regular mathematical figures, thereby showing a tendency, or mute prophecy, of an organic arrangement of parts. So, in the vegetable kingdom, mosses and lichens, which are found growing loosely upon the rocks, are among the simplest, and therefore lowest, elements of it ; while among the highest is the firm-knit and lordly oak, whose organization has given it a grace of outline which painters envy, and a strength of structure that defies the blasts of a hundred years. Or take, finally, the animal kingdom, with its first rude speci- mens of animals, almost formless, ahnost without parts and without powers — as the oyster; and ascend gradually through worms, reptiles, fishes, birds, quadrupeds, up to man, — do we not find one invariable character of progress all along the ascent, in the increasing compactness, delicacy, and finish of the organization ? But further : even in the growth of the individual members of any one of these kingdoms, this fact is strikingly exempli- fied. The bird, for example, begins in the lowest phases of Organization. 53 its life as a soft, pulpy, formless mass, which can be kept together only by a rude external shell, called the egg ; then a small spot or knot is formed in this, and after a while shoots out a single tendril; next another knot is formed, which shoots out another tendril ; tiU the whole egg begins at last to assume the appearance of a network of knots and tendrils. At a subsequent period in the formation, these points con- dense, and fill out, when a chick is formed, having a remote resemblance to a bird, but without plumage ; too weak to move, and not very pleasing to the sight. In the end, as the organization is perfected, this chick grows into the imperial eagle, whose pinions waft him across the loftiest AUeganies, and whose eye gazes undaunted into the mid-day sun. And so too man, whose outset and lowest state after birth is that of the flabby, puling, defenceless, unknowing, almost uncon- scious infant, becomes in his highest state — each step being marked by a more and more complete organic development — the giant, whose single arm levels the mountains, whose far- reaching intellect discovers worlds millions of miles away in the depths of space, whose imperious will uplifts and dashes together nations in tempestuous conflicts. What marks the difference externally between the poor idiot, who cries " pall- lal" upon the highways, and the myriad-minded Shakspeare, who talks, in his immortal utterances, to the universal heart of all ages ? The degree of difference in their respective physical and spiritual organizations. The greatest of men is known, in that he is the most highly organized of men. The progress of each of us towards a nobler standard of humanity is marked by the growing perfection of our organ- isms. When we raise ourselves to higher intellectual power, we feel that our intellectual forces have been trained, disci- plined, adjusted, or, in a word, organized. When we reach loftier moral eminences, we feel that we have received fresh accessions of strength, chiefly through the better organization of our spiritual powers. But here we arrive at another step in our argument. We have seen that one invariable characteristic attends all the developments of the natural world, in their transitions from a lower to a higher place ; and the next question is, Whelher 54 Organization. the same characteristic does not accompany the advances of society ? History shows us conclusively, that nations and bodies of men are in a process of constant change ; and it is universally conceded, also, that in many respects this change has been for the better. The passage from barbarism to civi- lization is called a social advancement. One nation is often said to be ahead of other nations in its attainments. There is great talk, too, everywhere, of the progress of the human species ; of the improvement of society ; of the gradual ad- vancement of man to a more elevated existence. What does such language mean ? What are the marks and sign of this progress ? We answer, the same as have been shown to exist in the natural world, — i the successive steps of nations or societies to a more and more perfect organization. The first or simplest state of society, known to our annals, is the savage state, where the members of it subsist in almost complete isolation and independence. Indeed, the bonds of union between them are so rude, that they can hardly be said to possess society at all. They are rather an aggrega- tion, hke the particles of a mineral, than a society, like the elements of a plant. Such plans of general government as they have are exceedingly imperfect; and, except occasion- ally in cases of war and public festivals, they engage in no concerted or unitary actions. The individual is every thing ; society, nothing. He pitches his tent where he pleases; cares for nobody, and has nobody to care for him ; is without fixed property ; and, save a sort of wild friendsMp which he indulges for his wife or the members of his tribe, is ahnost without affections. Of course, it is in vain to look for any social organization among these solitary roamers of the wil- derness. It is only in the next state of society above this, which is called the patriarchal, — that traces of organization begin to be clearly seen. Men unite in certain family com- pacts for mutual defence and assistance. The will of the patriarch is constituted a species of common law ; the ties of consanguinity give rise to more or less compact settlements ; the members of the tribes acknowledge a controlling head, and submit to regular processes of government. The wild and roaming independence of the savage is surrendered for more Organization. 55 compact and regular social relations. Then the barbaric nation arises, where the patriarch of one united family grows into the king or monarch of many united families. The savage horde., before merged into the patriarchal clan, is further consolidated into the barbaric nMian. The rude and arbitrary regulations of the previous state are converted into settled laws and a constitutional polity. The adjustment of the power of the government, and the relations of different classes of the people to each other, become more compact, and at the same time more complex. Men are brought into more intimate connections, get more and more mutually dependent, have broader interests in coirimon, and act more frequently in coiicert. In a word, they are more highly organized. But, after a time, the people rise into greater power as an element of government, which assumes a more definite ajid responsible shape ; industry and wealth, which serve to bind distant nations, are prodigiously developed; men unite more closely, not merely for purposes of war, but to cultivate the innumerable arts of peace ; laws are digested into complete systems ; the industrial and social relations and interests of various classes are consoHdated ; all the arrange- ments of society grow more intimate and complex. The universal life of man has more aims in common ; aU the members of the state feel more closely bound to each other, and act more often and more in concert for comprehensive ends. This state of society is the one in which we live, and is denominated CivUization. It is the last term to which sooiety has yet attained. Now, who will deny that there is a vast interval between the rude social condition of the savage in his hut, to that of the merchant-prince of England or the United States ? Who will deny, that the passage from one to the other denotes a great progress ? Yet we have seen, that each step is marked and demonstrated by nearer approaches to a high organization. The change has been a change in organic development. Civilization is better than barbarism, barbarism than patriarchalism, patriarchaHsm better than savageness, — simply because fhey are respectively better organized. The degree of organization marks the degree of excellence. This 56 Organization. »' is the universal fact in all the gradations of nature, and in all the advances of humanity. It is the fortune of the people of the United States, that they see nations springing up almost every day. Our ex- tensive Western frontier is a cradle of infant commonwealths. The whole process of social growth is there laid open to us, as natural growth was in the patent hatchmg machine, or Eecolobean, exhibited a few years since. We see the first germ deposited in the form perhaps of a single family ; we see this famUy spread out into numerous branches, or other families moving in to unite with it, till the desert and the sohtary place blossoms into a flourishing and many-columned city. Now, what are the successive steps of this progress from the wild wilderness to the thriving mart, from the distant and lonely log-cabin of the prairie to the thronged and temple- covered metropolis ? What are the indications of the gradual advance of the settlement from almost savage isolation and insecurity to the peace, wealth, comfort, and refinement of civilized union ? The answer is plain : first, gradual increase in the number of the families or persons ; and, second, a corresponding multiphcation and interweaving of their various relations ; or, in other words, their nearer and nearer approach to complete organization. The original squatter, we know, lives for a while alone, cultivating a narrow patch of ground for food, and shooting his habiliments for the most part from the trees. He is poor, dependent, and half-wild ; his own farmer, miller, merchant, mechanic, and governor. He builds his own house, raises his own wheat, makes his own tools, keeps his own store, argues his own causes, teaches his own school. He is with- out society, — the merest fraction of man. The first possibihty of improvement which comes to him is when he is joined by a few other persons, who relieve him at once of a portion of the laborious tasks and anxieties he was before compelled to undertake, and whose very pres- ence acts upon him as stimulus to a more wholesome activity. He is no longer his own blacksmith, carpenter, tailor, or tradesman. The functions of these, he finds, are better dis- Organization. 57 charged by some of his neighbors, who are Avilling to exchange the results of their labors for the products of his, whereby he gets more for a less exertion. But both parties soon discover, that there are a great many objects which can be attained only by working in common. Accordingly, they lend a hand to each other in felling forests, erecting houses, and cutting roads. As the population multiplies, the occasions for their mutual assistance increase. They combine their judgments and energies for a greater variety and a more extensive range of purposes. They discuss plans of general usefulness ; they lay out streets for their little town ; they put up a church and a school-house ; they club their funds for the purchase of a library ; they organize societies for mutual improvement ; they institute tribunals to decide disputes ; or, in manifold other modes, they contribute to the general defence and security. If, now, we suppose a similar town to have grown up not far off, we shall see the two establishing an intercourse be- tween themselves, and combining to construct roads, endow colleges, and accomplish other undertakings convenient to the public good : their internal ties, as they spread, exhibit the same tendency to union which marked their previous inter- nal arrangements. Other towns, again, spring up, which still further multiply and complicate their respective relations. From time to time, the union is rendered more definite and complete, a regular code of laws determines the relations of the respective communities and of their members respectively, and a constitutional government is finally instituted. Thus the single family of the squatter has grown first into a settle- ment, then into a village, then a township, then a county, next a state, and at last a federated republic. At each step, the relations of the people have extended, multipUed, and complicated. Their union has been strengthened ; they have been brought nearer together ; they have had more interests and more labors in common ; isolation has given place to concentration ; rude independence to regulated dependence ; the centrifugal tendency of individuals restrained by the centripetal tendencies of society; and transient expedients and loose arrangements, one by one, have been supplanted 8 68 Genius. by a solid and permanent organic unity. "Wealth, comfort, refinement, and substantial happiness have, of course, kept pace with the organic movement. The question at this day is, whether men have even here reached the Yami of social progress ; whether the principle of social organization is susceptible of any higher appHcations than it has hitherto received ; whether out civilization is the last stage of social improvement ; whether the fact of progress is destined to any higher triumphs in the future, similar to those which have illustrated the past. Is it extravagant to anticipate a time when the tendency to union shall have been perfected ; when the whole organization of sobiety shall have been rendered more compact and harmonious ? Will God suddenly suspend the great law of providential devel- opment ? Organization is not Hfe, but it is the sign of life ; and the degree and perfection of organization is the test of life.* Akt. V. — GENIUS. The world was always busy ; the human heart has always had love of some kind ; there has always been fire on the earth. There is something in the irraiost principles of an in- dividual, when he begins to exist, which urges him onward ; there is something in the centre of the character of a nation, to which the people aspire ; there is something which gives activity to the mind in all ages, countries, and worlds. This principle of activity is love : it may be the love of good or of evil ; it may manifest itself in saving life or in killing ; but it is love. The difference in the strength and direction of the affections creates the distinctions in society. Every man has a form of mind pecuHar to himself. The mind of the infant contains within itself the first rudiments of all that will be hereafter, * The above article is an extract from an unpublislied course of Lectures, ■which, may yet see the light as a whole. Genius. 59 and needs nothing but expansion ; as the leaves and branches and fruit of a tree axe said to exist in the seed from which it springs. He is bent in a particular direction ; and, as some objects are of more value than others, distinctions must exist. What it is that makes a man great depends upon the state of society : with the savage, it is physical strength ; with the civilized, the arts and sciences ; in heaven, the perception that love and wisdom are from the Divine. There prevails an idea in the world, that its great men are more like God than others. This sentiment carries in its bosom sufficient evil to bar the gates of heaven. So far as a person possesses it, either with respect to himself or others, he has no connection with his Maker, no love for his neigh- bor, no truth in his understanding. This was at the root of heathen idolatry : it was this that made men worship saints and images. It contains within itself the seeds of atheism, and will ultimately make every man insane by whom it is cherished. The life which circulates in the body is found to commence in the head ; but, imless it be traced through the soul up to God, it is merely corporeal, like that of the brutes. Man has often ascribed to his own power the effects of the secret operations of divine truth. When the world is im- mersed in darkness, this is a judgment of the Most High ; but the hght is the effect of the innate strength of the human intelleet. When the powers of man begin to decay, and approach an apparent dissolution, who cannot see the Divinity ? But what foreign aid wants the man who is fuU of his ovni strength ? God sends the lightning that blasts the tree ; but what credulity would ascribe to him the sap that feeds its branches ? The sight of idiotism leads to a train of rehgious reflections ; but the face that is marked with lines of intelli- gence is admired for its own inherent beauty. The hand of the Almighty is visible to all in the stroke of death ; but few see his face in the smiles of the new-born babe. The intellectual eye of man is formed to see the light, not to make it ; and it is time that, when the causes that cloud the spiritual world are removed, man should rejoice in the 60 Genius. truth itself, and not that he has found it. More than once, when nothhig was required but for a person to stand on this world with his eyes open, has the truth been seized upon as a thing of his own making. When the power of divine truth begins to dispel the darkness, the objects that are first disclosed to our view — whether men of strong understand- ing, or of exquisite taste, or of deep learning — are called geniuses. Luther, Shakspeare, Milton, Newton, stand with the bright side towards us. There is something which is called genius, that carries in itself the seeds of its own destruction. There is an ambi- tion which hurries a man after truth, and takes away the power of attaining it. There is a desure which is null, a lust which is impotence. There is no understanding so power- ful, that ambition may not in time bereave it of its last truth, even that two and two are four. Know, then, that genius is divine, not when the man thinks that he is God, but when he acknowledges that his powers are from God. Here is the link of the finite with the infinite, of the divine with the hu- man : this is the humility which exalts. The arts have been taken from nature by human inven- tion ; and, as the mind returns to its God, they are in a measure swallowed up in the source from which they came. We see,, as they vanish, the standard to which we should refer them. They are not arbitrary, having no founda- tion except in taste : they are only modified by taste, which varies according to the state of the human mind. Had we a history of music, from the war-song of the savage to the song of angels, it would be a history of the affections that have held dominion over the human heart. Had we a his- tory of architecture, from the first building erected by man to the house not made with hands, we might trace the varia- tions of the beautiful and the grand, alloyed by human con- trivance, to where they are lost in beauty and grandeur. Had we a history of poetry, from the first rude effusions to where words make one with things, and language is lost in nature, we should see the state of man in the language of licentious passion, in the songs of chivalry, in the descriptions of heroic valor, in the mysterious wildness of Ossian ; till the Genius. 61 beauties of nature fall on the heart, as softly as the clouds on the summer's water. The mind, as it wanders from heaven, moulds the arts into its own form, and covers its nakedness. Feelings of all kinds will discover themselves in music, in painting, in poetry ; but it is only when the heart is purified from every selfish and worldly passion, that they are created in real beauty ; for in their origin they are divine. Science is more fixed. It consists of the laws according to which natural things exist ; and these must be either true or false. It is the natural world in the abstract, not in the concrete. But the laws according to which things exist, are from the things themselves, not the opposite. Matter has solidity : sohdity makes no part of matter. If, then, the natural world is from God, the abstract properties, as dis- sected and combined, are from him also. If, then, science be from Him who gave the ten commandments, must not a life according to the latter facilitate the acquirement of the former ? Can he love the works of God who does not love his commandments ? It is only necessary that the heart be purified, to have science like poetry its spontaneous growth. Self-love has given rise to many false theories, because a selfish man is disposed to make things differently from what God has made them. Because God is love, nature exists ; because God is love, the Bible is poetry. If, then, the love of God creates the scenery of nature, must not he whose mind is most open to this love be most sensible of natural beauties ? But in nature both the sciences and the arts exist embodied. Science may be learned from ambition ; but it must be by the sweat of the brow. The filthy and polluted mind may carve beauties from nature, with which it has no allegiance : the rose is blasted in the gathering. The olive and the vine had rather live with God, than crown the head of him whose love for them is a lust for glory. The man is cursed who would rob nature of her graces, that he may use them to allure the innocent virgin to destruction. Men say there is an inspiration in genius. The genius of the ancients was the good or evil spirit that attended the man. The moderns speak of the magic touch of the pencil, 62 Genius. and of the inspiration of poetry. But this inspiration has been esteemed so unlike reUgion, that the existence of the one ahnost supposes the absence of the other. The spu-it of God is thought to be a very different thing when poetry is written, from what it is when the heart is sanctified. What has the inspiration of genius in common with that of the cloister ? The one courts the zephyrs ; the other flies them. The one is cheerful ; the other, sad. The one dies ; the other writes the epitaph. Would the Muses take the veil ? Would they exchange Parnassus for a nunnery ? Yet there has been learning, and even poetry, under ground. The yew loves the graveyard ; but other trees have grown there. It needs no uncommon eye to see, that the finger of death has rested on the church. Religion and death have in the human mind been connected with the same train of associa- tions. The churchyard is the graveyard. The bell which calls men to worship is to toll at their funerals, and the gar- ments of the priests are of the color of the hearse and the coffin. Whether we view her in the strange melancholy that sits on her face, in her mad reasonings about truth, or in the occasional convulsions that agitate her hmbs, there are symptoms, not of Ufe, -but of disease and death. It is not strange, then, that genius, such as could exist on the earth, should take its flight to the mountains. It may be said, that great men are good men. But what I mean is, that, in the human mind, greatness is one thing, and goodness another ; that philosophy is divorced from religion ; that truth is sepa- rated from its source ; that that which is called goodness is sad, and that which is called genius is proud. Since things are so, let men take care that the life which is received be genuine. Let the glow on the cheek spring from the warmth of the heart, and the brightness of the eyes beam from the fight of heaven. Let ambition and the love of the world be plucked up by their roots. How can he love his neighbor, who deskes to be above him ? He may love him for a slave ; but that is all. Let not the shrouds of death be removed, tiU the living principle has entered. It was not tiU Lazarus was raised from the dead, and had received the breath of fife, that the Lord said, " Loose him, and let hun go." Genius. 63 When the heart is purified from all selfish and worldly affections, then may genius find its seat in the church. As the human mind is cleansed of its lusts, truth wiU permit and invoke its approach, as the coyness of the virgin subsides into the tender love of the wife. The arts will spring in full-grown beauty from Him who is the source of beauty. The harps which have hung on the willows will sound as sweetly as the first breath of heaven that moved the leaves in the garden of Eden. Cannot a man paint better when he knows that the picture ought not to be worshipped ? Here is no sickly aspiring after fame, — no filthy lust after philosophy, whose very origin is an eternal barrier to the truth. But sentiments will flow from the heart warm as its blood, and speak eloquently ; for eloquence is the language of love. There is a unison of spirit and nature. The genius of the mind wiU descend, and unite with the genius of the rivers, the lakes, and the woods. Thoughts fall to the earth with power, and make a language out of nature. Adam and Eve knew no language but their garden. They had nothing to communicate by words ; for they had not the power of concealment. The sun of the spiritual world shone bright on their hearts, and their senses were open with delight to natural objects. In the eye were the beauties of paradise ; in the ear was the music of birds ; in the nose was the fra- grance of the freshness of nature ; in the taste was the fruit of the garden ; in the touch, the seal of their eternal imion. What had they to say ? The people of the golden age have left us no monuments of genius, no splendid columns, no paintings, no poetry. They possessed nothing which evil passions might not obliter- ate ; and, when their " heavens were rolled together as a scroll," the curtain dropped between the world and their existence. Science will be full of life, as nature is full of God. She will vyring from her locks the dew which was gathered in the wilderness. By science, I mean natural science. The science of the human mind must change with its subject. Locke's mind will not always be the standard df metaphysics. Had we a description of it in its present state, it would r(iake 64 The Dorian Measure. a very different book from " Locke on the Human Under- standing." The time is not far distant. The cock has crowed. I hear the distant lowing of the cattle which are grazing on the mountains. " Watchman, what of the night ? "Watch- man, what of the night ? The watchman saith, The mornmg cometh." Am. VI. — THE DORIAN MEASURE, WITH A MODERN APPLICATION. At this moment when so many nations seem to be waking up to re-assert their individuality, and, more than all, when the idea is started, that the object of Providence in societies is to produce unities of hfe, to which the individuals that compose them shall each contribute something, even as every limb and fibre of the physical system contributes to the whole- ness of the body of a man, — it is wise to cast the eye back over the records of history, and ask whether there be any thing in the past which predicts such consummation. The assertion of the Hebrew nation to an individuality which has ever been beheved to be an especial object of Divine Providence, and the fact that this faith, developed in the patriarchs of the nation, and guarded by the, system of rehgious rites which has rendered the name of Moses immor- tal, have resulted in accomplishing what it predicted, — rises immediately before every one's mind. But the case of the Hebrews, as it is commonly viewed, rather obscures than illus- trates the general truth ; for the very brilliancy of the illustra- tion so dazzles the eyes which gaze upon it, that they do not see anywhere else in history the same truth illustrated ; and thus it is looked upon rather as an exception than as an expres- sion of a general principle on which nations may act. There is, however, in antiquity another nation, whose idea was also something more than a blind instinct, but which, from the earhest tunes we hear of it, knew itself to be a moral being, and did not live by accident.' This nation was the The Dorian Measure. 6,5 Dorians, whose antiquities and whole Kfe have been faithfully set forth to modern times by Karl Otfried Miiller, but which has not yet been considered sufficiently with reference to general edification in social science. In order to be intelligible, and because all persons have not access to Miiller's books, it is necessary to begin with some historical sketches, which are derived from several sources, and which pertain to other Grecian tribes, as well as to the Dorians. Greece, in the earliest times of which we have tradition, was a congeries of little nations, independent of each other, but which as a whole were remarkable for one thing ; viz. the pecuUar relations to each other of their religious and civil institutions. These relations were very loose. It would seem, from the tradition which appears under the form of the fabulous war of the Titans and Olympic Gods, that at first a sacerdotal government obtained over this region, but that, through the ambition of some talented younger son, — who led that rebellion which always must be smouldering among the subjects of absolute sway, when there is still any human life left to dream of freedom, — this sacerdotal govern- ment was overthrown, and a reign of talent and pohtical power began. The Jupiter of the Olympic dynasty was some Napoleon Bonaparte, who began a new regime made brilUant with the spoils of a past which had been cultivated, and carried the arts of life to great perfection, but which had no elasticity to receive the new floods of Ufe poured forth from the prodi- gality of a Creator who, in every generation of man, goes forth anew. One does not desire to be altogether pragmatical in the analysis of these old myths. Doubtless, we can inter- pret the relations of the Titanic and Olympic dynasties as an allegory of the relations of ideas to each other, without the intervention of their historic manifestation ; and it is unques- tionable that ^schylus, and some other Greeks, so used them. But it is nevertheless not impossible that they are, at the same time, the magnificent drapery of historic facts. AU the stationary nations of antiquity, when we first know of them, are under sacerdotal governments. These govern- 9 66 The Dorian Measure. raents have a genesis and history, that can be discerned, but which we will, just now, pass by. Their deadening in- Huence, combined with that of an enervating climate and other circumstances, succeeded in checking the progressive life of most nations altogether. But this was not the uniform experience ; and in one location especially, circumstances combined favorably, and genius escaped the strait-jacket of custom, and asserted itself. It was genius cultivated ; and it had all the advantages of its cultivation. To its aid came the multitude. Let us be pardoned if we analyze, even like Euhemerus himself. Briareus, the hun- dred-handed giant, who comes to the assistance of Jupiter, is invoked (so we learn from Homer) by Thetis. Is it the genius of commerce that has made the people rich, and a strong helpmeet, to serve the purposes of the young autocrat, who overthrows the old system, because it is devouring all that it generates ? It is remarkable that afterwards is another war, inevitable in like circumstances, and repeated in all subsequent history, — the war of the conquering Olympics, with their instruments the giants. The people has been made use of, and has thereby learned its force : now it asks for participation of power, or perhaps only for a recognized existence as a living part of the body politic. In the Gre- cian history, Jupiter here triumphs again. He stands at that happy point between the cultivated conservative, and the fresh strong children of earth, who are his foster -brethren, that he has the advantage of both. He rules by fulness of natural life. He rules no less by cultivated genius ; for Prometheus assisted him.* He has wedded custom, the oldest daughter of Saturn ; and, though on occasion he hangs her up and whips her, on the whole he honors her more than all his wives ; and she is Juno, queen of Olympus. We would not try, even if we were able, to trace out the story into aU its details, to join on the old mythology with the plain prose of annals. We only mean to show that it is indicated in Grecian traditions, that, in remote antiquity, an immense revolution took place, which broke asunder some * " Prometh.eus " of .iEschylus. Tlie Dorian Measure. 67 great social unity ; and that of its fragments were the Greek nations which we see in remotest historical narrations, nes- tled, in their independence, now among the hills of Arcady, now on the Euiotas, now on the Alpheus, now about the Cyclopic architecture of Argos, now in the Olympic vales of Thessaly, and again on every hill-side and by every stream of Middle Greece ; all being alike only in this, that all are independent of each other, all free from sacerdotal rule. But their antagonism to one another and to the sacerdotal rule is not brutal or furious. They respect each other ; they respect the old traditions. The Titans are stiU served. Ceres has her Eleusis ; Neptune, his Isthrnus and ^Egsean recess ; Pluto, his Pherse ; the Furies are worshipped at Athens. The peculiarity of Grecian freedom is, that it respects every thing, consecrates every thing that lives. J • worships life as divine, wherever manifested. The very word tlieos, which represents something out, proves manifestation to ^ the apprehension of man, to have been inseparable, in their opinion, from the idea of God ; and their own active character and plastic genius received its impulse from this religious intuition. "As a man's god, so is he." Certainly, as a nation's god, so is it. Some things were gained by those Titanic and Giant wars, which distinguished Greece, in all future time, from all other nations. The religion, henceforth, was an enacted poetry, and not a sacerdotal rule, as in Asia, or a state pageant and formula, as in Rome. They had diviners, soothsayers, and priests, elected for the year ; but never a priesthood, in the fuU sense of the word. In the heroic ages, and on public occasions, the kings, and, in aU times, fathers of families, conducted reUgijous rites. The various worships also dwelt, side by side, with mutual respect. Bach tribe, each city, had its own divinities. They were mutually tolerated, mu- tually reverenced. Hence, the human instincts and divine ideas which each divinity represented were thrown into a common stock. Hence, Homer made of the gods of the several tribes a commimity acting together ; and explained the variations of man's mortal hfe, by their antagonisms and harmonies. Hence, Hesiod conceived the idea of a Theog- ony, in which we see a vain attempt to make into one 68 The Dorian Measure. consistent whole, what was but the imperfect reflex of the spiritual life of many nations not harmonized. This high influence of toleration came from the Dorians, who were pre-eminently the genius of Greece. To that large multitude, whose idea of Dorians is derived from Plutarch's hfe of Lycurgus (a personage whom the researches of Miiller make to be rather shadowy, certainly mythological) , it will be a new idea that they were not mainly a military race, nor at all of a conquering spirit, like the Romans. Yet their forcible occupation of Peloponnesus in the age after the Trojan war, and the military attitude of Sparta during the period of recorded history, seem to havfe given a natural basis to such a view. The truth is, we have looked at Greece too much with eyes and minds that the Romans have pre-occUpied. It is necessary to understand distinctly, that Greece, at least Dorian Greece, was, in most important respects, very different from Rome. Both nations had organic genius, but the Greeks only the artistic-oxgame. The Romans organized brute force, together with the moral force of the Sabines, the cunning of the commercial colonies of Magna Grsecia, and the formal stateliness of a sacerdotal Etruria ; forming a compound whole, which expressed one element of human nature, — that which commands and obeys. On the other hand, the Greeks organized the harvest of their sensibihties into ideal forms. It was not strength, merely or mainly which they sought as the highest good, but beauty, order, which might be expressed by a building, a statue, a painting, a procession, a festival, and, more fully still, by the body politic. But what is order ? It surely is not mere subjection. It means subordination according to a true, which is ever, if largely enough apprehended, a beautiful idea. It is an arrangement around a centre. It is a disposition of elements, such that the weak may borrow of the strong, and the strong be adorned. Thus their aim in politics was far other than to exhibit the right of the strongest. It Avas to have a society perfectly organized to express the beauty of the most beautiful. The genesis of the Dorians is yet undiscovered. Like The Dorian Measure. 69 their god Apollo, they are the children of the creative wis- dom and mystery. That festival of Apollo, which com- memorates his return from the Hyperborseans, is possibly the mythic history of their origin, — too obscure, perhaps too fragmentary, to be clearly elucidated. Sometimes it seems as if they must have come from the foot of the^Himmelaya mountains, and that Apollo and the Indian Heri are the same. Other researches, for instance those of Professor Henne, would lead us to believe that they were the emigrating life of the ancient nation, which he believes, and endeavors to prove, had its seat, before history began, in Europe. In favor of this, wp may remark that the HyperborsEan proces- sion came from the North-west, passing from the Scythians through a chain of nations on the coast of the Adriatic, by Dodona, through Thessaly, EuboBa, and the Island of Tenos, accompanied with flutes and pipes to Delos.* Another argument for the Dorians being of European origin is, that their character is in strong antagonism to the Asiatic. But we leave these curious and interesting inquiries for the present, to record what" Miiller has ascertained.! The Dorians, says this indefatigable antiquarian, are first known at the foot of Mount Olympus. The oldest known temple of Apollo was in the Vale of Tempe. Thence they spread in colonies by sea, along the eastern shores of the Archipelago, among the islands, into Crete especially, where they estab- lished themselves long before the Trojan war. Their where- about is always traceable by temples of Apollo. These temples were their centres of artistic cultivation. Apollo is always the god of music, and of all elegant exercises, whe- ther of mind or body, but especially of those of mind. - Within the borders of the mainland, we do not find that the Dorians advanced much, till after the Trojan war. To the * "According to the tradition of Belphi," says Mailer, " Apollo, at the expiration of the great period, visited the beloved nation of the Hyperbor- seans, and danced and played with them, from the vernal equinox to the early setting of the Pleiades ; and, when the first corn was cut in Greece, he re- turned to Delphi with the full ripe ears, the offerings of the Hyperborseans." t Historyof the Dorians. 70 T/te Dorian Measure. early Ionian Greeks, Apollo was a stranger. Homer does not profess to xmderstand his nature, or betray any insight into it. One sees occasionally the mythical origin of Homer's Jupiter. He is generally an autocratic principle, founding his action on natural, self-derived superiority : his will is law, because it has present ascendancy, and is an entity not to be disputed. On the other hand, he is sometimes obviously the ether, and Juno the atmosphere, as in the beautiful episode near the end of Book xiv. where the flowers of earth spring into being on their embrace. Homer's Mars, too, is the bhnd, uncultured instinct of violence ; what the phrenologists call destructiveness. He makes him the war-god of the Trojans, whose instinctive courage he could not deny ; re- serving Minerva, the art and science of war, as the war-god of the Greeks. There is not a god or goddess, except Apollo, that Homer does not show he understood, and who is not therefore a plaything in his hands. But Apollo comes on the stage, " like night : " he is terrible ; he deals myste? rious death. Whatever success or movement of the Tro- jans Homer cannot account for on any natural principle or human instinct, Apollo brings about arbitrarily; and this prevails throughout the " Iliad." Homer was not a Do- rian to worship Apollo inteUigently ; but he was an Ionian, and his candid, open nature did not refuse to see the mag- nificence and power which Avas manifested in his name, or to do a certain homage to his divuaity which he pays to no other. Apollo is sometimes confounded with HeHus by later Gre- cian poets ; and Homer, in making him the author of the Pestilence, may have had a suggestion of the kind. But nothing is proved more clearly by K. O. Miiller, than that the Apollo of the Dorians was not the sun, although the sun's rays are an apt symbol of the genius that radiates beauty everywhere. Homer's mode of treating Apollo is a testunony to the power of the Dorians of his day. His mode of representing the Cretans and Lycians is another proof of their acknow- ledged superiority in cultivation ; for it was the Dorian colo- nies that civilized Crete and Lycia. Sarpedon, the golden- The -Dorian Measure. 71 mailed son of Jupiter from Lycia, and Idomeneui?, the son of the wise Minos, both testify to the same general fact. The Dorians appear to us, from the first, as a highly cul- tivated race. Lycurgus did hot create the cultivation of the Dorians. Indeed it is probable, that in Sparta the breadth and beauty of this cultivation were injured, in order to con- centrate strength, and intensify the individuality of the race, which became more and more precious to the wise, as they compared themselves with other races. After the Trojan war, the Dorians of Thessaly moved southward, and at last crossed the gulf at Naupactus, and spread over Peloponnesus. K. O. Miiller thinks only about twenty thousand crossed at Naupactus, and that they never were in great numerical force. Yet they overturned Pelopon- nesus. Their mode of warfare was to fortify themselves in some place, and make excursions round. As soon as pos- sible, they built temples to ApoUo, and won the people by their superior cultivation. In the course of time, they won Laconia entirely : Messenia was a later conquest. The lonians fled before them to Attica, and across the Archi- pelago ; while the Achseans of Sparta and Argos retreated to the northern shores, just deserted by the lonians. But it was by moral rather than physical force, thsit they took the precedence of all other races in Peloponnesus. Their con- quering rule was like no other on historical record. They are the only conquering people who have benefited,, by intention and in fact, the nations they conquered. They did give them such freedom as to incorporate them among themselves. The Dorian rule was freedom by means of law. Their form of government was not at first sight democratical ; but neither could it ever, like the Athenian democracy, become an unprincipled tyranny. The Dorians governed themselves, as well as others, by law and religion. Their king was an occasional officer. Hence the moral superiority of the Spar- tans was always allowed. Hence they were always appealed to by nations oppressed by external or internal tyrants. Let us therefore examine their religion. The gods of this race were ApoUo and Diana, with their 72 T/te Dorian Measure. parents, Jupiter and Latona. The parents, however, remain in the background : Hesiod, himself a Dorian, makes " The azure-robed Latona, ever mild, Gracious to man and to immortal gods, — Gentlest of aU -witliin the Olympian courts," the third wife of Jove, next after Metis and Therms. But in all he says, there is nothing but her name which throAvs any light upon her nature. Leto (Latona) means mt/sfsry ; and Apollo and Diana are the children of mystery, whether we consider the unexplained origin of the Dorians, or the nature of the principles, Genius and Chastity, which they embody. It is noticeable, that the Dorian Diana, who must be dis- criminated from Diana of Ephesus, — a very different divinity — and also from Diana of Arcadia, though in later times they were confounded, is the feminine of Apollo, and nothing else. As he is the severity of intellect, she is the severity of morals. Here the Dorian respect for woman, which is brought out in strong rehef by K. O. Miiller in his history of Grecian litera- ture, as well as in his account of the Dorian institutions, has its highest expression. Apollo and Diana are twins, and have equal dignity, united by sympathy of nature and same- ness of birth ; and the latter not at all displaying any subor- dination to the former. Again, we may remark that Apollo, with all his power and splendor and autocratic character, is never represented as the Supreme God. He tells the mind of his father, Jupiter. Do we not see here the shadow of God and the Word of God ? The Dorian Jupiter is never at all the Ionian Jupiter described by Homer, but is absolute, un- manifest, except by the oracle and action of his son. This oracle and action betray the finiteness inseparable from mani- festation ; but, nevertheless, there is a sublimity about Apollo which we find nowhere else in the Greek heaven. He is no instinct, no power of external nature personified. He is no- thing less than the moral and intellectual harmony of the uni- verse. In his action we find the practical religion of the Dorians. He is beautiful : his recreation is music. He leads the Muses with his harp in hand, and even mingles in the dance. He is resplendent ; where he is, darkness cannot be : The Dorian Measure. 73 his inevitable arrow destroys deformity. Excellence is his prerogative : whoever contends with him is worsted and dies. His first great oracle commands to man self-consciousness. It is man's prerogative and duty to act, not blindly, but in the light of the past and the future. There is trace in Greece, as everywhere else in the ancient world, of a worship of nature, which grovelled in the material sUme. This appears in the mythology as monsters, especi- ally as serpents which some hero, personifying or concentrat- ing in himself the genius of some Grecian tribe, destroys. Perhaps one hideous form of earth- worship had its seat, in very early times, at Delphusa and Delphi, and was expelled thence by a Dorian colony, who settled there, and built the temple of Apollo.* But the most important part of the wor- ship was not a commemoration of historical facts, but the ex- pression of an idea ; which, though it has not, in the Apollonio religion, the complete expression that it afterwards found in the facts of the Christian history, was no less deep than the central idea of Christianity. Apollo kills the Pythoness by the necessity of his nature. It is his virtue. But his virtue is a crime that must be ex. piated. No sooner is the deed done, than, by a necessity as irresistible as that by which he did it, he flies from the scene of the slaughter toward the old Vale of Tempe for purifica- tion. On the way occurs the expiation. For eight years, he serves Admetus ; and Miiller has demonstrated, that Admetus is but a title of Pluto, and that Pherse was from the earliest times a spot where the infernal deities were worshipped. Having expiated, he goes on to Tempe, and breaks the bough of peace from the laurel groves that encompass the temple, and, returning to Delphi, lays it on the altar,. The interpretation of this fable is awful. Life, then, is sacred : even the all-divine Son of God, if he violate it in its lowest, most degraded manifestation, must expiate the deed afterwards by years of activity in the service of Death. The * See Homeric Hymn to Apollo. But there is no proof that it was ■written by the author of the " Iliad," although it is called Homeria. It is doubtless very ancient, and probably consists of fragments oi several Dorian hymns. 10 74 The Dorian Measure. best life pays this tribute, and thus acknowledges a certain equality before God with its opposite ; for even a bad life has divine right, inasmuch as it is. " To be is respectable." The expiation, indeed, is measured, and comes to an end ; and Apollo is interpreter of God for evermore, and king, giv- ing a death which does not wound or pain its recipient, — euthanasia, if not immortality. Here, indeed, the symbol falls, both in form and meaning, below the Christian symbol ; which makes the Resurrection swallow up, and annihilate with its glory, the Crucifixion. Yet it is something, that the ancient story intimates the cheering truth. The whole thing is fainter in the Grecian form, because addressed to a nation, and not to humanity, — to a nation at a peculiar stage of cul- ture, and not to humanity through countless ages. Apollo may be held as the Word of God to a tribe of ideal Greeks, whose life can be counted by centuries. Christ is the Word of God to humanity, thinking and suflFering all over the globe and through all time, and whose influences take hold of eternity. But we should not omit to speak here of the fable of Apollo's rescuing Alcestis frOm Pluto, on his return from Tempe towards Delphi, after his purification. A later fable, which Euripides has immortalized (perhaps originated), makes Hercules the rescuer of Alcestis. This may have been one of the many interchanges of names which took place with respect to Hercules, and that tribe of the Dorians called Heracleides ; and which led to the misapprehension, very early in Grecian history, that the children of Hercules were a component part of the Dorian nation, and that the Dorian invasion of Southern Greece was the return of these children to the land of thehr fathers. K. O. MiiUer has entu-ely cleared up this subject. But the pomt of interest for us is, that this rescue of Alcestis from death was, in either form, a Dorian fable. MuUer says there is also trace of a fable of the death of Apollo. That the fable of Apollo's killing the Pythoness, and ex- piating it, and becoming purified, was the heart and marrow of the rehgion of the Dorians, is evident from the fact, that a dramatic representation of it, on a theatre stretching from The Dorian Measure. 75 Delphi to the Vale of Tempe, was the grand mass of the worship. Once m a certain number of years, the death of the Pythoness was enacted in pantomime by a beautiful boy, representing ApoUo. Having discharged his arrow, he fled away, along a road always kept in order by the Grecian nations for the express purpose ; and, when he arrived at PhersB, he went through certain pantomimes which repre- sented servitude. This done, he proceeded on the road to Tempe, where he passed the night, and returned next morn- ing with the sacred bough, to break his fast at Pherse. Thence he proceeded back to Delphi, and was met by processions from the sacred city, shouting lo PjBan ; and a festival cele- brated the laying of the bough upon the altar. The importance of this great act of worship is apt to be overlooked, especially by England Old and New, who, on account of their Puritan pre-occupations, are not accustomed to look for important results from a form of worship whose festive air and entertaining character give it, in their eyes, the trifling tone of mere amusement. But these nations of the South of Europe are merely not sanctimonious. They live seriously, while they dress the festival of life^ The sjmi- bolic language of their festivals harmonizes with the symbolic language of nature. They see God in the sunshine and the flowers, rather than in the storm and wilderness. It is utterly impossible for any per'sons to understand Greece, who per- sist in believing that Greek festivals and processions were mere amusements, and had not the higher aim and effect of awakening all human energies, by the expression of serious ideas. Every thing in Greece became artistic, and over- flowed with beauty, precisely because the people were so intelleetual, they caught, and were continually expressing symbohcally, the grand ideas of order and harmony which pervade the universe. They neglected nothing, and trifled about nothing, because, by the wayside or the hearthstone, alone as well as ia company, thfey recognized that " the gods were there." See Hesiod, in his " Works and Days," where he gives the minutest directions about the small moralities of paring naUs, and other decencies, and sanctions his counsels by these very words. 76 The Dorian Measure. The worship of Apollo was not the only worship of Greece, but it was the only national worship of the Dorians ; and the predominance of the Dorians in Greece, and their influence over all the other tribes, direct or indirect, placed it in the forefront; and at last the shrine of Delphi seems to have concentrated all religious feehng into itself. Let us compare this Dorian rehgion with the other Grecian religions. Each tribe seems to have had its peculiar god. This god, when examined and analyzed, gives us the genius of the people. They are instincts, which characterized the different tribes, personified. The names only came from foreign lands. Thus Pan, in Egypt, signifies the Supreme God, — nature personified. In Arcadia, the Pelasgic genius wor- shipped the beauty and music of the surface of nature ; and therefore their Pan, whose name they took from the Egyp- tians that early settled in Peloponnesus, together with the association of God of nature, became a perfect expression of Pelasgic genius, — " Who, frisking it, ran O'er woody cragg'd Pisa, in fun And frolic and laughter, With skipping nymphs after, Shouting out, ' Pan, Pan.' Pan, merry musical Pan, Piping o'er mountain-tops. Rough-headed, shaggy, and rusty like tan ; Dancing, where'er the goats crop, The precipice round, And his hoofs strike the ground With their musical clop-clop. Pan is the lord of the hills. With their summits all covered with snow ; Pan is lord of the brooks, of the rivers, and rills, That murmur in thickets below ; There he saunters along. And listens their song, And bends his shagg'd ears as they flow. The Dorian Measure. 77 Where the goats seem to hang in the air, And the cliffs touch the clouds with their jags, How he hurries and leaps, now here and now there. And skips o'er the white shining crags ; And, quick to descry With his keen-searching eye. Bounds after the swift-footed stags ! Pan drives before him the flocks, To shades of cool caverns he takes And gathers them round him, and, under deep rocks, Of the reeds a new instrument makes ; And with out-piping lips Blows into their tips. And the spirit of melody wakes."* The Earth was worshipped under the name of Diana at Ephesus and in Arcadia, although no trace of the Dorian goddess of chastity is to be found in the character or the worship of these divinities. They were, in fact, the manifes- tations, in personal form, of the fecundating principle." In Syria and other places, where their worship was fully devel- oped, their festivals were the gala of licentious passion ; and, if in Greece such excesses were checked, it can be ascribed to no cause but that of the restraining presence of the Dorian ApoDo, and the superior character of his votaries. The dark- ness fled before the light, and " concious Law is King of kings." Again, the Egyptian Hermes, the expression of all severe and awful wisdom, becomes, among the mercenary, thrifty, shifty Arcadians, the Mercury, who is the m6ssenger of the gods, the paitron of thieves, the ready go-between, the " brain in the hand." There is not in Grecian litera!ture or art any thing that suggests more to the historic investigator of such subjects than the Homeric hymn to Mercury, where Apollo is made to say, in a transport of gratitude, because Mercury has given to him the lyre, — * See the whole of the Homeric Hymn to Pan. 78 The Dorian Measure. " Now, since thou hast, although so very small. Science of arts so glorious, that I swear (And let this cornel javelin, keen and tall, Witness between us what I promise here) That I will lead thee to the Olympian hall. Honored and mighty, with thy mother dear ; And many glorious gifts in joy will give thee. And even at the end will not deceive thee." We might go through all the names of the mythology, and we shall still find that always the Grecian gods are some one elemental power of nature or of mind personified and wor- shipped by the people, in whom that power of mind, or around whom that power of nature, obtained. But Apollo was the manifestation of a Triune G od. ApoUo was never conceived, without a father to give him wisdom and the oracle, and without an object towards whom the activity of his love or hate is manifested. This spiritual superiority of the ApoUonic religion explains its predominance over all the other worships, which it finally swallowed up. Other oracles died out, even that of Dodo- nsean Jupiter ; but Delphi ever became greater. This triumph of the religion of Apollo is a lesson to sectarian Christendom. It triumphed by tolerance ; it conquered by accepting. This fact is most remarkably displayed in its relations with the worship of Bacchus. Nothing could be more antipodal than the genius of these two worships. Bacchus concentrated the spirit of the earth-worships. His name and origin were Asiatic, and his worship had aU the characteristics of Asiatic worship. It was the exciting, even to frenzy, of that ele- mental, mysterious, vital power, which is not idea, but seems its polar basis of life, the source of the substance that we are "without form, and void." The Asiatics always seem to regard this fury as divinity in its purest form. The Dorians opposed to Bacchus, ApoUo, who, by the law which he is, arranges in order this blind force. Hence, the characteristic difference of Asiatic and Dorian worship. With the Asiatics, it consisted in a wild excitement of nervous energy, preclud- ing all intellection and all reflection. The Bacchantes, as described by Euripides, could not see with their eyes what The Dorian Measure. 79 they were doing, much less understand with their mind. Agave tears her own son Pentheus hmb from hmb, while she is filled with the god, and wakes up afterwards to the horrid truth, but with no misgivings of conscience. Moderation, balance, on the other hand, was the character- istic of the worshipper of Apollo. He was joyous, but cahn ; every thing in balance. Self-possession was his beatification. He saw every thing around him in the pure fight of truth and beauty. Hence the character of Dorian music. It was an old saying, that " ApoUo hated the sound of the flute," and the lyre was his instrument. Their music must compose, clear the mind, soothe and cahn the spirits ; not touch and excite the passions. From a passage in Homer, the speech of Diomede, in Book V. we have reason to infer, that, before his time, there had been an attempt in Thessaly to introduce the worship of Bacchus ; and the fundamental antagoiusm of the two wor- ships is indicated by Lycurgus's armed opposition to it. It is intimated, that the disorder of the worshippers disgusted him. But so reverent are the Greeks, that his subsequent blindness was referred to the anger of the insulted god. In Euripides' tragedy, we see the difficulty of introducing the worship of Bacchus into Thebes, by Pentheus's opposition, which seems to be defended by reason and t6 nqinov, pecufiar to the Greeks ; but here the old and wise in experience, represented by Cadmus and Tiresias, are reverent of the new manifestation ; and the self-respecting worshipper of the god who alone elevates the human mind to full self-consciousness, because he is the uncompromising opposer, becomes the victim of Bacchus. The new worship was at last accepted, because it was seen to cover undeniable facts of nature. As in the Eumeni- des, the battle was admitted to be a drawn one. There is antagonism in fife. Life indeed exists only by antagonism, being subjective-objective. So each party of the last- mentioned magnificent drama maintains its position. The inteUectual power, which contemplates only the idea, is represented by Apollo ; the unmeasured, immeasurable sen- sibility, in which inhere the passions, is represented by the 80 Tlie Dorian Measure. Furies ; and the man Orestes is justified by the free grace of Minerva, who represents the compromise of the Creator of man, in accepting into fellowship with himself the human being, whose very existence is a compromise between the finite and infinite. Are we surprised to meet these great ideas in heathen Greece ? But it cannot be denied that here they are ; con- ceived, indeed, only by the highest mind of his time, of almost any time, and probably not reaUzed very widely ; yet they may have been understood more widely than we think. And why should we doubt ? It is the Christian's formula, if not his faith, that " His goings forth were of old," and that " Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." Truth has no age ; and the mind, at a certain point of elevation, must necessarily find itself in it. To that ele- vation, no condition is so indispensable as an atmosphere of tolerance. It may be observed, that -Slschylus was not a Dorian. In his time, however, the Dorian culture had spread over Greece ; and ^schylus was a Pythagorean, and Pythagor«anism was the philosophic expression of the Dorian rehgion ; for, though Pythagoras was a Samian by birth, he was a Dorian by cul- ture, and Uved in the Dorian cities of Magna Grsecia, where he endeavored to realize in political institutions the Dorian idea, to which his plans did, in some respects, do more complete justice than the Spartan institutions ascribed to Lycurgus. But to return: by accepting with reverence and liberedity the worship of Bacchus, Apollo modified it. No stronger proof can be given of this than the very fact, that the feasts of Bacchus were celebrated ui Athens by the tragic drama, which, with both ^schylus and Sophocles, was consecrated, as it were, to the worship of Apollo. Before that era, all the excesses of the Bacchic orgies had yielded to the superior genius of the Dorian worship. ApoUo is the god of (Edipus and his ill-fated family, of Cassandra, of Orestes ; and, if he does not appear by name in the " Prometheus," yet nowhere is that depth of idea which belonged to his worship more manifest. The Dorian Measure. 81 Nor is this the only fraternization of Apollo with the older gods of Greece, which is on record. In Arcadia there was, on one side of the hill of Cyllene, an old temple of Mercury ; and, on the other side of the same hill, the Dorians afterwards erected a temple to Apollo. In the Homeric hymn to Mercury, mentioned above, we have a mythical story, Avhose meaning seems to be a commemora- tion of the reconciliation of the two worships. This hymn is a masterpiece of characterization and humor, and evidently of Dorian origin; for the Dorian god is represented alto- gether as the most divine. Apollo's majestic honesty and sim- pUcity are finely contrasted with Mercury's subtlety and frisky cunning. It was just the contrast of the Dorian and the Arcadian character. But Mercury supplies the instrument by which the great Apollo may express himself ; and this gift becomes the bond of union. So the Peloponnesians were the plastic material which supplied to the Dorian intellectual power the means of manifesting itself. The Dorians may be considered the masculine principle of Greece, and the other Greeks the feminine. K. O. Miiller demonstrates, that the germ of comedy, the germ of tragedy, the germ of architecture and of art generally, always came from the intellectual Dorians ; but the seed was thrown into the rich soil of Ionian sensibility, Pelasgian liveliness of appre- hension, Achaean subtlety of apphcation ; and hence the rich harvest of art in all its kinds. Either race, disconnected with the other, would have been comparatively sterile. In Sparta, where there was most isolation, most repugnance to social union with the other states, there was least flowering out. There, however, was most strength in the root, though the least luxuriance in the branches.. In Sparta the race vies with the Hebrew, in that self-springing power which keeps a people individual, and makes it more forcible to give than to receive influences. Like the Hebrew race, it has never been lost. To use the eloquent words of John Miiller, in the close of his chapter on Lacedemon, in his " Universal History," vol. i. : — " What an ascendency must that lawgiver have pos- sessed who knew how to persuade the opulent of his country to an equal division of their lands, and to the abolition of 11 82 Tlie Dorian Measure. money ; who changed a whole repubhc into a single family, and gave to a corrupt populace a love for their country, capable of producing such wonderful effects ; who infused into a multitude a degree of valor which never yielded even on the calamitous day of Leuctra, and such mutual forbear- ance that no civil war broke out among them during seven hundred years, even after the decline of manners ; who formed an army which never inquired how strong the enemy was, but only where he was to be foimd ; youth full of obedience and respegt for their elders, and at the same time firmly resolved to conquer or die for the liberty of Sparta ; old men who, after the field of Leuctra, with only one hundred young soldiers, arrested the victorious enemy in his impetuous ca- reer ; women who never repined when their sons fell for their country, but bitterly wept when they were not ashamed to survive their leader and fellow-soldiers ; and, lastly, a nation eloquent in short proverbs and often in silence, in whom two thousand five hundred years have not wholly extinguished the genius of fiber ty ! " For after the repubfic, after Lacedemon itself had per- ished, neither the Roman power nor the turbulent and degrading sway of the Byzantine monarchy, nor the arms of the Ottoman Turks, have been able wholly to subdue the citizens of Lycurgus. The bravest among them, as the son of Agesilaus long ago counselled them, left their falling country, and fled with their wives and children to the moun- tains. After they had lost all, they still saved themselves ; and often they descend from the heights of Taygetus, to reap the fields which their more timid countrymen have sown for the oppressor. They still dwell in freedom on the mountains of Maina, under two chiefs, fearless of the Janissaries The Mainottes themselves are strong, warfike men, and rival their forefathers of Lacedemon." Whence came the life of this wondrous people but from their deep theology of a Triune God, theu' justification by faith, and their sanctification by Ufe ? Even from the begin- ning, as we have seen, Apollo confesses that he is not the Absolute ; for, when he touches the house of life, he suffers re-action. The sacredness of a fife which neither evil nor The Dorian Measure. 83 deformity could quench, Apollo acknowledges by service of Pluto. His own superior divinity is manifested, in that he never ceases to act and assert himself, under whatever penalty. Let the self-righteous of modern time, who may not learn of Christ, meditate this lesson promulgated in Greece, and which was one of the formative or creative principles of the Dorian culture and character. The Greeks dared to look the prime difficulty, the great mystery of life, in the face;, and reverently to bow before it. It is good for man to shun evil and do good ; nay, it is incumbent on him to resist evil. But he must pay the penalty of contact. The, Greek was inspired by Apollo to go up man-like, and act, with eyes wide open to the expiation that was to follow; and which, in its turn, he also suffered man-like, without subterfuge or meaching. There are amongst us a peoplfe of sickly moral- ity, who never do any thing '■ — for fear of doing wrong. " O God ! forgive our crimes : Forgive our virtues too, those lesser crimes, Balf converts to the right!" - ApoUo may teach such, who will not listen to the same les- son given by Christ, in a form so subUme that its meaning is not dreamed of by thousands who pride themselves on the name of Christian, but do not understand as much of the doctrine as is expressed by the Dorian ApoUo. Life is antagonism ; action and re-action. Will you not act, for fear of the re-action ? You can then choose but to die, or what is worse, — life in death. The Muses will never fol- low you. But the Dorian religion was not a mere symbolic repre- sentation, an acknowledged theory of the difficulty of life. It was eminently practical. It enjoined on all its votaries personal culture. These people were pious. Their god was in all their thoughts. They lived upon the oracle. It was to them a living guidance, and wise were its utterances. Indeed, all wisdom was included prophetically in the motto on the temple of Delphi. A temple of Apollo, which was a 84 The Dorian Measure. school of arts and sciences, was the nucleus, the heart of every Dorian community. Did they found a colony? It was always at ApoUo's command they went forth, and his temple was their first structure. The last myth was of the nymph Cyrene, carried off by Apollo into Africa. The life of the pious Dorian was like his god's, — the destruction of the ugly Pythoness, and a manly endurance ; nay, a joyful expiation of all the inevitable consequences of this lofty action, amid the disturbing influences of time and circum- stance. He was moderate and severe to himself, but never ascetic : that would not have been moderate. His recrea,tion was music. Education itself was called by the Dorians, learning music. They did not confine this to learning ac- cords of sound ; but it was a study of the harmonies of man within himself, with the state, and with nature. Hence the characteristics of the Dorian politics. According to Miiller, the Dorians did not consider the state merely or mainly " an institution for protecting the per- sons and property of the individuals contained in it ; " but its essence was, that, " by a recognition of the same opinions and principles, and the direction of actions to the same ends, the whole body became as it were one moral agent." Again he says, " Whereas, in modern times, that which commonly receives the name of liberty consists in having the fewest possible claims from the community ; or, in other words, in dissolving the social union to the greatest degree possible, as far as the individual is concerned ; the greatest freedom of the Spartan, as well as of the Greeks in general, was to be a living member of the body of the state. What the Dorians endeavored to obtain, as a state, was good order (x6CT/«os),the regular combination of different elements. A fundamental principle of this race is found in the expression of king Archidamus, recorded by Thucydides, that it is most honor- able, and at the same time most secure, for many persons to show themselves obedient to the same order (xdcrfiog). Thus this significant word expresses the spirit of the Dorian go- vernment, as well as of the Dorian music and philosophy, which was the Pythagorean system. Therefore, the supreme magistrate among the Cretans was called xdafzog ; among the The Dorian Measure. 8^ Epizephyrean Locrians, x6a/ionohg.^' * Again, " In the gen- uine Doric form of government, there were certain predomi- nant ideas which were peculiar to that race, and were also expressed in the worship of Apollo, viz. those of harmony and order, xA siixoa/Mv; of self-control and moderation, crbxpQoavvT; ; and of manly virtue, d^erij. Accordingly, the constitution was formed for the education as well of the old as the young ; and, in a Doric state, education was upon the whole a sub- ject of greater importance than government. And this is the reason that all attempts to explain the legislation of Lycuigus, from partial views and considerations, have neces- sarily failed. It was soon perceived, that external happiness and enjoyment were not the aim of these institutions ; but then it was thought, with Aristotle, that every thing could be traced to the desire of making the Spartans courageous war- riors, and Sparta a dominant and conquering state ; whereas the fact is, that Sparta was hardly ever known to seek occa- sion for a war, or to follow up a victory : and, during the whole of her flourishing period (i.e. from about the fiftieth Olympiad to the battle of Leuctra) , she did not make a single conquest by which her territory was enlarged. In fine, the Doric state was a body of men acknowledging one strict principle of order, and one unalterable rule of manners ; and- so subjecting themselves to this system, that scarcely any thing was unfettered by it, but every .action was influenced and regulated by the recognized principles." , Considering the prevalent ignorance, even misconception, of the whole political and social state of the Dorians, one is tempted to go into particulars, and copy out the large pro- portion of K. O. MiiUer's second volume, which shows so satisfactorily that the aristocracy of these states was not an aristocracy of persons, but of principles ; that the' people were the most moderate, gentle, humane, modest of the Greeks ; the least overbearing, whether in the relations of governor with governed, master with servant, conquering with con- * The Spartans called the son of Lycurgus ESxoa^tag, in honor of his father, says MttUer. Might not tliis son have been the state itself? If Lycur- gus is mythological, his son must have been so. 86 Tlie Dorian Measure. quered race, or paramount state in the eonfederaey. Their principle was respect and justice to the inferior, protection to the weak, and true organization for life. "With the rich humor and pure mirthfulness known only to the serious and chaste, they were severe without austerity ; simple in private life, that they might be splendid in all that pertained to rehgious rites and piibhc duties ; with pure and dignified relations of friendship, realized on both sides, by husbands and wives, by the unmarried of both sexes, and by the old and the young. Virtue, in the strict sense of the word, seems never to have pervaded any society, ancient or modern, so completely as it did the Dorian. For, if friendship — and not philanthropy, or the charity which is founded on the Chris- tian's faith and hope — was their highest social characteristic, yet, on the other hand, must be subtracted from their con- dition those depths of spiritual vice and social wrong, to which the eternities, unfolded by the same hope and faith, have opened the passions of Christendom. But the question for us is, whether, on the new platform upon which Christendom finds itself, now that the spititual future has descended as it were into human life, there may not be found a harmony corresponding to the Dorian mea- sure ; — whether there may not be a social organization which does as much justice to the Christian religion and philosophy, as the Dorian state did to Apollo. We have seen, that there is a correspondence, point by point, between Apollo and Christ. Christ attacked sin, as ApoUo attacked the Pythoness ; and, in the contest, the serpent bruised his heel. Christ " descended into hell," as Apollo served Ad- metus. The humihation was temporary ; the triumph proved the God. It is the only Pagan religion which can be brought into any comparison with Christianity, because it is the only one Avhich involves the contemplation of man in an objective relation with Divinity ; and its inferiority consists, not in its leaving out the antagonism, — rather the tripUcity of life ; for it did not do this, — but in its not estimatuig the infinite reach of passion. The Dorians do not represent all of humanity : they were of an exceptional organization. Apollo was not " tempted in all points, like as we are." He was not all of Tke Dorian Measure. 87 G od, and not all of man. He was only so much of God as the universe, exclusive of passion, manifests ; and so much of man as may be comprehended in the aesthetic element. But he was enough of God and of man, that his chosen people should exhibit a rounded organization in their political and social condition, and so become a type of that future harmony of Christendom, when " the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and a young child shall lead them." With the Dorians, as we have seen, the political problem WELS for the whole body to become x6afwg, by a path which should make each individual x6a/iog ; for they had such faith in the divine order as to beheve these ends were correlative. Hence, by necessity, " in a Doric state, education was a sub- ject of greater importance than government ; " and, in point of fact, as long as the education was uncorrupted, the govern- ment lasted. In every Doric state where, as in Corinth and Magna Grsecia, intercourse with foreign nations, and oppor- tunity for individual accumulation of wealth, relaxed the severity of personal culture, the state deehned, and such luxury and corruption ensued as has made the name of Sp- barite a by-word among nations. We will first speak of the forms and objects of this educa- tion, and then of the spirit of it ; and afterwards proceed to speak of an education of Christendom as true to Christ as this was to Apollo, — out of which, therefore, should grow political forms and activity Avorthy the name of kingdom of heaven upon earth. The Dorians assumed, that in a company of men guided by Apollo, inhered a power which circumscribed the liberty of the individuals that composed it to the interests of the company as such ; and that this social power must legitimate itself, by discharging a duty of which they had also the intui- tion, viz. that of unfolding each, of its members into the har- monious exercise of his powers. Perhaps they saw proof of this priority of the social to the individual right in the fact, that the human being is socially dependant, before he is individually conscious. His growth into bodily perfection is not self-directed. It cannot take place, unless it be subjected to laws, according to an ideal of 88 The Dorian Measure. which tte individual is not conscious, and which he cannot discover without assistance from the society mto which he is born. The Dorian society, therefore, first judged of the body, and decided whether or not it was sufficiently well organized to be capable of its place in the social body, and then assumed, without hesitation, the direction of its development. For a certain number of years, indeed, the child was left with its parents, whose instincts, enlightened by the gefieral tone of the state, were believed to be the most faithful guardians of its physical well-being ; but, at seven years old in Sparta, and at a somewhat later date in some other Dorian states,* the more pubhc education began, and the child joined classes to be taught song and the choral dance, with other exercises of body, by which a complete physical development and action might take place. Here let us observe, that the Do- rian gymnastic was always accompanied by music, as the intellectual exercises were called. Not a shade of brutality was ever alloiyed in the Spartan gymnasium. Boxing and violent wresthng were prohibited ; also gladiators, i. e. com- batants who used arms. The Wrestling was never permitted to touch upon that violence which would injure the body, or give occasion for the combatants to -cry for mercy. The foot-race was the exercise in which the Dorians oftenest bore away the crown of victory at the Olympic games. Their bodies were strengthened and hardened by hunting, and ex- posure to the extremes of heat and cold, hunger and fatigue, in the refreshing open air. The scourging at the temple of Diana Orthia, mentioned in history, was not Dorian. The Diana Orthia was not Apollo's sister, but the earth-goddess, spoken of above ; and this gloomy and bloody superstition was the tenacity of the old religion upon the Doric ground. The custom of compeUing or allowing the children to steal their food, in order to educate them in dexterity and self- dependence, seems an exception to the common probity of Dorian hfe ; but, in judging of it, we must remember that food was in common, and thus no individual right seemed to * In Crete the education was directed by the parents till seventeen. The Dorian Measure. 89 be invaded. This custom, and that of the bridegroom's stealing his bride, — as the form of marriage, — seem to indicate an open and merry contest of the individual with the social power, in the one case ; and of masculine with feminine force, in the other ; — a gay admission of the fact, that the problem of adjustment, in either case, was not quite solved, and that it should be left to the right of the strongest, heroically exercised. The Doric organization of society, in these respects, bears the same relation to the ideal Christian organization, as the hero to the saint. But the law of prop- erty, and the physical advantage of the masculine sex, never descended with the Dorians to the brutality of the Roman rule, where the debtor, and woman from her birth to her death, were absolute chattel slaves.* The gymnastic exercises of youth were not confined to the male sex. The virgins also contended in classes. But there is no proof of Plutarch's assertion, that they contended naked before men. There is sufficient circumstantial evidence against this.f Their bodily exercises were in private, al- though, in some religious festivals, they raced in public, as well as danced, but in the usual Dorian dress for virgins. This dress, it is true, only covered the bosom, and reached to the knee ; and it is a noticeable fact, in connection with the known chastity of this race, where adultery was unknown before Alcibiades' visit to Sparta, and every approach to impurity was punished with death. The married women among the Dorians alone appeared veiled, or with long gar- ments. The education of girls was so invigorating to mind and body,, they could be safely trusted to the chaste instincts of true womanhood. But the Athenians, and other later Greeks, whom Asia had corrupted with its female license, and who were thrown upon the virtue of outward restraints, might have characterized the Dorian virgins as " naked ; " not being able to appreciate the drapery of purity. That to which we sequestrate the name of music stands in the forefront of Dorian education. The musical ear is that * See Dr. Arnold's " History of Rome," for proof of these fiwsts. t Vide K. O. Mailer, pitsaim. 12 90 The Dorian Measure. region which connects the bodily and spiritual life, and it occupies a large portion of the consciousness in the favored organizations of the people of the South of Europe. Its due proportion denotes physical perfection, and is one of the most obvious indications of the capacity of an individual or of a people for a high culture. Since this is so, in the character of the music must be the deepest secret of the education of a people ; and that the Do- rians thought this, is evident from the rigidity and solemnity of aU their regulations about music, and that the penalty of death was threatened against any one who violated the sanc- tity of the ancient music by new measures, or even new strings to the lyre. The true Dorian music was that which entirely expressed the idea of the Dorian character. It was the sound of Apollo in the soul. The movement was just that which waked up the intellect to the perception of all law, and checked the passions from falhng into dehquescence ; making the whole human being a calm, clear-sighted, creative power. That they believed this music was in the universe, objective to the soul, is expressed by the Pythagorean symbol of the music of the spheres, apprehensible through the silence which was but another name for the perfect act of intellection. There was therefore ideal propriety in the Dorians making music their central activity. Not only did aU bodily exercise thus become more or less of a dance, and an intellectual impress was made upon passion, but, what is more important, thus they formed, in the consciousness of each individual, a stan- dard by which all their activity was measured. The dances of the Dorians were intellectual in their charac- ter, — sometimes representative of historical events, — some- times of foreign customs, t— sometimes they were allegorical ; in all instances, even when comic, they expressed thought, and stimulated intellectual activity ; while the dances of other nations expressed the softer passions merely, and tended to immorality. The dancing in chorus of young men, of virgins, and of old men, were parts of the public worship. The motions of the young men, says Miiller, were vigorous, and often of a Tlie Dorian Measure. 91 military character ; those of the virgins were in measured steps, with feminine gestures ; and the whole was solemn and grave for the peirticipation of age. It is impossible here to go into the history of Dorian music and dancing ; but its early purity, as well as its subsequent corruption, its action upon the ceremonies of other worships than that of ApoUo, and the re-action of other worships upon it, — all testify to the wisdom of the Dorians in making the music and dance an affair of legislation. The power of music and the dance is exemplified especially in the fact, that with the Dorians they entered even into war, and elevated the exercise of destructiveness into an elegant art. It may be thought that this has been of no advantage to humanity, in the long run (a point of which we may not judge, perhaps, as the end is not yet) ; but there can be no doubt that, if war does exist, the subjection of it to the Dorian measure of music and motion has robbed it, as Burke would say, of half its ferociousness, by taking away all its brutality. Song was the accompanying, or immediately consequent, step to the mimetic and allegoric dance ; and perhaps here we may discover the origin of the multitude of measures in Greek poetry. Lyric poetry prevailed over every other among the Dorians, and was cultivated by both sexes. It originated with the Dorians, as epic poetry has originated in almost all the other tribes, and is to be referred to the predominance of religion. The ode is the natural address of the cultivated mind to the god whose very nature is proportion, and whose own sound is music. The later history of the drama is well known. The earlier history of comedy, as well as tragedy, leads us immediately to the Dorians, whose intellectual sharp- ness and power originated humorous expression, if not wit itself, to a remarkable degree. Humor is impossible with the inteUectuaUy effeminate. Bucohcs were the accompani- ment of rustic dances, and elegies of those dances which celebrated astronomical changes ; and this opens out a new vista of thought as to the derivation of the very idea of danc- ing from the motions of the heavenly bodies. The poems of Homer were recited at first by Ionian rhapsodists ; but Ter- pander the Dorian is said to have first set them to a regular 92 The Dorian Measure. tune. He is also said to have first mixed Greek and Asiatic music. Another consequence of the Dorian music and dance was the sculpture of Greece, which took its ideal character from the Dorians, who had Apollo for model, and the un- veiled human form, beheld with a chaste deUght in the gym- nasium, for thek school of art. Their love for proportion, harmony, and regularity, rather than for luxuriance of orna- ment and glitter, is also exemplified in their architecture, which betrays a certain relation to the sculpture of the nation and era. Thus the Dorian measure came to char- acterize their artistic eye, as well as ear and limb, and the body received its highest education ; almost reminding one of the subhme image of MUton, who speaks of the time when, by the natural ascension of matter, — " bodies shall at last all turn to spirit, Improved by tract of time, and, wing'd, ascend Ethereal." But the music of the Dorians comprehended their moral and intellectual culture, which was very much the same in both sexes. We may infer a natural education of the affections, and that discipline which precludes selfishness in its grossest form, from the fact, that the family spirit was free and genial. The Dorian called his wife, mistress ; and it was no unmeaning title ; for women enjoyed a real influence in the management of their families, and as mothers. " Aris- totle speaks," says Miiller, " of their influence on the govern- ment, in the time of the ascendency of Sparta : it increased," he says, " still more when a large part of the landed property fell into the hands of women." He adds, that, " Kttle as the Athenians esteemed their own women, they involuntarily revered the heroines of Sparta ; and this feeling is sometimes apparent even in the coarse jests of Aristophanes." Again, " In general, it may be reimarked, that, while among the lonians women were merely considered in an inferior and sensual light, and though the Cohans allowed their feelings a more elevated tone, as is proved by the amatory poetesses of Lesbos, — the Dorians, as well at Sparta as in the South of Italy, .were almost the only nation who esteemed the higher The Dorian Measure. 93 attributes of the female mind as capable of cultivation." The anecdote of the daughter of Cleomenes, who warned her father, though yet a child, of the Persian's gold, is still more in point than the pretty story of Agesilaus .found playing horse with a stick to amuse his infant-boy. It proves rational relations and intercourse between parents and children. The moral influence of the relation of friendship is to be considered in the Dorian education. Every well-educated man was bound to be the love of some youth, who was called his Listener, as he was called Inspirer; and these words express the pure and intellectual connection. Plutarch, who has much misrepresented this " friendship," admits, however, that for some faults the inspirer was punished, instead of the listener. The listener had also liberty by law to punish his inspirer for any insult or disgraceful treatment. The friends could represent each other in the public assembly, and stood side by side in war. Cicero testifies to the sanctity of the Dorian friendship. It was only in Sparta and Crete that this institution was recognized by the state ; but it was founded on feehngs which, it is evident, belonged to the Dorian race ; for, in their other cities, particular friends are spoken of by name. The relation was not merely of men. Noble women would have their female listeners ; and sometimes a female inspirer had a small company of girls, who cultivated music and poetry. In his history of Grecian literature, K. O. Miiller gives details respecting this. The moral and intellectual training implied in the existence and respect for the family, presided over by cultivated female intelligence, is an explana- tion of the long conservation of the Dorian virtue, and pre- vented the hardening effect of what seems to us Uving in public. The Dorian men eat in public in messes, and had Uuxai, or little clubs, at which they conversed with a freedom guarded by a high sense of honor ; and to these conversa- tions the youths were gradually introduced by their inspirers. Instead of the gossip which destroys mind, the conversation, rational, brilliant with wit and humor, was of the sort which makes the man, by keeping hun in relation with worthy objects. The sentences of this conversation, which have 94 The Dorian Measure. been handed down to us, are diamonds cut with diamonds ; and the young Dorians were trained in concise, witty, and symbohc expression, to fit them for it. It was the object to learn, in the first place, to see the truth, and sharply define it in their thought, in order to express it exactly. This developed to their mind all the intellectual treasures of the Greek language, as the constant demands for the ode and choral song searched out all its melodies. Nor was this study of grammar, in the highest and etymological sense, including logic, their only purely intellectual training. In default of the comparative study of languages, which makes our seve- rest discipHne, they had geometry. The mystic numbers of Pythagoras probably covered an application of mathematics to nature, to trace which had a high intellectual effect ; but they studied geometry with practical apphcations, such as we seldom enter into : witness the discoveries made of the genera- tion of beautiful forms from simple ground forms and circles, as displayed in the architecture of the Parthenon and recent discoveries of symmetrical beauty in the antique vases.* The Dorians proper seemed to have nothing to do in time of peace, but to converse. But the Perioikoi, or that part of the nation descended from the conquered race, were included in all the education ; and these were not only warriors, on apparently equal footing with the Dorians proper, but agri- culturists, artisans, and traders ; manufacturers, artists, and mariners. In some instances, the Perioikoi of Laconia were citizens of Sparta; for, as Miiller says, " the Doric dominion did not discourage or stifle the intellectual growth of her dependant subjects, but allowed it fuU room for a vigorous development." It might seem like dodging to speak of the Dorians, and say nothing of the Helots. This subject is undoubtedly involved in some obscurity. But one thing is pretty evident. The Helots were not en- slaved by the Dorians : they were slaves of the conquered people, and the Dorians did not destroy their relation to the Perioikoi, when they subjected the latter. This is " the height * See Hay on " Symmetrical Beauty." The Dorian Measure. 95 and front of their offending." As to Plutarch's story of the Spartans making the Helots drunk, in order to teach their children, by the disgusting association, to be temperate, — its foundation, in fact, is indicated by Miiller, who, in speak- ing of the dances, mentions the dances of the Helots, indige- nous with themselves ; some of which represented riotous scenes, and in which drunken persons were probably repre- sented. The Dorians were not responsible for these dances, which very probably it would have been a cruel oppression to suppress. Undoubtedly there were evils and injustices in- separable from slavery, from which the Dorians did not deliver the Helots ; but in Sparta there was a legal way for them to gain liberty and citizenship. CaUicratidas, Lysan- der, and GyUppus were of the race of the Helots. In speaking of the Dorian education, we must not omit to say, that the Pythagorean philosophy was its highest instru- ment. Pythagoras was the philosophic interpreter of ApoUo ; and the triumph and proof of the reality of the Dorian intel- lectual culture were given in the fact, that, in the Pythagorean league, " the philosophy of order, of unison, of xda/wg, — ex- pressing, and consequently enhsting on its side, the combined endeavors of the better part of the people, — obtained the management of public affairs, and held possession of it for a considerable time ; so tha.t, the nature and destination of the political elements in existence being understood, and each having assigned to it its proper place, those who were quaU- fied, both by their rank and talents, were placed at the head of the state ; a strict personal education having, in the first place, been made one of their chief obligations, in order by this means to pave the way for the education of the other members of the community." Other effects of this intellectual culture were to be seen in other parts of Greece, where the germs of comedy and tra- gedy, sculpture and architecture, fructified. The Dorian was the father of Grxeek literature, in its multifarious forms ; but the mothers were Achaean, Ionian, Pelasgic. Does not the Dorian genius and character pervade the page of Thucy- dides ? and, but for Spartan culture, would Pericles have given name to his era ? 96 The Dorian Measure. Without going any farther into minutise, we may finally speak of the spirit of the Dorian education. It was purely human. It began and ended in man. From the exercises of the gymnasium even to the possession and exercise of pohtical power, there was nothing proposed for pursuit beyond the excellence attained, and the honor of that. We see in Homer's time, that prizes of real- value were proposed to the Achaean victors, in contests of strength and skill. But with the Dorians, crowns of no uitrinsic value were the prizes, — mere symbols of an excellence which was its own reward. The Dorian strength and beauty continued un- impaired just so long as they could thus symbohze the " superiority of man to his accidents." The son of the morn- ing fell, as soon as his eye turned from the worship of objective truth to subjective indulgence : and his works did follow him ; the grand style rapidly giving place to effeminacy, until, where ^schylus had been, was Seneca the Roman trage- dian ; and every thing in proportion. " The ancients described beauty," said Goethe ; " the moderns describe beautifully.''^ But the Dorian culture was applied only to a fragment of the great race of humanity : it was the perfect form of one wave which has passed away on the tide of time. The ques- tion is, May the great flood itself take this perfect form ? Can Christ govern mankind as completely as Apollo governed the Dorians ? In order to this, religion must enspirit political forms as truly with us as with them, and an adequate education con- serve them. Being Americans, we can take leave to skip the diflicult task of legitimating, upon the doctrine of Chris- tianity, the states of modern Europe. We doubt whether any philosopher of history may do that. It is our privilege to live under political forms that it is not diflicult to trace quite immediately to our religion. For the United States, in its germ, was a Christian colony ; and the oracle which directed it was deeper in the breasts of the Pilgrims than they themselves knew, or could adequately unfold, either in doc- trine or practice. But later times ' have read the writing ; and the fathers of the Federal Constitution built the temple, The. Dorian Measure. 97 whose foundations the Pilgrims had laid (we would rever- ently say it) after the model of one " not built with hands, eternal in the heavens." For the Federal Constitution corresponds to the spiritual constitution of man, and has elasticity to admit his growth. It is the imity of a triplicity. ' The universal suffrage expresses the Passion ; the legislative and judicial departments, the Intelligence ; and the execu- tive, the Will, of the people. This political form was made out ideally by Sir Harry Vane, in his letter to Cromwell, when that remarkable person pretended to call his friends to counsel him as to what form he should give the government of England in the day of his power. Cromwell rejected it on the plea, that the sovereign grace of God, on which all progress depended, could be more readily found in an exe- cutive officer, whom a church recognized to be one of God's elect, than in the common sense of the electors of a legisla- lature. But this was but a new form of the old divine right, as the Protectorate proved ; and Sir Harry Vane was farther justified by the growth of our government into an actual fact, a hundred and fifty years later. It follows from such a poHtical form, that the pohtical action of the nation must reflect the character of the nation, point for point. The suffrage shows the prevalent character of its passion ; the Congress and Supreme Court manifest its , degree of intelligence, which necessarily will preserve a certain ratio to its passion, since it is elected by it ; and the President expresses its will, on the penalty of being removed, if he does not execute its will, and also approve himself to the " sober second thought." It is an inevitable evil, that, like the principle of will in an individual, he will ever be more expressive of the passion than of the intelligence ; for his interest depends more immediately upon it. He goes counter to the intelligence, to execute the impulses of the passion. Moreover, the intelligence of the people, as that of the individual is liable to be, is rounded in by its passion ; and the too prevalent " doctrine of instructions " increases the danger of this. In the last analysis, then, all is dependant upon the pas- sion. " Out of the heart are the issues of life." 13 98 Tlve Dorian Measure. From this statement, the dangers to which our political system is exposed are obvious. It is the same as that to which every man is exposed, — the revolving in a vicious circle of unenUghtened passion, unprogressive mind, and headlong will. The national safety, like man's individual salvation, depends upon the inteUigence being informed by a- Spirit above itself, so that it may mediate wisely between the passion and the will ; elevating the character of the one, and directing the movements of the other. In short, a true spirit of culture must do for the national heart what the ever- incoming grace of God does for the individual soul. The chief danger to a nation and to a man is from within, that the passion and the will may be too strong for the uncultured inteUigence. And the danger in om- nation is in proportion to the breadth of the national life. All humanity is in it. Our geographical extent and position expose us to the access of all temptation. Not a pleasure, not a dominion, but is opened upon our desire. Every susceptibility of human nature to ambition, to avarice, and to sensual indul- dulgence, is addressed. What an original affluence of intellect, what a training of mind, is necessary in order to grasp aU this Ufe, and legislate for it in such a manner that it may not prove suicidal ! In truth, man seems to be placed under the United States' government, free of the universe, and, as in the case of Adam in his garden, amid such a luxu- riance of all that is desirable, that the chances are entirely that he shall miss of the tree of hfe, which is not so obvious to the eyes, but requireth that they be " purged with euphra- sie and rue." Nevertheless, it is our only hope that we should eat of the tree of life, and the passion of this people be subjected to the «6(Tnoq which breathes in a baptism of fire from the Rock of Joseph, whence rose man glorified as God. In other words, we must be educated by our religion, which compre- hends in its scope the life that now is, no leSs than that which is to come ; — a rehgion which honoreth the spirit in its regenerate human manifestation, even as it honoreth it abso- lute and unmanifest in the Fatheri To explain : — The religion we profess teaches us, that Tlie Dorian Measure. 99 men, in the first phase of their existence, become empassioned by any and all the objects in the universe with which they are in contact; and that they are, in fact, hurried hither and thither, perpetually losing themselves through the richness of their subjective nature, in objects which are at best but signs of an absolute good, of which they have the undying but undefined presentiment. For the various objects which en- trajice the eye of the natural man, and draw him to adventure his bark towards them, may be likened to hght-houses on the rock-bound coast of a rich country, which are mistaken by savage discoverers for the riches that they indicate ; and the ignorant mariner rushes towards them, and gets shipwrecked on the rocks upon which they are built. To stop here : our rehgion would be gloqmy, but it teaches us another thing. It teaches us, that the first phase of human life does not exhaust us, but that it is ours to see the .futility of all feeling and activity, unenlightened by God's plan for making his finite creature live on an infinite principle. And to see this futility, and bravely acknowledge it, is to die to the life of mere passion, and to rise to the intellection of the secret of life eternal, which is no less than this : All human passion is to re-appear even upon earth, no longer as master, but as servant, to do the behests of that will, become by gratitude an 'infinite principle of love, and displaying the ofiice of every faculty and every feeling of human nature, to manifest something of the divine life. Never before the birth of our poUtical constitution, which was not made by man, but grew up from the instiocfs of Christian men who had brooked no control of their relations with God, was there any nation on earth, within which the life eternal could unfold its proportions ; and it is not wonder- ful, therefore, that we are slow to enter upon our inheritance, and have not yet unfolded a system of education correspond- ent to our large privileges. Let us, however, briefly touch some outhnes of such a system ; and, in order to give form to our remarks, we will run a sort of parallel between the form of culture proper for us, and the Dorian form that we have just considered. Men do not now, in sitting in judgment upon the physical 100 The Dorian Measure. system of the new-born, proceed so summarily as did the Dorians with the infirm of body. They accept this evil, when it comes ; and the education of the bhnd, of the deaf, even of the idiot, is in proportion to that richness of resource, indicated, as the gift of God to man, by him who is said to have healed by his touch all the ills that flesh is heir to. A study and analysis of the physical constitution of man, and of the origin and law of its Ufe, united with a sacred sense and practice of duty, shall, in some future on earth, ensure to all who are born, a fair physical constitution, and a sub- sequent preservation of the same — perhaps to euthanasia. This part of culture rests so much with parents, that it can only be indirectly reached by a pubhc system. Yet society should feel it a duty, as society, to provide for the study and diffusion of all knowledge on this subject. A partial apprehension of the Christian religion, in times past, has led to a general perversion of thought concerning every thing pertaining to the body. To die bodily with Christ has been that for which saints were canonized. Strange that even those who so clung to the letter which kiUeth, should have read so partially the letter, that they did not see, that, if Christ's body was tormented and buried, yet it rose again, not subject to decay, but capable of being assimilated to the glory which eye hath not seen; for God did not suffer his holy one to see corruption. The symbolic meaning of the death has been considered much more deeply than the sym- bolic meaning of the resurrection, which is the complement of the spiritual truth he died to express. Christendom has depreciated the physical system, so that the conscience, which should form and preserve the body in a perfect harmony with nature, has not been developed. Truly, as St. James saith, " he that sinneth in one thing sinneth in all." By this neglect, the mind and spirit have been warped, weakened, and in- jured, beyond our power to estimate. A truly Christian system of culture would not neglect a proper gymnastic of the body. It appropriates all that the Dorian culture discovered. Not only the military drill, with running, fencing, and every exercise that developes without brutalizing, should be made a part of the exercises of the Tke Dorian Measure. 101 school ; but boys and girls should be exercised, as of old, in every species of dance which expresses an idea. The musi- cal ear should be early trained, and the body be taught to move in measure. Nothing but the artificial asceticism which arose from that one-sided view of reUgion which the too energetic Puritans had, could have crushed out of human nature, even so far as it has done in New England, the natu- ral tendency to dance, and degraded the music of motion vidth associations of presumptuous sin. It is unquestionable that a corrupt people will dance m a manner to corrupt themselves still more ; but " to them that hath shall be given." The system of dancing, natural to the innocent-minded and intellectually cultivated, will refine and elevate.* * A ■woman of talent of the present day, for mere economic purposes, has discovered to the world, and especially to the American world, which is peculiarly ignorant on the subject, what a power lies in dancing to inform the mind, while the eye is delighted. The Viennese children, by performing the various national dances of Europe, suggested a means of studying the characteristics of various races, without travelling for the purpose ; and their ideal dances opened out the possibility of a still higher intellectual effect, suggesting to those who criticized their utility the words the poet puts into the mouth of the retired Rhodora : — " Tell them dear, that if eyea were made for seeing. Then Beauty is its own excuse for being." Of course, it is bad for any human beings to be exclusively dancers. " There is a time to dance," and a time for other things, said Solomon. But how easy it would be for all children to be trained to dance, among other things ; and then for talent to ideaKze, in the ballet, the customs of nations, historical events, even the processes of many kinds of industry ; whUe genius, " at its own sweet wiU," should rise into the region of the allegoric and mystic dance ! It is an encouraging circumstance, that some good-natured persons in Boston have 'turned their attention to the object of teaching the whole youthful population the practice of this art. The whole aim of these per- sons, however, is only to provide more gentle and elegant exercises, to super- sede the rude and boisterous mirth which brutalizes the minds as well as manners of the laboring people, and to provide a harmless channel to lead off the overflowing animal life, that, left to prey on itself and others, turns into intemperance and ferocity. All this is well, but not enough. The Swedenborgians of Boston have done better, by combining, as a church, to have social dancing parties, disconnected with the dissipation of late hours. But even this is not enough. If dancing is not elevated by those who invent its mazes, to have something of an intellectual character, it will probably degenerate into an expression of mere blind passion, and really become to a 102 The Dorian Measure. By an intellectual dancing, nothing is meant which is heavy or pedantic. There will undoubtedly be solemn dances; but so there will be fanciful ones, — the Mother Goose and fairy-tale for the very young, the innocent love- tale of later youth, enriched by the imagination, till the ballet is commensurate with the opera. Whatever can be expressed in music may be heightened in effect by an accompanying dance ; and Sophocles and ^schylus have taught us (for they trained their own choruses, and Sophocles led his in person), that the highest and gravest genius may employ itself in idealizing the motions of the body. But mere good-will cannot bring this art to high degrees of perfection. A pecuHar genius, which must be born, and cannot be made, is needed here, not less than to compose for the harp or organ. The dancing of Christian Europe is still Pagan, and even the Dorian dances are mostly forgotten. Yet out of that Pagan material might be raised an art of dancing not unworthy of the name of Christian. Dancing is an admirable initiation of the young into the love and practice of music ; because the beauty of measure, first appreciated by measured motion, disciplines the mmd to measure time. It is not necessary so elaborately to defend the introduction of music into general education, as of danc- ing ; for only one small sect of Christendom has undertaken to exclude music absolutely from himian expression.* The largest sect of Christendom, the Eoman Catholic church, has developed it so completely, that, on the wings of harmonies which essay to penetrate and reveal the heart of mysteries too generally hidden by " words without counsel which darken knowledge," the world did for a long period, and, in some degree, does in all tune, rise above the narrowing influences of that creed which condemns to everlasting woe aU who are out of the pale of the church, and even excludes from heaven those who, in involuntary unconsciousness of its existence, fail to pass under its baptizing waters.f community the evil wjiich the Puritans believed it to be ; and which in fact it is now, in the less favored classes of our own society, in no small degree. * The Quakers. t Dante. The Dorian Measure. 103 But though music is made a part of almost all Christian worship, and though its great masters have proved by their compositions, that it expresses the highest ideas, and even the most varied thoughts, as well as sentiments, of humanity more adequately than words can do ; yet it does not take its place in American education, even upon a par with reading. Somewhat of the practice of music in choral singing, it is true, begins to enter into our common-school education. But this halrdly goes beyond the metropolis ; and the theory of music is not taught in any school or college in our country, with the exception of the asylums for the blind, and a few private schools. There are multitudes of the fathers of our country who, as school-committee men, direct its education, who never have thought of music but as an amusement of the senses ; who never have dreamed of its moral, far less of its intellectual, influences. And there are some who look upon it, when introduced into religious services, as a mere rest of the weak mind from the laborious act of worship. But it is time that the importance of music, taught thoroughly, especially in its theory, should be recognized in education ; and that the hideous screaming, without mel- ody, measure, or harmony, which is heard in most places of Protestant worship, should be stilled, together with the scrap- ing of violins and bass-viols, and the pounding of the keys of piano-fortes and organs, to the destruction of all musical ear, and the derangement of every standard of proportion which God has planted in the nervous organization of man, for the first discipline of the mind to order. One objection that is made to the introduction of music into conmnon education is the time that it would occupy, which, it is said, should be taken up with more useful exer- cises. But, waiving the circumstance, that this objection entirely begs the question respectuig the comparative impor- tance of music in education, we reply, that, were music and dancing a regular part of school exercises every day, as they should be, it would be no hardship to children to remain more hours at school. These exercises could profitably be so arranged that they would break the monotony of book- studies, and supersede the boisterous, and too often mis- 104 The Dorian Measure. chievous play-hours, which make the neighborhood of a school a thing to be eschewed by all decent society. The advantages to health of mind and body are no less to be esteemed than the elegance of carriage and general graceful- ness which would inevitably take the place of the uncouth, romping manner, or awkward, stiff want of manner, not only of our country people, but even of the inhabitants of our cities. In the small degree in which music now is introduced into schools, it is appropriated to the forms of rehgious worship. This is well, and might be much extended, when, by a thor- ough study of the theory of music, the vast treasury of rehgious strains which the genius of the Old World has accumulated, shaU be put within the powers of execution of more learners. Music affords, indeed, the only means of persuading the soul of childhood into any thing that may bear the name of worship, at the early age before experience has revealed to the soul its necessities, and opened its eyes upon the great truth which solves the problem of evil, and gives the second birth. But music does do this. It awakens presentiments which may be said to be the wings which the condescending Deity occasionally fastens upon the child, to raise him into the empyrean where he shall by and by intel- ligently dwell. Music, as we have intimated above, is in a region above sectarianism, and affords a common groumd upon which the divided in opinion may meet; and if all rehgious instruction (we do not mean all moral science) which is imparted to the young could be confined to that which can be conveyed in music, that perplexity of mind upon the sub- ject, which is the generating cause of most of the speculative infidehty of modern times, might never take place, because the mind would not tm-n to the greater questions of hfe, before it was sufficiently enriched by experience, and ma- tured in judgment, to cope with them. The Protestant education does not wholly err in exercising the understand- ing upon these themes. We are not arguing for what Fene- lon calls, and means to commend it, " the profound darkness of the true faith." We would only have the sesthetic element developed, as nature meant it should be, before the mere The Dorian Measure. 105 understanding shall be sharpened to chop a logic which, at that stage of development, can make but " a series of empty boxes " for the soul to dwell in. Having thus introduced the young mind to the science of order, by the music of motion and of sound, elements in which childhood will dwell in their /«os, if not in their x6ufio;, we proceed to the training of the eye and hand, by imitative drawing and the arts of design. If singing should take the lead of reading, so should draw- ing of writing. The eye should be accustomed to piptures from very babyhood ; and it is marvellous to those who are inexperienced, to see how, very early, mere drawing, in the sketchy style, is perfectly understood by children. " Severe simple lines " are amongst the readiest means of developing the intellect. The mechanical difficulty, too, of using the chalk or lead may be very easily mastered. Quite Uttle children will be amused to draw lines, and thus learn to steady the muscles of the hand to a purpose ; and, as soon as the mind is a little developed, a rough imitation of forms begins. By and by, a little practical perspective can be taught by means of holding a thread, horizontally and ver- tically, over the points of a solid rectilinear figure, in order to see the bearing of its outlines upon the plane of the pic- ture ; and thus the discouraging disgust that children are apt to feel, as they learn to compare their attempts with the originals which they make their models, will be avoided. The idea of perspective drawing once taken, the career of improvement is entered upon at once.* Geometry, as well as arithmetic, may be begun at an earlier age with children than is generally befieved, if it is taught disencumbered of the verbiage of demonstration that disgraces our text-books ; and it will unite itself to drawing, by being carried out into descriptive geometry, and applied to the drawing of the antique architecture and vases. This application will recommend it to many minds which now are *. Schmid's " Perspective," in Part First of " Common Scliool Drawing- book," and especially Frank ^Howard's " Sketcher's Manual," afford adjnirable bints as to a natural mode of learning to draw &om nature. 14 106 The Dorian Measure. matured without any mathematical discipline, on the idea that this is only necessary for the mechanically scientific. Before dismissing the subject of educating the eye to form, it is to be remembered, that modelling, as well as drawing, should be practised in all places of education.* After this preparation of body and mind, readuig and writing should be taught at once, and in such a manner as to make our own language the " open Sesame " to all speech. At present, the American people — although a congeries, as it were, of all peoples — is comparatively dumb. In no country which is called civilized, are even the cultivated classes themselves so completely sequestrated to the use of one language. While its economical interests, as well as its intellectual necessities, cry out for a general faci- lity in speaking foreign tongues, the system of language- teaching falls confessedly below that of other nations. In the schools of Holland, the children grow up, speaking with facility four languages, — English, German, French, and Dutch. But it begins to be seen, that there is a natural and intellectual philosophy of expression ; and that a true philological art can be taught to every child who learns to read and write, that shall make the native tongue appreciated in aU its deep significance, and prepare the mind for such a comparison of our own with other tongues, as shall immensely facUitate their acquisition ; and this glossology, while it affords so great an incidental advantage, shall discipline the intellect, like the learning of any natural science ; showing grammar and logic to be, not mere technics, but the forms of thought, and languages themselves to be nothing less than the monu- ments of the history of the human mind in its first intuitions * One lady, -who kept an A B C school in Boston, did at one time intro- duce into her school-room a long trough, with lumps of clay and some well-shaped toys, together with the ground-forms, — the egg, the sphere, the cylinder, &c. ; and it was made a privilege for her little pupils to go and model by turns, in the intervals of their lessons. It was found an admirable way of keeping quietness and order ; and, although it was done but a short time, and not very long ago, one professional sculptor seems to have grown out of this very partial experiment. Such a department of the play-room at home, as well as a blackboard for drawing in the nursery, wiU always be found an aid to the home discipline of tempers as well as of minds. The Dorian Measure. 107 and reflections. On the ethereal element upon which the spirit of man works with the ethereal instrument voice, is this history carved ; or rather in this element has human thought vegetated, not to the eye, but to the ear. And perhaps it may take no more years to gain a key to the expressed mind of man, than are devoted now to learn by rote a few books in Greek and Latin ; and which, after all, are so learned that only the exceptions among the uni- «erarhich were the prospect and conso- lation of seers and prophets, and simple hearts, in less sophis- ticated ages. No wonder that she excludes useless truths, from her careful foundations ; for her aim is progress, in contradistinction to the immobility of philosophy, and hence she takes no cognizance even of the truth itself, unless it be presently capable of application and enlargement. This is the reason why there is no science of correspondences ; the doctrine of correspondence being an abstraction standing by itself, which gains from theology no life or impetus sufficient to make it circulate downwards, and take body and clothing among the things of this world. So great is the dread with which the inductive or scientific regard the philosophical class, that the former disregard practically the plainest and truest maxims of the latter, in order to break for ever with all knowledge which is appa- rently unprofitable. Truth, in its commonest forms, becomes therefore suspect to the scientific analyst, lest some root of philosophic barrenness should lurk under it. You may venture such a truism as this, that the general is made up of its appropriate particulars ; but the scientific man will refuse to apply it in its own mode to organization, or any set of na,tural objects, or to deduce from it any of those harmo- nies of construction which it manifestly involves. He will rather postpone indefinitely these precious results of so plain a principle, than run the risk of landuig himself among the eunuchs of philosophical systems. It is, however, far from my intention to deny, that there are exceptions to this view, both with relation to theology and science ; for there are exceptions to every general state- ment, and it will indeed be my object to show presently, that there is a theology in existence which not only admits the notion of correspondence, but fills it with details ; and a sci- ence in outline which will receive open-armed the instruc- tions of that theology, and apply them to natural facts, as its most ennobling function. But this theology and science are not orthodox, or central to our present state, but exceptional Correspondence. 119 and transitional, and will require a new general state before they can become ruling influences in the world. Meanwhile, nothing could be more destructive to existing limitations and prejudices than a doctrine of correspondences, which might be inferred from the dread wherewith our thinkers regard analogical reasoning, although, by the way, reasoning and analogizing are fundamentally one process. What is the first postulate for the successful prosecution of a science of correspondence ? Evidently this, that there be at least as much detail in the higher sphere, as the mind or the senses discern in the lower, with which the higher is to correspond. Otherwise it is clear, that the two spheres can- not compare with each other in the way of apposite particular equivalents. For example, if light is the lower term, and truth the higher ; and if light embraces the phenomena of reflection, refraction, polarization, &c. ; then truth cannot correspond to hght, unless there be modes of truth answering to reflection, refraction, &c. &c. and to the other exhibitions of which light is the ground. Where the two fail to tally, the higher is occult, or its series is confused into uniformity, in which case it is impossible to say what it corresponds to. The beginning of mystery coincides, therefore, with the ces- sation of correspondence. We may go a step further than this, and declare that the highest object of knowledge, or the divine nature, must be capable of presenting to the mind as many truths as equal the totality of things ; or otherwise there can be no corre- spondence. Indeed, in point of number, there never was, or can be, a polytheism which furnished a suflSciency of detail in this respect alone. It is therefore of primary im- portance to receive a doctrine of God sufliciently ample to provide all the principles of correspondences, at the same time that is sufficiently unitary to contain them, and all things else, in one Divine Idea. This doctrine can be no other than that of the Humanity of God. For, according to the maxims of the philosophers themselves, aU nature is combined in man, so that he is a microcosm, or miniature world, and man him- self must be comprised in a Divine Man ; which shows that the Divine Humanity is a doctrine co-extensive with all 120 Correspondence. things, and therefore an adequate origin for the whole exist- ence of correspondences. But, quitting the ground of number or measure, we may assert on other grounds, that the positive root of the doctrine of correspondences, as of all universal doctrines, lies in the admission of the Divine Humanity. For, apart from this, we have no right, save as a convenience of thought, to attri- bute ends, or Divine Ideas, or even a Divine Mind, to the Creator ; failing which, the idea of God becomes altogether closed or occult, and can answer to no series of existence, either successive or simultaneous. Ignorance of correspond- ence depends, then, mainly upon ignorance or denial of the Divine Humanity; and, conversely, the possibility of our knowledge of the doctrine depends expressly upon the quan- tity and quality of our knowledge of the love and other attributes of the same intelligible humanity. It is not to be understood, that this doctrine of God need always be con- sciously admitted, in order to a belief in the unity of creation, and the universahty of correspondence ; but only that, for this purpose, it must always be accepted, either tacitly or openly, before the laws of Divine Order can be deduced from their genuine fountain. We know, however, that many simple men do really live an unconscious life, upon this glo- rious reception ; nor is it to be doubted, that its bright rays have streamed down often for a few moments upon the pages of philosophers ; nay, have been habitually though invisibly present, wherever worthy and open conceptions of nature and human destiny were the staple thoughts of the good or great in our own and other generations. The Divine Humanity, then, is the only refuge from ab- stractions on the one hand, and from idolatry on the other. It is the only doctrine of God which involves neither mystery nor mental degradation ; therefore the only doctrine which can be central to the whole of human knowledge. It is the sun, of which all the objects of science are the correspon- dences ; even that brightness of wisdom by which the worlds were made. Radiant in the depths of the human soul, it makes our finite nature the delegated centre of the corre- spondential world ; and as it constitutes man the image of Correspondence. 121 God, so it enables him to conclude, that his own constitution is in reality the minimal end of correspondence, and the mierpcosm of the microcosm. It opens up a highway from man to God, a broad path upon which the angels are ascend- ing and descending ; and empowCiTS us to conclude with reverent intentions from the one to the other, and to recon- cile the science of correspondence with the truth, that " His thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways." We may, therefore, now pass on to finite man, as the second- ary fountain of correspondence, or the modifying principle of the universe. Let us, then, narrow our field for a time to this convenient limit, and illustrate the law of correspond- ency from our own familiar actions and objects. Now, what is the series and procession of all human works ? Man undoubtedly Uves for a multiplicity of ends, which arise to him one after another ; and he proposes them to himself, in the sevenfold ages of his lifetime. These ends, we must repeat, are not abstractions, but objects containing indefinite details. For instance, the love of which children are the object ; or, to abridge so extensive a theme, let us take only that portion of the love which proposes the education of our oflfepring. Here the end or object (the end and object are the same ultimately, and the end is complete in proportion as it is correlative to the object primarily) comprises, or may comprise, all the results of moral and intellectual training, all the perfections of the character of the child ; which per- fections are the points to be attained. When the end is somewhat comprehended in detail, the next step is to place under or submit to it a series of means exactly adapted to advance it ; so that, for every item that is desired, there shall be a specific adequate instrument or cause of gratification, and at least as many pieces in the cause as there are general divisions in the end. In the present instance, these pieces of the cause are aU the suitable means of education. The last step is to direct the end, and to apply the causes, to the proper subject, or to the child, the genuine natural effect, recipient of education ; an effect, however, less manifold than the cause, even as the cause is comparatively poor, in relation to the universal end. 16 122 Correspondence. Here observe again, what it is impossible to observe t6o often, that the end we have been considering is not a closed idea or a blank point, but a human being spiritually culti- vated towards perfection ; and that the same must be the case with all other ends, because they have the Uke divisions with their objects, and thereby correspond piecemeal, as well as in general, with their effects. Also that the more thorough the correspondence between end, cause and effect, the more do we reahze in the last sphere that which we intend in the first ; and the less perfect the correspondence, the more devoid of will and intelligence is the worker, and the more abortive the work. In the latter case, the ends are absent from the causes, or the causes omitted from the effects ; or heterogeneous ends and causes are introduced, and operate confusion in the result. Let us further observe, as a corol- lary from the preceding, since human efforts themselves are always directed to the subjects of the Divine creation, that our action can never be perfectly harmonious, until it is con- sciously regulated by the universals of correspondence ; until humanity is the transparent medium and directing rein of Providence ; or, in other words, until the modifying principle coincides with the creative. This is the attachment of cor- respondence to God, or its inauguration into religion. Having regarded man in one of his parental functions, let us now regard the Creator under the same type of love, and we shall recognize that the Divine Father has prepared his universe for the spiritual education or sustenance of all his children. The goodness and Avisdom of aU possible genera- tions in aU worlds is the object of his works ; a greatest Man, containing all men for ever, and for ever increasing in its correspondence to his own infinite humanity. And this end or object, again, is not a closed idea, a blank point, a meta- physical unity, or an abstraction, but a subject more abound- ing in detail than the created miiverse ; and hence, indeed, its power of abridging itself into a given correspondence with the creation. This indefinitely ample and specific end marches to its accomphshment through all the Works of God in either world, and directly through his Word, whence there is a most par- Correspondence, 123 ticular analogy between the Word and the Works, and cor- respondence between both and the end. In fine, Revelation and Creation are the means of God, answering to and car- rying out the Divine End or Idea. Man is the subject to whom the Divine care applies, and hence the above end and means generate the very potencies of man ; the great movement of the universe enters his body, and becomes his constitution. The world lives in him, and fits him to live in the world. Not a stone, or a plant, or a living creature, but carries up its heart's thread into his loom, there to be wound into human nature, and therefrom and thenceforth, in its form and fortunes, to obey the progress of his own immortal destinies. For, as was said before, while creation is the work of God, modification is the function of man ; or, in other words, the world is continually created by God through man, that is to say, co-ordained to humanity. Such are some of the preliminaries of a doctrine of parti- cular correspondences : let us now look a httle more closely at what it is that makes correspondence. We have seen, that the created universe consists of chains of specific cor- respondences, reachmg from heaven to earth. What, then, is the condition of correspondence between any two things in these different spheres ? To this it may be answered, that gradation or subordination of use is the first principle of the law, and that the same also is the universal principle of coimection between spirit and nature, and particularly between the soul and the body. Thus, in studying corre- spondence, we are virtually studying the connection between the soul and the body, and between the natural world and the Spiritual. This, the pressing difficulty of human thought for thousands of years, turns out to be only soluble upon the neglected theory of correspondence. The body corresponds to the soul. Why so ? it will be asked. Simply because the body is the soul over again, or is the vicegerent of the soul in a new sphere whither the soul itself could not penetrate. The body is a form co-ordained to the service of the soul, shapen into usefulness by forces emanating from the soul. As the human hand shapes the pen, and then writes with it, so the soul forms the body, and 124 Correspondence. then makes active use of the properties resulting from the form. The connection between the soul and the body is not more mysterious than the connection between the pen-maker and the pen ; excepting, indeed, that our knowledge of the pen is so much more complete than our knowledge • of the body. A science of the body, had we such a science, which displayed its uses, or its specific fitness to minister to the soul, would as evidently account for the attachment of the soul to the body, as the capabilities of the pen account for its connection with the fingers of the ready writer. It is, in both cases, the bond of service, of love, of use ; for what other connecting principle is possible ? Is this too simple for the philosophers ? Nevertheless, it is the one only ground of any connection they ever formed, or could form, either with man or thing, since the world began. Unity of system alone would prescribe, that answerableness or correspondence of use be the tie between all spu:it and all nature, and between each particular spirit and its bodily organ, as it confessedly is the tie which unites man to all his works, and the channel which carries forth human ends through the extensive rami- fications of our mundane dwelling. Correspondence, then, in nature means correspondence of use. Let us, however, as the first of all correspondences is that of the soul with the body, proceed to malte the latter somewhat more objective, that we may see its uses more distinctly, and connect it more easily in thought -vvith the uses of other instruments. For this purpose, let us admit that the soul or spirit itself is the spiritual or real body, and that the natural body is the well-furnished house, the admi- rable circumstance, of the soul. Something like the follow- ing analogical discourse may result from this point of view, in which a stand is taken further inwards, to gain distance, distinctness, and integrity for the object. The soul being assumed as the real body, the natural body will represent all the arts of life, whether economic or esthetic. Thus the eye is its window, telescope, microscope, and serves for the whole series of media which transparent substances proffer to vision, and which are as curious and exquisite for appearance as they are excellent for use ; for the Correspondence. 125 eye receives the finest of impressions from things, and gives the finest of expressions from the soul. So likewise the ear is the hearing trumpet of the real body, which would otherwise be deaf to the sounds of nature ; it embraces all the means of reverberation, whether in the free air, or of cheerful voices from the household ceiling, or of more solemn sounds from the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault; in short, both the whole instrumentahty and the whole architecture of sound. But the nose is to the real body the prophecy of more devi- ces than have yet entered our arts ; for hitherto sweet odors and aromas are but casual visitants of the soul, and have few artificial aids for preservation or concentration; they come and go with the fitful winds, and where is the vessel that can hold them ? For the nose seems more deficient of analogies in art than either the eye or the ear, and hence we can only identify it unworthily as the scent-bottle of the real nose. To pass over the other senses, we next observe that the legs are the whole outward art of locomotion, from pas- sive to active, from the nails of the toes to the wheel of the knee, and the globe of the hip ; in short, from the cane to the railroad : the real body uses them in nature, whether for the support of its lowHness, or the means of its swiftness, or the equipage of its pride : they are the dignified columns of all movement, material as well as social ; the rich soul's car- riage, and the poor soul's crutches. But the arms and hands are aU. the finer machineries or inventions which are wielded directly by the arms and hands of the soul; they are the pen and the sword ; the instrument of many strings ; strength and manipulation in all their bearings ; in short, the mecha- nics of animal intelligence, whereby the nice conveniences of truth are brought to the rooms and walls of the micro- cosmal home. Then the abdomen is the natural kitchen of the soul, raising to sublimity the processes of the gastrosophic art ; preparing from all things in its indefinite stores one universal dish, lower than cookery, higher than philosophy, even the natural blood of life, to be served up day by day in repasts for the spiritual man : the viand of viands, solid and fluid all in one ; varying from hour to hour, and suited with more than mathematic truth to the constitution of the eater. 126 Correspondence. Then, again, the chest distributes, with a power of wisdom dictated from the halls above, this daily bread of the body of the soul ; and the wisdom that ordains and distributes, enters the very feast, and it becomes a living entertainment ; and the brain is the steward and keeper of the animated house, perennially receiving order and law from the soul or unseen body, and transplanting them into its mundane econo- my. Yea, and "the brain is its natural universe, its wide- spread landscapes, its illimitable ocean, its blue vault of heaven ; its royal library, studio, theatre, church, and what- ever else is a place of universal sympathy for the soul. And, lastly, the skin is dress and clothing in every sphere, con- venient, beautiful, or official, and it is the very mansion itself; for our houses are but our fixed and stiflfest clothes, standing by themselves, and large enough to admit of some degree of movement ; and these houses represent over again, even on theiV outside, the busy scene within, and themselves have eyes or windows, mouths or doors, and in general a paral- lelism true beyond our suspicions, with the real bodies of their inhabitants ; for they are clothes vrhich fit generally, ay, and particularly too. Now, by this artifice,. of holding out our bodies at some distance from us, we are enabled to illustrate for the com- monest thought the connection or correspondence between the soul and the body; and, though there rriay be other motives of connection, yet it is sufficient to remark for the present, that, according to all the foregoing analogy, it is because the body is so replete with the most exquisite con- venience, that it is the chosen residence or domestic establish- ment of the soul. Given a tenement of the kind stored with the sumptuous apparatus of the universe, and it is impossible that the soul which answers to it should not be present to, and fitly use, or, what is the same thing, animate it. Not to admit thus much, would be to think meanly indeed of the soul, and of the Framer of the soul. This, then, is the first solution, quite satisfactory so faj as it goes, of this hitherto intractable question. Other solutions are too simple to be comprehended at all in these difficult ages. But let us now reverse the picture, and suppose, for Correspondence. 127 example's sake, that a savage is introduced for the first time into one of our convenient mansions, and that he knows the use neither of table nor chair, Imife nor fork, bed nor carriage, but that his naked body and unarmed hand have been accustomed to direct fellowship, or fight, with nature. Can he account for the connection of the civilized man ■ with his house ? By no means. Unhoused body that he is, we see in him a full type of those who dwell on the purity and freedom of disembodied spirits, and cannot con- ceive the bond between spirit and nature, because they know nothing of the uses of nature to spirit. At first, then, the savage cannot divine why his civilized brother limits himself to a house, because he is uninformed of the good of a house. As he learns the uses of the furniture, and, stiU more, the mode of using it, the points of conriection come forth one by one ; and when aU the uses are understood, then, for the first time, he has a plenary understanding both of the reason and mode of the permanent act of inhabitation. Just so it is with the body and the' soul. The physiologi- cal savage (I beg his pardon), who has been unaccustomed to the means of thought, and approaches all subjects directly with his imdoctrinated, undisciplined senses, knows not of the body as a rational abode, but as a raw substance in the midst of nature ; and how, then, should he see its connedtion with a soul ? For the uses of things are the reasons why they are used. And hence the perception of the connection of nature with spirit is the exact measure of the perception of the uses of nature. To see the one is to see the other ; as to miss the one is to miss the other also. The soul corresponds directly to the body ; it corresponds remotely, or through the body, which is the perfection of physi- cal art, to the house in which the man lives. Or, to put the mat- ter proportionally, the soul is to the body as the body is to the house. In a secondary sense, therefore, the house, including all the implements of social Hfe, may be said to correspond to the body. For the body has to Hve in the material universe ; but this it cannot do nakedly. Its skin is not a sufficient shelter, or a sufficient space, for hfe on the planet; its hands are not strong enough, or long enough, to move all and do 128 Correspondence. all by themselves. And, not to pursue the enumeration, the body, wishing to be at home in the world, must build up in the world a medium corresponding to itself, for itself to dwell in. This medium is the house ; which is a correspondence, because it extends the active and passive powers of the hu- man frame to the general system of nature, and is a defence as well as a medium. The precise uses of the house, and aU it contains, are the parts of this correspondence : they are the handles by which the body holds the house ; and the form of the use need only be stated to explain the mode of the con- nection. Strictly speaking, however, the connection between two things is subsequent to their correspondence, and is the use or fruit of the latter ; and we therefore return, for the present, to the consideration of correspondence, and proceed to remark, that, whenever one thing is to a higher sphere what another thing is to a lower, correspondence has place between the two. Correspondence is, therefore, definite proportion between dif- ferent spheres. Thus truth is to the spiritual world what light is to the natural world ; wherefore truth and light are correspondences. Love is to the spiritual world what heat is to the natural ; therefore love and heat correspond to each other. The understanding is to the soul what the lungs are to the body ; therefore the understanding and the lungs cor- respond to each other. This is the formula of that high kind of correspondence which is identical with the law and order of creation, whereby the Divine Ideas are embodied in the creatures. For the threefold world is a celestial equation, always co-ordinated from above and below, and fluent in a widening stream from node to node, and from immensity to immensity. I have said that the lungs correspond to the understanding ; and, to exercise abstraction, which is the ghost of thought, let us draw out the uses of the two a little particularly, that we may see with our eyes that they correspond, or that the one is in the body what the other is in the mind. Now, the understanding gives distinct division, or shapen general force, to the affections of the man : it is those affections formed from without, as the will is the same actuated from within. The Correspondence. 129 lungs give the capacity of separate or circumstantial action to the organs of the body, and take up or absorb the propul- sions of the heart by the formal attractions of the organs them- selves: they enfranchise the organs from the general force and form, as the understanding enfranchises the man from the domination of the surrounding universe. The under- standing dictates precise motives into the soul from without, and by the bonds of truth, which are its membranes, acts specifically upon the affections. The lungs, through their universal connections in the body, carry distinct motions into the system, and operate physically upon the vital parts. The understanding admits invigorating elements of truth from heaven: the lungs receive fresh air from the atmospheres. The understanding, obeyed in action, conciliates the earth with heaven, and joins spiritual powers to bodily works : the lungs, in their healthy operation upon an obedient frame, mediate between the brain and the body, and draw the animal spirit of the former into the blood and muscles of the latter. But, not to extend too far this parallelism of uses, we may state in brief, that the understanding distributes the affections into series, and provides for the separate and alternate, as well as combined, action of these series; and that analo- gously the lungs dispart the natural motions into free series, moment these into expansion and contraction, and also pro- vide a general movement into which all particular actions cease as their office expires. Now, then, so far as this has gone, the lungs are to the body what the understanding is to the mind. Quoad under- standing, the mind cannot pass really out of its own sphere, or grapple with the material body ; but it descends in its form, and adopts the prepared lungs, which receive because they express its form of motion, and, in performing their functions, carry out its designs in the lower world. This, then, is the correspondence between the two, that they are co-ordained, and the higher finds in the lower an answerable minister for extending its effects to a new goal. Similarity of end ensures correspondence ; also the virtual presence of the superior in the inferior, and reciprocal conjunction of each with each. And this endures so long as the lower can serve the higher, 17 130 Correspondence. and rightfully demand the wages of the service, or continuance of life ; but it is annulled, and death takes place, when from any cause such service becomes impossible. Correspondence is, then, first, co-ordination by creation; and, secondh/, adoption and inauguration into analogous uses. The lungs are delineated by the soul, as a bodily form capable of communicating, when the time arrives, with its future un- derstanding ; the understanding is a spiritual organization co-ordinate with the lungs, and which, as it comes into being, by harmony of end flows into them, and by continuous har- mony into the body. In the Divine Idea, which contains the soul or first end, the understanding generates the lungs, which are but itself according to matter ; in human nature, the lung§ come first, and the understanding afterwards ; and then the two are co-ordinate, and the understanding, as a motion, gen- erates the distinct animations of those organs, or the pulmonic functions. In creation, therefore, Avhile there is absolute correspondence or causation, particular as weU as general, subsisting between the Divine Ideas and universal nature, there is on the other hand ^ modifying power assigned to man as always becoming a partaker in the Divine End, whereby the Creator consents to actuaUze in the world all the forms, whether good or bad, which man evolves in his mind ; precisely to maintain inviolate the creative law of cor- respondence, whereby the world is the exact habitation of humanity. As a great authority has said, " God passes through man into the world, and has nothing in common with nature excepting through man ; whence the perfection of na- ture depends upon the perfection of man. For God, the Author and Builder of nature, disposes the world exactly according to the character of man, the medium whereby he commimicates with the world." In the earliest ages, indeed, the whole creation corresponded, as far as possible, to the Divine Idea, and the first men also ; but as the times ran down, and man decayed, then the creation corresponded to our fallen race, as their only dwelhng and their best educa- tion. Thus the primary as well as the secondary world cor- responded at first to the wiU of God ; the later or subversive world, to the reaHzed waywardness of mankind itself, free to Correspondence. 131 draw to an indefinite extent upon the Divine permissions, which granted legions of substantial evils in all the kingdoms of nature. Light is to the eye what truth is to the mind ; and heat is to the body what love is to the man. Hence heat and light are the natural vicegerents of truth and love ; because, by accordance of use, they prolong and extend the empire of truth and love through inferior nature. The Divine Light, per se, cannot enter the material creation ; but, by the obse- quious arm of light-giving suns, it reaches the lowest world with creative love and power, and becomes omnipresent even through death itself by the perfect correspondence of the in- strument to the end. This correspondence necessarily carries with it the greatest force ; for wherever there is a well-adapted instrument of use, a body expressly built and informed by nature for accomplishing a given design, there that design or end is spiritually present with it (for likeness of end or Ipve IS ^ritual presence),. and inaugurates it into active functions. Thenceforth there is no way of severing the two but by injur- ing the instrument, or unfitting it for the purposes of that prin- ciple which can make use of it. This principle cleaves to its convenient form on the same grounds, and with tenfold the tenacity, that a wealthy citizen cleaves to his comfortable and convenient home, or civilized mankind in general to the ap- pliances which make their position in the world. On account of the universality of this force, the magic of the ancient world arose out of the science of correspondences. The conjuring rod and Jhe paraphernalia of the magician's cave were symbols, into which, as appropriate bodies, spirit- ual forces entered. For, the natural circumstances occurring in a certain order, by the laws of creation the upper world will animate them, and rush down through them with new and marvellous efficacity. This, indeed, is the ground for which the two comprehensive symbols of Christianity, Bap- tism and the Lord's Supper, are solid means or verities,, and not superstitious abracadabra. But it is not surprising, after obscurant philosophers have been preaching for ages against the power of circumstances, and endeavoring to erect the freedom of the human will upon the ruins of natural facts. 132 Correspondence. that the world should know little of natural order, and nothing of the effects which it does, and is designed to, produce in the happiness and highest relations of mankind. If the creations of an infinite Being, or the house and do- main in which man is to dwell, are necessarily correspond- ences, so also are whatever revelations he vouchsafes for the edification of his finite creatures. If, in a real sense, there be a Word of God, — if that Word be not the fruit of an exalted enthusiasm of our finite faculties, but the outward gift of Heaven, — then as the world is made by correspond- ence, so must the Word be written by correspondence; and the inevitable effect of a devout and still more of an intelhgent reading of such a volume must be the instantane- ous presence of the Divine Soul in the letter, converting the heart, and making wise the simple. This follows in the strict- est manner from the premiss of a Word sent down from heaven by the golden rod of correspondence. How ama- zing our interest in the existence of such a Word, and the mmistrations of such a Science ! Better, for very hope's sake, to hold to them, than to sit in the seat of the wittiest scorner, or to vwap up the proud soul in the threefold honors of skepticism ! Philosophy has nothing but darkness to ofierj when it rejects precise and unitary ideas of inspiration, whe- ther for the emptiness of rationaUsm, or for the incoherency and caprice of the Protestant ideas of the Divine Truth, from which the only safeguard is the blessed inconsequence of those who entertain them. A correspondential Word is not, however, necessarily un- alterable in its outward form, or incapable of modification and contorsion. On the contrary, its letter may take a new and subversive shape, just as the creation itself has received the imprint of the Fall, and, in the majority of its subjects, reflects the social and individual depravation of its secondary Master. The harshness of the Jewish Word, arid the hid- dermess of much of the Christian, is, then, no more against the indwelling of the Divin&Love in these difficult forms, than the savagery and hostility of the creation is against the fact of a beneficent Creator. It is finite man to whom all things ultimately correspond ; and it is even for his benefit Correspondence, 183 that all things, good and evil, were and are created. By virtue of the science of correspondences, this will become clear as heaven's light, and the meaning of evil will be seen to be good, even Divine Goodness itself. It has been said already, that the first and most intelligible of correspondences is that of the body with the soul, and that the specific uses of the body demonstrate the parts of the soul. Now branching out from the human body, we find two great series of subsidiary or remote correspondences : viz. on the one part, all the works of the hands, the whole world of art and society ; on the other part, the forms of the three kingdoms of nature. The first of these spheres is noto- riously the prolongation of the powers of man ; the second is admitted even by naturalists to be the prolongation of his interior powers, or organization. The first is his own world of finite creation ; the second, his divinely co-ordinated world, where he can modify, but not create ; or where he is the medium, but not the rational origin, of forms. Herein lie the origin and currency of the law of series ; of series which work for each other, and reciprocally gratify each other, through the ample range of the universe. .The arts of outward life are to man what the three kingdoms of nature are to the human body : each ensures the secondary omni- presence of its principle in its own arena. Thus, each vege- table, animal, and plant is referable to some province of the human body, and thereby to a corresponding province of the soul, as each invention belongs to some province of human arms, and human wants or wills. For the series runs inwards by many moments, and triple graduations, to the central complex or unit, which corresponds, and offers the series, to the form and mechanism immediately above it, or the unseen soul of the centre, and sun of the extended system. In this way there is a primary correspondence between souls and bodies ; between ends, causes and effects ; between the spir- itual world and the natural ; between the centres of life and the centres of intelhgenee and movement ; and a secondary correspondence between the primordial centres and the cir- cumferences of the movement, in so far as the circumferences advance the ends of the centres. So the very stones, or the 134 Correspondence. horny nails and terminations of the earth, return by mutuality of services to God, and the creation respires its existence on the perpetual condition of spending ahke its worlds and par- ticles, or its days and its very seconds, upon humanity. This is an analytic view of correspondence : there is also a synthetic view, and the difference between the two may be perhaps thus illustrated. The analytic form traces the series of nature to the Uving body, and the correspondence of the body to the states of the mind or soul, according to the divi- sion which is adopted of those states. As an example of this view, birds are said to correspond to rational thought; for they fly in the aerial series which terminates in the lungs, and the lungs correspond to the understanding. The syn- thetic form, however, is different : it deals, not with the roots of man, but with his fruits ; not with his principles, but with his actions or ends ; not with individuals, but with that which is the necessary sphere for individuals, viz. societies ; not with the fractions of units, but with the powers of numbers; not with thoughts, but with dramas and representations. Thus it takes the life, arts, and manners of the social man as the one term ; and the forms of nature as the other. And although it traces these to ultimate psychological grounds in each individual, yet its method consists in regarding nothing that is more minute than the actions of societies, as paxallel to the developments of the creation. This is a very noble form of the study of universal analogy, in no way contrary to the analytic form, though much more concrete, and deal- ing with masses of thought, and expressing its results in new terms ; also criticising man for his politics and social laws, rather than for his religious principles ; in a word, judging of ages by their fruits, both in action, and in the representa- tions or tableaux of the universe. The first of these methods is represented in the writings of the penetrating, celestial Swedenborg ; the latter, in those of the gigantic and earth- born Fourier. They are the arms and legs of spiritual sci- ence, and the five toes of the one are as indispensable as the five jewelled fingers of the other. The first without the last may be part of a dandy bust, but not of a locomotive being. The analogies of this synthetic method, which, like the Correspondence, 135 analytic, has its own limits and advantages, lie between hu- man characters, as wholes, and the objects of nature : thus between the concrete terms of friendship, love, obedience, constancy, inconstancy, pride, vanity, coquetry, or any of the other phrases which express the practical shades of dif- ference observable in private Ufe : also between the various systems, political, social, commercial, with their numberless details, and the same objects of nature ; for these systems are but the mechanized aggregtites of human characters, gravi- tating into masses which have such inevitable properties. This species of symbolism is doubtless very ancient ; but, as we said before, it has acquired new importance and precision from the labors of the noble-minded Fourier. Where the powers of inward contemplation or psycholo- gical analysis are feeble, this Science of Universal Analogy win be an invaluable substitute for the Science of Corre- spondences ; and it may serve to educate many minds, and even many nations, in the laws of unity, where the material faculties and interests are more developed than the spiritual. In short, it may prove a mighty lever in the hands of a living doctrine of creation and correspondences, co-ordinating the truths of nature for truths of life which are yet to come. There is, however, one caution which cannot be too often enforced in the prosecution of analogies and corresponden- ces. It is, that both terms of the iritellectual equation must lie within some sphere of experience, or no conclusion will be valid from the one to the other. Where the upper term is intangible, there may indeed be " analogical conjectures " respecting it ; yet the fact that the lower corresponds to it, wiU not indicate what the higher is, but rather what it is not ; for correspondence subsists where different forms extend the same principles to different spheres. To infer from the lower to the higher, without also having experimental knowledge of the higher, would be like concluding from a staff or walk- ing stick, to the hand and arm, or to the limbs ; concluding, in fact, that the arms and legs are superior specimens of wooden manufacture. But this would be to miss out all the difference of the higher correspondent, or to mistake corres- pondence for useless identity. Experience, therefore, is in- 136 Correspondence. dispensable in both spheres ; and, if there were no actual experience of the spiritual world, there could be no safe con- clusion, except a negative one, from the natural world to the spiritual. Therefore correspondence does not engender, but simply follows experience ; and analogies illustrate, but do not demonstrate. As an intellectual fact, correspondence subsists between the known and the known, and not between the known and the unknown. And the notion of sameness excludes that of correspondence. Correspondence, moreover, is a science to be worked ; not a bare general intuition to be speculatively particularized. It cannot be drawn out of ignorance by any fineness of deduction. The philosophy that pursues it must be content to study it in the school of facts, with industry, or, what is the same thing, with induction. Even its true results, with the exception of a very few general cases, cannot be confirmed by an appeal to self-evidence ; so little attestation of the ma- jority of truths does "the self" at present carry with it. When we are told by a writer like Swedenborg, that a horse corresponds to intellectual truth, an ass to scientific truth, a camel to general scientifics, the mind makes almost no re- sponse to so bizarre a statement, and we even doubt the very existence of the principle which forces us into any such details. And why ? Only because we' expect to arrive at the truth of these matters by the force of our inexperience ; because philosophy is too proud to submit to induction. Otherwise we should suspend our judgment absolutely, until either the assertion were confirmed or denied by numerous true or false results, or by our repetition of the process by which it was arrived at. For, in contradicting it, we are supplanting something by nothing, and arguing that the first appearance of unlikeliness is justly condemnatory of all as- sertions ; than which nothing can be more contrary to fact ; for truth is stranger than fiction, and spirit and nature are more exquisitely modish and formal than human artificiaHty. And what is the way to extend the science of correspon- dences, or rather to develope the general idea into a science ? Undoubtedly, by studying the uses of all things to whatever is around and above them, and so pressing inwards from Correspondence. 137 every side to humanity, whose nature is spirit, and whose hght is hfe ; also by studying the evolutions of humanity, as it goes out to meet the uses of the creation, and to marry them by correspondence. But it is in the Word of God especially that the study of correspondence may begin, and has begun. For the material elements of the Word are the central symbols of nature ; the object of the Word is the universal being, even mankind ; and the life of the Word is God. Here, then, is the concentration of things, the divinely selected field of the principles of science. For this reason, perhaps, the objects mentioned in the Word may have a car- dinal and representative peculiarity in themselves, so as to constitute them a just abridgment of nature ; and the science of correspondences, without ignoring other objects, may at least begin with them ; especially as the Father of our spirits uses them as the immediate vehicles of His instructions, which nature in itself is not, save by reflection, and through long sciences. But, however this may be, probably the first attempt should consist in the verification of those correspondences which are already alleged in worthy writers ; also a gather- ing up of those which are implied in human discourse, and in the very texture of many languages. This verification may be attempted by the construction of new tables, representing in series the uses of each object, and dividing these series into degrees ; by which means the connections of nature with nature wiU be wonderfully opened to the mind, and things will be brought together which never shook hands in human sight before. Also the upper term must be similarly tabled with reference to the mind. And then the correspondence may be tried, as the spiritual die and the natural cast are per- fected. By such tables, not one of which, to my knowledge, has ever been framed, — for the corn of nature has had no granary, though the straw has been carefully stacked, — the mind will be led fi-om sphere to sphere, through regions more wide even on this earth than all our present conceptions of universal existence, and will prove the truth of the adage, that any road duly followed up will lead to the end of the world, and that there is a love in all things which enlarges the least spaces to infinity, and that uses are the vessels or 18 138 Correspondence. channels whereby it circulates humanely through all things. I beheve that the construction of only six such tables would be such a wide gate of knowledge, such an oil of flexibility, such a clue to more than Cretan labyrinths, such a highway to the acknowledgment of God, that it would open an age of new intellectual power, and form indeed the veritable begin- ning of the inductive study of the spiritual sciences. We said before, that it requires experience of both the terms, in order to perceive their reciprocal correspondence : we may now add, that it will also require genius, according to the express declaration of Swedenborg, that great induc- tive student of correspondences. Both these assertions are indeed but truisms ; for where is the science, or where the part of any science, how physical soever it matters not, which has not had to wait for the celestial gifts of experience and genius, before it could take its seat in the Congress of Know- ledge ? Genius, in the sense of mental fitness for this study, im- plies especially a harmony of mind with the ends of creation, and an entrance thereby into the streams of causative wis- dom ; and as correspondence is the connection of things, so also it is their dehght and love, and dehght and tranquility and sweet opportimity are the conditions of the soul which are the most generative of the perceptions of correspondence. Therefore the poets hitherto have dwelt in this bond more than others, because they have been resigned and childlike, and have walked with God in liberty, and been content to drink of the river of his pleasures. Correspondence, we said, is the nexus of creation, and it will therefore be especially manifest in what Lord Bacon calls transitive instances, when, in point of fact, creation is taking place. For example, if, when thoughts were arising in the mind, birds of various kinds were invariably to arise in the heavens or upon the earth, the mind would be at no difficulty to assign the minute correspondence between the two things thus emerging piecemeal into visibility together. Such new creations would be startling evidences to common- sense perception. It is, however, clear that nature upon this planet is far less active now thaii in earlier ages, when the Corresporvdenci. 139 scenery of existence, and the living souls of the drama, were entirely changed from age to age, and new species and gen- era arose in myriads out of the womb of the universal mother. Also the activity of the human mind is similarly in abeyance. Scores of sacred books, of influential religions, whose fossils are now extant in Asia and in the traditions of Northern Europe, originated from the powers of man in remoter periods, and were as collateral growths in the great banyan tree of primitive Revelation. These religions were at that time spiritual, and full of correspondences. Given out by particular men, they yet manifestly wore the impress of the spirit-land, and were genuine powers in nature. They held commissions from heaven, and kept the consciences of na- tions. Modern ages, however, until of late, have not pro- duced one such hieroglyphic, with the exception of the Revelations of Mahomet and Swedenborg. The ages of metaphysical philosophy are not ages of spiritual productive- ness, but of doubt, fear, and inaction. They cudgel nature for what they gain, and fail of her co-operation. The world is as stubborn as an ass to their elaborate sciences. It is not remarkable that impuissant ages should know nothing of creation, and nothing of correspondence, since they are not themselves creative ; and nature reflects, by correspondence, their own barrenness and hypocrisy, and appears therefore to be callous and dead to humanity and the soul. Hypocrisy I say, because hypocrisy is a superior term of non-correspondence. And this hypocrisy lies in the real sensuality and theoretical Puritanism of metaphysical philo- sophy, which, recognizing the immense perceptions and pos- sessions of the senses, makes of the miiid only the sharp point of the pyramid, of which sense is the broad basis ; and consequently gives the senses all power ; or power as posses- sors of all within the horizon, while the mind is limited to a pin's point in space ; for the conception of a mind absolutely sundered from space is a mere pretenqe, which words neces- sarily repudiate. However, under the expansive influence of a doctrine and progressive science of correspondences, this pyramidal mode of thought, in which like a wasting flame ttie mind rises 140 Correspomdence. upwards, and the point of perfection is the point of cessation, must give place to columnar progress, in which the length and breadth of the spiritual world will be recognized as the top of worldly knowledge, and the sohdity of all things in and from their first principles will be guaranteed by our dis- tinct perception of the inahenable spaces that are occupied by their spiritual beginnings. Then will idealism and mate- rialism be shouldered over the verge of the world by the exceeding fuhiess thereof; and the fitness of things for their perceived Divine ends will again engender, as at first, the profound study of correspondence, as the beginning and end of knowledge, or the Science of sciences. For, properly speaking, the uses of things are the princi- pal knowledges, or the principles of knowledge, and the uses of things are the reasons of usage, or the grounds of corre- spondency ; and as all things, whether ends, causes or effects, also have specific uses, so all things are made into ends by the first end, and are the subjects of correspondence. Thus correspondence is transferred outwards, with ends, from sphere to sphere, and is omnipresent in the great circle of the universe. Its science is thus the crown of those sciences which show the adaptation of nature to the developments of humanity ; and the analytic investigation of uses or ends is the point of union between the ancient and the modern worlds, — between the physical sciences as now studied, and the ancient science of correspondence. The doctrine of correspondence teaches the value and the limits of circumstances in affecting our minds and actions, and shows in what powerful spiritual streams outw-ard situa- tions and events may place us. Without in the slightest degree perilhng the doctrine of free-will, it rather makes the strength of that freedom an object of statistic and experi- mental, than of a priori knowledge. It shows that circum- stances are the nidus of both heaven and' hell ; and that the presence of the innermost good depends upon the presence of an order corresponding to it, in the disposition of society, and the distribution of the world ; for every corporeal being, of whatever kind, is used or animated by the spiritual world according to its form, and its form is the essence which pro- Correspondence. 141 ceeds from without, even as the essence is the form proceed- ing from within. In short, outward natm-e, hereditary nature, the influences of the age, the instructions of the parent and the teacher, the Ught of truth and revelation, are all circum- stances ; and will is the organ which acts according to them, or not at all ; and freedom is the state of preparation, before the will is fully made up to act. Thus man is the conductor of correspondences, and also the modifier ; for, in making what use of things he pleases, man draws down new and different influences from the spiritual sphere, which give rise to new and appropriate extensions of the creation. In fine, the science of fcorrespondence is the most mathe- matical, mechanical, or intellectual of the sciences. The foundation of it is justice or equation, and the working of the law ensures permanent equilibrium in the world. Grounded primarily for human knowledge upon the felt correspondence of the soul with the body, and the connection between the two, it first infers, and then scientifically demonstrates, the pervading fact of correspondence and connection in aU other relations. Correspondence of the individual with the society, of both with the world, of all with the Word, and of the Word with Divine Truth in the heavens, is in reahty the bond wherewith God has bound in one the sheaves of his great universe. It is the system of the world. The perception of this, or of the uses of things, is one important phasis of the un- derstanding of universals. When this understanding comes, the main study wiU be to put things through all their uses, or to bring nature into generative conditions with spirit. From the bed of this state, new creations must arise in all the kingdoms of nature, so as to gratify the heavens with many and desirable children ; and the earth, even as Sarah, will smile, in her apparent old age, at the fertility of the regenerate creation. " The barren woman shall rejoice, and be a fruitful mother of children." Then the doctrine will be exempUfied, not in schools or dry diagrams, but in garden and in grove, in arts like nature, and in growths like art, in new messengers of truth and instruction, growing in the night from the sportive soil, from no seed but heaven, yet with no mystery, because in the fulness of time, and in the 142 Correspondence. attraction of requirement ; and, even in the physical world, the use and beauty and completing series of all things will be as an advancing testimony of the correspondence of God with nature, and of that supreme correspondence which con- stitutes the Marriage of the Lamb. POSTSCRIPTUM. From what has been said we may infer, that the relation of cause and effect, as of end and cause, is no other than the relation of correspondence ; and that the perception of causation depends primarily upon our perception of the uses of effects as carrying out causes. This appKes to that which is strictly causation. The continuity of the principle reaches, however, to the relation of prior and superior to posterior and inferior effects. Thus there is the evolution of actual will into forcible motion, in which production the will passes as motion into the dead sphere, or will is the cause and soul of motion, as motion is the effect and body of will. This is a case of genuine correspondence ; for will and motion are each the other, or the others. Will is spiritual force, or force raised into the spiritual world ; force, or active motion, is will dropped down into the lower world : the difference of cause and effect being therefore only the difference between the two spheres into which one single principle introduces itself. Besides the alteration or quaUfication of will into motion, there is also the expansion and vibration of motion into widening natural spheres, or the transference and trans- mission of motion from one subject to another. This is the only kind of cause and effect recognized by one class of metaphysicians. It also is, however, only the continuity of a single principle through different cu-cumstahces ; and that principle is force, and that force is will, the unimpaired transference and account of which fall under the head of the mechanical and dynamical, and not of so-called meta- physical sciences. If any one asks what is power, we say therefore that it is originally will, and no abstraction, but embodied in the human arm ; and that from this centrai body and symbol it is transferred to all machineries, and extends Correspondence. 143 through the world as a Divine arm, or Almighty power. For the arts are the comparative anatomy of the will and understanding, the three kingdoms of mind, as the three kingdoms of nature are the comparative anatomy of the soul. And there might with profit be a parallel distribution of the two into mineral, vegetable, and animal ; the body, in both eases, being, though in different departments, a fourth, or what Fourier denominates, the hominal kingdom. Besides justifying the common-sense perceptions of cause and effect, correspondence also justifies the usage of analo- gies, metaphors, and similitudes, so frequent by the human mind, and so attractive in discourse when fitly used. For the one infinitely manifold principle of creation passes down into the worlds by indefinite streams or series, and yet is but one principle, reahzing many uses, tending all to the return to unity. For example, all things in our houses are for the one end of enfranchising man from the wants and forces of nature; and therefore they all carry one principle, but sub- divide or anatomize it into different parts. Thus are they all images of one principle, and all, therefore, images also of one another ; for things that are equal to the same are equal to each other. Hence there is nothing but resembles, if we catch the, right point of view, aU other things in all worlds. The human body is an image of the cosmical body ; the house, of both ; the room, of all three ; the trades and com- merces also, of aU ; and so forth. So the creation may, in considering its analogies, be regarded as a globe, on which the poles are the generative centres, from which radiate, and to which converge, the lines of longitude. These lines each correspond in its whole length ; the frigid to the temperate, the temperate to the torrid. The first part of the line engen- ders the second, and the second the third. This generation is, and is by, correspondence. Analogy may be represented by the lines of latitude, which intersect the former, and bring them all into relation, making of the whole a solid coherent sphere. The lines of analogy are not, moreover, merely straight, but rim in all curves and declinations, and make the coherence of aU things most rhultiple and safe. These lines are to be studied by the constitution of a science of uni- 144 Correspondence. versa! analogies, whose home shall be the entire globe of knowledge. It is the most superficial in contact with the most deep of the sciences ; Analogy in contact with Corre- spondency ; Poetry and Imagination in contact with Divine, Creative Truth ; human fancies justified and accepted by God himself: for it is impossible for the most vagrant fancy to fancy half the odd analogies which science reveals ; and hence fancy will become but the useful matter of fact, incom- prehensive scullery-maid of science. As instances of these analogies, we may cite many things from the superficial parts of the animal kingdom. Thus, for instance, — not to mention man, who is like all the animals, which similitude occasionally blazes out with striking splendor, as in the pig-faced lady,^— the Ox tribe, in the buffalo, the bison, the aurochs, &c., by its mane and contour, evidently touches upon the lion, the fountain of the feline ; by the Brahmin bull, and other species with humps, it touches upon the camel tribe ; by other characteristics, with the deer tribe ; and so forth. The ass, by the zebra, touches upon the tiger ; and the tiger, and the cats, by their marks, as well as their flexibility, upon the snakes. The camel, very evidently, as Fourier has said, upon the slave ; the toad upon the pauper ; and so forth. The blushing rose upon the maiden's cheek ; the fragrance upon her modesty. Flowers upon sexual characteristics and de- hghts ; and so forth. All these analogies, which extend causation laterally, or give breadth to correspondency, are, in our view, as much running lines of the creation as the lines of correspondency, and are not fanciful, unless fancy be ad- mitted as a poor caterer for science. In a word, in the orb of thought, they are, as we said before, the Divine or real lines of latitude ; the relation and friendliness of truth sub- sisting between all things. It is not going too far to say, that Analogy is the breadth or the truth of truth. It is the intersection of the mountains and rivers and hedgerows of analogy that makes the field of truth to be, not a blank arena with a mathematical diagram, but a Hving landscape. It is analogy which gives flowing imagery to all ideas ; for that which is not the body of a truth, which is not in its immediate sphere, becomes its clothing. Main-street. 145 Thus all things are indifferently bodies or clothes, and these clothes are themselves created and living. Analogy is indeed the breadth of truth, because it shows how the true is true diversely in many things or parallel fields ; and, in continuity with that analogy which consists in the relation between parallel streams of existence, there is that mere likeness which appears every now and then on the very surface of nature, and proclaims a connection where its reason and principle are at present inscrutable. By such points of likeness every thing is surrounded, and becomes a plenary mean even in visible appearance to other things all around it : as between the stag's antlers and forest-trees ; between flowers and in- sects, butterflies and papilionacese, &c. &c. Thus, at the very bottom of the vegetable kingdom, a substance, the mush- room, fungi, &c. blazes out precisely like animal substance. Aet. VIII. — MAIN-STREET. A RESPECTABLE-looking individual makes his bow, and ad- dresses the pubhc. In my daily walks along the principal street of my native town, it has often occurred to me, that, if its growth from infancy upward, and the vicissitude of characteristic scenes that have passed along this thorough- fare, during the more than two centuries of its existence, could be presented to the eye in a shifting panorama, it would be an exceedingly efFfective method of illustrating the march of time. Acting on this idea, I have contrived a certain pictorial exhibition, somewhat in the nature of a puppet-show, by means of which I propose to call up the multiform and many-colored Past before the spectator, and show him the ghosts of his forefathers, amid a succession of historic incidents, with no greater trouble than the turning of a crank. Be pleased, therefore, my indulgent patrons, to walk into the show-room, and take your seats before yonder mysterious curtain. The little wheels and springs of my machinery have been well oiled ; a multitude of puppets are 19 146 Main-street. dressed in character, representing all varieties of fashion, from the Puritan cloak and jerkin to the latest Oak Hall coat ; the lamps are trimmed, and shall brighten into noon- tide sunshine, or fade away in moonlight, or muffle their brilliancy in a November cloud, as the nature of the scene may require ; and, in short, the exhibition is just ready to commence. Unless something should go wrong, — as, for instance, the misplacing of a picture, whereby the people and events of one century might be thrust into the middle of another ; or the breaking of a wire, which would bring the course of time to a sudden period, — barring, I say, the casu- alties to which such a comphcated piece of mechanism is liable, I flatter myself, ladies and gentlemen, that the per- formance will elicit your generous approbation. Ting-a-ting-ting ! goes the bell ; the curtain rises ; and we behold — not, indeed, the Main-street — but the tract of leaf- strewn forest-land, over which its dusty pavement is hereafter to extend. You perceive, at a glance, that this is the ancient and primitive wood, — the ever-youthful and venerably old, — verdant with new twigs, yet hoary, as it were, with the snow- fall of innumerable years, that have accumulated upon its intermingled branches. The white man's axe has never smitten a single tree ; his footstep has never crumpled a single one of the withered leaves, which all the autumns since the flood have been harvesting beneath. Yet, see ! along through the vista of impending boughs, there is already a faintly-traced path, running nearly east and west, as if a pro- phecy or foreboding of the future street had stolen into the heart of the solemn old wood. Onward goes this hardly perceptible track, now ascending over a natural swell of land, now subsiding gently into a hollow ; traversed here by a httle streamlet, which gUtters like a snake through the gleam of sunshine, and quickly hides itself among the under- brush, in its quest for the neighboring cove ; and impeded there by the massy corpse of a giant of the forest, which had Uved out its incalculable term of life, and been overthrown by mere old age, and lies buried in the new vegetation that is born of its decay. What footsteps can have worn this half- Main-street. 147 seen path? Hark! Do we not hear them now rusthng softly over the leaves ? "We discern an Indian woman — a majestic and queenly woman, or else her spectral image does not represent her truly — for this is the great Squaw Sachem, whose rule, with that of her sons, extends from Mystic to Agawam. That red chief, who stalks by her side, is Wap- pacowet, her second husband, the priest and magician, whose incantations shall hereafter affright the pale-faced settlers with grisly phantoms, dancing and shrieking in the woods, at midnight. But greater would be the affright of the Indian necromancer, if, mirrored in the pool of water at his feet, he could catch a prophetic glimpse of the noon-day marvels which the white man is destined to achieve ; if he could see, as in a dream, the stone-front of the stately hall, which will cast its shadow over this very spot; if he could be aware that the future edifice will contain a noble Museum, where, among countless curiosities of earth and sea, a few Indian arrow-heads shall be treasured up as memorials of a vanished race ! No such forebodings disturb the Squaw Sachem and Wap- pacowet. They pass on, beneath the tangled shade, holding high talk on matters of state and religion, and imagine, doubtless, that their own system of affairs will endure for ever. Meanwhile, how fuU of its own proper life is the scene that lies around them ! The gray squirrel runs up the trees, and rustles among the upper branches. Was not that the leap of a deer ? And there is the whirr of a partridge ! Methinks, too, I catch the cruel and stealthy eye of a wolf, as .he draws back into yonder impervious density of under- brush. So, there, amid the murmur of boughs, go the Indian queen and the Indian priest ; while the gloom of the broad wilderness impends over them, and its sombre mystery in- vests them as with something preternatural ; and only mo- mentary streaks of quivering sunlight, once in a great while, find their way down, and glimmer among the feathers in their dusky hair. Can it be that the thronged street of a city will ever pass into this twilight solitude, — over those soft heaps of the decaying tree-trunks^ — and through the -swampy places, green with water-moss, — and penetrate 148 Main-street. that hopeless entanglement of great trees, which have been uprooted and tossed together by a whirlwind ! It has been a wilderness from the creation. Must it not be a wilderness for ever ? Here an acidulous-looking gentleman in blue, glasses, with bows of Berlin steel, who has taken a seat at the extremity of the front row, begins, at this early stage of the exhibition, to criticise. "The Avhole affair is a manifest catch-penny," observes he, scarcely under his breath. " The trees look more hke weeds in a garden, thaii a primitive forest; the Squaw Sachem and Wappacowet are stiff in their pasteboard joints ; and the squirrels, the deer, and the wolf, move with all the grace of a child's wooden monkey, sHding up and down a stick." " I am obliged to you, sir, for the candor of your remarks," replies the showman, with a bow. " Perhaps they are just. Human art has its limits, and we must now and then ask a little aid from the spectator's imagination." "You will get no such aid from mine," responds the critic. " I make it a point to see things precisely as they are. But come ! go ahead ! — the stage is waiting ! " The showman proceeds. Casting our eyes again over the scene, we perceive that strangers have found their way into the solitary place. In more than one spot, among the trees, an upheaved axe is glittering in the sunshine. Roger Conant, the first settler in Naumkeag, has built his dwelling, months ago, on the border of the forest-path ; and at this moment he comes eastward through the vista of woods, with his gun over his shoulder, bringing home the choice portions of a deer. His stalwart figure, clad in a leathern jerkin and breeches of the same, strides sturdily onward, with such an air of physical force and energy, that we might almost expect the very trees to stand aside, and give him room to pass. And so, indeed, they must ; for, humble as is his name in history, Roger Conant still is of that class of men who do not merely find, but make, their place in the system of human affairs : a man of thoughts ful strength, he has planted the germ of a city. There stands Main-street. 149 his habitation, showing in its rough architecture some features of the Indian wigwam, and some of the log-cabin, and some- what, too, of the straw-thatched cottage in Old England, where this good yeoman had his birth and breeding. The dwelling is surrounded by a cleared space of a few acres, where Indian corn grows thrivingly among the stumps of the trees ; while the dark forest hems it in, and seems to gaze silently and solemnly, as if wondering at the breadth of sun- shine which the white man spreads around him. An Indian, half hidden in the dusky shade, is gazing and wondering too. Within the door of the cottage, you discern the wife, with her ruddy EngUsh cheek. She is singing, doubtless, a psalm- tune, at her household work ; or perhaps she sighs at the remembrance of the cheerful gossip, and all the merry social life, of her native village beyond the vast and melancholy sea. Yet the next moment she laughs, with sympathetic glee, at the sports of her little tribe of children, and soon turns round, with the home-look in hpr face, as her husband's foot is heard approaching the rough-hewn threshold. How sweet must it be for those who have an Eden in their hearts, hke Roger Conant and his wife, to find a new world to project it into, as they have ; instead of dwelling among old haunts of men, where so many household fires have been kindled and burnt out, that the very glow of happiness has something dreary in it ! Not that this pair are alone in their wild Eden ; for here comes Goodwife Massey, the young spouse of Jeff- rey Massey, from her home hard by, with an infant at her breast. Dame Conant has another of like age ; and it shall hereafter be one of the disputed points of history, which of these two babies was the first town-born child. But see ! Roger Conant has other neighbors within view. Peter Palfrey likewise has buUt himself a house, and so has Balch and Norman and Woodbury. Their dwelhngs, indeed, — such is the ingenious contrivance of this piece of pictorial mechanism, — seem to have arisen, at various points of the scene, even while we have been looking , at it. The fqjr est- track, trodden more and more by the hob-nailed shoes of these sturdy and ponderous Englishmen, has now a distinctness & 150 Main-street. which it never could have acquired from the light tread of a hundred times as many Indian moccasins. It will be a street, anon. As we observe it now, it goes onward from one clearing to another, here plunging into a shadowy strip of woods, there open to the sunshine, but everywhere showing a decided line, along which human interests have begun to hold their career. Over yonder swampy spot, two trees have been felled, and laid side by side, to make a causeway. In another place, the axe has cleared away a confused intricacy of fallen trees and clustered boughs, which had been tossed together by a hurricane. So, now, the little children, just beginning to run alone, may trip along the path, and not often stumble over an impediment, unless they stray from it to gather wood-berries beneath the trees. And, besides the feet of grown people and children, there are the cloven hoofs of a small herd of cows, who seek their subsistence from the native grasses, and help to deepen the track of the future thoroughfare. Goats also browse along it, and nibble at the twigs that thrust themselves, across the way. Not seldom, in its more secluded portions, where the black shadow of the forest strives to hide the trace of human footsteps, stalks a gaunt wolf, on the watch for a kid or a young calf; or fixes his hungry gaze on the group of children gathering berries, and can hardly forbear to rush upon them. And the Indians, coming from their distant wigwams to view the white man's settlement, marvel at the deep track which he makes, .and perhaps are saddened by a flitting presentiment, that this heavy tread wiU find its way over aU the land; and that the wild woods, the wild wolf, and the wild Indian, wiU alike be trampled beneath it. Even so shall it be. The pave- ments of the Main-street must be laid over the red man's grave. Behold ! here is a spectacle which should be ushered in by the peal of trumpets, if Naumkeag had ever yet heard that cheery music, and by the roar of cannon, echoing among the woods. A procession — for, by its dignity, as marking an ^och in the history of the street, it deserves that name, — a procession advances along the pathway. The good ship Abigail has arrived from England, bringing wares and mer- Main-street. 151 chandise, for the comfort of the inhabitants, and traffic with the Indians ; bringing passengers too, and, more important than all, a Governor for the new settlement. Roger Conant and Peter Palfrey, with their companions, have been to the shore to welcome him ; and now, with such honor and tri- umph as their rude way of life permits, are escorting the sea-flushed voyagers to their habitations. At the point where Endicott enters upon the scene, two venerable trees unite their branches high above his head ; thus forming a triumphal arch of living verdure, beneath which he pauses, with his wife leaning on his arm, to catch the first impression of their new-found home. The old settlers gaze not less earnestly at him, than he at the hoary woods and the rough surface of the clearings. They like his bearded face, under the shadow of the broad-brimmed and steeple-crowned Puritan hat ; — a visage, resolute, grave, and thoughtful, yet apt to kindle with that glow of a cheerful spirit, by which men of strong character are enabled, to go joyfully on their proper tasks. His form, too, as you see it, in a doublet and hose of sad- colored cloth, is of a manly make, fit for toil and hardship, and fit to wield the heavy sword that hangs from his leathern belt. His aspect is a better warrant for the ruler's office, than the parchment commission which he bears, however ■fortified it may be with the broad seal of the London council. Peter Palfrey nods to Roger Conant. " The worshipful Court of Assistants have done wisely," say they between themselves. " They have chosen for our governor a man out of a thousand." Then they toss up their hats, — they, and aU the uncouth figures, of their company, most of whom are clad in skins, inasmuch as their old kersey and Hnsey- woolsey garments have been torn and tattered by many a long month's wear, — they aU toss up their hats, and salute their new governor and captain with a hearty Enghsh shout of welcome. We seem to hear it with our own ears ; so perfectly is the action represented in this hfe-hke, this almost magic picture ! But have you observed the lady who leans upon the arm of Endicott? — arose of beauty from an English garden, now to be transplanted to a fresher soil. It may be, that, 152 Main-street. long years — centuries indeed — after this fair flower shall have decayed, other flowers of the same race will appear in the same soil, and gladden other generations with hereditary beauty. Does not the vision haunt us yet ? Has not Na- ture kept the mould unbroken, deemuig it a pity that the idea should vanish from mortal sight for ever, after only once assuming earthly substance ? Do. we not recognize, in that fair woman's face, the model of features which still beam, at happy moments, on what was then the woodland pathway, but has long since grown into a busy street ? " This is too ridiculous ! — positively insufferable ! " mut- ters the same critic who had before expressed his disapproba- tion. " Here is a pasteboard figure, such as a child would . cut out of a card, with a pair of very dull scissors ; and the fellow modestly requests us to see in it the prototype of hereditary beauty ! " " But, sir, " you have not the proper point of view," re- marks the showman. " You sit altogether too near to get the best effect of my pictorial exhibition. Pray, obUge me by removing to this other bench ; and, I venture to assure you, the proper Ught and shadow will transform the spectacle into quite another thing." " Pshaw ! " rephes the critic : "I want no other hght and shade. I have already told you, that it is my business to see things just as they are." " I would suggest to the author of this ingenious exhibi- tion," observes a gentlemanly person, who has shown signs of being much interested, — "I would suggest, that Anna Gower, the first wife of Governor Endicott, and who came with him from England, left no posterity ; and that, conse- quently, we cannot be indebted to that honorable lady for any specimens of feminine loveliness, now extant among us." Having nothing to allege against this genealogical objec- tion, the showman points again to the scene. < During this little interruption, you perceive that the Anglo- Saxon energy — as the phrase now goes — has been at work in the spectacle before us. So many chimneys now send up their smoke, that it begins to have the aspect of a village street ; although every thing is so inartificial and inceptive. Main-street. 153 that it seems as if one returning wave of the wild nature might overwhelm it all. But the one edifice, which gives the pledge of permanence to this bold enterprise, is seen at the central point of the picture. There stands the meet- ing-house, a small structure, low-roofed, without a spire, and built of rough timber, newly hewn, with the sap still in the logs, and here and there a strip of bark adhering to them. A meaner temple was never consecrated to the worship of the Deity. "With the alternative of kneeling beneath the awful vault of the firmament, it is strange that men should creep into this pent-up nook, and expect God's presence there. Such, at least, one would imagine, might be the feel- ing of these forest-settlers, accustomed, as they had been, to stand under the dim arches of vast cathedrals, and to offer up their hereditary worship in the old, ivy-covered churches of rural England, around which lay the bones of many gen- erations of theij* forefathers. How could they dispense with the carved altar- work ? — how, with the pictured windowSj where the light of common day was hallowed by being trans- mitted through the glorified figures of saints ? — how, with the lofty roof, imbued, as it must have been, with the prayers that had gone upward for centuries ? — how, with the rich peal of the solemn organ, rolling along the aisles, pervading the whole church, and sweeping the soul away on a flood of audible rehgion ? They needed nothing of all this. Their house of worship, like their ceremonial, was naked, simple, and severe. But the zeal of a recovered faith burned like a lamp within their hearts, enriching every thing around them with its radiance ; making of these new walls, and this nar- row compass, its own cathedral; and being, in itself, that spiritual mystery and experience, of which sacred architec- ture, pictured windows, and the organ's grand solemnity, are remote and imperfect symbols. All was well, so long as their lamps were freshly kindled at the heavenly flame. After a while, however, whether in their time or their chil- dren's, these lamps began to burn more dimly, or with a less genuine lustre ; and then it might be seen, how hard, cold, and confined, was their system, — how like an iron cage was that which they called Liberty ! 20 154 Mmi-street. Too much of this. Look again at the picture, and observe how the aforesaid Anglo-Saxon energy is now trampling along the. street, and raising a positive cloud of dust beneath its sturdy footsteps. For there the carpenters are building a new house, the frame of which was hewn and fitted in Eng- land, of English oak, and sent hither on shipboard ; and here a blacksmith makes huge clang and clatter on his anvil, shap- ing out tools and weapons ; and yonder a wheelwright, who boasts himself a London workman, regularly bred to his hand- icraft, is fashioning a set of wagon- wheels, the track of which shall soon be visible. The wild forest is shrinking back; the street has lost the aromatic odor of the puie-trees, and of the sweet fern that grew beneath them. The tender and modest wild-flowers, those gentle children of savage nature that grew pale beneath the ever-brooding shade, have shrunk away and disappeared, like stars that vanish in the breadth of hght. Gardens are fenced in, and display pumpkin-beds and rows of cabbages and beans ; and, though the governor and the minister both view them with a disapproving eye, plants of broad-leaved tobacco, which the cultivators are enjoined to use privily, or not at all. No wolf, for a year past, has been heard to bark, or known to range among the dwellings, except- that single one whose grisly head, with a plash of blood beneath it, is now affixed to the portal of the meeting- house. The partridge has ceased to run across the too- frequented path. Of all the wild life that used to throng here, only the Indians stiU come into the settlement, bringing the skins of beaver and otter, bear and elk, which they sell to Endicott for the wares of England. And there is little John Massey, the son of Jef&ey Massey and first-born of Naum- keag, playing beside his father's threshold, a child of six or seven years old. Which is the better-grown infant, — the town or the boy ? The red men have become aware, that the street is no lon- ger free to them, save by the sufferance and permission of the settlers. Often, to impress them with an awe of English power, there is a muster and training of the town-forces, and a stately march of the mail-clad band, like this which we now see advancing up the street. There they come, fifty Main-street. 155 of them, or more ; all with their iron breastplates and steel- caps well burnished, and glimmering bravely against the sun ; their ponderous muskets on their shoulders, their bandaJiers about their waists, their lighted matches in their hands, and the drum and fife playing cheerily before them. See ! do they not step like martial men ? Do they not manoeuvre hke soldiers who have seen stricken fields ? And well they may ; for this band is composed of precisely such materials as those with which Cromwell is preparing to beat down the strength of a kingdom ; and his famous regiment of Ironsides might be recruited from just such men. In every thing, at this period. New England was the essential spirit and flower of that which was about to become uppermost in the mother- country. Many a bold and wise man lost the fame which would have accrued to him in English history, by crossing the Atlantic with our forefathers. Many a valiant captain, who might have been foremost at Marston Moor or Naseby, exhausted his martial ardor in the command of a log-built fortress, like that which you observe on the gently rising ground at the right of the pathway, — its banner fluttering in the breeze, and the culverins and sakers showing their deadly muzzles over the rampart. A multitude of people were now thronging to New Eng- land ; some, because the ancient and ponderous frame-work of Church and State threatened to crumble down upon their heads ; others, because they despaired of such a downfall. Among those who came to Naumkeag were men of history and legend, whose feet leave a track of brightness along any pathway which they have trodden. You shall behold their life-like images, — their spectres, if you choose so to call them, — passing, encountering with a familiar nod, stopping to converse together, praying, bearing weapons, laboring or resting from their labors, in the Main-street. Here, now, comes Hugh Peters, an earnest, restless man, walking swiftly, as being impelled by that fiery activity of nature which shall hereafter thrust him into the conflict of dangerous affairs, make him the chaplain and counsellor of Cromwell, and finally bring him to a bloody end. He pauses, by the meeting- house, to exchange a greeting with Roger Williams, whose 156 Main-street. face indicates, methinks, a gentler spirit, kinder and more expansive, than that of Peters ; yet not less active for v\rhat he discerns to be the will of God, or the welfare of mankind. And look ! here is a guest for Endicott, coming forth out of the forest, through which he has been journeying from Boston, and which, with its rude branches, has caught hold of his attire, and has wet his feet with its swamps and streams. Still there is something in his mild and venerable, though not aged presence, — a propriety, an, equilibrium in Governor Win- throp's nature, that causes the disarray of his costume to be unnoticed, and gives us the same impression as if he were clad in such grave and rich attire as we may suppose him to have worn in the Council Chamber of the colony. Is not this characteristic wonderfully perceptible in our spectral repre- sentative of his person ? But what dignitary is this crossing from the other side to greet the governor ? A stately per- sonage, in a dark velvet cloak, with a hoary beard, and a gold chain across his breast : he has the authoritative port of one Avho has filled the highest civic station in the first of cities. Of all men in the world, we should least expect to meet the ' Lord Mayor of London — as Sir Richard SaltonstaU has been, once and again — in a forest-bordered settlement of the western wilderness. Farther down the street, we see Emanuel Downing, a grave and worthy citizen, with his son George, a stripling who has a career before him : his shrewd and quick capacity and pHant conscience shall not only exalt him high, but secure him from a downfall. Here is another figure, on whose characteristic make and expressive action I will stake the credit of my pic- torial puppet-show. Have you not ahready detected a quaint, sly humor in that face, — an eccentricity in the manner, — a certain indescribable waywardness, — all the marks, in short, of an original man, unmistakeably impressed, yet kept down by a sense of clerical restraint ? That is Nathaniel Ward, the minister of Ipswich, but better remembered as the simple cobbler of Agawam. He hammered his sole so faithfully, and stitched his upper-leather so well, that the shoe is hardly yet worn out, though thrown aside for some two centuries past. And next, among these Puritans and Roundheads, we Main-street. 157 observe the very model of a Cavalier, with the curling love- lock, the fantastically trimmed beard, the embroidery, the orna- mented rapier, the gilded dagger, and all other foppishnesses that distinguished the wild gallants who rode headlong to their overthrow in the cause of King Charles. This is Morton of Merry Mount, who has come hither to hold a council with Endi- cott, but will shortly be his prisoner. Yonder pale, decaying figure of a Avhite-robed woman who glides slowly along the street, is the Lady Arabella, looking for her own grave in the virgin soil. That other female form, who seems to be talk- ing — we might almost say preaching or expounding — in the centre of a group of profoundly attentive auditors, is Ann Hutchinson. And here comes Vane. " But, my dear sir," interrupts the same gentleman who before questioned the showman's genealogical accuracy, *' allow me to observe, that these historical personages could not possibly have met together in the Main-street. They might, and probably did, all visit our old town, at one time or another, but not simultaneously ; and you have fallen into anachronisms that I positively shudder to think of ! " " The fellow," adds the scarcely civil critic, " has learned a bead-roll of historic names, whom he lugs into his pictorial puppet-show, as he calls it, helter-skelter, without caring whether they were contemporaries or not, — and sets them all by the ears together. But was there ever such a fund of impudence ! To hear his running commentary, you would suppose that these miserable slips of painted pasteboard, with hardly the remotest outlines of the human figure, had all the character and expression of Michael Angelo's pictures. WeU! — goon, sir!" " Sir, you break the illusion of the scene," mildly remon- strates the showman. " Illusion ! What illusion ? " rejoins the critic, with a con- temptuous snort. "On the word of a gentleman, I see nothing illusive in the wretchedly bedaubed sheet of canvass that forms your back-ground, or- in these pasteboard slips that hitch and jerk along the front. The only illusion, permit me to say, is in the puppet-showman's tongue, — and that but a wretched one, into the bargain ! " 158 Main-street. "We public men," replies the showman, meekly, "must lay our account, sometimes, to meet an uncandid severity of criticism. But — merely for your own pleasure, sir — let me entreat you to take another point of view. Sit further back, by that young lady, in whose face I have watched the reflection of every changing scene ; only oblige me by sitting there ; and, take my word for it, the slips of pasteboard shall assume spiritual life, and the bedaubed canvass become an airy and changeable reflex of what it purpor;ts to represent." " I know better," retorts the critic, setthng himself in his seat, with sullen, but self-complacent immovableness. " And, as for my own pleasure, I shall best consult it by remaining precisely where I am." The showman bows, and waves his hand; and, at the signal, as if time and vicissitude had been awaiting his per- mission to move onward, the mimic street becomes alive again. Years have rolled over our scene, and converted the forest- track into a dusty thoroughfare, which, being intersected with lanes and cross-paths, may fairly be designated as the Main- street. On the ground-sites of many of the log- built sheds, into which the first settlers crept for shelter, houses of quaint architecture have now risen. These later edifices are buUt, as you see, in one generally accordant style, though with such subordinate variety as keeps the beholder's curiosity excited, and causes each structure, like its owner's character, to pro- duce its own peculiar impression. Most of them have one huge chimney in the centre, with flues so vast that it must have been easy for the witches to fly out of them, as they were wont to do, when bound on a.n aerial visit to the Black Man in the forest. Around this great chimney the wooden house clusters itself, in a whole community of gable-ends, each ascending into its own separate peak ; the second story, with its lattice-windows, projecting over the first ; and the door, which is perhaps arched, provided on the outside with an iron hammer, wherewith the visitor's hand may give a thundering rat-a-tat. The timber frame-work of these houses, as compared with those of recent date, is like the skeleton of an old giant, beside the frail bones of a modern man of Main-street. 159 fashion. Many of ihem, by the vast strength and soundness of their oaken substance, have been preserved through a length of time which would have tried the stability of brick and stone ; so that, in all the progressive decay and con- tinual reconstruction of the street, down to our own days, we shall still behold these old edifices occupying their long- accustomed sites. For instance, on the upper corner of that green lane which shall hereafter be North-street, we see the Curwen House, newly built, with the carpenters still at work on the roof, nailing down the last sheaf of shingles. On the lower corner stands another dwelling, — destined, at some period of its existence, to be the abode of an unsuc- cessful alchymist, — which shall likewise survive to our own generation, and perhaps long outhve it. Thus, through the medium of these patriarchal edifices, we have now estab- lished a sort of kindred and hereditary acquaintance with the Main-street. Great as is the transformation produced by a short term of years, each single day creeps through the Puritan settlement sluggishly enough. It shall pass before your eyes, con- densed into the space of a few moments. The grey light of early morning is slowly diffusing itself over the scene ; and the bellman, whose office it is to cry the hour at the street- corners, rings the last peal upon his hand-bell, and goes wearily homewards, with the owls, the bats, and other crea- tures of the night. Lattices are thrust back on their hinges, as if the town were opening its eyes, in the summer morning. Forth stumbles the still drowsy cow-herd, with his horn; putting which to his hps, it emits a bellowing bray, impos- sible to be represented in the picture, but which reaches the pricked-up ears of every cow in the settlement, and tells her that the dewy pasture-hour is come. House after house awakes, and sends the smoke up curling from its chimney, like frosty breath from Uving nostrils; and as those white wreaths of smoke, though impregnated with earthy admix- tures, climb skyward, so, from each dwelling, does the morn- ing worship — its spiritual essence bearing up its human imperfection — find its way to the heavenly Father's throne. The breakfast-hour being past, the inhabitants do not, as 160 Main-street. usual, go to their fields or workshops, but remain within doors; or perhaps walk the street, with a grave sobriety, yet a disengaged and unburthened aspect, that belongs neither to a hoUday nor a Sabbath. And, indeed, this pass- ing day is neither, nor is it a common week-day, although partaking of all the three. It is the Thursday Lecture ; an institution which New England has long ago reUnquished, and almost forgotten, yet which it would have been better to retain, as bearing relations to both the spiritual and ordinary life, and bringing each acquainted with the other. The tokens of its observance, however, which here meet our eyes, are of rather a questionable cast. It is, in one sense, a day of pubhc shame ; the day on which transgressors, who have made themselves liable to the minor severities of the Puritan law, receive their reward of ignominy. At this very moment, the constable has bound an idle fellow to the whipping-post, and is giving him his deserts with a cat-o' -nine-tails. Ever since sunrise, Daniel Fairfield has been standing on the steps of the meeting-house, with a halter about his neck, which he is condemned to wear visibly throughout his lifetime ; Doro- thy Talby is chained to a post at the corner of Prison Lane, with the hot sun blazing on her matronly face, and all for no other offence than lifting her hand against her. husband; while, through the bars of that great wooden cage, in the centre of the scene, we discern either a human being or a wild beast, or both in one, whom this public infamy causes to roar, and gnash his teeth, and shake the strong oaken bars, as if he would break forth, and tear in pieces the little children who have been peeping at him. Such are the pro- fitable sights that serve the good people to while away the earher part of lecture-day. Betimes in the forenoon, a traveller — the first traveller that has come hitherward this morning — rides slowly into the street, on his patient steed. He seems a clergyman ; and, as he draws near, we recognize the minister of Lynn, who was pre-engaged to lecture here, and has been revolving his discourse, as he rode through the hoary wilderness. Behold, now, the whole town thi'onging into the meeting-house, mostly with such sombre visages, that the sunshine becomes little better than a shadow, when it falls Main-street. 161 upon them. There go the Thirteen Men, grim rulers of a grim community ! There goes John Massey, the first town- born child, now a youth of twenty, whose eye wanders with peculiar interest towards that buxom damsel Avho comes up the steps at the same instant. There hobbles Goody Foster, a sour and bitter old beldam, looking as if she went to curse, and not to pray, and whom many of her neighbors suspect of taking an occasional airing on a broomstick. There, too, slinking shamefacedly in, you observe that same poor do- nothing and good-for-nothing, whom we saw castigated just now at the whipping-post. Last of all, there goes the tithing- man, lugging in a couple of small boys, whom he has caught at play beneath God's blessed sunshine, in a back lane. What native of Naumkeag, whose recollections go back more than thirty years, does not still shudder at that dark ogre of his infancy, who perhaps had long ceased to have an actual existence, but still lived in his childish belief, in a hor- rible idea, and in the nurse's threat, as the Tidy Man ! It will be hardly worth our while to wait two, or it may be three, turnings of the hour-glass, for tlie conclusion of the lecture. Therefore, by my control over Mght and darkness, I cause the dusk, and then the starless night, to brood over the street ; and summon forth again the bellman, with his lantern casting a gleam about his footsteps, to pace wearily from corner to corner, aud shout drowsily the hour to drowsy or dreaming ears. Happy are we, if for nothing else, yet because we did not live in those days. In truth, when the first novelty and stir of spirit had subsided, — when the new settlement, between the forest-border and the sea, had become actually a little town, — its daily life must have trudged on- ward with hardly any thing to diversify and enliven it, while also its rigidity could not fail to cause miserable distortions of the moral nature. Such a life was sinister to the intellect, and sinister to the heart ; especially when one generatipjj had bequeathed its religious gloom, and the counterfeit of its religious ardor, to the next : for these characteristics, as wa,s inevitable, assumed the form both of hypocrisy and exagge- ration, by being inherited from the example and precept of other human beings, and not from an original and spiritual 21 162 Main-street. source. The sons and grandchildren of the first settlers were a race of lower and narrower souls than their progenitors had been. The latter were stern, severe, intolerant, but not superstitious, not even fanatical ; and endowed, if any men of that age were, with a far-seeing worldly sagacity. But it was impossible for the succeeding race to grow up, m Heaven's freedom, beneath the discipline which their gloomy energy of character had established ; nor, it may be, have we even yet thrown off all the unfavorable influences which, among many good ones, were bequeathed to us by our Puritan forefathers. Let us thank God for having given us such Ancestors ; and let each successive generation thank him, not less fervently, for being one step further from them in the march of ages. " What is all this ? " cries the critic. " A sermon ? If so, it is not in the bill." " Very true," replies the showman ; " and I ask pardon of the audience." Look now at the street, and observe a strange people entering it. Their garments are torn and disordered, their faces haggard, their figures emaciated ; for they have made their way hither through pathless deserts, suffering hunger and hardship, with no other shelter than a hollow tree, the lair of a wild beast, or an Indian wigwam. Nor, in the most inhospitable and dangerous of such lodging-places, was there half the peril that awaits them in this thoroughfare of Chris* tian men, with those secure dwellings and warm hearths on either side of it, and yonder meeting-house as the central object of the scene. These wanderers have received from Heaven a gift that, in all epochs of the world, has brought with it th.e penalties of mortal suffering and persecution, scorn, enmity, and death itself; — a gift that, thus terrible to its pos- sessors, has ever been most hateful to all other men, since its very existence seems to threaten the overthrow of whatever else the toilsome ages have built up ; — the gift of a new idea. You can discern it in them, illuminating their faces — their whole persons, indeed, however earthly and cloddish — with a hght that inevitably shines through, and makes the startled community aware that these men are not as they themselves Main-Street. 163 are ; not brethren nor neighbors of their thought. Forthwith; it is as if an earthquake rumbled through the town, making its vibrations felt at every hearthstone, and especially caus- ing the spire of the meeting-house to totter. The Quakers have come ! We are in peril ! See ! they trample upon our wise and well-established laws in the person of our chief magistrate ; for Governor Endicott is passing, now an aged man, and dignified with long habits of authority, — and not one of the irreverent vagabonds has moved his hat ! Did you note the ominous frown of the white-bearded Puritan governor, as he turned himself about, and, in his anger, half uplifted the staff that has become a needful support to his old age ? Here comes old Mr. Norris, our venerable mini- ster. Win they doff their hats, and pay reverence to him ? No : their hats stick fast to their ungracious heads, as if they grew there ; and — impious varlets that they are, and worse than the heathen Indians ! — they eye our reverend pastor with a peculiar scorn, distrust, unbelief, and utter denial of his sanctified pretensions, of which he himself immediately be- comes conscious ; the more bitterly conscious, as he never knew nor dreamed of the like before. But look yonder ! Can we believe our eyes ? A Quaker woman, clad in sackcloth, and with ashes on her head, has mounted the steps of the meeting-house. She addresses the people in a wild, shrill voice, — wild and shriU it must be, to suit such a figure, — which makes them tremble -and turn pale, although they crowd open-mouthed to hear her. She is bold against established authority; she denounces the priest and his steeple-house. Many of her hearers are ap- palled ; some weep ; and others listen with a rapt attention, as if a living truth had now, for the first time, forced its way through the crust of habit, reached their hearts, and awa- kened them to life. This matter must be looked to ; else we have brought our faith across the seas with us in vain ; and it had been better that the old forest were stiU standing here, waving its tangled boughs, and murmuring to the sky out of its desolate recesses, instead of this goodly street, if such blasphemies be spoken in it. So thought the old Puritans. What was their mode of- 164 Main'Street. action may be partly judged from the spectacles which now pass before your eyes. Joshua Buffum is standing in the pillory. Cassandra Southwick is led to prison. And there a woman, — it is Ann Coleman, — naked from the waist up- ward, and bound to the tail of a cart, is dragged through the Main-street at the pace of a brisk walk, while the con- stable follows with a whip of knotted cords. A strong-armed fellow is that constable ; and each time that he flourishes his lash in the air, you see a frown wrinkhng and twisting his brow, and, at the same instant, a smile upon his lips. He loves his business, faithful officer that he is, and puts his soul into every stroke, zealous to fulfil the injunction of Major Hawthorne's warrant, in the spirit and to the letter. There came down a stroke that has drawn blood ! Ten such stripes are to be given in Salem, ten in Boston, and ten in Dedham ; and, with those thirty stripes of blood upon her, she is to be driven into the forest. The crimson trail goes wavering along the Main-street ; but Heaven grant, that, as the rain of so many years has wept upon it, time after time, and washed it all away, so there may have been a dew of mercy, to clease this cruel blood-stain out of the record of the persecutor's life ! Pass on, thou spectral constable, and betake thee to thine own place of torment ! Meanwhile, by the silent operation of the mechanism behind the scenes, a considerable space of time would seem to have lapsed over the street. The older dwellings now begin to look weather-beaten, through the effect of the many eastern storms that have moistened their unpainted shingles and clapboards, for not less than forty years. Such is the age we would assign to the town, judg- ing by the aspect of John Massey, the first town-born child, whom his neighbours now call Goodman Massey, and whom we see yonder, a grave, almost autumnal-looking man, with children of his own about him. To the patriarchs of the settlement, no doubt, the Main-street is still but an affair of yesterday, hardly more antique, even if destined to be more permanent, than a path shovelled through the snow. But to the middle-aged and elderly men who came hither in childhood or early youth, it presents the aspect of a long Main-Street. 165 and well-established work, on which they have expended the strength and ardor of their life. And the younger people, native to the street, whose earliest recollections are of creep- ing over the paternal threshold, and rolling on the grassy margin of the track, look at it as one of the perdurable things of our mortal state, — as old as the hills of the great pasture, or the headland at the harbor's mouth. Their fathers and grandsires tell them, how, within a few years past, the forest stood here with but a lonely track beneath its tangled shade. Vain legend ! They cannot make it true and real to their conceptions. With them, moreover, the Main-street is a street indeed, worthy to hold its way with the thronged and stately avenues of cities beyond the sea. The old Puritans tell them of the crowds that hurry along Cheapside and Fleet-street and the Strand, and of the rush of tumultuous life at Temple Bar. They describe London Bridge, itself a street, with a row of houses on each side. They speak of the vast structure of the- Tower, and the solemn grandeur of Westminster Abbey. The children listen, and still inquire if the streets of London are longer and broader than the one before their father's door ; if the T^^'^^er is bigger than the jail in Prison Lane ; if the old Abbey will hold a larger con- gregation than our meeting-house. Nothing impresses them, except their own experience. It seems all a fable, too, that wolves have ever prowled here ; and not less so, that the Squaw Sachem, and the Sagamore her son, once ruled over this region, and treated as sovereign potentates with the English settlers, then so few and storm-beaten, now so powerful. There stand some school-boys, you observe, in a little group around a drunken Indian, himself a prince of the Squaw Sachem's lineage. He brought hither some beaver-skins for sale, and has al- ready swallowed the larger portion of their price, in deadly draughts of fire-water. Is there not a touch of pathos in that picture ? and does it not go far towards telling the whole story of the vast growth and prosperity of one race, and the fated decay of another ? — the children of the stranger mak- ing game of the great Squaw Sachem's grandson ! But the whole race of red men have not vanished with that 166 Main-street. wild princess and her posterity. This march of soldiers along the street betokens the breaking-out of King Phillip's war ; and these young men, the flower of, Essex, are on their way to defend the villages on the Connecticut ; where, at Bloody Brook, a terrible blow shall be smitten, and hardly one of that gallant band be left alive. And there, at that stately mansion, with its three peaks in front, and its two little peaked towers, one on either side of the door, we see brave Captain Gardner issuing forth, clad in his embroidered buff-coat, and his plumed cap upon his head. His trusty sword, in its steel scabbard, strikes clanking on the door-step. See how the people throng to their doors and windows, as the cavalier rides past, reining his mettled steed so gallantly, and looking so like the very soul and emblem of martial achievement, — destined, too, to meet a warrior's fate, at the desperate assault on the fortress of the Narragansetts ! " The mettled steed looks like a pig," interrupts the critic, " and Captain Gardner himself like the devil, though a very tame one, and on a most diminutive scale." " Sir, sir ! " cries the persecuted showman, losing all patience, — for, indeed, he had particularly prided himself on these figures of Captain Gardner and his horse, — "I see that there is no hope of pleasing you. Pray, sir, do me the favor to take back your money, and withdraw ! " " Not I ! " answers the unconscionable critic. " I am just beginning to get interested in the matter. Come ! turn your drank, and grind out a few more of these fooleries." The showman rubs his brow impulsively, whisks the little rod with which he points out the notabilities of the scene, — but, finally, with the inevitable acquiescence of all public servants, resumes his composure, and goes on. Pass onward, onward. Time ! Build up new houses here, and tear down thy works of yesterday, that have already the rusty moss upon them ! Summon forth the minister to the abode of the young maiden, and bid him unite her to the joyful bridegroom ! Let the youthful parents carry their first-born to the meeting-house, to receive the baptismal rite ! Knock at the door, whence the sable fine of the funeral is next to issue ! Provide other successive generations of men, Main-street. 167 to trade, talk, quarrel, or walk in friendly intercourse along the street, as their fathers did before them ! Do all thy daily and accustomed business, Father Time, in this thoroughfare, which thy footsteps, for so many years, have now made dusty ! But here, at last, thou leadest along a procession which, once witnessed, shall appear no more, and be remembered only as a hideous dream of thine, or a frenzy of thy old brain. " Turn your crank, I say," bellows the remorseless critic, " and grind it out, whatever it be, without further preface ! " The showman deems it best to comply. Then, here comes the worshipful Capt. Curwen, Sheriff of Essex, on horseback, at the head of an armed guard, escort- ing a company of condemned prisoners from the jail to their place of execution on Gallows Hill. The witches ! There is no mistaking them ! The witches ! As they approach up Prison Lane, and turn into the Main-street, let us watch their faces, as if we made a part of the pale crowd that presses so eagerly about them, yet shrinks back with such shuddering dread, leaving an open passage betwixt a dense throng on either side. Listen to what the people say. There is old George Jacobs, known hereabouts, these sixty years, as a man whom we' thought upright in all his way of life, quiet, blameless, a good husband before his pious wife was sunmioned from the evil to come, and a good father to the children whom she left him. Ah ! but when that blessed woman went to heaven, George Jacob's heart was empty, his hearth lonely, his life broken up ; his children were mar- ried, and betook themselves to habitations of their own ; and Satan, in his wanderings up and down, beheld this forlorn old man, to whom life was a sameness and a weariness, and found the way to tempt him. So the miserable sinner was prevailed with to mount into the air, and career among the clouds ; and he is proved to have been present at a witch- meeting as far off as Falmouth, on the very same night that his next neighbors saw him, with his rheumatic stoop, going in at his own door. There is John Willard too ; an honest man we thought him, and so shrewd and active in his busi- ness, so practical, so intent on every-day affairs, so constant at his little place of trade, where he bartered English goods 168 Main-street. for Indian corn and all kinds of country produce ! How could such a man find time, or what could put it into his mind, to leave his proper calling, and become a wizard 1 It is a mystery, unless the Black Man tempted him with great heaps of gold. See that aged;' couple, — a sad sight truly, — John Proctor, and his wife Elizabeth. If there were two old people in all the county of Essex who seemed to have led a true Christian life, and to be treading hopefully the little remnant of their earthly path, it was this very pair, Yet have we heard it sworn, to the satisfaction of the worshipful Chief Justice Sewell, and all the Court and Jury, that Proc- tor and his wife have shown their withered faces at children's bedsides, mocking, making mouths, and affrighting the poor little innocents in the night-time. They, or their spectral appearances, have stuck pins into the Afflicted Ones, and thrown them into deadly fainting-fits with a touch, or but a look. And, while we supposed the old man to be reading the Bible to his old wife, — she meanwhile knitting in the chimney-corner, — the pair of hoary reprobates have whisked up the chimney, both on one broomstick, and flown away to a witch-communion, far into the depths of the chiU, dark forest. How fooUsh ! Were it only for fear of rheumatic pains in their old bones, they had better have stayed at home. But away they went ; and the laughter of their decayed, cacklmg voices has been heard at midnight, aloft in the air. Now, in the sunny noontide, as they go tottering to the gallows, it is the devil's turn to laugh. Behind these two, — who help another along, and seem to be comforting and encouraging each other, in a manner truly pitiful, if it were not a sin to pity the old witch and wizard, — behind them comes a woman, with a dark, proud face that has been beautiful, and a figure that is still majestic. Do you know her ? It is Martha Carrier, whom the devil found in a humble cottage, and looked into her discontented heart, and saw pride there, and tempted her with his promise that -she should be Queen of Hell. And now, with that lofty demeanor, she is passing to her kingdom, and, by her unquenchable -pride, transforms tjiis escort of shame into a triumphal procession, that shall attend her to the gates of her Main-street. 169 infernal palace, and seat her upon the fiery throne. Within this hour, she shall assume her royal dignity» Last of the miserable train comes a man clad in black, of small stature and a dark complexion, with a clerical band about his neck. Many a time, in the years gone by, that face has been uphfted heavenward from the pulpit of the East Meeting-house, when the Rev. Mr. Burroughs seemed to worship God. What ! — he ? The holy man ! — the learned ! — the wise ! How has the devil tempted him ? His fellow-criminals, for the most part, are obtuse, unculti- vated creatures, some of them scarcely half-witted by nature, and others greatly decayed in their intellects through age. They were an easy prey for the destroyer. Not so with this George Burroughs, as we judge by the inward light which glows through his dark countenance, and, we might almost say, glorifies his figure, in spite of the soil and haggardness of long imprisonment, — in spite of the heavy shadow that must fall on him, while Death is walking by his side. What bribe could Satan offer, rich enough to tempt and overcome this man ? Alas ! it may have been in the very strength of his high and searching intellect, that the Tempter found the weakness which betrayed him. He yearned for knowledge ; he went groping onward into a world of mystery ; at first, as the witnesses have sworn, he summoned up the ghosts, of his two dead wives, and talked with them of matters beyond the grave; and, when their responses failed to satisfy the intense and sinful craving of his spirit, he called on Satan, and was heard. Yet — to look at him — who, that had not known the proof, could believe him guilty ? Who would not say, while we see him offering comfort to the weak and aged pEirtners of his horrible crime, — while we hear his ejaculations of prayer, that seem to bubble up out of the depths of his heart, and fly heavenward, unawares, — while we behold a radiance brightening on his features as from the other world, which is but a few steps off, —^ who would not say, that, over the dusty track of the Main-street, a Christian saint is now going to a martyr's death ? May not the Arch Fiend have been too subtle for the court and jury, and betrayed them — laughing in his sleeve the while — into the 22 170 Main-street. awful error of pouring out sanctified blood as an acceptable sacrifice upon God's altar ? Ah ! no ; for listen to wise Cotton Mather, who, as he sits there on his horse, speaks comfortably to the perplexed multitude, and tells them that aU has been rehgiously and justly done, and that Satan's power shall this day receive its death-blow in New England. Heaven grant it be so ! — the great scholar must be right ! so, lead the poor creatures to their death! Do you see that group of children and half-grown girls, and, among them, an old, hag-like Indian woman, Tituba by name? Those are the Afflicted Ones. Behold, at this very instant, a proof of Satan's power and malice ! Mercy Parris, the minister's daughter, has been smitten by a flash of Martha Carrier's eye, and falls down in the street, writhing with horrible spasms and foaming at the mouth, like the possessed ones spoken of in Scripture. Hurry on the accursed witches to the gallows, ere they do more mischief ! — ere they fling out their withered arms, and scatter pestilence by handfuls among the crowd ! — ere, as their parting legacy, they cast a bhght over the land, so that henceforth it may bear no fruit nor blade of grass, and be fit for nothing but a sepulchre for their unhallowed carcasses ! So, on they go ; and old George Jacobs has stumbled by reason of his infirmity : but Goodman Proctor and his wife lean on one another, and walk at a reasonably steady pace, considering their age. Mr. Burroughs seems to administer counsel to Martha Car- rier, whose face and mien, methinks, are milder and humbler than they were. Among the multitude, meanwhile, there is horror, fear, and distrust ; and friend looks askance at friend, and the husband at his wife, and the wife at him, and even the mother at her Httle child ; as if, in every creature that God has made, they suspected a witch, or dreaded an ac- cuser. Never, never again, whether in this or any other shape, may Universal Madness riot in the Main-street ! I perceive in your eyes, my indulgent spectators, the criti- cism which you are too kind to utter. These scenes, you think, are all too sombre. So, indeed, they are ; but the blame must rest on the sombre spirit of our forefathers, who wove their web of life with hardly a single thread of rose- Main-street 171 color or gold, and not on me, who have a tropic love of sun- shine, and would gladly gild all the world with it, if I knew where to find so much. That you may believe me, I will exhibit one of the only class of scenes, so far as my inves- tigation has taught me, in which our ancestors were wont to steep their tough old hearts in wine and strong drink, and indulge an outbreak of grisly jollity. Here it comes, out of the same house whence we saw brave Captain Gardner go forth to the wars. What ! A coffin, borne on men's shoulders, and six aged gentlemen as pall-bearers, and a long train of mourners, with black gloves and black hat-bands, and every thing black, save a white handkerchief in each mourner's hand, to wipe away his tears withal. Now, my kind patrons, you are angry with me. You were bidden to a bridal-dance, and find your- selves walking in a funeral procession. Even so ; but look back through aU the social customs of New England, in the first century of her existence, and read all her traits of char- acter ; and if you find one occasion, other than a funeral-feast, where jollity was sanctioned by universal practice, I will set fire to my puppet-show without another word. These are the obsequies of old Governor Bradstreet, the patriarch and survivor of the first settlers, who, having intermarried with the Widow Gardner, is now resting from his labors, at the great age of ninety-four. The white-bearded corpse, which was his ^irit's esirthly garniture, now lies beneath yonder coffin-lid. Many a cask of ale and cider is on tap, and many a draught of spiced wine and aquavitae has been quaffed. Else why should the bearers stagger, as they tremulously uphold the coffin ? — and the aged paU-bearers, too, as they strive to walk solemnly beside it ? — and wherefore do the mourners tread on one another's heels ? — and why, if we may ask without offence, should the nose of the Ptcverend Mr. Noyes, through which he has just been delivering the fiineral discourse, glow like a ruddy coal of fire ? Well, weU, old friends ! Pass on, with your burthen of mortahty, and lay it in the tomb with joUy hearts. People should be permitted to enjoy themselves in their own fashion ; every man to his taste ; but New England must have been a dis- 172 Main-street. mal abode for the man of pleasure, when the only boon-com- panion was Death ! Under cover of a mist that has settled over the scene, a few years flit by, and escape our notice. As the atmosphere becomes transparent, we perceive a decrepit, grandsire, hob- bling along the street. Do you recognize him ? We saw him, first, as the baby in Goodwife Massey's arms, when the primeval trees were flinging their shadow over Roger Co- nant's cabin ; we have seen him, as the boy, the youth, the man, bearing his humble part in all the successive scenes, and forming the index-figure whereby to note the age of his coeval town. And here he is, old Goodman Massey, taking his last walk, — often pausing, — often leaning over his staff, — and calling to mind whose dwelling stood at such and such a spot, and whose field or garden occupied the site of those more recent houses. He can render a reason for all the bends and deviations of the thoroughfare, which, in its flexible and plastic infancy, was made to swerve aside from a straight line, in order to visit every settler's door. The Main-street is still youthful ; the coeval Man is in his latest age. Soon he will be gone, a patriarch of fourscore, yet shall retain a sort of infantine life in our local history, as the first town-born child. Behold here a change, wrought in the twinkling of an eye, like an incident in a tale of magic, even while your obser- vation has been fixed upon the scene. The Main-street has vanished out of sight. In its stead appears a wintry waste of snow, with the sun just peeping over it, cold and bright, and tinging the Avhite expanse with the faintest and most ethereal rose-color. This is the Great Snow of 1717, famous for the mountain-drifts in which it buried the whole country. It would seem as if the street, the growth of which we have noted so attentively, — following it from its first phase, as an Indian track, until it reached the dignity of side- walks, — were all at once obliterated, and resolved into a drearier pathlessness than when the forest covered it. The gigantic swells and billows of the snow have swept over each man's metes and bounds, and annihilated all the visible distinctions of human property. So that now, the traces of former times Main-street. 173 and hitherto aecomphshed deeds being done away, mankind should be at liberty to enter on new paths, and guide them- selves by other laws than heretofore ; if, indeed, the race be not extinct, and it be worth our .while to go on with the march of life, over the cold and desolate expanse that lies before us. It may be, however, that matters are not so desperate as they appear. That vast icicle, glittering so cheerlessly in the sunshine, must be the spire of the meeting-house, inerusted with frozen sleet. Those great heaps, too, which we mistook for drifts, are houses, buried up to their eaves, and with their peaked roofs rounded by the depth of snow upon them. There, now, comes a gush of smoke from what I judge 'to be the chimney of the Ship Tavern — and another — another — and another — from the chimneys of other dwellings, where fireside comfort, domestic peace, the sports of children, and the quietude of age, are living yet, in spite of the frozen crust above them. But it is time to change the scene. Its dreary monotony shall not test your fortitude like one of our actual New Eng- land winters, which leave so large a blank — so melancholy a death-spot — in lives so brief that they ought to be all sum- mer-time. Here, at least, I may claim to be ruler of the seasons. One turn of the crank shall melt away the snow from the Main-street, and show the trees in their full foliage, the rose-bushes in bloom, and a border of green grass along the side-walk. There ! But what ! How ! The scene will not move. A wire is broken. The street continues buried beneath the snow, and the fate of Herculaneum and Pompeii has its parallel in this catastrophe. Alas ! my kind and gentle audience, you know not the extent of your misfortune. The scenes to come were far better than the past. The street itself would have been more worthy of pictorial exhibition ; the deeds of its inhabitants, not less so. And how would your interest have deepened, as, passing out of the cold shadow of antiquity, in my long and weary course, I should arrive within the limits of man's memory, and, leading you at last into the sunshine of the present, should give a reflex of the very life that is flitting past us ! Your own beauty, my fair townswomen, would 174 Abuse of Representative Government. have beamed upon you, out of my scene. Not a gentleman- that walks the street but should have beheld his own face and figure, his gait, the peculiar swing of his arm, and the coat that he put on yesterday. Then, too, — and it is what I chiefly regret, — I had expended a vast deal of light and brilliancy on a representation of the street in its whole length, from Bhifum's Corner downward, on the night of the grand illumination for General Taylor's triumph. Lastly, I should have given the crank one other turn, and have brought out the future, showing you who shall walk the Main-street to- morrow, and, perchance, whose funeral shall pass through it ! But these, like most other human purposes, lie unaccom- plished ; and I have only further to say, that any lady or gentleman, who may feel dissatisfied with the evening's enter- tainment, shall receive back the admission fee at the door. " Then give me mine," cries the critic, stretching out his palm. " I said that your exhibition would prove a humbug,, and so it has turned out. So hand over my quarter ! " Aet. IX. — ABUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. It seems to be very generally felt, that the morals of politics in the United States have declined gradually, since the esta- blishment of our constitution ; and yet there is no agreement in the opinions of men, as to the cause of the decline. It can, we think, hardly be attributed to any general de- cUne of morals in the nation ; for careful observation shows us, that, while certain classes in our cities have been depart- ing further and further from the true idea of a republican society, the people of the country at large, and 'especially the farming population, have been approaching nearer to it, and have thus more than compensated for the loss. The votaries of fashion and of pleasure have done something, certainly, to ingraft the vices and foUies of Europe upon our native stock; and the debris of the immense flood of emigration which accumulates along our shores cannot but increase the Abuse of Representative Government. 175 grinding competition which is so rapidly swelling the lists of criminals and paupers in our great cities. But, meanwhile, our common school systems, our Lyceum lectures and li- braries, our newspapers and pamphlets, and especially the great Temperance Reform, have rendered an immense ser- vice in opening the intellectual and moral views of the far- mers, and rural population of all classes. Our factories, too, have added to their intelligence and property, without, thus far, having injured their morals. On the whole, we think it may be safely affirmed, that the entire population of the iron- slaveholding states is better fitted now for the exercise of universal suffrage, than it was when the Constitution was proclaimed. We are aware, that, in the opinion of many persons, the undeniable growth of our farming population in intelligence and external morality has been accompanied by a loss of reverence and loyalty which fully counteracts the gain. We are not, however, of this opinion. The loss of reverence complained of has been, we think, rather the growth of a spirit of analysis and inquiry, and a separation of hollow forms from those which still symbolize or express a sentiment, than a real loss of reverence for rehgion or vir- tue ; and this is best proved by the fact of the moral reform everywhere visible throughout the country, in the greater sobriety, industry, and refinement of the people, and in the growing disposition to look into the moral and religious basis of our laws and social habits. As for the slaveholding states, it may be true that they have suiTered a general moral dechne. We are by no means sure that such is the fact, however ; but, in relation to ques- tions of slavery, their legislation seems to indicate it. At the same time, we cannot at all agree with those who are dis- posed to trace all our national sins to jthe one foul blot of slavery ; nor can we believe that our Constitution, in recog- nizing and permitting slavery, and providing for the restora- tion of fugitive slaves, has admitted a poison which can be cast out only by breaking up the whole organism. This seems to us a hopeless and a faithless doctrine, and is tanta- mount to an assertion that the Constitution not only has one great evil in it, but that it has little or no good in it. If it 176 Abtise of Representative Government. has, on the whole, a healthy principle of life in it, which is worth preserving, may it not be made to throw off the poi- son, without sacrificing its existence ? Does not analogy teach us this mode of treatment ? We do not cut down -the tree because the worm has tapped it, nor kill the animal stricken by disease, — at least, not until well assured that the recuperative powers of life are completely exhausted ; and who shall say that the Constitution of these United States has reached that point of prostration ? That slavery has done much, and is still doing much, to retard the moral ad- vance of our Northern people, we are not disposed to deny ; and that it has had hitherto an undue uifluence in our na- tional councils, to which many disgraceful acts of the legisla- ture and the executive are entirely due, is beyond question. But why has it possessed this power ? Not, Ave apprehend, from any sympathy felt by the people of the North with slave- holders, as smcA, — not because these Northern people had become demoralized by slave-legislation, — not because the members of Congress had sworn to support the Constitution ; but because these Northern voters and their representatives were selfish and ignorant and passionate men, more de- sirous to gain their private and their party ends, by allying themselves with the slaveholding power, than they were to eradicate a moral blot from our national system, at a sacrifice of, what they supposed to be, their interests. This barrier to improvement is, however, giving way. The voters are be- coming more enlightened upon the true merits of the case ; their consciences are getting awakened ; and, besides, the conduct of the South is driving them to action, and their very selfishness will prompt them to prevent further extension of slavery and slaveholding influence. Let us now suppose this to have been done ; the party tactics and selfish passions of the North to have been turned fully and successfully against the slave-power ; would there not still remain a vice in our political condition, which would continue to degrade the morals of politics, and warp a fundamental idea of our Re- public from its original and only true basis ? We appre- hend, that, unless other changes than any we have hitherto adverted to were made, there woUld be such a vice in full Abuse of Representative Government. 177 activity, and that we should still be left in the extraordinary situation of a people who, under a popular form of govern- ment, is improving in its social life, while it is degrading in its political life. The vice we allude to, and which appears to us so fatal, is the perversion of the character of the represen- tative, and, of course, of the representative government. If there was any one point upon which the founders of our Republic especially depended as a security against the mis- fortunes Avhich have overtaken all the earlier democratic states, it was doubtless our representative system, by means of which they hoped to avoid the introduction of the passions of the multitude into the councils of the nation. Mr. Madi- son, in one of his articles in the " Federalist," says, speak- ing of the delegation of government to persons elected, — the effect is " to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interests of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to partial and temporary considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen, that the public voice, pronounced by representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good, than if pronounced by the peo- ple themselves convened for the purpose." Again, in the same letter, he says, that the representation of the Union will present the advantage of a body " whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them supe- rior to local prejudices, and to schemes of injustice." This doctrine sounds strangely to us now, with our party pledges and instructing legislatures. It is because we have lost the true idea of a representative, and have substituted for it one of an attorney or agent, — a mouthpiece of a certain number of voters in some obscure district. Instead of select- ing the wisest and the best man, and allowing him to, go, entirely unshackled, to investigate and decide for us, we have come to choosing the man who will make the most ready professions and promises ; the object not being to select a representative of the wisdom and conscience, that is, of the highest character, of the district, but to select an able or a noisy expounder of the preconceived notions and opi- 23 178 Abuse of Representative Government. nions of the district, so as to place the Legislature as nearly as possible in the position in which it would be, were the voters of the district personally present, with all their ignorance, prejudice, and passion. But this is precisely what the found- ers of the Constitution wished to avoid, in establishing a re- presentative republic, since, they argued, that it would be more stable and sound than a pure democracy, because the government would not be administered by the people them- selves, who are so easily misled by the ruling passions of the hour, but by the choicest spirits, whose wisdom and patriot- ism would secure them against local and temporary influen- ces, and whose voice would therefore "be more consonant with the public good, than the voice of the people themselves, convened for the purpose." It is not our intention here to inquire how the perversion of the representative character has gradually been brought about ; but merely to call attention to the fact, that it is now complete, and that, without an amendment in this particular, it is in vain to look for a return to the purity of our institu- tions. If senators feel that they must either resign or vote as instructed by a majority of their State Legislature, whatever may be their own views ; — if they forget that they are chosen by the State, not merely to do its bidding, to represent its loill at any given moment, like an attorney, but to act under the Constitution for their State, but in the interests of truth and justice as applied to the Union and the world, and with a direct responsibihty to their Maker only ; — if they lose sight of this high duty and this high responsibility, how can they preserve the dignity of the Senate ? how can they retain the character of authority, without which government becomes contempti- ble ? It was clearly not the intention of the founders of our Constitution to make senators and representatives directly responsible to the bodies choosing them, as principals whose wishes alone they were to consult ; for such a responsibility takes away all character of freedom, whether of thought of act. It degrades the representative, not only morally, but also intellectually ; for, if all he has to think of is the opinion and will of his constituents, the newspapers will be his chief study, and the caucus his arbiter of political science. He is Abuse of Representative Oovernmeid. 179 degraded from the proper position of a true man, as much so as a lawyer who is arguing, for money, a case which he does not believe in ; and the most that can be expected of senators or representatives, under such a system, is, that they should become keen and unscrupulous. How, then, can we expect men of the highest moral stamp to come forward, or, if they do come forward, to retain their places and their honesty both ? As mere agents, they would be morally bound to re- sign, when required to act contrary to their sense of right ; and, with the changing majorities, this would be very likely, in the natural course of things, to happen during the term for which they are chosen.* Can any oae believe that it was intended by the fathers of our country to place senators in such a posi- tion as this, — rto make them the mere puppets of popular changes ? The idea, as applied to a Senate, is ridiculous ; and whether applied to the Senate, the House of Represen- tatives, or the Executive, it is destructive of the element of stability, which was chiefly sought in the establishment of a representative form of government, as well as to aU true liberty, which can exist only as connected with stability.-]- * It follows that, in this view, the chances would be in favor of the senators being forced either to violate their consciences, or to resign very freijuently in the ordinary working of the government. t We axe aware, that there igi supposed to be a difference in the position of the senator and of the representative in this respect. The latter has Tmre liberty than the former. He is merely " requested," while the senator is " instructed," to change his vote, by those who have chosen him, and who may, or may not, choose him again, that is, by his masters. The represent tatives, it seems, are not so completely mastered yet as the senators. Thig strikes us an extraordinary perversion of the intention of the framers of o\ir Constitution, by which V^sit they intended as the conservative branch of the Legislature has become gradually the most partisan and pUant. It could not be otherwise under the doctrine of " instruction," the most direct and strik- ing effect of which is to destroy the unity of the Senate, leaving two or three struggling fractions, ruled principally by partisan or sectional prejudice. During the last session, the sectional tyranny in the Senate counteracted the endeavors of the House to do common justice. We look in vain in the Constitution, or in the writings of its founders, for any distinction in the liberty of the senator and representative to follow his conscience, during the term for which he is chosen. On the other hand, all the arguments in the " Federalist," in chap. 62, 63, and 64, show that more stability was looked for in the Senate than in the House, because the members were to be chosen for a longer term. But what security could this be. l60 Abuse of Representative Government. The truth is, that the whole notion of a government respon- sible to the people, in the sense usually understood, is absurd. It may be best, in certain stages of social progress, to have an elective government, and one chosen, like our ovsm, by universal suffrage ; but this can be true only on the suppo- sition, that the nation will, on the whole, choose better men to govern, than would be chosen under an oligarchy or a despotism ; and this can happen only if the men so chosen feel their responsibility to God more directly and intimately than if placed in power by an aristocracy, or the chances of birth or of war. The difference in the mode of selecting the government is of httle importance, excepting so far as it produces this effect; and, when once the choice is made, in one form of govern^ ment or another, the governing power remains responsible only to God. It has the proper character of government, only so far as it embodies the eternal principles of God; and its only right, therefore, is the divine right. There may be a great choice m forms of appointing and changing the rulers, as tending to increase or diminish the temptations to depart from uprightness in the administration ; and we are well convinced, that our own Constitution, as understood by those who made it, is better suited to our state of society than any which has yet appeared in the world ; but there can be no difference in the nature of the responsibility of the govern- ment, when established. In no case can the parties, chosen to administer it, look to the human appointing power as the guide to right government : here, indeed, they may meet with an exhibition of might, which may support it or over- turn it ; but, to find the right, they must look higher. On the other hand, a delegated government should be looked up to if, -with eaoi change in the party majorities of his State, the senator were expected to change his argument and his vote, or to resign ? The truth is, that, if the senator were a mere State officer, he would be perfectly free during his term : how much more important is it when he forms a part of the Government of the Union ? Once chosen, he is no more under the con- trol of his State, during his term, than of any other State. His duty is to the Union and the world, under his responsibility to his Maker ; and, if he faUs in his duty, he may be impeached, or the Legislature of his State has power, when his term expires, to choose another in his place, and that is aU. Abuse of Representative Government. 181 by the citizens, during its existence, with all the respect which can be shown to any government. If it is not more worthy of respect than any other, it should be abandoned, as not the best form of government. It deserves respect as embodying the collective wisdom and virtue of the country, which it is supposed to do, and ought to do ; and, if it does not, it is the fault of the people, and may be remedied at the next election. During its existence, however, it cannot lose its freedom, without losing its character of a government ; it cannot be, at once, the servant and the ruler of the nation. The term " public servants " seems to have added to the confusion of ideas, if it did not arise from them. How can the persons, to whom we have given authority over us, be our servants ? The servile character destroys all authority. There can be no doubt, that the successful candidates for office will be found among those who are content to look no further than to their constituents, so long as the public de- mands nothing better. If it wishes its deliberative assembhes to resemble collections of sharp attorneys, squabbling for the so-called interests of their principals, it will find no lack of men well qualified and ready to squabble ; but if it wants men fitted to be legislators in a great nation, which ought to lead the movements of true liberty in the world, and every part of whose pohtical structures is destined to be studied in the old world, and to exert some influence either for good or for evil, it must adhere to the original theory of the Con- stitution, which is based upon true patriotism and toleration. Without these, its machinery will not worlf. No clever pre- tences, no balancing of selfish interests, will prevent its run- ning down. The latter may do to keep the wheels going in some Constitutions, of a lower order ; but ours was intended for, and can only be worked by, men of honesty and intel- ligence, " whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices, and to schemes of injustice." How far pledges and instruction will conduce to this latter end, can be seen without much elucidation. This brings us back to the apparent contradiction adverted to in the beginning of these remarks, namely, that the morals of the nation have been and. are actually improving, while the 182 Abuse of Refpresentative Government. morals of politics are sinking. We have ascribed this ano- malous state of things principally to the perversion of the idea of a representative government ; but it may be a»ked, why, if the people have advanced in knowledge and character, have they allowed this abuse to creep in ? The answer is, that, although the people have improved, they are still far short of the standard which the fathers of our country set before themselves, and had in view for the nation ; and, meanwhile, time has developed the temptation and the opportunities to abuse. The people, instead of being above the Constitution, as we hear frequently said, are, in our opinion, still far below it, morally and intellectually, and especially in one grand characteristic, — that of toleration. The obstacles which have constantly retarded the advance of true liberty in the world, in all countries and at all times, may be divided into two classes : those which have beeq wilfully raised and maintained by gross, barefaced selfish- ness, cruelty, love of conquest, and the like ; and those which men have unconsciously interposed in the path of freedom, blinded by various forms of self-love and ignorance. Among the latter, intolerance has played, and still plays, a most prominent part, and no less in this Republic, which boasts of its freedom, than in the older countries, where its baneful effects are known and confessed. By means of this bigotry or intolerance, the great body of honest voters (and Ave pre- sume that the majority of voters, of all parties, act with honest intentions) are prevented from looking on more than one side of the questions submitted to them, without being at all aware of it themselves. With the best intentions in the world, they may thus conduce to the moral debasement of their represen- tatives. Having themselves what they conceive to be a full understanding of important social and political questions, in which they are supported by those with whom they princi- pally associate and sympathize, they are equally unable and unwilling to look fairly on the other side ; and they naturally, under the circumstances, conclude that, as the other party cannot have any right on its side, they are bound to lake all steps in their power to secure the adoption of their own views. Here the evil of the thing begins to show itself, Abuse of Repi'esentative Government. 183 when they are induced to overlook the moral character of the means employed to produce conformity with their views. The first and most obvious means is to secure a candidate who will promise, first of all, to be guided by their opinions, or, what is the same thing, to make his own coincide with theirs. The first point, therefore, is to make sure of your candidate's views : if he be a good man and intelhgent besides, why, so much the better, but first make sure of his views ! This is the feehng, and it may exist among men of zealous, honest, and improving character ; but it cannot be applied to the representative without curtailing his liberty, and reducing his moral status : for making sure of his views means mak- ing sure of your man ; he becomes your man, loses property in himself, and feels that he must either do what you expect of him, or betray a trust. Is this man fitted to be a leader, a ruler, for ever so short a time ? Is he not rather, from the day of his election, tempted to be a follower, an anxious watcher of the tides of popular feeling ? The earnestness which makes men insist on what they believe to be the right qualification in their candidate is a virtue ; but the ignorance which makes them think that none but their own view can possibly be right, and that they can add to a man's fitness to take a part in the important work of government (which must be, either to his intelligence, know- ledge, or honesty), by depriving him of his liberty, if not a positive vice, is certainly a deplorable fault. We could hardly believe, if we did not see it done on all sides, that men of inteUigence and of the purest intentions would be disposed to adopt such a course. That corrupt party leaders should seek to bind and direct their tools, we can readily understand ; but that men of conscience, of all parties, the "conscience party" no less than others, should make haste to reduce their candidates, as quickly as possible, to mere partisans, — should wish to curtail them of their full pro- portions as men, to take from them, in fact, that which con- stitutes them especially men, — which is their freedom of thought and action, — is one of the strangest things under the sun. There may be a confusion in some minds between ^e 184 Abuse of Representative Government. limitations to powers conferred by the Constitution on dif- ferent members of government, and the abridgment of the liberty of the party acting within the range of those powers. Such persons may argue, that, as there is a limit to the legal action of each member of the government, the liberty /of each is curtailed ; and hence that there is no liberty in the repre- sentative but to do the will of his constituents. The two things, however, are entirely distinct. The Constitution establishes checks and limitations of power, in order to pre- vent the abuse of liberty. The establishment of the limita- tions shows of itself, that, within the range of the powers granted, liberty should remain unimpaired; otherwise no limitation would be needed. The limitation relates entirely to the nature of the powers to be exercised, not at all to the freedom of mind and will in the exercise of the powers granted, — whereas all party pledges strike at the latter; and they cannot do this under the pretence that it is tp pre- vent the abuse of liberty, for two reasons ; first, because the Constitution, in the hmitations referred to, has already estab- lished the necessary check ; and, secondly, because liberty, to be abused, must be exercised ; whereas they destroy liberty. Republicans, who wish to retain the purity of their institu- tions, must beware lest they allow their zeal to outstrip their liberality. They must remember that the same reasons, which make it their duty to spread their views of good government by all proper means, make it equally incumbent upon those who differ from them to do likewise ; and that invading the hberty of a citizen, and, above all, of one who is to assume the responsibilities of office, is a highly improper means. It is all-important for the zealous to be liberal and tolerant ; for the salvation of the Republic rests with them. The indolent and the selfish will certainly never raise our national stand- ard of right ; the work must be done by the zealous. They are the salt ; but, if their saltness be neutralized by the ashes of intolerance, where shall we look for help 1 If now we glance at the actual state of things, as compared to what we have said it should be, the contrast, if it were not too important in its consequences, would be absolutely ridicu- Abuse of Representative Government. 185 lous. Hardly a candidate for any office is put up, that he is not assailed by a dozen zealous party leaders, who urge him to pledge himself to something. Temperance men, tariff men, free-trade men, native Americans, free-soilers, aboUtionists, all push forward their sine qua non, and say, " Agree to our terms first, or we will not vote for you, however otherwise qualified." It is in vain for the candidate to point to his past course and his general character, and beg to be allowed to go to his duties entirely free ; to decide all prac- tical questions upon their merits, when they shall arise. This satisfies no one ; and, after being bandied about by his tormenters for a time, he makes a bargain, and agrees to be a sound politician, as party A understands it, if party A will support him, or as party B understands it, if party B will support him ; or sometimes, when the claims are not abso- lutely contradictory, he buys the votes of several squads of voters with his ready-coined promises, and so, makes up a bundle of political virtues, at what he perhaps considers a low price. But he is mistaken. The price he has paid is exorbitant beyond reckoning. He has exchanged all that is real in political virtue for a bundle of shams ! The history of our Congress, of late years, is the history of this school of politics. The scholars have made rapid pro- gress, and in then: anaual exhibitions have given the world ample proof of it ; so that the electors who have chosen them have often become ashamed of their choice, and have come to feel that their representatives, instead of being, as they should be, above the level of the nation, areactually below it; and yet they express astonishment that this should be so. Do they not remember that they chose these men to be their " servants," and that the master is greater than the man ? Have they forgotten that they chose them without faith, depending not on their virtue and character, but on their promises and supposed interests ; that they did not expect to bind these representatives to them by their independence and courage, but rather by their selfishness and their fears ; and that there is nothing ennobling in this connection, but, on the contrary, every thing degrading? How can they expect, then, that men so chosen should be leaders of the 24 186 Abuse of Representative Government. people ? There may be a few bright examples among them, but the great body must be time-servers. There is no getting the results of virtue and high-mindedness out of selfish calcu- lations and fears. Arrange it as you will, it always comes back to the hopeless problem, which Carlyle says modern shrewdness is wasting time on, — namely, " Given a world of knaves, to educe an honesty from their joint action." It may be thought, and perhaps justly, that the election of General Taylor by so large a majority, in the face of his refusals to make himself a party man, indicates some re-action in the feelings of the people in regard to pledged candidates. There is no doubt an instinctive admiration felt for one who exhibits an independence of this kind ; and when, as in the case of General Taylor, it happens to be supported by other qualities which strike the imagination of the people, it may be triumphantly carried through. But the difficulty is, that it is merely an instinctive feeling, and not an intelligent opinion, in favor of this independence, and that only with a portion of the people. Many feel, on the contrary, asif_ it were a kind of underhand proceeding in a candidate to refuse to "support" the party which is about to "support" him. They look upon it as a species of fraudulent reserve in a bargain, by which they may be entrapped into giving their price, without receiving their equivalent. Even those who , have an admiration of the kind of mind which disdains to bind itself, are afraid to give way to the feeling. The " sober second thoughts," so much lauded, come in and spoil their ' better instincts. They think they must bind a man by his ambition or his interests to agree with and act for them, lest his intelligence or his conscience should lead him to take some other course. Here is exactly the difficulty. The representative is regarded as the agent of his consti- tuents, chosen to do their bidding. They would hke to have a noble and a free agent, provided always he will do their bidding : in short, they wish to secure the aid and guidance of virtue, by means which can command the services only of selfishness. Even in General Taylor's case, we fear that his sound views, shown in refusing to hold out any hopes to any class of partisans, was but little appreciated in fact, Abuse of Representative Government. 187 although it was much talked of, by his supporters. His suc- cesses as a soldier, together with his general manliness and humanity of character, were universally acknowledged, and probably obtained him nine-tenths of the votes which were cast for him. If the views we have presented be sound ; if it be true that our poUtical character has been degrading, since the first few years of our national existence, without any corresponding dechne in the intelligence and morals of the people, and even in the face of an improvement in those qualities, mainly in consequence of a perversion of the representative character, which has assimilated our Republic too closely to a pure democracy, the question becomes interesting, — Can this democratic usurpation, which threatens to sweep all before it, be arrested ? In considering this question, we think it must be admitted by all, that the mere fact of a constant improve- ment in the character of the people is of itself a very hopeful symptom. If the people have improved under all the degrad- ing influences of party warfare, they may improve still more ; they may improve until they see the evil clearly, and have virtue enough to overcome it. It is evident that the only check to the license of democracy in this country is to be found in the character of the people themselves ; and fortu- nately our most enlightened men are no longer weighed down by the hopeless theory which still blots out the light of the future from the eyes of many a sincere patriot and worldly-wise legislator of Europe. There the opinion has always prevailed, and still prevails with those who have the power, that, when democracy has once begun to feel its influence increasing, nothing can prevent its finally degene- rating into hcense and anarchy, excepting an opposing in- terest of some kind, as a counterpoise, — such as a wealthy privileged class, or a ruler supported by a powerful army. They do not admit, that any check to the headlong course of democracy can be found in the morahty and intelligence of the people, whom they consider as necessarily too blind and passionate to put any restraints upon themselves; or rather to Aeep any. This view may be true enough as applied to the present 188 Aiuse of Representative Government. condition of the people of Europe, and we fear not altogether inapplicable to the present condition of this country ; but, ad- mitting this, does it follow that, because the democracy has never yet been sufficiently enhghtened to see its errors, and curb its overbearing tendency, it can never become so ? Cer- tainly it does not follow ; but, on the other hand, if the fact be that the people have improved, with full liberty in their hands, and a tendency to license in poHtical matters gaining ground, it is a fair inference that they can go on advancing until a majority shall see clearly, that, in order to attain the highest results, they must be governed; and that, in order to have a conscientious and efficient government, they must bind themselves to it, in a spirit of loyalty, during its term of existence ; surrendering frankly into the hands of their dele- gates the powers apportioned to them by the Constitution, to be used, in all freedom, under the best fights which this representative government can command. The people, however, cannot learn this self-restraint, with- out a most efficient and extended system of education. As the population increases, with such immense recruits, too, from the ignorant and shiftless of other lands, it will be im- possible even to maintain our present relative degree of virtue and Avisdom, without constant eflbrt. This subject has been most ably and fuUy handled by the late Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education in his various Reports, in which, we think, he has made it ap- parent, that, if the Common School system is extended and improved as it ought to be, and especially if in their manage- ment the utilitarian views are kept subordinate to those of an elevated morafity, the people ntay be educated to a point which will enable them to carry out fully the highest theory of our Constitution, and perhaps eventually lo devise a better one. Resistance to CivU Government. is6 Abt. X. — RESISTANCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. I HEAKTiLY accept the motto, — "That government is best which governs least ; " and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — " That government is best which governs not at all ; " and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient ; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which i s only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and pervert ''^ j^pfnvp t he people can act throu gh it^ Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure. This American government, — what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpair- ed to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity ? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man ; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves ; and, if ever they should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split. But it is not the less necessary for this ; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its,din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow ; yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with w-hich it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free, ^t does not settle the West. It does not educate. The 190 Resistance to Civil Government. character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomphshed ; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone ; and, as has been said, ^ when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone ■ by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way ; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads. ' But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those : who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better goverment. Let ev ery man rnake known what kind of g ovgrnrng^^t. wnn1d command his respect, and that will be one step toward jDb-- taining it. After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in aU cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but con- science ? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is d:pplieable ? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator ? Why has every man a con- science, then ? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It k not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The_only;ob^gafion "^^i^fe.I^^I^.^ "g'^t to assume, is tp.do„..a,t.anx,t:ypie what I think, right. It is truly enough said, that a corporation'Kas no conscience ; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation loi^A a conscience., Law never made men ai Resistance to Civil Government. 191 whit more just ; and, by means of their respect for it, even / the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A ' common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, \ that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, : privates, powder-monkeys and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars^^ aga inst their_ wills, aye, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned ; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they ? Men at all ? or small moveable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power ? Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts, a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, though it may be " Not a drum Tfras heard, nor a funeral note, As his corse to the ramparts we hurried ; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried." The mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing i army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatm, &c. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judg- ment or of the moral sense ; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones ; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such conunand no more respect than men of straw, or a lump of dirt. (They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed -good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, law- ■^ers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the State chiefly with their heads ; and, as they rarely make any moral distinc- tions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intend- ing it, as God. A very few , as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the State with theirconsciences also, and so necessarily jresist it forth© most 192 Resistance to Civil Government. part; and they are.cQmnxonly tr£at&dJ3y:.it^.S-enemies. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will -not submit to be " clay," and " stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that office to his dust at least : — " I am too high-born to be propertied, To be a secondary at control, Or useful serving-man and instrument To any sovereign state throughout the world." 1 He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to ;' them useless and selfish ; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist. How does it become a man to behave toward this Ameri- can government to-day ? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be assocjatei-with it. t I cannot for an instant recog- Jiize^that- -pSHtical organization as my government which is ^the slaveys government also. All men recognize the right of revolution ; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to and to resist the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them : all machines have their friction ; and pos- sibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evU. At any rate, it is a great evU to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and con- quered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revo- lutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact, that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army. Pgdey;, a common authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter on the " Duty of Submission to Civil Govern- Resistance to Civil Government. 193 ment," resolves all civil obligation into expediency ; and he proceeds to say, " that so long^ as the interest of the vsrhole society requires it, that is, so long as the established govern- ment cannot be resisted or changed without public incon- veniency, it is the will of God that the established government be obeyed, and no longer." — "This principle being ad- mitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other." Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be incon- venient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people. , In their practice, nations agree with Paley ; but does any one think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis ? " A drab of state, a cloth-o'-silver slut, To have lier train borae up, and her soul trail in the dirt." Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massa- chusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, co-operate with, and do the bidding of those far away, and without whom the lat- ter would be harmless. We ar ^^custorned jo^a y. that the i mass of men are unprepared ; but improvement is slow, b^ - f cause the few are not materially wiser or better than the \ Saiiyj^ It IS not so important that many should be as good ' as you, as that there be some absolute goodness so^iewhere"; 25— • 194 Resistance to Civil Government. for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them ; who, esteem- ing themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their .pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing ; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot to- day ? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God- speed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hun- dred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man ; j jbut it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than ' 'with the temporary guardian of it. All voting is a sort of gaming, like chequers or back- gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions ; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right ; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is "^doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is birt^little virtue in the action of ma sses nf mp.r)^ When the majority shall at length vote for the aboHtion of slavery, it will be because i they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little sla- ! very left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only Ms vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote. I hear of a convention to be held at Bahimore, or else- where, for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency, Resistance to Civil Government. 195 made up chiefly of editors, and men who are politicians by profession ; but I think, what is it to any independent, intelli- gent, and respectable man what decision they may come to, shall we not have the advantage of his wisdom and honesty, nevertheless ? Can we not count upon some independent votes ? Are there not many individuals in the country who do not attend conventions ? But no : I find that the respec- table man, so called, has immediately drifted from his posi- tion, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hirehng native, who may have been bought. Oh for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor i says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand ; through ! Our statistics are at fault : the population has been returned too large. How many mere are there to a square thousand miles in this country ? Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men to settle here ? The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow, — one ^ who may be known by the development of his organ ofi gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance ; whose first and chief concern, on coming into ] the world, is to see that the alms-houses are in good repair ; and, before yet he has lawfully donned the virile garb, to collect a fund for the support of the widows and orphans that ' may be; who, in short, ventures to live only by the aid of, the mutual insurance company, which has promised to buryi him decently. It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote ; himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong ; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him ; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his • support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contem- plations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting Upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what 196 Resistance to Civil Government. gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, " I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico, — see if I would go ; " and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war ; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at nought ; as if the State were penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning jfor a moment. Thus, under the name of order and civil government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and I support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin, comes its indifference ; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, wwmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made. The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur. Those who, w hi le theY.di§a B.prfi£.e of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support, are undoubtedly its most con- scientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the Pre- sident. Why do they not dissolve it themselves, — the union between themselves and the State, — and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury ? Do itot they stand in the same relation to the State, that the State does to the Union ? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union, which have prevented them from resisting the State ? How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it ? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved ? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are Resistance to Civil Gover7iment. 197 cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due ; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again. Action from principle, — the perception and the performance of right, — changes things and relations ; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with any thing which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; aye, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine. Unjust laws exist : shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once ? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reforrp. ? Why does it not cherish its wise minority ? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt ? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them ? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels ? One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its authority was the only offence never contemplated by government ; else, why has it not assigned its definite, its suitable and proportionate penalty ? If a man who has no property refuses but once to earn niae shillings for the State, he is put in prison for a period unlimited by any law that I know, and determined only by the discretion of those who placed him there ; but if he should steal ninety times nine shillings from the State, he is soon permitted to go at large again. If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go : perchance it will wear smooth, — certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, ex- 198 Resistance to Civil Government. clusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil ; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your Hfe be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for reihedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other |> affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to * make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good ' or bad. A man has not every thing to do, but something ; and because be cannot do every thing, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong. It is not my business to be petitioning the governor or the legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me ; and, if they should not hear my petition, what should I do then ? But in this case the State has provided no way : its very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconciliatory ; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like birth and death which convulse the body. I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government of Massa- chusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors, constitutes a majority of one already. , I meet this American government, or its representative the State government, directly, and face to face, once a year, no imore, in the person of its tax-gatherer ; this is the only mode jin which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it ; and it ;then says distinctly, Recognize me ; and the simplest, the most I effectual, and, in the present posture of affairs, the indispen- \ sablest mode of treating with it on this head, of expressing Resistance to Civil Government. 199 your little satisfaction with and love for it, is to deny it then. | My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with, — for it is, after all, with men and not with parch- ment that I quarrel, — and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborhness without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action ? I know this well,' that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name, — if ten honest men only, — aye, if one honest man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be ■ locked up in the county jail therefor, it Avould be the abolition i of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be : what is once well done is done for ever. But we love better to talk about it : that we say is our mission. Reform keeps many scores of news- papers in its service, but not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the State's ambassador, who wiU devote his days to the settlement of the question of human rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State which is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister, — though at present she can discover only an act of inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with her, — the Legislature would not whoUy waive the subject the following winter. , Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, thei true place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place I to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be ; put out and locked out of the .State by her own act, as they \ have akeady put themselves out by their principles. It is i there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on pa- role, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race. 200 Resistance to Civil Government. should find them ; on that separate, but more free and hono- rable ground, where the State places those who are not with her but against her, — the only house in a slave-state in which a free man can abide with honor. If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast 'your whole vote, not a strip ■ of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is , p owerless while it conforms to the majority ; it is not even a ■minority then ; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whol e i weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, i or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which I to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-biUs this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit vio- lence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the defi- nition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one Ijhas done, " But what shall I do ? " my answer is, " If you (really wish to do any thing, resign your office." When the 'i^bject Jbas^refused_^aUegian^ ajyi^^fcs,. offiae«Jias.':S^He3- ESo ffice, then the revolution is accomglished. But even sup- pose blood should flow. "% thVre not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded ? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now. I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, ra- ther than the seizure of his goods, — though both will serve the same purpose, — because they who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, com- monly have not spent much time in accumulating property. To such the State renders comparatively small service, and a slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly if they are obhged to earn it by special labor with their hands. If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the Resistance to Civil Government. 201 rich man — not to make any invidious comparison — is al- ways sold to the institution which makes him rich. Abso- lutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue ; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him ; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he would otherwise be taxed to answer ; while the only new question which it puts is the hEird but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet. The opportuni- ties of hving are diminished in proportion as what are called the "means" are increased. The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavour to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor. Christ answered the Herodians according to their condition. "Show me the tribute-money," said he; — and one took a penny out of his pocket ; — If you use money which has the image of Caesar on it, and which he has made current and valuable, that is, if you are men of the State, and gladly enjoy the advantages of Caesar's government, then pay hiija back some of his own when he demands it ; " Render therefore to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God those things which are God's," — leaving them no wiser than before as to which was which ; for they did not wish to know. When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I per- ceive that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the question, and their regard, for the public tranquillity, the long and the short of the matter is,Jlmtjlifiy:. cannot spare the pro tection ■Q£j jie.,.£«4&tij3ft.sffitfii:nm{;nt. and, tfiey "aread lie "coSequMices of disobedience to it to their property" and" faiHilfesr'' For my own part, I should not hke' toThlnk that lever rely on the protection of the State.' But,| if I deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax- bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live honestly and at the same time comfortably in outward respects. It will not be worth the while to accumulate property ; that would be sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, 26 202 Resistance to Civil Government. and depend upon yourself, always tucked up. and ready for a start, and not have many affairs. A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a gopd , subject of the Turkish government. Confucius said, — "If a State is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and « misery are subjects of shame; if a State is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors are the subjects of shame." No : until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on build- ing up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and hfe. It costs me less in every sense to incmr the penalty of disobedience to the State, than it would to obey. I should feel as if I w^ere w^orth less in that case. Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the .church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my father attended, but never I myself. " Pay it," it said, " or be locked up in the jaiL" I declined to pay. But, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the school- master ; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I sup- ported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and have the State to back its demand, as w^eU as the church. However, at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such ; statement as this in writing : — " Know all men by these pre- ;, sents, that I, Henry Thofeau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not joined." This I gave to the town-clerk ; and he has it. The St9,te, having thus learned that I did not wi^h to be regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since ; though it said that it must adhere to its original presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, J should then have signed off in detail from aU the societies which I never signed on to ; but I did not know where tp find ^ complete list. Resistance to Civil Government. 203 I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night ; and, as I stood con- sidering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the Ught, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder ; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how indus- triously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hinderance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body ; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog., I saw that the State was half- 1 witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends fronl its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it. ^^ Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strong- est. What force has a multitude ? They only can force me i who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become ; like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to Uve this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live ? When I meet a government which says to me, 204 Resistance to Civil Government. " Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money ? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am_not the_son^ the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best I they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies ; and so a man. The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the even- ing air in the door-way, when I entered. But the jailer said, " Come, boys, it is time to lock up ; " and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow apart- ments. My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer, as " a first-rate fellow and a clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month ; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the neatest apartment in the town. He naturally wanted to know where I came from, and what brought me there ; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be an honest man, of course ; and, as the world goes, I believe he was. " Why," said he, " they accuse me of burning a barn ; but I never did it." As near as I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a. barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe there ; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being a clever man, had been there some three months waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as much longer ; but he was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was well treated. He occupied one window, and I the other ; and I saw, that, if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to look out the window. I had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and examined where former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had been sawed ofi", and heard the history of the various Resistance to Civil Government. 205 occupants of that room ; for I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them. I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should never see him again ; but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left me to blow out the lamp. It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I never had heard the town-clock strike before, nor the even- ing sounds of the village ; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the middle ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices of old burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village-inn, — a wholly new and rare experience to me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar institutions ; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its inhabitants were about. In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole in the door, in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a pint of chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for the vessels again, I was green enough to return what bread I had left ; but my comrade seized it, and said that I should lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after, he was let out to work at haying in a neighboring field, whither he went every day, and would not be back till noon ; so he bade me good-day, saying that he doubted if he should see me again. When I came out of prison, — for some one interfered, and paid the tax, — I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the common, such as he observed who went in a youth, and emerged a tottering and gray-headed man ; and yet a change had to my eyes come over the scene, — the towp, and State, and country, — greater than any that mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and 206 Resistance to Civil Govefnmenti friends ; that their friendship was for summer weather only ; that they did not greatly purpose to do right ; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the China- men and Malays are ; that, in their sacrifices to humanity, they ran J no risks, not even to their property ; that, after all, they were not i so noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a particular straight though useless path from time to time, to save their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly ; for I believe that most of them are not aware that they have such an institution as the jail in their village. It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent 'the grating of a jail window, " How do ye do ? " My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I was I going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. Whefl I was let out tha next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand^ and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party,' who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct ; and in half an hour, — for the horse was soon tackled, — was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hUls, two miles ofi'; — i then the State was nowhere to be seen. This is the whole history of " My Prisons." I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject ; and, as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State,, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man, or a musket to shoot one with, — the dollar is innocent, -^ but I am con- cerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make what use and get what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases. Resistance to Civil Government, 207 .If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the State, they do but what they have already done in their own case, or rather they abet injustice to a greater extent than the State requires. If they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the individual taxed, to save his property or prevent his going to jail, it is because they have not considered wisely how far they let their private feelings interfere with the public good. This, then, is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on his guard in such a case, lest his action be biassed by obstinacy, or an undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only what belongs to himself and to the hour. I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well ; they are only ignorant ; they would do better if they knew how : why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to ? But I think, again, this is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind. Again, I sometimes say to myself, "When many millions of men, without heat, without ill-will, without personal feehng of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only, without the possibility, such is their constitu- tion, of retracting or altering their present demand, and with- out the possibihty, on your side, of appeal to any other naiUions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force ? You do not resist cold and hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately ; you quietly submit to a thousand similar necessities. You do not put your head into the fire. But just in proportion as I regard this as not wholly a brute force, but partly a human force, and consider that I have relations to those millions as to so many millions of men, and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal is possible, first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, and, secondly, from them to themselves. But, if I put my head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the Maker of fire, and I have only myself to blame. If I could convince myself that I have any right to be satisfied with men as they are, and to treat them accordingly, and not according, in some respects, to my requisitions and expec- 208 Resistance to Civil Government. tations of what they and I ought to be, then, like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of God. And, above all, there is this difference between resisting this and a purely brute or natural force, that I can resist this with some effect; but I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts. ^ I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to spHt hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed I have reason to suspect myself on this head ; and each year, as the tax- gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to. review the acts and position of the general and state governments, and the spirit of the people, to discover a pretext for conformity. I believe that the State will soon be-- able to take all my work of this sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better a patriot than my fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good ; the law and the courts are very respectable ; even this State and this American government are, in many respects, very admirable and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them ; but seen from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have described them ; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all ? > However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination- free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him. I know that most men think differently from myself; but those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of these or kindred subjects, content me as little as any. States- men and legislators, standing so completely within the insti- Resistance to Civil Goperjiment. 209 tution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful sys- tems, for which we sincerely thank them ; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency. Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no essen- tial reform in the existing government ; but for thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, he never once glances at the subject. I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind's range and hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions of most reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom and eloquence of politicians in general, his are almost the only sensible and valuable words, and we thank Heaven for him. Compara- tively, he is always strong, original, and, above all, practical. Still his quality is not wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency, or a consistent expe- diency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing. He well deserves to be called, as he has been called, the Defender of the Constitution. There are really no blows to be given by him but defensive ones. He is not a leader, but a follower. His leaders are the men of '87. " I have never made an effort,'" he says, " and never propose to make an effort ; I have never countenanced an effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb the arrangement as originally made, by which the various States came into the Union." Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, " Because it was a part of the original compact, — let it stand." Not- withstanding his special acuteness' and ability, he is unable to take a fact out of its merely poUtical relations, and behold it as it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the intellect, — what, for instance, it behoves a man to do here in America to-day with regard to slavery, but ventures, or is driven, to 27 210 Resistance to Civil Government. make some such desperate answer as the following, while professing to speak absolutely, and as a private man, — from which what new and singular code of social duties might be inferred ? — " The manner," says he, " in which the govern- ment of those States where slavery exists are to regulate it, is for their own consideration, .under their responsibihty to their constituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, and justice, and to God. Associations formed elsewhere, springing from a feehng of humanity, or any other cause, have nothing whatever to do with it. They have never re- ceived any encouragement from me, and they never will."* They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reve- rence and humihty; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head. No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand ; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak, Avho is capable of settling the much- vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free-trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and financ'e, commerce and manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legis- lators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations. For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written ; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation ? * These extracts have been inserted since the Lecture was read. Resistance to Civil Government. 211 The_ authority of p;nvCTnT nent, even such as I am willing to submit to, — for I will cheerfully obey those who know and catwio hpttR^ than T, gnr| jp manv things even those who neither know nor can do so well, — is still an hnpure one : to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent o f T he governed , it can have no pure right over my person andj! property but what I concede to it. The progress from an'' absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government ? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man ? There will never b pi a rp.ally frpf- nnd j enlie^hte ned State, until t l^ State """-""i \ n recof rn ize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all Its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordmgly. 1 please myself with imagining a State at last_ which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the . individual vyith respect as a neighbor ; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own re pose, if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced bv^. who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men . A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen. HYMN OF A SPIRIT SHROUDED. O God ! who, in thy dear still heaven, Dost sit, and wait to see The errors, sufferings, and crimes Of our humanity, How deep must be thy Causal love ! How whole thy final Care ! Since Thou, who rulest over all, Canst see, and yet canst bear. 212 Medilations of a Widow. THE MEDITATIONS OF A WIDOW. I. August, 18 — . Spkingtime, — it surely came, — its roundelays ! Wherefore these full, rich notes and Summer tone ? I only knew it was thy Spring to Life, — Above the life of seasons and decay, — True Life, not knowing stint, nor blight, nor check, One everlasting growth in incorruption ! Now joyous Sttmmeb passeth in her wealth. She filleth clusters ; hangeth gold on boughs ; Prepareth the full sheaf, the luscious sweets, Gorgeous apparel ; dresses for lilies, And for daisies too ; soft hues for Even And for Morn ; Music, the livelong day ; And Fountains cool, to freshen all. I only know that heat and taint and toil Can never come to thee ! Thou'st found thy wealth, Where thine affections reached, in thy mock-life ; Hast found that River (either side the Tree Whose leaves — oh thou art rich ! — unfolded to thee Fadeless), for the people, past and coming ; The fount of freshness, overflowing all : And thou hast learned the rich undying strain, Trumphant, glorious Alleluia ! II. OOTOBEE, 18 — . AtmJMN, I know thee well, — thy cool all-hail ! Thou introducest change : Beauty is pale : Those flashes but proclaim " passing away." Why art thou stern upon our lingering love ? Why dost deride and blow upon our joys ? Why spend thyself to strew our seeming wealth, And give our very comforts to the wind ? Thine awful whisperings are of Grandeur come, And we must hear acclaim of Majesty, Till, half congealed with awe, we breathe " Amen ! Let Beauty die ; our homage is to Thee." Meditations of a Widow. 213 All change is God ; immutably the same In form of Beauty and sublime display ; In most dread hours, His glory beameth out To light up glory in the human soul. Thou, thou hast passed all change of human life, And not again to thee shall Beauty die, Or Greatness in his robe of terror come. No devastation passeth o'er those fields ; The fruits abide, and who partake abide Their high communings. Life and Death is not. III. Decembeb, 18- WiNTEK, dread Undertaker, thou art come ! And how unique are thy oificial deeds ! The living and the dead, uncoffined, both Live in our meanest traversings concealed. The heralds of thy coming scattered truths ; And, gorgeously arrayed, they looked so gay. Admiring them, we lost the lesson quite. Then those Old Priests, with withered arms, stood up And read a service : requiems were pealed. And under-tones of death ; long deep-drawn sighs Passed o'er the living at their tasks and plays. And what a burial ! Sexton nor grave The buried bound about, and palled — all one — And thou dost bury o'er the safe-interred. As thou had'st power to shut them deeper down Into the cold dark trophy-room of Death. As well might boast of hulls and husks and shells, And other old investments dropped by life, In passage up to higher, purer life. Oh ! there is Life so pure, commingles nought To satiate the greedy maw of Death ; All unincumbered, incorrupt, and free ! Those dear remains can feel no adverse power, — The Life that laid them down is free from stain, And never shall put off its robe of light ! 214 Language. Art. XI. — LANGUAGE. No man was ever deeply and intensely fired with a convic- tion of a truth which he knew to be of vital importance to his fellow-men, that he did not burn to communicate it. And no man ever felt the full force of this desire of communica- tion, who has not brooded at times over the fact of language, and its want of effectiveness ; while at the same time it has seemed to hun, that the difficulty was not altogether in the vagueness and inexpressiveness of language itself; for that the words often unfolded a mysterious power of acting on his own mind, whenever it was raised to a certain pitch of exal- tation, assuring him that, if they should find other minds equally in earnest, they would burn and breathe into them also. Dr. Bushnell could not have evinced so conclusively in any other way, that he was full of a truth it behoved other men to know, than by falling upon Language itself, and calling his readers to consider its nature, introductory to the treat- ment of a great subject.* But, though his general view is great, and many of his observations upon language are pro- found, we take leave to say that he has stopped, in his analysis, short of a truth which might be unfolded, and has admitted to his investigation a boundary which does not ex- ist. He has seen and said, that the world which meets the senses has for its final cause to unfold the intelligence of man into consciousness, and to bring about that communion of the finite, with the infinite intelligence which is life. He has seen also, that men live within one another's sight and hearing, and in communion with each other, not only for lower ends, but ulteriorly for that higher end. In fine, he sees that all nature and human life have a representative, as their highest character, and that it is this which it most behoves men to understand. * See Introductory Essay to " God in Christ," published in Hartford, Conn, by Brown & Parsons, 1849. Language. 215 Still more, he has seen that men are linguistic, as truly, naturally, inevitably, as that they are locomotive or intellec- tual ; and therefore there is a priori reason to believe, that language is not arbitrary or accidental, but springs out of nature, Avith which it has vital connection. He says, that man is a speaking, as he is a seeing creature ; that the parable of God's bringing all creatures to Adam, to name, signifies, that men named things by a pre-established law connecting the mind and outward nature with each other. He even sees, that every word is, in the last analysis, the sign or vocal form of some material thing or action ; but what is remarkable is, that while he sees all this, and farther sees that the applica- tion of words to moral and religious subjects follows the same laws of imagination that are exemplified in those sen- tences which are called " figures of speech, " he does not seem to see that the same laws of imagination determined the elements of single words to their subjects, so that every word which is not an imitation of nature, like hum, buzz, boom, is, as it were, a poem ; in short, that there is some na- - tural and inevitable reason why every word should be what it is ; that there is a foregoing impossibility of lepus and lupus and vulpes and wolf and fox (fugax) to be tortoise or sloth, though words as different as hare and lepus may both signify the same animal, viewed according to different characteristics. He sees as much difference between sol and sun, and stella and astre, as between nubes and cloud; and ends at last with a restatement of the old and superficial theory, that language is, after all, arbitrary, the creature of convention. But we have not introduced Dr. Bushnell's name to criti- cize the shortcomings of his Essay, as philological science, since he does not profess to be an adept in it ; but because the justice he has done to the subject of language as a power / acting and re-acting upon the mind, helping or hindering it in the investigation of truth, must awaken a sense of the impor- tance of the subject, and affords a good opportunity to direct an intelligent attention to the philological essay, entitled the " Significance of the Alphabet." * * A pamphlet published in 1837, at 13, West-street, Boston, Mass. 216 Language. When a great scientific discovery is made, and given forth to the world abstracted from its applications and a fall deve- lopment of its uses, it is apt to fall unobserved, and perhaps sleep for years. The world knows only of seeds that have sprouted. And yet, that a theory of language which, as an organic whole, and in some degree demonstrated as true, is certainly original, should have been passed over* so long, as at best but an ingenious and curious speculation, is somewhat strange. For, if it pretends to touch the heart, of the matter, it must be either impertinently foohsh, calling for animadversion and ridicule, or it is of serious import. The truth upon the subject has relations with every department of human knowledge and thought. 1 For what is language ? It is the picture and vehicle of all that has been present to the mind of Humanity, stretching back beyond all histories and other literatures ; and its bear- ings are incalculable upon the discovery and retention' of truth, as well as upon the disciphne and activity of the human mind which is in relation to it. The human mind is in rela- tion to nature as the stone-cutter or the artist to the quarry ; and language is at once the representation and vehicle of aU 'l that has been quarried. " One man dies, and other men enter into the fruits of his labor." How ? Because these fruits are conserved, or ra- ther live and move, in language. Language must therefore be a necessary product, and what it is, precisely because it could not be otherwise ; therefore within the multitude of languages, and beneath the confusion of tongues, there must be something of a universal character, which gives meaning to the articulations of sound. This has seemed so probable, a priori, from the time of Socrates f to the present day, that again and again the idea has been broached, and sometimes a clue has seemed to be caught. But all experience seems at first sight to be against it. Dr. Bushnell brings forward * Since the present article has been in the hands of the printer, the atten- tion of the -writer has been called to two notices of this work, in the Jan- uary and April numbers of the " North American Eeview," which are very- important, and will doubtless lead to important consequences. t "Cratylus." Language. 217 the argument drawn both from the existence of diverse lan- guages and from the failure of all systems of etymology that have been broached, as if these were conclusive against it, and as a warning to future inquirers not to stumble on dark mountains. But always the discoveries of science seem impossible till they are made, and every erroneous path that is taken is called a conclusive experience. Let us not be discouraged. Euler, when announcing the formula of the principle of circular motion, said, " This is trtie, though all experience is against it." The mathematical student of the ce- lestial motions understands this, however paradoxical it may sound. Language is another exponent of the same paradox. There is a universal truth with respect to language which contradicts those special facts of each language called idioms. And these exceptions also prove the rule. There is, in short, a view to be taken of this subject which reconciles the two opposite views which Dr. Bushnell speaks of, viz. the a priori probability of a universal language, and the a posteriori fact of a diversity of languages ; and this view wiU account for that strange power in the form of some words which he no- tices, and for the pertinacity of being which characterizes these children of the air. The vast importance of nomeilclature to natural science is exemplified in that of chemistry. This nomenclature is, in fact, the best instance of the invention of a language in modern scientific annals. There is a rational principle obvious. The new words explain themselves. A great deal of the time of students of all sciences is used up in settling the meaning of words, — defining; that is, attempting to clear away by one set of words the confusion occasioned by the use of an- other set, called scientific terms. Grammar and mathematics, for instance, are talked of in a mongrel of Latin and Greek words, whose laborious paraphrasing into equivalent English keeps off the mind, for a long time, from the real subject in hand. It is a commonly acknowledged drawback on all school-instruction, that the mind is employed about words, as comders, which prevents the faculties from being refreshed by those realities of nature intended to be signified by them; It is a common remark, that it is not until the learner has 28 218 Language. left school, and come into relation with things, that his les- sons are vivified, made to cultivate his mind, and stimulate his character. ^But the desired revolution in school-education would be accomplished, if words were looked at as transpa- rent vases of realities of nature, and every department of science was treated in terms that, instead of hiding, revealed these realities clearly, as a picture reveals the objects of na- tural history. And why is it not so ? The reason is, that the key to the meaning of language — its secret — is not in the common possession. Dr. Bushnell has seen, and verified to his mind in a suffi- cient number of instances, that words which consist of several syllables elucidate complex ideas by the combination. He might have spoken of the word consider in English, made of con and sedeo. We consider a subject when we sit down in company with it. In German, the same act of the mind is expressed by iiberlegen. The German lies over the subject of his consideration. To occur means to run (curro) to meet (ob); and in England thoughts occur, and sometimes strike, while in Germany they fall into people {einf alien). It is curious enough to run through languages, and trace na- tional characteristics evinced by words of this kind, that reveal operations of mind which are familiar or easily ex- plained. But it is not necessary to stop here, as Dr. Bushnell has done. He says, p. 48 : — " There is only a single class of intellectual words that can be said to have a perfectly determinate significance, viz. those which relate to what are called necessary ideas. They are such as time, space, came, truth, right, arithmetical numbers, and geometrical figures. Here the names applied are settled into a perfectly determinate meaning, not by any pecuhar virtue in them, but by reason of the absolute exactness of the ideas themselves. Time cannot be any thing more or less than time ; truth cannot, in its idea, be any thing different from truth; the numbers suffer no ambiguity of count or measure ; a circle must be a circle, a square a square. As far as language, therefore, has to do with these, it is a per- fectly exact algebra of thought, but no further." He, however, had akeady asked : — Language. 219 "What is the real and legitimate use of words, when applied to moral subjects ? for we cannot dispense with them, and it is uncomfortable to hold them in universal scepticism, as being only instruments of error." And this question follows a long disquisition, whose object is to show that " physical terms are never exact, being only names of genera." — " Much less have we any terms in the spiritual department of language that are exact representatives of thought." He answers his own question, therefore, with this remark, of which he does not seem to follow out the whole value : — " Words are used as signs of thoughts to be expressed. They do not literally convey, or pass over, a thought out of one mind into another, as we commonly speak of doing. They are only hints or images held up before the mind of another, to put him upon generating or reproducing the same ftiought, which he can do only as he has the same personal contents, or the generative power out of which to bring the thought required." Nay, we would add, he must also have the generative power of making the words so, and not other- wise; that, whatever superficial difference they may have, , yet, taken in some point of view, there is a certain identity of all words applied to the same thought. But Dr. Bushnell does not see this. He says : " Yet, in the languages radically distinct, we shall find that the sounds or names which stand for the same objects have generally no sim- ilarity whatever ; whence it follows irresistibly, that nothing in the laws of voice or sound has determined the names adopted." This donclusion is drawn so irresistibly by means of the mistake that Dr. Bushnell, with many famous etymologists, has made, of conceiving " no similarity whatever " in words, except in their sound, i. e. their similarity of effect on the ear. It is very true, as he says, " No theory of sound, as connected with sense, in the names of things, will be found to hold ex- tensively enough to give it any moment ; " although, " when sounds are the objects named, they will very naturally be imitated, as in hoarse and hiss." But words should be considered not merely as sounds, but as articulations of sound. 220 Language. The discovery and first principle of the author of the " Significance of the Alphabet " is, that words are to be considered, not merely or chiefly by their effect on the ear, but in the process of their formation by the organs of speech. Looked at in this point of view, words may be identified at once, although they may sound differently from each other, as garden and kortus and wirta and ogrod and zahrada. And this is the great idea in which hes a revolution not only for tbe treatment of philology itself, but for the method of intercommunicating the knowledge of all particular lan- guages, and of elucidating all sciences communicable by words. Dr. Bushnell, having quoted Prof. Gibbs's theory of case, published in the " Christian Spectator," vol. ix. says, it is there shown that " as words themselves are found in space, so they are declined, or formed into grammar, under the relations of space ; " and infers " that such results in grammar do not take place apart from some inherent law or system pertain- ing either to mind or to outward space, or to one as related to the other ; " and adds that it will sometime be fully seen, that " the outer word is a vast menstruum of thought or inteUigence. There is a logos in the forms of things, by which they are prepared to serve as types or images of what is inmost in our souls ; and there is a logos also of con- struction in the relations of space, the position, qualities, connections, and predicates of things, by which they are formed into grammar. In one word, the outer world which envelopes our being is itself language, the power of all lan- guage. ' Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge ; there is no speech nor language where their sound is not heard ; their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.' " Let Dr. Bushnell add from Dr. Kraitsir's theory the other element, and see that there is a logos also in the apparatus of articulation ; and he will have, but not otherwise, demonstra- ble ground for his next paragraph, which is eloquent with a suggestion, which, as he justly afterwards remarks, is " suffi- eient of itself to change a man's intellectual capacities and destiny; for it sets him always in the presence of divine Langitage. 221 Aoughts and meanings, makes even the words he utters luminous of Divinity, and, to the same extent, subjects of love and reverence." This is the passage we mean : — " And if the outer world is the vast dictionary and gram- mar of thought. we speak of, then it is also an organ through- out of inteUigence. Whose inteUigence ? By this question we are set directly cbnfrontmg God, the universal Author ; no more to hunt for him by curious arguments and subtle deductions, if haply we may find Him ; but He stands EXPRESSED everywhere, so that, turn whichsoever way we please, we behold the outlooking of His intelhgence. No series of Bridgewater treatises, piled even to the moon, could give a proof of God so immediate, complete, and con- clusive." It is not the purpose here to give an abstract of the little book, called the " Significance of the Alphabet." Indeed, it would be impossible. One peculiarity of it is, that it is so condensed it admits of no farther condensation. It rather needs a paraphrase, and it certainly ought to have a sequel of some practical elementary books which may make it possible to apply its principles for the purpose of transform- ing the present system of language-teaching in schools. It is said the author is superintending the preparation of some. A whole series is necessary, from the a b c book to a manual of the Sanscrit. Indeed, from him might be expected the realization of that idea of a lexicon which Herder has sketched in his " Conversations on the Spirit of Hebrew Poetry." One of the interlocutors of the conversation asks, — after having granted, with respect to the Hebrew, "the symbolism of the radical sounds, or the utterance of the feeling that was prompted, while the object itself was present to the senses ; the sound of the feelings in the very intuition of their causes : — But how is it with the derivations from these radical terms ? "What are they but an overgrown jungle of thorns, where no human foot has ever trod ? " EUTYPHRON. " In bad lexicons this is indeed the case, and- many of the most learned philologists of Holland have rendered the way 222 Language. still more diflScult by their labors. But the time is coming when this jungle will become a pleasant grove of palms. " ALOIPHRON. " Your metaphor is Oriental. " EUTYPHRON. " So is the object of it. The root of the mother-word will stand in the centre, and around her the grove of her children. By influence of taste, diligence, sound sense, and the judi- cious comparison of different dialects, lexicons will be brought to distinguish what is essential from what is accidental in the signification of words, and to trace the gradual process of transition ; while in the derivation of words, and the appli- cation of metaphors, we shall behold the invention of the human mind in its act, and more fully understand the logic of ancient figurative language. I anticipate with joy the time, and the first lexicon, in which this shall be well accom- phshed. For the present I use the best we have. . . . " ALCIPHRON. " It will be long yet before we shall repose ourselves in your palm-grove of Oriental lexicography. Pray, in the meantime, illustrate your ideas of derivation by an ex- ample. " EUTYPHRON. " You may find examples everywhere, even as the lexicons now are. Strike at the first radical form that occurs, as the primitive ' he is gone,' and observe the easy gradation of its derivatives. A series of expressions signifying loss, disappear- ance, and death, vain purposes, and fruitless toil and trouble, go on in soft transitions ; and, if you place yourself in the circumstances of the ancient herdsmen, in their wandering, unsettled mode of life, the most distant derivative will still give back in its tones something of the original sound of the word, and of the original feeling. It is from this cause that the language addresses itself so much to our senses, and the creations of its poetry become present to us with such stirring effect. The language abounds in roots of this character ; and our commentators, who rather go too deep than too super- ficially, have shown enough of them. They never know when to quit, and, if possible, would lay bare all the roots Language. 223 and fibres of every tree, even where one would wish to see only the flowers and fruits. " ALCIPHRON. " These are the black demons, I suppose, upon your plan- tation of palms. " EUTYPHRON. " A very necessary and useful race. We must treat them with mildness ; for, if they do too much, they do it with a good motive." In answer to some criticisms * that have been made upon the " Significance of the Alphabet," such as that it is a dark hint, rather than a full elucidation of the subject, the history of the book may be given. It was merely the enlargement by Dr. Kraitsir of some notes taken by a hearer of one or two lectures of a series which he delivered in Boston to an audience of about a score of persons ! This particular portion of the series, touching the true pronunciation of the Latin language, it was advised by the late John Pickering, should be put forth, to excjte, if possible, a controversy that should be the means of introdvicing the whole subject to the public attention ; and he promised to farther it in the periodicals of the day. But the day it was published was the very day when that eminent philologist, having finished correcting the last proof of his Greek dictionary, said, " This is the last printed page I shaU read." The words were pro- phetic : in a few days he was, in fact, no more. The book, however, is not so " dark a hint" as may be sup- posed by those who have not studied it. Even the notes are treatises. The note on mathematical phraseology, and which involves the reference of the words line and circle to the true standard of meaning, not only serves " to elucidate the life- principle of philology, but of mathematical discipline." So the note upon grammatical terms, and the last note on the appropriation of words, are only " dark with excessive bright." In the notes, also, he has collected the authorities for the Latin pronunciation out of the ancient grammarians, * A misprint on the last line of the 17th page, oi formation for pronun- ciation, obscures the meaning of one of its most important paragraphs. 224 Vegetation about Salem. to whom Latin was vernacular. Yet doubtless the whole series of lectures was a much more adequate treatment of the subject ; and we will close this article, which is already a kind of pot-pourri, with an extract from a letter written by one of that small audience, and which vies well with the eloquent passage that Dr. Bushnell has quoted from Prof. Gibbs, in the 31st page of his essay : — "Language, before apparently a mere ordinary vehicle, be- came in his hands the chariot of Ezekiel, ' celestial equipage instinct with spirit,' the fabric not behind the noble uses. His science is to all who have the boon of speech what ana- tomy is to the painter. His descriptions of the structure arfd nature of vocal sounds charm like the explanations of Egyp- tian hieroglyphics. Indeed, they display a scheme of more subtle symbohsm, and one which, if in its own region less beautiful, is richer than music. " The common enjoyment of the study of languages, aris- ing from their social character, their revelations of community of thought and sentiment, is greatly enhanced by Dr. Krait- sir's lively and penetrating methods. The identity of roots presented by him affects the imagination with a sense of the closest fraternity, and recalled to my mind with new force the words of an eloquent advocate for the study of languages, who, in dwelhng upon the sympathies it stirred up, exclaimed Avith the prophet, ' Have we not all one Father ? hath not one God created us ? ' " Akt. XII. — VEGETATION ABOUT SALEM, MASS. The vegetation of Salem is remarkably foreign. Two spe- cies belonging to different families, and both of exotic origin, threaten to take complete possession of the soil. The first, the well-known wood-wax {Ginista tinctoria), is running rapidly over all the hills and dry pastures. This plant seems to occupy in this vicinity the place which the furze-bush occupies on the heaths and commons of England; or it may resemble, in its manner of possessing the soil, the Vegetation about Salem. 225 heather of the Highlands of Scotland. Not, indeed, in its appearance : in that particular it faintly resembles the yellow broom, the Spartium, so prettily celebrated by Mary Howitt in her juvenile sketches of natural history : — " Oh the broom, the yellow broom ! The ancient poets sung it ; And dear it is on summer-day To lie at rest among it." The wood-wax, however, has found no favor in this vici- nity. It is annually burned to the ground, in utter detesta- tion ; yet, phoenix-like, it springs from its ashes ; and, by the height of summer, it laughs from the midst of its yellow flowers at all the efforts that have been made to destroy it. In England, this plant is useful in the arts ; it is employed with woad, the Isatis tinctoria, another plant, to give a green color to woollen cloth. The wood- wax affords a yellow dye, the woad a blue coloring matter ; and the admixture of the products of both plants produces a very fair green. The cheapness of indigo will always prevent the New England farmers from growing the Isatis for its blue color ; otherwise we might hope for a market for the wood-wax ; for, where the one is employed , the other becomes necessary. In former times, the Genista obtained some celebrity as a medical plant ; but, on this head, I suppose that we must conclude ^vith the naturalist of Almondsbury, that the mild assuasives of our forefathers are unequal to contention with the abused consti- tutions of these days. Second among obnoxious intruders stands the white-weed. This plant is as great a nuisance in our mowing ground as the wood-wax in our pastures. Some fields are so infested as to present at haying-time the appearance of a waving ocean of white blossoms. I am not aware of any remedy for the evil, save the application of a more vigorous agricul- ture. These foreigners seem to have chosen this vicinity as their favorite place of abode. There is a tradition, that they were introduced as garden ornaments, and that they have strayed away from the flower-border, and sought in the fields and pastures the wild liberty they so much love. It is somewhat 29 226 Vegetation about Salem. hazardous to impeach a popular tradition ; but it appears much more likely that they were brought over in some of the first grass-seed that came from England. Both plants are perennial, spreading rapidly from the root, and propagating with equal facility from the seed. These abundant powers of reproduction meeting with a genial soil and a loose hus- bandry, it is no wonder that they should produce the effects so obvious in our neighborhood. The white-weed belongs to that class of plants whose seeds are often furnished with feathery appendages, like the dandehon, thistle, and many others ; a race of wanderers that traverse the earth with as- tonishing rapidity. Next to the wood-wax and white-weed, the knap-weed {Centaur ea nigra) deserves attention. This plant, of recent introduction from Europe, is making rapid advances in our neighborhood. It should be pointed out to our farmers, who ought by all means to resist its invasion. It is a most villan- ous weed, utterly unfit for fodder, whether green or dry. It is sometimes called the thistle without thorns ; but it wiU prove a thorn in the sides of some of our husbandmen, diffi- cult of expulsion, if it is suffered to continue its advances. It propagates by creeping roots and feathery seeds, much after the manner of the white-weed. Of all the plants that threaten the agriculturalist, perhaps none is more formidable than the Canada thistle ( Cnicus ar- vensis), which has probably reached us from the great West- ern prairies. This plant is known to every one : it forms extensive beds by the road-sides, and frequently in the pas- tures. The hard, gravelly soil of this vicinity is not very fa- vorable to its growth. It loves a rich loam, through which it can send its runners with ease and facility. Mr. Curtis, an Enghsh gentleman, in order to test the astonishing powers of reproduction possessed by this plant, deposited about two inches of a root in his garden. In the course of one summer, it had thrown out, under ground, runners on every side: some of these runners Avere eight feet long; and some of them had thrown up leaves eight feet from the origmal root. The whole together, when taken up and washed, weighed four pounds. In the spring following, it made its appearance. Vegeiatiofi about Salem. 227 on or about where the small piece was originally planted. There were between fifty and sixty young plants which must have eluded the gardener's search, though he was particularly careful in extracting them. From these facts it may be readily conceived how difficult it is to extirpate this weed, when once it has taken possession of the soil. Among our introduced plants, there are some that love to follow the footsteps of civilized man, ajid whose chosen loca- lity is always around his dwelling. Among the most pro- minent of these, are the common shepherd's purse ( Thlaspi Bursa pastoris) ; the chickweed of our gardens ( Stellaria media) ; the knot-grass {Polygonum aviculare), that fringes every foot-path, and seems to grow the more for being trod- den upon; the plantain {Planiago major), that is always found in city, town, or village, whether on the banks of the Ganges, the Thames, or the Missouri. It is said that the In- dians of New England used to call this plant " Enghshman's foot," because it always sprung up in the footsteps of the first settlers. There is a beautiful little bluebell found between Danvers and Salem, the Campanula glomerata, brought, very Ukely, from the chalk hiUs of England, where it grows abundantly. It is now fairly naturalized, and appears to be as innocent as it is beautiful. It is yearly extending the bounds of its loca- lity, though at present, I beUeve, it is not found in any other spot in the United States. , It is a flower well worthy of cul- tivation, requiring a dry soil, approaching as much as possible the character of the Alpine region, of which it is a native. In the vicinity of this city, the English white-thorn, the hawthorn of the poets, of which so much has been written, is slowly naturaUzing itself. It is certainly a useful shrub, forming beautiful fences, and contributing much to the gar- den-Hke appearance of England. To the EngUsh it may well counterbalance the myrtle of more genial chmes. To the people of this section of the United States, it can never become of much importance. Here there is abundance of stone; and, whUe such an indestructible material can be found, live fences ought not to be.adppted. A five fence has certainly a tendency to beautify the scenery, and to give 228 Vegetation about Salem. a garden-like aspect to the land it encloses; but it cannot compare in point of utility with a firm stone wall. When a hedge becomes gapped, it requires years to repair it ; but, if a stone wall falls down, it is very soon replaced. Live fences, however, may be used to advantage where stone is not to .be found. Sometimes they may be introduced as ornaments, with very good effect. There is a native shrub, abundant in this vicinity, most admirably adapted for fences, — the common cockspur-thorn {Cratmgus Cms galli). In all the essentials of a fencing shrub it fully equals the English hawthorn, to which, indeed, it is closely allied. The spines of this shrub are more than an inch long ; so that a hedge formed of it would present an almost impregnable barrier, bidding defiance to aU intruders, whether biped or quadruped. Several plants of this shrub have been suffered to stand near the entrance of the Forest- river road, till they have assumed the size of trees. In the spring, they are covered with a profusion of white blossoms ; and, in the fall, their rich scarlet fruit never fails to attract at- tention. In these particulars, this shrub strikingly resembles its English congener. Indeed, the points of resemblance are so many and so striking that it ought to be called the Ameri- can hawthorn. Like the English haw, its fruit requires two years to vegetate. The barberry, so very abundant in our vicinity, is sup- posed to be an introduced shrub. It corresponds exactly with the Berberis vulgaris of Europe. It has only a limited locahty on the seaboard of New England, and is not found anywhere else on this continent. The vigor of its growth is especially note-worthy. It rises by the way-side ; it grows in the chinks and crevices of the rocks ; it spreads over neglected pastures, and looks around with a saucy confidence that seems to say, " AU the world was made for barberry bushes." It is doubtless the design of nature', that plants should be colonized ; that there should be a change of localities ; that, when any part of the earth is rendered unfit for producing one race of plants, it shall be furnished with seeds of another. The husbandman does but imitate this process of nature, when he pursues what is called a rotation of crops. Various Vegetation about Salem. 229 are the expedients to which nature resorts to produce this end. The seeds of lofty trees are often furnished with wings ; and, by the aid of the autumnal winds, they are borne to a great distance. Sometimes birds are employed as the car- riers of seeds ; and they transport them with amazing rapi- dity. Nuttall tells us that " pigeons killed near the city of New York have been found with their crops full of rice col- lected in the plantations of Georgia or Carolina." The para- sitical misletoe, the once-sacred emblem of the Druids, bears a small white berry of an extremely viscid pulp. The birds, who are fond of this fruit, are apt to encumber their bills with the glutinous substance ; and, to clean them, they rub them upon the branches of trees where they happen to ahght, thus depositing the seeds in the very place where nature intended they should grow. It is perhaps proper to observe, that the misletoe is a para- sitical plant that grows in Europe and the Southern States. It attaches itself to the oak, the apple, the maple, the ash, — indeed, to most deciduous trees, — and grows upon them, a suspended bush of evergreen, altogether unique in its ap- peEurance. It sustains itself by drinldng the sap of its sup- porter. The oak, the walnut, the chestnut, and some other trees, produce ponderous seeds, too large for distribution by the feathered tribes. But a kind and watchful Providence has not been unmindful of their dispersion and deposition in spots favorable to their future growth. These trees are the favorite haunts of the squirrel; and to his charge is committed the planting of future forests of these varieties ; among whose branches his own race may build their soft abodes, lick the morning dew, and pursue their innocent gambols, and finally provide for man a rich material for his industry and enter- prise. As a gentleman was one day walking in the woods, his attention was diverted by a squirrel, which sat very com- posedly on the ground. He stopped to observe his motions ; in a few minutes the squirrel darted to the top of a noble oak, beneath which he was sitting. In an instant he was down with an acorn in his mouth ; and, after finding a soft 230 Vegetation about Salem. spot, he quickly dug a small hole, deposited his charge, the germ of a future oak, covered it up, and then darted up the tree again. In a moment he was down with another, which he buried in the same manner ; and thus he continued to labor as long as the observer thought proper to watch him. The instinct of the little animal may be directed to a pro- vision for his future wants ; but the Giver of aU good has endowed him with such an active and untiring industry, that he does more than supply all these ; and the surplus rises to adorn the earth, and proclaim the wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge. The capsules of some plants burst with a spring, and the seeds are scattered broadcast by the impulse. The garden balsam, and all the violet race, are examples of this mode. It is well known how the burdock and the burr marygold {Bidens frondosa) hook themselves by a mechanical con- trivance to the clothes of persons and the coats of animals, illustrating in the most famihar manner the economy of nature in the dispersion of seeds. But, after all, man is the great agent in promoting vege- table migration. It is by his agency that the most, precious seeds are borne across the wide ocean. He carries them in aU his wanderings among his richest treasures ; while others follow his course, whether he will or not, mingling with his rarer seeds, or adhering unseen to his household stuff. The animal fleabane {Erigeron Canadense) was sent from Canada to France, in bales of fur, and from thence, by natural propa- gation, into all the countries of Europe. The tree primrose [CEnothera biennis), so common in our own vicinity, was first naturalized in the neighborhood of Liverpool, and from thence distributed by its own spontaneous effort all over the civilized world. It is by the agency of man that the lofty forests are levelled to the ground, and the bosom of the earth laid bare for the reception of a new race of plants. Our own vicinity is a remarkable exemplification of the fact. All around us we see trees, shrubs, and herbacious plants, that once were strangers to the soil. A change is still sweeping over the face of nature. The noble race of forest-trees, and the beau- Vegetation about Salem. 231 tiful tribe of wild-wood flowers that nestle at their feet, and find shelter and shade beneath their boughs, are fast fading away. A few blows of the woodman's axe, and the tree whose branches have braved a hundred winters lies prostrate with the ground. The time is not distant when public attention must be drawn to the planting of forest-trees in this country. Timber is growing scarce, while the arts and manufactures, which have taken such deep root among us, are calling for a more enlarged supply. Timber has now to be brought from afar, at an annually increasing expense ; while large tracts of land are approaching a state of barrenness, by being laid bare to the searching influence of the sun and wind. We have destroyed our forests with recklessness, and posterity must feel the consequences ! Indeed, our bleak pastures and bare hills begin to rej)roach us for not making some effort to shelter the one, and clothe the other. The mechanics have a deep interest in this matter. How often does the profitable prosecution of a certain branch of business depend upon the abundance and cheapness of its staple material! Has the ship-builder no interest in the growth of our pasture oaks ? Is the wheelwright insensible to the advantages of an abundant supply of ash and elm ? When we see huge loads of barrels entering our cities, when we see high piles of chairs and other manufactures of wood coming from far back in the country, and, above all, when we observe our merchants building their ships on the banks of distant rivers, do not these things proclaim the growing scarcity of tunber around us ? Societies of Natural History could hot render a greater public service than that of ascertainuig the comparative value of the different species of timber-trees suitable for this climate. In this pursuit they may be materially aided by intelligent and enterprising mariners. These ought to be requested to collect, in their voyages and travels, the seeds of all such forest-trees as are likely to grow in this latitude. Evelyn, who spent his life in an effort to enrich his native England by plantations, says, "I would encourage all imaginable industry in those that travel foreign countries, and especially 332 Vegetation about Sakm. gentlemen who have concerns in our American settlements, to promote the culture of such, plants and shrubs and trees, especially timber, as may yet add to those we find already agreeable to our climate." We all know with what patience, pains, and expense, the modern nations of Europe have searched the most distant climes for valuable vegetable pro- ductions. We have noticed the astonishing exuberance with which our naturalized vegetation appears to flourish. It is a fact that ought to be regarded, and we may perhaps deduce from it an important lesson. It seems to point to a change of seed, to show that new seeds and a fresh soil are important con- ditions in vegetable economy. Perhaps we ought to take the hint from nature, and look beyond the old forest stocks of the neighborhood for timber-trees of a rapid and vigorous growth. I would not disparage the goodly race of trees that once adorned the county of Essex. I fear that we shall never look upon their like again. But it is doubtful whether they would take to the soil in the form of artificial plantations as kindly as some varieties brought from a distance. Every one knows that a new orchard cannot be raised on the site of an old one ; and it is equally well known, that, when a forest of hard-wood trees is cut down, there the pines and softer woods succeed a spontaneous growth. The locust is here attacked by an insect, and is fast declining in our neighborhood, and I believe all along the Atlantic shore; while it is now appearing in its pristine vigor, a naturalized tree, in all the South of France. Michaux says that it is likely to become abundant in Europe, where it is a stranger, and scarce in America, its native clime. A rotation of crops is as needful for forest-trees as for the more humble agricultural productions. Where are the forests of Lebanon, into which Solomon sent his fourscore thousand hewers of wood ? Dwindled at last to some half a dozen cedars, as if the earth was tired of pro- ducing, for so long a period, the same race of plants. The larch plantations of Scotland are a striking example of the importance of a change of seed. In the year 1738, a Scottish gentleman was seen ^vending Vegetation about Salem. 233 his way from the British metropolis to his paternal estate at Glenlyon, in Perthshire. He travelled on horseback, after the fashion of the times, with his servant well mounted, and bearing his portmanteau behind him. On the top of the portmanteau was lashed one of the richest treasures for Scot- land that ever passed the Tweed. It was a few foreign larch-trees, the Larix communis, or common white larch of Germany. These few trees this pubHc-spirited individual generously distributed on his route to those persons in Scot- land who would give them that care and trial which it was desirable they should receive. The course of a few years soon began to demonstrate their superiority over the old Scotch pine. Growing side by side, these vigorous strangers soon over-topped and looked down upon the aborigines of the soU. The difference in favor of the German larch was found to be immense. " It bears," says Sang, a celebrated forest manager, " the ascendency over the Scotch pine in the following important circumstances: — It brings double the price per foot, and arrives at a timber size in a half or a third part of the time. The timber of the larch at thirty or forty years is equal in quantity, and vastly superior in quality, to the Scotch pine of a hundred years. A larch-tree of fifty years' growth has been sold for twelve guineas, while a Scotch pine of the same age, and from the same soil, has not brought more than fifteen shillings." Towards the close of the last century, when the arts, com- merce, and manufactures, began to rise in Scotland, her nobles soon learned to calculate the value of an abundant supply of useful timber. Happily the experiment had been tried, and the species of timber-trees best suited to the climate and soil of Scotland was already known. In the year 1796, more than five millions of larch-trees were raised by one nurseryman in Edinburgh. The Duke of Athol planted two hundred thousand every year for a number of years, and on one occasion he set out more than a million within the year. Nor was it merely planting. In the year 1820, this patriotic nobleman had the satisfaction of seeing a thirty-six gun frigate launched, built entirely of larch timber of his own raising. Throughout the British Isles^ the larch has been 30 234 Veffetaiion about Salem. 'b' planted by thousands and millions ; and, what is very extra- ordinary, the most barren land is converted into fine pasturage by the process. The larch succeeds best on poor land, while the annual fall of its leaves soon gives rise to a fine natural grass that is highly valuable for grazing. Land has been let at a yearly rent of from ten shiUings to three pounds the acre, that, before the planting of the larch, was not worth so many pence. It is calculated that in the next age the High- lands of Scotland alone will be able to furnish the whole com- merce of Britain with timber for its shippings The sphit for planting continues to the present time. In 1820, the London Society for the Promotion of the Arts presented a gold medal to one individual, for planting nearly two millions of forest-trees, one half of which were larch. Most assuredly, those individuals who have thus enriched their country deserve well of posterity. The celebrated Coke, of Norfolk, has been a successful planter of forest-trees. It is said that, soon after this gentle- man came into possession of his estate, the lease of a certain parcel of land expired. This land (eleven thousand acres) had been let at a yearly rent of three shillings per acre ; but this the lessee thought too much, and offered only two shil- lings ; to which Coke replied, " No, I will sooner turn it into a hunting-ground ; " and he immediately set to planting it with oak, larch, and the Spanish chestnut. In a few years, the annual thinnings alone yielded him more than the former rental. At the time of his marriage, this magnificent wood- lot was valued at £220,000. The planting of trees is by no means such a hopeless or heartless affair as some people imagine. A short time since, I called upon an aged gentleman* of this county, and was politely invited to see his trees. As we passed beneath a noble range of plane-trees, whose bending boughs seemed to do homage to their planter, my friend informed me that the trees I was then admiring, some of which were sixty or seventy feet high, and five or six feet in circumference, were a fine seed between his thumb and finger, after he was five * Dr. Eilham, of Wenham. Vegetation about Salem. 235 and forty years of age. When I alluded to his public spirit and disinterested benevolence, he replied in a tone of mingled satisfaction and regret, " I now wish that I had planted a hundred trees where I only planted one." There is reason to beheve, that the late Timothy Pickering held the larch-tree in high estimation, and thought of it as a suitable tree for covering the bare hills of his native county. At any rate, he was among the first to give it a trial. Some- thing like five and twenty years ago, he imported two hun- dred of these trees. They now form the ornament of his late estate at Wenham. I have known them for more than eighteen years ; and, during that period, they have exhibited a growth of great promise. Their seeds ripen kindly in this climate, and a second generation of spontaneous growth has arisen from these imported trees. We may now reckon this valuable timber-tree among the naturahzed products of New England. If the individual who plants a common tree deserves the thanks of posterity, how much larger is the debt of gratitude due to him who introduces and blesses his country with a new and useful race of trees ! Those who visit Wenham in the middle of the summer, and behold the original range of larch-trees, cannot fail to be struck with their appearance. Their hght foliage and fine pyramidal forms, differing materially from the pines around us, suggest at once their exotic origin ; while the richly orna- mental and tasteful manner in which they are disposed, tells at once that their planter was no ordinary individual. There is something peculiarly affectionate and grateful in associating the remembrance of a great man with some parti- cular tree. Who has not heard of Pope's willow, or of the mulberry that Shakspeare planted? — and who could have stood beneath the shade of the one, or have gazed upon the other, with ordinary emotion ? Something of this reverence will be felt by those who ride by the larches of a Pickering's planting ; and time will not diminish the interest. I do not wish to be understood as particularly recommending the German larch, though I think it highly worthy of a trial on poor land. Nothing but experiment can determine the trees 236 Vesretatimi about Salem. 'o'- best suited to this climate, if indeed any can be found superior to the old stocks. It is time that attention was awakened to the subject; for who can calculate the advantages of an abundant supply of useful timber to a commercial and manufacturing people ? We possess one tree, among many that are richly orna- mental, of surpassing beauty. I allude to our common elm ( Ulmus Americana) . The grace, the beauty, the magnificence of this tree is only to be exceeded by the princely palm. Planted in rows along the streets, it is the pride of our towns, suggesting to the mind a far better idea of ease and comfort than it could derive from the most exquisite statuary. In Danvers, a little on this side of Aborn-street, in a barn- yard on the land of the late Benjamin Putman, stands an elm of great beauty. A finer specimen of the ehn, a more per- fect tree, is seldom seen. Such is the vigor, the healthiness, and unshorn symmetry of its form, that it appears not yet to have arrived at maturity. There is a remarkable boldness in the manner in which the numerous branches spring from the parent stem, and form its fine symmetrical head. Dur- ing a ride of six or seven hundred miles along the turnpike roads of England, the summer before last, I carried this tree in the eye of my mind as a standard ; and truly in all that long ride I could not find one that appeared so perfect. The Boston elm is a larger tree ; but it is braced and bolted with bars of iron, and the mind is pained with the symptoms of approaching decay. To the lone farm-house or the detached viUa, the elm is a most graceful appendage. I hope, however, I shall be forgiven if I say a word on the manner in which it is sometimes planted. It is too common to plant trees, while young, close before the dwelling, so that in a few years they totally obscure the building they were designed to ornament. Trees should be planted so as to flank the building, if it be a detached cottage or villa : in this position they will usually furnish sufficient shade, without obscuring the view, either from within or without the dwell- ing. This climate does not possess an evergreen ivy ; but our common creeper ( Vitis hederacea) is a most excellent substi- Vegetation about Salem. 237 tute. In many respects it surpasses the ivy of Europe. Be- ing deciduous, it never becomes a gathering-place for snow- in winter, or dampness in spring. I am surprised that it does not work its way into favor. The ivy has always been a favorite. It was held in reverence by the ancients ; and in the elder world it is associated with all that is venerable. It mantles the lonely abbey ruin, and creeps over the moulder- ing remains of feudal power. I think our creeper would be more generally admired, were we more discriminating in the use of it. It is very often trained against a newly painted vestibule of much architectural spruceness ; and it soon be- gins to obscure those embellishments that cost the owner no small sum, and then down comes the creeper in disgrace. Its proper place is to cover up the blank side of an out-house, or to give grace to some rustic wall or fence. Perhaps I shall better convey my idea of its use by observing that the ivy or creeper would be a beautiful ornament to the Gothic style of the Episcopal Church of Salem. The wild beauty of its pendant laterals would be in correct keeping with the Gothic arch, and add much to the remarkable appearance of the building. But, on the other hand, it would be altogether out of place to allow it to creep over, and mar, the delicate proportions, and obscure the fine architecture, of the South Meeting-house. The indigenous vegetation of our immediate vicinity does not, indeed, present a landscape of the most luxuriant growth. We cannot boast the palm, the lemon, the orange, the clove, and the cinnamon-tree. But, if the eye is not allowed to be- hold a perpetual spring, it is permitted, during our fleeting summers, to enjoy a beautiful variety of flowers, that spring up in rapid succession, and pass like a shifting scene before it ; filling the heart with joy and gladness, and the imagina- tion with a thousand forms of grace and beauty, on which it may love to linger when the charming reality has passed away. From the time that the httle Draba opens its tiny pe- tals to cheer us with the hope of returning spring, tiU the last flower of the summer, the blue-eyed gentian, weeps over the departed year, it is one succession of bright hues and beau- tiful forms. At least, it is so to all who have eyes to behold, 238 Vegetation about Salem ■&' and souls to enjoy, the pure pleasures that flow irom a con- templation of the works of God in creation. How beautiful is all nature in the springtime of flowers ! How lovely are the woods when the young leaves are ex- panding, — when the first green garniture of summer is burst- ing into existence ! The lowly hepatica opens its gemlike •flowers at the foot of some lofty tree, eager to greet -the first ray of summer-like sunshine that visits the earth. The tinted petals of the anemone quiver in the breeze, as the winds of the spring pass by. The early thalictrum exhibits its singular, flower-like tassels of purple and yellow. The delicate cory* dalis blooms on tbe bare rock ; and the stranger who beholds it for the first time wonders that a flower of so much beauty should be born to " blush unseen." Who can tread the green carpet of the earth, in the spring of the year, and not feel delighted at the first appearance of the modest houstonia, peeping out from among the young grass, and seeming, as an eminent naturalist beautifully expresses it, " like handfuls of the pale scattered flowers of the lilac, which had come too early to maturity"? The "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," the mountain daisy, which the poet Burns buried with his ploughshare, and then sung its requiem in never- dying rhyme, was not more worthy of a poet's effort than this graceful harbinger of a New England summer. A love of flowers has always ranked among the refined pleasures of a polished people. " Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered ; let no flower of the spring pass by us," were the words of the royal sage, in the days of Israel's glory, when the sons of Jacob sat every man beneath his own vine and fig-tree, — when the roses of Sharon bloomed in the palaces of Jerusalem, and the daughters of Judah gathered lilies by the waters of Kedron, to scatter them in the courts of the Temple. No sooner had the warlike Eoman conquered and incorporated the sur- rounding states, and made Rome the mistress of all Italy, than the villas of the Roman citizens studded the whole coun- try, from the Straits of Messina to the mountains that formed her northern barrier. It was to embellish these, that the fruits and the flowers of the East were gathered by the Ro- Vegetation about Salem. 239 man soldiers, in their martial expeditions, and poured into the lap of Italy. Nor is the savage insensible to the charms of nature. We are told that an Otaheitean was once taken to Paris, and shown all the splendors of that gay metropolis ; but his heart yearned for the simple beauties of his own na- tive isle. On being taken to the Garden of Plants, the unex- pected sight of a banana-tree so reminded him of the hills and streams of his distant home, that he sprang forward to embrace it ; and, with his eyes bathed in tears, he exclaimed in a voice of joy, " Ah ! tree of my country ! " and seemed by a delightful illusion to be transported to the land of his birth. But to return to our own loved hills, and the flowers that cover them. Among these the blood-root {Sanguinaria Canadensis) well deserves a passing notice. It puts up from the ground with remarkable caution. A single leaf of a white and woolly texture rises from the ground, and enfolds a litde flower-bud, wrapping it round as with a mantle. In this guarded manner, it abides the vicissitudes of our spring weather. When a warm day arrives, a milk-white flower, of singular delicacy, s'hoots up, and bares its lovely bosom to the sun. When clouds obscure the sky, or when night falls, the little flower closes its milk-white petals, the single leaf gathers closer round the flower-stem ; and thus, like a fairy taking her rest, it awaits the touch of another sunbeam. We import the snow-drop, we cherish it with care, and it well repays our attention ; but this delicate native, equally worthy of our regard, is seldom seen in our gardens. So true is it that flowers, like prophets, have no honor in their own country. In the earlier part of spring, the columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis) shakes its gay bells over all our rocky hiUs. Starting from every chink and crevice, it clothes the rude features of our ancient rocks in a vernal robe of scarlet and gold. This flower seems, in a peculiar manner, to have gamed the regard of the young. On the first fine days of spring, the youth of both sexes may be observed returning into town, laden with ample bouquets of its pendulous flowers; while ever and anon they drop them on the side-walks, as if 240 Vesretation about Salem. a"- to invite the busy crowd of care-worn citizens to leave the town's dull smoke, — to forget for a while their ponderous ledgers, and to go forth into the fields to sympathize with the spirit of loveliness which is abroad in all the land. Would this be waste or improvement of time ? Let Wordsworth reply : — " Nature never did betray The heart that loved her. "Ks her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From'joy to joy ; for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With hfly thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of common life. Shall e'er prevail against ns, or disturb Our cheerful faith that all that we behold Is PULL of BLESSINGS." And again, " Therefore, let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk, And let the misty mountain winds be free To blow against thee ; and, in after-years. When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, Thy memory be a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies ; oh ! then, If solitude or fear or pain or giief Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember nature. And these her benedictions ! " I do not know that a more delightful task could be assigned to any one, than that of observing the vegetation of this vici- nity. Among our plants are many of great interest and beauty ; and certainly nothing can be more fraught with instruction and delight than occasional visits to the charming locahties in which they grow. Who is there that has ever pursued this branch of natural history, that does not recollect the many scenes of rural beauty and loveliness into which it has led him ? How often, when gathering his floral trea- sures, has he not paused to admire the silent and sylvan Vegetation about Salem. 241 retreats in which he has found them ! All around this neigh- borhood, there are scenes that challenge the best efforts of the painter ; and he who holds converse with the flowers soon learns the best points of view, and becomes a privileged spectator. Among our native plants are many that deserve a place in the flower-border, and none more so than the lily tribe. The superb lily, which is rarely found in this vicinity, and the Canada and Pennsylvanian lilies, are among the most beautiful flowers that bloom. There is something exceed- ingly graceful in the general aspect of the Canada lily, when it assumes a good size in the rich soil of a garden. It rises with a clean stem, throwing off whorls of green and beau- tiful leaves, at regular intervals, to the height of five or six feet ; crowning the whole with a pyramidal cluster of droop- ing bells. Many of the foreign lilies excel the Canadense in the beauty of their flowers ; but none approach the delicate and tropical symmetry of its habit. The superb cardinal flower will be remembered by every one : it is the ornament of our water-courses in the long days of summer. It has been cultivated to high perfection, and should always occupy a place in our gardens. We have growing among us one of the neatest little garden hedge-plants that the earth produces, the httle privet (Idgus- trum). It is found abundantly on the road to Manchester. It is of beautiful foliage, and in summer produces spikes of sweet-smelling flowers, Uke miniature bunches of white lilac. In the days of Parkinson and Evelyn, this shrub used to be clipped into the forms of birds, beasts, and fishes, and nobody knows what. Time, however, has not diminished the esti- mation in which it is held. I have often observed it forming the screen hedges within the iron railings that surround the public gardens in the great squares of London. For the formation of interior or garden hedges, there are few shrubs that approach it in appearance of neatness and beauty. We have plants all around us of singular habits and strange propensities. The Cuscuta, or Dodder, which is found in the moist land of this neighborhood, affords a ^ecimen of the parasitic tribe 31 242 Ves-eiation about Salem ■&' of plants, which fasten and feed upon others. The Cuscuta is a bright yellow leafless vine, bearing a profusion-of small white flowers. It rises from the ground like any other vegetable ; and, after attaining a certain height, it looks round, and seizes upon the first plant that comes in its way. Like a little vegetable boa constrictor, it takes a few spiral turns round its victim ; and, when it finds itself firmly fixed, it disen- gages itself from its own root, lets go its hold upon the earth, and depends for the future on the plant upon which it is seated. In this way it blooms and perfects its seed, without any direct communication with the earth. If the seeds of this plant are sown, they will come up and grow for a season ; but they soon die, if they have no plant to which they can attach themselves. Pope, in his " Essay on Man," says : — " That thus to man the Toioe of Natviie spake : — Go, firom the creatures thy instruction take ; Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield ; Learn from the beasts the physic of the field ; Thy arts of building from the bee receive ; Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave ; Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Speed the thin oar, and catch the driving gale." Who knows but man caught the idea of multiplying choice fruits by grafting, from observing with what facility parasitic plants attach themselves to others, and draw nourishment from roots that are not their own ? The dog's-bane that is found all around us, the silk-weed that grows by the way-side, and the sundew that is found in every old peat meadow, are all strongly sensitive, and strangely destructive of insect life. The dog's-bane opens its nipper-like filaments ; and when a fly puts in his proboscis in search of honey, they close hke a steel trap, and the fittle victim remains a provision tiU he dies. The leaves of the Drosera, or sundew, are furnished with a sort of hair-like spines, which support minute globules of a clear liquor ; and, when thirsty insects descend to drink this nectar, the spines fall upon them and entangle them, and the whole leaf bends with a sort of muscular effort to secure the intruder ; nor is there any escape from the irritated plant. Vegetation about Salem. 243 These strange propensities are not to be construed as instances of wickedness or cruelty in plants. Our profound ignorance of the causes and motives of action of all created things should teach us to humble ourselves before the great Creator, whose ways are wondrous and past finding out. "Certainly we do know that all unnecessary sufferings, sufferings that have no salutary tendency, or subserviency to the happiness or welfare of created beings, can find no place under the government of an infinitely perfect and gracious Ruler." It was noticed by Linnaeus, that the flowers of the barberry are remarkably sensitive. If the filament of the flower be touched by any substance, as the blade of a penknife or a bit of stick, it instantly faUs upon the stigma Avith apparent violence. The common locust is remarkably sensitive of fight. In the glory of a noonday sun, its foliage appears enlivened. The fittle leaflets that form its wing-like leaves look upward, as if they were anxious to drink in the fight and warmth of his reviving rays. At night, or in cloudy weather, they all hang their heads as if asleep. The whole tree wears alto- gether a different aspect at eventide. I very weU remember the first time that I observed this sensitiveness in some young trees of this genus. I thought they had met with some acci- dent, and were dying. The next morning, however, I was pleasingly surprised to find that they all looked up to the sun as joyously as ever. Like some young animal, they ap- peared heartily refreshed by a good night's sleep. A fittle girl who had observed this phenomenon in a locust that grew before her nursery window, upon being required to go to bed a Uttle earlier than usual, repfied with much acuteness, " O mother ! it is not yet time to go to bed : the locust-tree has not yet begun to say its prayers." Some of our most common plants are remarkable in the choice of their localities. The hemlock loves to luxuriate in the ruin and desolation of cities. Wherever there is a deserted mansion, with its garden in ruins, there is sure to be found the fatal hemlock, as if the very ground were ac- cursed, and brought forth poisonous plants. The ghostly mufiein stalks over worn-out and neglected pastures, the emblem of steriUty. The black nightshade and the dubious 244 Vegetation about Salem. form of the thorn-apple rise from neglected heaps of rubbish, as if the noxious exhalations had assumed a material form, to warn man of the consequences of uncleanness. There is a spot within the bounds of our county, that is classic ground to the naturalist, — where grow some plants that are not common to these northern regions. I am sure that I need only mention the laurel woods of Man- chester, the farthest northern boundary of the Magnolia, to awaken the most pleasing recollections. Those who have seen these Kalmia groves, at the time of their flowering, can- not soon forget the scene they present. The whole appears like an enchanted land. I have sometimes thought that this wild wood garden, full of sweet odors and graceful forms, must have been torn from some more genial clime, wafted across the calm bosom of our bay, and placed, some stilly night, just where it is, to give us a glimpse of a more favored creation. There, in the low ground, is found the Cymbidium, the Pogonia, and the beautiful Orchis fimbriata ; plants that may vie with the proudest exotics, and which, in another hemisphere, are cherished among the most favored children of the earth. And shall I forget the Rhodora, that, like the ahnond, gives forth its lively purple flowers ere yet its leaves are expanded, — a shrub better known and more valued abroad than in its own native land ? Above all, there, too, is found the Magnolia, with its unrivalled foliage, saturating the air for miles with the odor of its flowers. We are cer- tainly favored beyond measure in having within our borders a type of that genus of plants which is esteemed for flower and foliage the most magnificent the earth produces. The pencil can give but a faint idea of the splendor of the Magnolia grandiflora ; and the pen altogether fails in the ef- fort to describe its charms. The South may well be proud of the possession of a tree of such noble bearing. The leaves are glossy, and of a most luxuriajit softness. The young branches are of a fine, purplish brown, producing flowers at the extremity of each ; and, when the tree rises to the height of sixty or seventy feet, and each branch holds up its petalled vase of ivory whiteness, as if presenting incense to the sun, it affords an appearance of beauty and grandeur that rivals the proudest productions of man. The Twofold Being. 245 Many of the nations of the earth have chosen a flower for their emblem. The roses of England are well known in story. Ireland has chosen the lowly shamrock, which is found in every field ; and its adoption is said to be as old as the introduction of Christianity into the island. Dear is the thistle to the heart of the Scotchman ; but faded for ever are the hlies of France. The Carohnian rallies beneath the palmetto ; and on the earhest coins of old Massachusetts we find a pine-tree, — emblematic, no doubt, of the source from which she drew her earhest wealth. If ever these United States should choose a symbol from the vegetable world, let that symbol be the magnoUa ! THE TWOFOLD BEING. The dew of youth on her pure brow lay ; Her smile was the dawn of Spring's softest day ; Spring's rosy light was on all her way. She seem'd an oasis in desert lands ; We thank'd God for her with lifted hands, Then turn'd again to the weary sands. But Life came on with its withering glare, And swept down all the sweet beauty there, And left the fount dry and the branches bare. When I look'd again on her alter'd face. The glow had all vanish' d, and left no trace, — Not a lingering gleam of her maiden grace. Yet that form, as in earliest beauty fair. Can my mind shape out, in this evening air : Not a trait, not a shadow, is wanting there. So now two beings for one I find ; One walks on earth, one lives in my mind ; Yet mystic relations these two still bind. 246 The 'Raofold Being. O Seer ! which the reality ? — The beauty, all gone ere again I could see ; Or this vision my soul hath eternally ! Yet there may be more than the eye can scan : Have such bright creations no wider plan ? Doth God love the beautiful less than Man ? It seems as if nothing could fill our dearth ; But the beauty that stayed not on dark cold earth May have fled again to the land of its birth. It fled the pangs of life's constant rack ; But, when the soul takes the heavenward track, It shall come like a sweet child nestling back. For the loveliness that Earth's fairest wear Must be one and the same with the beauty there Of the transfigured angels of heavenly air. And the parted soul shall take its stand In familiar guise 'mid the sister-band, — Deck'd with the glory of God's right hand. And for us, when the walls of flesh are riven, And to open'd spirit-eyes is given To see the beloved again in heaven, — 'Mid the fathomless joys of that wondrous scene. Will come once more the presence serene Of that pure beauty's unearthly mien. Then shall Time's veil uplifted be. And our life's long dreams of anxiety. Like clouds o'er a sunny hill, shall flee. And it will be seen by the spirits pure. How little is left upon earth to endure, When we learn that all which is fair is sure. The Favorite. 247 THE FAVORITE. I "wotriD not have thee criticized By vain or vulgar eyes ; I would not have thee eulogized By one who could not prize That maiden purity and calm Which form thy most especial charm. I want a poet's heart, to read Thy soft, appealing glance, Who, for his pains, should have the meed, While watching thy sweet countenance, Of sunny smiles, that sudden spread Across thy lips, and, passing thence. Upon thy brow their light dispense. Half child, half woman ! the pure faith, That every thing was made for love, Which saved our childish days from scathe. Still bears thy floating feet above The thorns and briars which must tear Those who find no such path of air. And, surely, natural to thee Such confidence must prove, Stealing from every treasury Thy proper hoard of love ; For at the first sound of thy voice The closest stores unlock their choice. Almost I weep to- let thee go : Fain would I watch above thy path. The least approaching shade to know, That thy unventured Future hath, To lead thee in Life's sweetest ways. And feed thee on Love's heartfelt praise. 248 Tlie Favorite. II. I watch'd the rose-clouds rise around the scene Wherein thy life's fair pageant on did glide, And every hour, with iris-colored sheen. Tinging thy Ipveliness and girlish pride. Fond lingering on childhood's fairy isle. Thy innocent feet yet press'd its dewy flowers ; But joys of youth impatient strove to wile Thy half-waked soul to more entrancing bowers. The sternest eyes dropp'd gentlest looks of love. The coldest hands strewed incense at thy feet ; And, in the cloudless zenith arch'd above, Not one dark shade thy fearless gaze could meet. Yet still thine unsuspicious, placid glance Found nothing strange in such a beauteous lot, But saw the coming years, like dreams, advance. And of their solemn meaning question'd not. Nor fear'd I for thee, — but bewilder'd, charm'd, Lured by a magic never felt before, I never dream'd mine idol could be harm'd. And careless flung for thee one perfume more. I saw thy head grow giddy in the breath Of adulation, fanning out the air Common and pure, and with a subtle death Poisoning and making false thine atmosphere. Oh ! perishing of too much love and praise ! Oh ! foolish mortals, spoiling all their best ! Who now our floweret — too much forced — can raise. Or from its bloom exotic bravely wrest ?