Punch, of whom many versions are at present exhibiting in the streets of London, but who in all his shapes is as little like his illustrious ancestor, as the Dramatists of our own day are like those of the Elizabethan age: notwithstanding the protection afforded him in the House of Commons by the celebrated Peter Moore, P.M. M.P., (simile non est idem, idem non est simile,) and the high opinion expressed of him by that judicious Senator, the modern must be considered as a very sunken Punch. This is perhaps the most amusing character of the Pantomimes; it was invented for the purpose of satirizing the people of Naples, but with the profligacy, the total want of shame and decency, for which that wretched country has been so long notorious, they joined in the laugh, wedded themselves to the scorn with which it was accompanied, and fostered the monstrous image of their own deformity; they improved the character so much that it became a sort of national property, and Policinello which was meant as the reproach, became the glory of Naples; even to this day he continues to be the vehicle of political sarcasms and libels, and performs in that city the same, functions, which Pasquin discharges at Rome. He is a combination of gluttony, cowardice, bravado, lying, and debauchery, without one atom of redeeming good-fellowship; he is a personification of the vices of a base people, a congregation of the vicious indolence of the Lazzaroni, and of the profligate abandoned excesses of the Neapolitan higher classes: his wit is, however, equal to his wickedness, and the union of these qualities gives an irresistible charm to his engaging character, Il Capitan Spavento is another and a different instance of the elasticity of Italian wit, and the readiness with which that strange people could laugh at the cause of their heaviest misfortunes. When the troops of Charles the Fifth overran their country during the long wars which almost desolated that unfortunate theatre of the contest, the Italians became intimately acquainted with the peculiarities of the Spanish character. The pride, pomposity, and arrogance, of their new acquaintance laid them open to the biting sarcasms of the Italians; and as they appeared much in the light of conquerors, there was no motive for forbearance. By way of revenging themselves, they resorted to the weapons of the weakest, those alone which were left to them, and added to the persons of their pantomime a Spanish soldier, whose dress and manner were the extreme of absurdity. He wore an immense cocked hat, with a feather, and a rapier of a most ridiculous length. His discourse was always of his own exploits, in which he was made to indulge in rhodomontade so monstrous, that, to our colder capacities, it seems too extravagant for laughter. Francesco Andreini, a comedian, who was remarkable for his excellence in this character, has left a book, in which he has collected some of the most striking displays of the braggadocio style which was expected from Il Capitan Spavento. They are in the shape of dialogues between the captain and his servant Trappola. The following is his designation as given by himself: "Sono Capitano Spavento da Valle Inferna-Sopranominato Il Diabolico: Principe dell' ordine Equestre Termigisto, Cioè grandissimo bravatore, grandissimo feritore, e grandissimo Uccisate Domatore e Dominatore dell' Universo: Figlio dell' Terremoto e della Saetta; Parente della Morte; ed Amico Strettissimo del Gran Diavolo dell' Inferno." In answer to a question which Trappola asks him respecting the number of his children, he answers: "Il numero è grande anzi grandissimo, e se tutti i miei bastardi havessero da essere portati allo Spedale de gli Innocenti, il mondo tutto non sarebbe bastante a furne un Hospedale." In describing his redoubtable sword, he says: "Questa mia spada fu fabricato da Vulcano fabro di tutti gli Dei, il quale fabricata che Chebbe la diede al sommo Fato, il Fato lo diede a Xerse, Xerse a Ciro, Ciro a Dario, Dario a Alessandro, Alessandro a Romolo, Romolo a Tarquinio, Tarquinio al Senato Romano, il Senato Romano a Cesare; per l' ultima per vienne in me." These may suffice for specimens of the style of the noble captain. The dialect was sometimes a mixture of Spanish and Italian; the actors occasionally took other names, all of which, however, had an allusion to the origin of the character, such as Matamoros and Sangre y Fuego. This was, however, too outré to last; it contained none of the principles of the other personages which are built upon the imperishable basis of human folly, and which must therefore be the same while the world lasts; it is not, therefore, surprising that the Captain should have disappeared from the Italian Pantomimes for more than a century. * Le Bravure del Capitano Spavento, Francesco Andreini, da Pistoja, Comico Geloso, Venezia, 1609. I. REVIEW OF BOOKS. 1. The Necessity of Atheism. 12mo. p. 13. THE name of Percy Bysshe Shelly is not prefixed to these tracts, but they are well known to be the production of his pen; and we have selected them in our first notice of his works, as with them he commenced his literary career. In this view they are extraordinary, not as efforts of genius, but as indications of that bold and daring insubordination of mind, which led the writer, at a very early age, to trample both on human and divine authority. The Necessity of Atheism contains a distinct negation of a Deity; and the Declaration of Rights is an attempt to subvert the very foundations of civil government. Were not the subject far too grave for pleasantry, we might amuse ourselves with the idea of a stripling, an under-graduate, commencing hostilities against heaven and earth, and with the utmost self-satisfaction exulting that he had vanquished both. Some of our readers are aware, that for the first of these performances, (after every persuasion from his superiors to induce him to retract it had been urged in vain,) Mr. Shelly was expelled from college; and that for posting up the second on the walls of a provincial town, his servant was imprisoned; and, from these facts, they may perhaps imagine that they are remarkably effective engines of atheism and democracy. But, in truth, they are below contempt, they rather insult than support the bad cause to which they are devoted. To maintain the NECESSITY OF ATHEISM, is, perhaps, the wildest and most extravagant effort of a perverted understanding; and to consider this as achieved by a mere boy in thirteen widely-printed pages of a duodecimo pamphlet, is to conceive the performance of a miracle more stupendous than any recorded in the Scriptures. Had we not of late been accustomed to witness the arrogance and presumption of impiety; had not the acuteness of our sensibility been somewhat deadened by familiar acquaintance with the blasphemies of the school in which this young man is now become a professor, we could not trust our feelings even with a remote reference to his atrocious, yet most imbecile, production. It is difficult, on such a subject, to preserve the decorum of moral tolerance, and to avoid a severity of indignation incompatible with the office of Christian censors. Mr. Shelly oddly enough denominates belief a passion; then he denies that it is ever active; yet he tells us, that it is capable of excitement, and that the degrees of excitement are three. But lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation, Mr. Shelly shall speak for himself. "The senses are the sources of all knowledge to the mind, consequently their evidence claims the strongest assent. The decision of the mind, founded upon our own experience derived from these sources, claims the next degree; the experience of others, which addresses itself to the former one, occupies the lowest degree. Consequently, no testimony can be admitted which is contrary to reason; reason is founded on the evidence of our senses." 66 Every proof may be referred to one of these three divisions; we are naturally led to consider what arguments we receive from each of them, to convince us of the existence of a Deity." These sentences embrace a page of the pamphlet, and immediately succeed a general introduction occupying eight more; and of course the whole investigation is despatched in less than four. Its result is summed up in the following words : "From this it is evident, that having no proofs from any of the three sources of conviction, the mind cannot believe the existence of a God. It is also evident, that as belief is a passion of the mind, no degree of criminality can be attached to disbelief. They only are reprehensible who willingly neglect to remove the false medium through which their mind views the subject. It is almost unnecessary to observe, that the general knowledge of the deficiency of such proof cannot be prejudicial to society. Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind. Every reflecting mind must allow, that there is no proof of the existence of a Deity." Such is the jargon of the new philosophy. "The satanic school" maintains, that belief cannot be virtuous; yet, that it may be reprehensible, and therefore vicious; and that the greatest crime of which a rational creature can be guilty, is to admit the being of a God. Such is the logic of Mr. Shelly. To discuss the question at issue between atheists and theists with such a writer, would be extreme folly; nor should we have drawn from oblivion this extravagant freak of his boyhood, had he not by subsequent writings, and at a matured period of his life, avowed the same sentiments, and obtruded them upon the world with an effrontery unexampled in the annals of impiety. But on this strange intellectual and moral phenomenon we shall take occasion to offer a few remarks. In what light are we to consider the intellectual qualities and attainments of an individual, who denies the existence of a Deity, on the supposition that he has discovered a great and momentous truth? But he has explored the universe, and not only cannot find a God, but can demonstrate the impossibility of his existence. How surprisingly great must be his understanding! how stupendous and overpowering his knowledge! For as this is a fact that requires demonstration, no inferior degree of evidence can be admitted as conclusive. What wondrous Being then presents himself before us in all the confidence of absolute persuasion, founded on irrefragable evidence, declaring that there is no God? And how has he grown to this immense intelligence? Yesterday he was an infant in capacity, and humble; and now he is invested with the attributes of the very Divinity whose existence he denies. "For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in every place in the universe, he cannot know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity, by which even he would be overpowered. If he does not know absolutely every agent in the universe, and does not know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants may be, that there is a God. If he cannot, with certainty, assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know every thing that has been done în the immeasurable ages that are past, some things may have been done by a God. Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes another Deity, by being one himself, he cannot know that the Being whose existence he rejects does not exist. But he must know that he does not exist, else he deserves equal contempt and compassion, for the temerity with which he firmly avows his rejection, and acts accordingly *' As, however, no individual can presume that he has attained this alarming superiority above his fellow-creatures; as the necessity of atheism has never been proved; but, in every case where it has been pretended, it has been the result of some peculiar conjunction of disastrous influences, we are constrained to infer that the atheist must be the victim of a mental obliquity, of a strange perversion of the understanding, which renders him incapable of comprehending the laws of evidence, and the principles of right and reason. It There are certain principia on which, with a few anomalous exceptions, all men are agreed. The foundation of all reasoning concerning being and events, for instance, is a supposed or acknowledged connexion between cause and effect. By cause is meant that something, be it what it may, which produces, or causes to produce, existence, or any change of existence, and without which the existence or the change would not have been. is universally admitted, that we have no knowledge of any existence, or any change, which has taken place without a cause. The human mind, under whatever circumstances of culture or neglect, has acknowledged, in the clearest manner, and in every way of which the subject is susceptible, the inseparable nature of this connexion. We learn it from experience, and in two ways-by the testimony of our senses, and by the inspection of our own minds. We cannot realize the fact, that no existence or change can take place without a cause. The man who begins by denying what is so self-evident, discovers an incapacity to reason. He holds nothing in common with the rest of mankind, and no absurdity can be greater than to attempt to argue with him. Indeed, he cannot pursue an argument on the subject without a practical refutation of the principle he assumes. In speaking, he exhibits himself as a cause of all the words uttered by him, and of the opinions he would communicate; and, in the act of arguing, admits you to be a similar cause. If his body be not a cause, and your eyes another, you cannot see him; if his voice and your ear be not causes, you cannot hear him; if his mind and yours be not causes, you cannot understand him. In a word, without admitting the connexion between cause and effect, you can never know that he is arguing with you, or you with him. But the sophistry which leads to Atheism, denies this first principle of all reasoning, and betrays a mental perversion, which utterly disqualifies for sober and rational investigation. And with this sturdy rejection of every thing like evidence on the subject of a Deity, it is remarkable that Atheists are the most credulous of mankind. There is no absurdity which the human mind, in the very spirit of extravagance, has been capable of inventing, which they have not gravely maintained. The dogmas of Atheism are the most melancholy exhibition of weakness which has ever degraded the human understanding. And we are warranted in affirming, that Atheism, in all its forms, is a specimen of the most absolute credulity. The three grand schemes of existence, which it has devised, to get rid of the idea of one glorious, intelligent Creator; namely, that things have existed in an eternal series; that their *Foster's Essays. |