even as Paracelsus out of the ashes of a rose reconstructed the glorious flower; it would simply indicate that, in some vague general way, and as respected the degree, not the kind, Christian ethics had risen above pagan ethics, in the proportion that one range of geometry towers above another. But my meaning goes deeper. And again I turn to Kant. Though a man may not fully have mastered his important idea of transcendental (as opposed on the one hand to the empirical, and on the other to the transcendent), he can yet easily apprehend one element of the difference upon comparing Kant's transcen

choly.' But then came Wordsworth and | such as could illuminate the mode by Coleridge, who contended that in nature which Christianity transmutes into life nothing was melancholy- neither sight the dead generalities of pagan ethics, nor sound. Had Milton, therefore, who lived where nightingales abounded, been wrong in his epithets? No; Milton was not wrong, nor could he be, because in his own person he had given no opinion at all; but the opinion, though not Milton's, was wrong because one sided. Milton is here speaking dramatically- that is, he is speaking in the person of another man, and this other man is pledged in fact to error that is, to a partial and distorted estimate of natural things by a morbid temperament. He, by the very title of the poem, is il penseroso, the pensive man, or man whose meditations are confessedly under an original bias to gloom and sad-dental categories with the more logical ness. In this man's mouth the epithet categories of Aristotle. The Aristotelean melancholy has a characteristic propriety, categories are mere forms and outlines; it has a dramatic fitness, but no inference the Kantian introduce a material basis as to Milton's personal bias or feeling can be drawn from it."

Philosophy bears its own part in these notes and reflections. He takes up a term and analyzes it, and shows how, in the hands of many writers, accredited with powers of close and luminous thinking, it has been used loosely, or with different meanings in different relationships. On one or two counts Archbishop Whately does not escape, nor does Mr. J. S.Mill, and his strictures on some terms of Kant are certainly acute if they do not always escape a possible criticism of over-subtlety. Sir William Hamilton is regarded as being as true to his own terminology as any modern metaphysical writer. The follow ing may be accepted as a characteristic piece of definition.

into such volatile entities. That basis is time, considered as an original perception, not (which afterwards it may become) as an idea. For all the discursive acts of man's understanding piled one upon the other, though they should reach to the summits of Ossa and Mount Pelion, will never reach far enough to obtain any glimpse of such an idea, unless antecedently there had been given (not found) a primary perception, a revelation, an Anschauung, an intuition of time as a synthesis, which originally is an act in us, and no mere idea. The difference, therefore, between the great Peripatetic and the great Transcendental philosopher is as between those simulacra of man which Æneas saw in Hades - pre-existing outlines of humanity, men that were to be but had not been and those umbra which he saw in Elysium, or rather, as we may say, between the Virgilian simu lacra and the ghosts of Christianity."

"I do not by the use of the word Transcendental mean the modern idea of Immanuel Kant. That is a word more impatient of circumscription within the limits of a definition than many of Kant's The John Bull element in De Quincey disciples are aware; and it is one of which has been much dwelt on; and it is indeed Kant himself, howsoever his definition a surprise to find a man of his type so may be tolerated, never gave, nor could thoroughly inclined to find compensating give, a decent exemplification. For, of advantages even in the climatic and other all men since Bardolph, Kant was most drawbacks of his own country. Here is plagued with the infirmity of mystifying a portion of an expostulation with "For what he desired to explain; and as re-eigners or foreigneering Englishmen," in gards all his attempts at illustration, he should have borne for motto Ignotum per ignotius, or sometimes, Fumum ex ful gore. Even geometry, in its sublimer altitudes, is sometimes called transcendental. That, however, would be but a rhetorical transfer; it would not indicate any specific resemblance between the two processes of geometry and Christianity

which, under cover of a light bantering humor, he sends forth some light critical skirmishers who may do some real work even now. The foggy London climate and its inevitable accompaniments have not, that we are aware of, found hitherto such an apologist, who claims for them appreciable and memorable effects in literature and poesy, and even in painting

though Turner does not happen to be streets of London, and witnessing those named.

And, under a sufficiently playful guise, it would seem that Mr. Grant Allen indicates to us the same opinion about London fogs and lamplight when, in his latest novel, he makes Cipriani, the artist, declare in justification of his desire to paint Maimie Llewellyn for Beatrice Cenci in London, on the ground that: "For Italy, nothing in England is equal to fog and gaslight. Your pretty Arcadian must come up to London and be painted in a drear-nighted December by London gaslight, to give the full effect, you know, of Italian sunshine."

frequent combinations of distance and "I do not complain of your denouncing gloom, which show and startle only to our London smoke as being coal-smoke: hide, which open and reveal only to shut it irritates everybody even those who up again in secrecy forever, I fancy that have coals to sell. Moreover, it is an in this I find a key, for instance, to the evil not perhaps beyond the remedies of mighty adumbration of Death: "What art combining with police. And as to seemed his head, the likeness of a kingly our fogs, they are far from being peculiar crown had on.' If, therefore, the London to London. But speaking generally of atmosphere sustains the mood through our murky atmosphere, without inquiring which people sympathize with the shadtoo narrowly into its several elements, Iowy grandeurs of the 'Paradise Lost,' I, am much disposed to think that it has for one, am content to tolerate the nuicontributed to sustain our insular gran-sance. Another case of fancied improvedeur of imagination. Nobody will pre- ment tending to the same mirous result I tend to show us in any Continental crea- observe in the modern exaltations of tion the least approach towards the colos- lamplight. Lord Bacon justly apprecisal sublimities of the "Paradise Lost." ated the vast advantages of lamplight The "Prometheus Desmotes" of Eschy over daylight for the dreamy pomps and lus is the sole poem that by its concep- pageantries of life. But lamplight that tion (but not very often by its execution) too literally emulates daylight is hurry. might challenge a place in the same ing forward to forfeit these advantages. chamber of grandeurs; for as to Dante, Pol, me occidistis, amici!” it is not awe and shadowy terror which preside in his poetry, but carnal horror. Like all those who treat a dreadful theme, he was tempted by the serpent to eat from the tree of fleshly horror; he did eat; and in that hour his poetry became tainted with the principle of death. Even for the present, with national jealousy working through six centuries on its behalf, live it does not. It does not abide in the heart of man, nor domineer by mighty shadows over the brains of men. This, with submission, gentlemen foreigners and foreigneering Englishmen, rascals too often and philo-rascals, is no This same idea seems to have occurred trifle; not even in a history so high as to that remarkable genius Amiel, so sug that of our cosmos, and its cosmical re-gestive, far-sighted, and full of romantic lations. Since the deluge one illustrious and religious sentiment. He writes to land has produced cherries; another the same purpose as De Quincey, though proudly points to anchovies; a third to in a different vein, more grave and moralhair-powder; and all the while England, izing: poor thing! has nothing to show but such Fog has certainly a poetry of its own baubles as King Lear' and 'Paradise a grace, a dreamy charm. It does for Lost,' a Francis Bacon and an Isaac the daylight what a lamp does for us at Newton. However, we must make the night; it turns the mind towards meditamost of these trivial productions, and en- tion; it throws the soul back on itself. deavor to sustain the ineffable contempt The sun, as it were, sheds us abroad in of these foreigners and foreigneerers nature, scatters and disperses us; mist who describe us as being not only the draws us together and concentrates - it most abject of peoples, but also as the is cordial, homely, charged with feeling. only one that is beyond all benefit of The poetry of the sun has something of hope. I, for my part, still clinging to the epic in it; that of fog and mist is our 'Paradise Lost,' and while looking elegiac and religious. Pantheism is the round for the conditions of its possibility child of light; mist engenders faith in why it is that we have, but that other near protectors. When the great world nations have not, such a Titan monument is shut off from us, the house itself beof intellectual grandeur-I find part of comes a small universe. Shrouded in perthose conditions in our turbid atmo-petual mist, men love each other better; sphere. Oftentimes, when traversing the for the only reality then is the family,

and, within the family, the heart; and the | decision, the hatred of all cant, that chargreatest thoughts come from the heartso says the moralist."

acterized the veteran lexicographer. But he looked at the passages between Johnson and Chesterfield from his own point of view, and was justifiably anxious to try if nothing could be said for the earl in the affair. Carlyle and Forster, he felt, had somewhat overdone the thing, and this is his caveat.

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The late lamented "Matthew Browne," whose acuteness and subtlety were only equalled by his clearness and precision of language, would have dwelt with quiet satisfaction on one passage in the above quotation, as expressing well one phase of a conviction that was long and ear- According to Mr. Forster (and Mr. nestly entertained by him. He held that Carlyle has held the same language), Dr. Dante had no real claim to the lofty place Johnson elevated the social rank of literaccorded to him amongst poets. Dante, ary men in England; nay, he had even urged Matthew Browne, was small souled, a mission' for doing so. He came as a revengeful, cherishing memories of small Hercules to cleanse the earth for the slights or wrongs; and, because of them, opening of civilization. We venture to condemning to inexpressible bodily tor- put in our caveat against too deep an ac tures to all eternity those who had so quiescence in this belief. Dr. Johnson crossed his path or his prejudices. He elevated literature amongst us only as was, in fact, an embodiment of the jeal-every man does so who strikes, by books ousy, party spirit, and stunted, inhuman scholasticism of the Middle Ages, and remains its voice, instead of being the voice of any nobler element it may have had Catholic or other. History did not bar his revenge any more than accident. And his imagination was harsh and personal, with no light, relieving touch of phantasy, any more than his genius was genial or attractive. "The voice of the Middle Ages" indeed! he would urge, the Middle Ages should be ashamed of their voice, resonant and penetrating though it was. Dante's imagination was on the one side rigidly personal, on the other side harshly fleshly, and cruel. There are no soft shades in it, no kindly condescension, no ray of humor; in contrast with that of Chaucer it was grossly materialistic and unnatural. Matthew Browne would have had some arguments to present to the Dean of St. Paul's and such as the dean could not have regarded as either light or ineffectual. But, save in "Chaucer's England" and incidentally, Matthew Browne did not any more than De Quincey carefully follow up his position by exhaustive argument and illustration, though both believed that Dante did not live. And yet there are the episodes of Francesca da Rimini, and many other passages in the " "Inferno," not to speak of the "Purgatorio " and the Paradiso," to testify to some particular turn of tenderness in the severe and sardonic and torture-loving poet of the "Divina Commedia."

The tribute of praise that has been accorded to Dr. Johnson for his letter to Lord Chesterfield did not meet with De Quincey's entire approbation. Not that be failed to appreciate the dogged English

written in various degrees of power, some chord of human sentiment or opinion not previously struck with the same effect of intent vibration, or lingering echo. But by his acts he did not elevate literature. We utterly deny the ordinary construc tion of the case between Dr. Johnson and Lord Chesterfield. So far from being the dignified course to take, so far from the famous letter being the dignified letter to write, that both have been represented, we insist upon it, that Dr. Johnson's be havior was that of a sturdy beggar who refuses to ask for money but expects to have it delivered to him instanter on look. ing through the window with a terrific face like that of Frankenstein's monster. And as to Dr. Johnson's letter, that, we say, was petulant and boyish at the best, but, at the worst, it bore a more sinister construction. All this let us show; and if any reader can overthrow us, let him do it, and welcome. What was it that Dr. Johnson was angry with Lord Chesterfield about? It was that Lord Chesterfield had not sent him money. No very dig. nified ground, therefore, of expostulation, even in the case of his having had a right to expect money. Certainly it is not the first time by many that we have heard of bullies, in threatening letters, ordering a man to put a certain bank-note under a certain stone by a certain day; but it is the first time that ever we heard of a letter breathing the same essential spirit of malignant extortion held up as a model of dignity, and as a lesson in the art of How to treat a lord, if you happen to be angry with him. Well, the doctor was angry at not finding a cheque on Lord Chesterfield's banker lying under a certain stone; and it is natural to be angry at

such a neglect, in case one has a right tions reached was exactly that which by to look for that cheque under that stone. influence and wealth and education was But how had the doctor such a right? best qualified for giving effect to those Had he ever condescended to ask such a commendations. And our private belief cheque? Beggars mustn't he choosers, is, that the sale of the dictionary must but at least they should beg; or, if too have benefited materially, because inproud to beg, they should insinuate their stantly, by a sort of advertisement as comwishes; all of which Dr. Johnson had manding as anything in the shape of omitted. Perhaps then my lord had praise from the pen of Stanhope. Waive created the right by volunteering a all this, however, and suppose the two pacheque? Not at all; it no more occurred pers to have done no good; at least they to him that any reason existed for his did no harm. And yet, except the dan sending a cheque to Dr. Johnson beyond glings in anterooms which have been disall men in England than for sending cussed, what is there, small or great, in the him a challenge to fight a duel. Here, doctor's bill of exceptions against Lord then, we have reached the middle of Chesterfield? He says, in effect, that the the tragedy: the cheque has not been praises had come too late, and that he sent, and punishment must follow. Now, could now do without them. Pause on let us see in what way that was adminis- that. How was Lord Chesterfield to tered. He reproaches Lord Chesterfield, praise a book before it was finished? inter alia, with having kept him waiting That was impossible for him. And to in an antechamber. We have no means Dr. Johnson it would have been useless; of knowing how Lord Chesterfield would for the value of the praise as regarded his have told that story; all depends on the interest was to sell the book; which was duration of the waiting and the number of impossible until it had been published. its recurrences; for public men, peers of But it was a great misrepresentation to Parliament, with splendid stations, splen- talk of the papers as useless because the did estates, splendid talents, cannot sit in book had now been published. A book is their closets as tenants-at-will to the first not really published that is, dispersed obstreperous claimant on their time. amongst the public - simply because it Giving interviews to a long succession of has announced its own existence. Books applicants, they must unavoidably cause that in posse are published, in the sense many to wait. If the doctor waited, others that at the publishers' they may be had on waited. But now try it both ways. Did applying for them, very often in esse are the doctor wait often? Then behold a never published at all. And it is noto. man dangling after rich men in hope of rious that in the case of heavy books like patronage. So far from elevating litera- large dictionaries, moving off slowly for ture, here we have him as the last-re- years until they have become talked into corded man that clung as a suitor to the currency, no greater service can be done degradation of patronage. And he rejects than to proclaim their merits at an early patronage only after patronage has re-stage and through an effective organ. jected him. Now take it the other way. The doctor was too dignified to wait. Well, then, what's his charge against Lord Chesterfield? Such is the dilemma: having any charge, then, in that case, he confesses to continued acts of self degradation; confessing to no such acts, in that case he has no charge. Here, then, we have disposed of Lord Chesterfield's omissa, as moralists say. Next come his commissa. He did not grant the interview at the moment of the doctor's summons; but he did grant two separate papers to a fashionable periodical miscellany in commendation of the doctor's dictionary. Was that an insult? If they were ineffectual to aid, at least they were kindly But Lord Chesterfield wrote too gracefully to be utterly ineffectual with any class of readers; and it happens that the particular class which his commenda

meant.

This Lord Chesterfield did, on Dr. Johnson's own showing, for the dictionary; and having done this, he did the dictionary a great and timely service."

"Hear all sides "is a safe and healthy maxim, and though Dr. Johnson's letter to Lord Chesterfield did service to literature, which is presumed somehow to have relieved literary men from patrons, we do feel that Lord Chesterfield might have said something in self-defence had he chosen. De Quincey has tried to say that something for him, and we venture to think that Lord Chesterfield himself would have urged that it was well said. Of course, the one strong thing to be urged in favor of Dr. Johnson is, that so far as he sought patronage and went dangling at great men's doors and waited in their anterooms, he was simply proceeding accord. ing to the use and wont of authors at the

time; but when he, whether rightly or her whilst condemning her. Respecting wrongly, feeling that no effectual aid was her truthfulness, we lodge our protest derivable from that source, struck boldly against much that she offers us for truth. in favor of a new system, then he acted on And in 'Palestine' more especially we independent and individual promptings, find continual occasion to say: This and did a service in detaching literature woman is naturally right; she is pre-confrom fashionable and aristocratic protec-formed to the Christian ideal by simplicity tion and patronage. of mind, by sincerity, by sympathy with But it appears from many stray hints the unseen grandeurs that lie at the root that De Quincey was by no means in- of all religion; but, on the other hand, she clined to countenance the hero-worship-is carried astray by a course of reading ping spirit which is fain to translate the burly lexicographer into a pattern of perfection, towards whom literary men in all times should look, not only with gratitude for works of sterling merit and high practical value, for apt moralizings and for acute observation, for soundness of mind and for lofty benevolence, but also for unfailing veracity, depth of feeling, and the unconscious noble-mindedness which would not brook to stoop to small personalities and to mean revenges. Some of the faults of the doctor's character seem to have been very present to De Quincey. For example, we find him, in a note to his essay on "Lord Carlisle on Pope," writing: "Dr. Johnson's taste for petty gos sip was so keen that I distrust all his anecdotes " - a very bold and broad as sertion, truly, and one that would savor of unreasoning severity were it not_that_De Quincey himself had made a very close and almost exhaustive acquaintance with the anecdotage of Dr. Johnson's day as well as of his own. The essay on Miss Hawkins's book, as well as other essays -not to speak of incidental passages scattered throughout the writings-suffice amply to prove this.

Here are a few notes upon Miss Martineau's travels in the Holy Land, which are not without their own value and characteristic insight.

"The very boldness with which Miss Martineau makes war upon many Scriptural passages under their ordinary interpretation satisfies us that she is a believer in Christianity, and that her belief is sin cere. A writer that will not turn out of her path for a moment, nor make a circuit, nor stand on one side, for the sake of evading collision with innumerable prejudices, assuredly is not the writer to court a momentary acceptance by hypocrisy. That audacity which declines even a pru dential dissimulation such as we find justified by Evangelical precedent is little likely through fear or through favor to practise the fraud of positive simulation. We, therefore, with this view of Miss Martineau's temper and practice, honor

too desultory and too unharmonized, by conversation too superficial in its quality, too casual in its origin and movement, and, lastly, by the dogmatism, or tendency to dogmatism, incident to one who, as a lady, cannot have been sufficiently op posed and, as a lady suffering under the infirmity of deafness, must have been too indulgently humored. Much learning, much false Germanity, hath made her delirious. And this word delirious we here use advisedly, and would justify it on the ground of its primary meaning and appli. cation. To say, in the original language of Festus, that much (German) learning has made her 'mad' would be too harsh. And, after all, her true defect is that, having much, she has yet a thousand times too little. But the word 'delirious,' construed by its etymology, exactly describes the case. This etymology is worth mentioning, as (thirty-five years ago) we heard a scholar so accomplished as S. T. Coleridge totally misstate it. He was in a heady current of controversial talk, and assumed for a momentary purpose that the word delirium had been derived by a metaphor from lyra, the musical instrument. We, however, qui musas colimus. severiores, pulled him up in a moment, reminding him that on this assumption the word would be 'delyrium.' The Latin word lira, the furrow made by the plough, is the true radix; to swerve from the normal line or to delirate. And this is what Miss Martineau does. Fixing her eye faithfully (as regards her purposes) upon the great master line traced and ploughed in by Christianity, too often she runs off upon side switches fraudulently laid down by some German signalman or pretended guard upon the line. And one of the most salient and unmistakable instances of this is when she shows fight, as we expected she would, on approach. ing Mount Carmel, and considers, in a very one-sided manner, the position of the prophet Elijah in his conflict with Baalim.'

The pain and labor that it cost De Quincey to write the original edition of