peculiarity is protruded, and everything else neglected; like the Marquis of Granby at an inn-door, whom we know by nothing but his baldness; or Wilkes, who is Wilkes only in his squint. These are the best specimens of his skill. For most of his pictures seem, like Turkey carpets, to have been expressly designed not to resemble anything in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. The latter manner he practises most frequently in his tragedies, the former in his comedies. The comic characters are, without mixture, loathsome and despicable. The men of Etherege and Vanbrugh are bad enough. Those of Smollett are perhaps worse. But they do not approach to the Celadons, the Wildbloods, the Woodalls, and the Rhodophils of Dryden. The vices of these last are set off by a certain fierce hard impudence, to which we know nothing comparable. Their love is the appetite of beasts; their friendship the confederacy of knaves. The ladies seem to have been expressly created to form helps meet for such gentlemen. In deceiving and insulting their old fathers they do not, perhaps, exceed the license which, by immemorial prescription, has been allowed to heroines. But they also cheat at cards, rob strong boxes, put up their favours to auction, betray their friends, abuse their rivals in the style of Billingsgate, and invite their lovers in the language of the Piazza. These, it must be remembered, are not the valets and waitingwomen, the Mascarilles and Nerines, but the recognized heroes and heroines who appear as the representatives of good society, and who, at the end of the fifth act, marry and live very happily ever after. The sensuality, baseness, and malice of their natures is unredeemed by any quality of a different description,―by any touch of kindness,-or even by any honest burst of hearty hatred and revenge. We are in a world where there is no humanity, no veracity, no sense of shame,-a world for which any good-natured man would gladly take in exchange the society of Milton's devils. But as soon as we enter the regions of Tragedy we find a great change. There is no lack of fine sentiment there. Metastasio is surpassed in his own department. Scuderi is out-scuderied. We are introduced to people whose proceedings we can trace to no motive,-of whose feelings we can form no more idea than of a sixth sense. We have left a race of creatures whose love is as delicate and affectionate as the passion which an alderman feels for a turtle. We find our selves among beings whose love is a purely disinterested emotion,-a loyalty extending to passive obedience,-a religion, like that of the Quietists, unsupported by any sanction of hope or fear. We see nothing but despotism without power, and sacrifices without compensation. LORD MACAULAY: John Dryden, Jan. 1828. If ever Shakspeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along,-when his mind is for a moment jaded,-when, as was said of Euripides, he resembles a lion, who excites his own fury by lashing himself with his tail. What happened to Shakspeare from the occasional suspension of his powers happened to Dryden from constant impotence. He, like his confederate Lee, had judgment enough to appreciate the great poets of the preceding age, but not judgment enough to shun competition with them. He felt and admired their wild and daring sublimity. That it belonged to another age than that in which he lived, and required other talents than those which he possessed, that in aspiring to emulate it he was wasting in a hopeless attempt powers which might render him pre-eminent in a different career, was a lesson which he did not learn till late. As those knavish enthusiasts, the French prophets, courted inspiration by mimicking the writhings, swoonings, and gaspings which they considered as its symptoms, he attempted, by affected fits of poetical fury, to bring on a real paroxysm; and, like them, he got nothing but distortions for his pains. LORD MACAULAY: John Dryden. Some years before his death, Dryden altogether ceased to write for the stage. He had turned his powers in a new direction, with success the most splendid and decisive. His taste had gradually awakened his creative faculties. The first rank in poetry was beyond his reach; but he challenged and secured the most honourable place in the second. His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich it enabled him to run, though not to soar. When he attempted the highest flights, he became ridiculous; but while he remained in a lower region, he outstripped all competitors. All his natural and all his acquired powers fitted him to found a good critical school of poetry. Indeed, he carried his reforms too far for his age. After his death our literature retrograded; and a century was necessary to bring it back to the point at which he left it. The general soundness and healthfulness of his mental constitution, his information, of vast superficies though of small volume, his wit, scarcely inferior to that of the most distinguished followers of Donne, his eloquence, grave, deliberate, and commanding, could not save him from disgraceful failure as a rival of Shakspeare, but raised him far above the level of Boileau. His command of language was immense. With him died the secret of the old poetical diction of England,-the art of producing rich effects by familiar words. In the following century it was as completely lost as the Gothic method of painting glass, and was but poorly supplied by the laborious and tessellated imitations of Mason and Gray. On the other hand, he was the first writer under whose skilful management the scientific vocabulary fell into natural and pleasing verse. In this department he succeeded as completely as his contemporary Gibbons succeeded in the similar enterprise of carving the most delicate flowers from heart of oak. The toughest and most knotty parts of 186 DUELLING.-DULNESS.-DURATION.—DUTY. His decide by combat; and show, from their prac- language became ductile at his touch. versification in the same manner, while it gave the first model of that neatness and precision which the following generation esteemed so highly, exhibited at the same time the last examples of nobleness, freedom, variety of pause, and cadence. His tragedies in rhyme, however worthless in themselves, had at least served the purpose of nonsense-verses: they had taught him all the arts of melody which the heroic couplet admits. For bombast, his prevailing vice, his new subjects gave little opportunity; his better taste gradually discarded it. LORD MACAULAY: John Dryden. DUELLING. Death is not sufficient to deter men who make it their glory to despise it; but if every one that fought a duel were to stand in the pillory, it would quickly lessen the number of these imaginary men of honour, and put an end to so absurd a practice. When honour is a support to virtuous principles, and runs parallel with the laws of God and our country, it cannot be too much cherished and encouraged; but when the dictates of honour are contrary to those of religion and equity, they are the greatest deprivations of human nature, by giving wrong ambitions and false ideas of what is good and laudable; and should therefore be exploded by all governments, and driven out as the bane and plague of human society. ADDISON: Spectator, No. 199. The practice of the duel, as a private mode, recognized only by custom, of deciding private differences, seems to be of comparatively recent date. BRANDE, How! a man's blood for an injurious, passionate speech-for a disdainful look? Nay, that is not all that thou mayest gain among men the reputation of a discreet, well-tempered murderer, be sure thou killest him not in passion, when thy blood is hot and boiling with the provocation; but proceed with as great temper and settledness of reason, with as much discretion and preparedness, as thou wouldest to the communion after several days' respite, that it may appear it is thy reason guides thee, and not thy passion, invite him kindly and courteously into some retired place, and there let it be deter. mined whether his blood or thine shall satisfy the injury. CHILLINGWORTH; Sermons. Duelling was then [1822], as now, an absurd and shocking remedy for private insult. LORD COCKBURN. It is astonishing that the murderous practice of duelling should continue so long in vogue. FRANKLIN. I shall therefore hereafter consider how the bravest men in other ages and nations have behaved themselves upon such incidents as we Shakspeare, in As You Like It, has rallied the mode of formal duelling, then so prevalent, with the highest humour and address. BISHOP WARBURTON. DULNESS. The attempts, however, of dulness are constantly repeated, and as constantly fail. For the misfortune is, that the Head of Dulness, unlike the tail of the torpedo, loses nothing of her benumbing and lethargizing influence by reiterated discharges: horses may ride over her, and mules and asses may trample upon her, but, with an exhaustless and a patient perversity, she continues her narcotic operations even to the end. COLTON: Lacon, Preface. What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times! A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring any more solace to our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds. DR. O. W. HOLMES. DURATION. All the notion we have of duration is partly by the successiveness of its own operations, and partly by those external measures that it finds in motion. SIR M. HALE. That we have our notion of succession and duration from this original, viz., from the reflection on the train of ideas which we find to appear one after another in our own minds, seems plain to me, in that we have no perception of duration but by considering the train of ideas that take their turns in our understandings. I think myself obliged, whatever my private apprehensions may be of the success, to do my duty, and leave events to their disposer. BOYLE. mently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: "Do the duty which lies nearest thee," which thou knowest to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer. CARLYLE. There is not a moment without some duty. The law of our constitution, whereby the regu Taking it for granted that I do not write to the disciples of the Parisian philosophy, I may assume that the awful Author of our being is the Author of our place in the order of existence, and that having disposed and marshalled us by a divine tactic, not according to our will, but according to His, He has in and by that dis-lated activity of both intellect and feeling is made position virtually subjected us to act the part essential to sound bodily health, seems to me one which belongs to the place assigned us. We of the most beautiful arrangements of an all-wise have obligations to mankind at large, which are and beneficent Creator. If we shun the society not in consequence of any special voluntary pact. of our fellow-creatures, and shrink from taking a They arise from the relation of man to man, and share in the active duties of life, mental indolence the relation of man to God, which relations are and physical debility beset our path. Whereas, if not matters of choice. On the contrary, the by engaging in the business of life, and taking an force of all the pacts which we enter into with active interest in the advancement of society, any particular person or number of persons we duly exercise our various powers of percep amongst mankind depends upon those prior ob- tion, thought, and feeling, we promote the health ligations. In some cases the subordinate rela- of the whole corporeal system, invigorate the tions are voluntary, in others they are necessary, mind itself, and at the same time experience the -but the duties are all compulsive. highest mental gratification of which a human being is susceptible; namely, that of having fulfilled the end and object of our being, in the active discharge of our duties to God, to our fellow-men, and to ourselves. If we neglect our faculties, or deprive them of their objects, we weaken the organization, give rise to distressing diseases, and at the same time experience the bitterest feelings that can afflict humanity,-ennui and melancholy. The harmony thus shown to exist between the moral and physical world is but another example of the numerous inducements to that right conduct and activity in pursuing which the Creator has evidently destined us to find terrestrial happiness. BURKE: Appeal from the New to the Old When you choose an arduous and slippery path, God forbid that any weak feelings of my declining age, which calls for soothings and supports, and which can have none but from you, should make me wish that you should abandon what you are about, or should trifle with it! In this house we submit, though with troubled minds, to that order which has connected all great duties with toils and with perils, which has conducted the road to glory through the regions of obloquy and reproach, and which will never suffer the disparaging alliance of spurious, false, and fugitive praise with genuine and permanent reputation. We know that the Power which has settled that order, and subjected you to it by placing you in the situation you are in, is able to bring you out of it with credit and with safety. His will be done! All must come right. You may open the way with pain and under reproach: others will pursue it with ease and with applause. BURKE: Letter to Rich, Burke, on Protestant Ascendency in Ireland, 1793. Men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told their duty. BURKE. Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worthless till it convert itself into conduct. Nay, properly, conviction is not possible till then; inasmuch as all speculation is by nature endless, formless, a vortex amid vortices: only by a felt indubitable certainty of experience does it find any centre to revolve round, and so fashion itself into a system. Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that "doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by action." On which ground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehe GEORGE COMBE. What I must do is all that concerns me, and not what the people think. This rule, equally as arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. R. W. EMERSON. We should accustom ourselves to make attention entirely the instrument of volition. Let the will be determined by the conclusions of reason, by deliberate conclusions, and then let attention be wielded by both. Think what is selfgovernment; what is fittest to be done ought to be now done, and let will be subordinate to rea son, and attention to will. In this way you will always be disengaged for present duty. Pleasures, amusements, inferior objects, will be easily sacrificed to the most important. You may have likings to inferior or trifling occupations; but if, to use the strong language of Scripture, you crucify these, oppose them, carry your intention beyond them, their power to molest and mislead you will decline. FERRIER. Moral obligation, being the obligation of a free agent, implies a law, and a law implies a law-giver. The will of God, therefore, is the true ground of all obligation, strictly and properly so called. FLEMING. Of an accountable creature, duty is the concern of every moment, since he is every moment pleasing or displeasing God. It is a universal element, mingling with every action and qualifying every disposition and pursuit. The moral of conduct, as it serves both to ascertain and to form the character, has consequences in a future world so certain and infallible that it is represented in Scripture as a seed no part of which is lost, for whatsoever a man soweth, that also shall he reap. ROBERT HALL: Advantages of Knowledge to the Lower Classes. reason, that is capable of imitating the divine nature, then it must be our glory and happiness to improve our reason and wisdom, to act up to the excellency of our rational nature, and to imitate God in all our actions, to the utmost of our power. LAW. restriction, that a superior obligation suspends All duties are matter of conscience; with this the force of an inferior one. L'ESTRANGE. Every man has his station assigned him, and in that station he is well, if he can but think himself so. L'ESTRANGE. There is not one grain in the universe . . . to be spared, nor so much as any one particle of it that mankind may not be the better or the worse for, according as 'tis applied. L'ESTRANGE. The consciousness of doing that which we are reasonably persuaded we ought to do, is always a gratifying sensation to the considerate mind: it is a sensation by God's will inherent in our nature; and is, as it were, the voice of God Himself, intimating His approval of our conduct, and by His commendation encouraging us to proceed. BISHOP MANT. If we know ourselves, we shall remember the condescension, benignity, and love that is due to inferiors; the affability, friendship, and kindness we ought to show to equals; the regard, deference, and honour we owe to superiors; and the candour, integrity, and benevolence we owe to all. W. MASON. There is a certain scale of duties . . . which A good man is accustomed to acquiesce in the idea of his duties as an ultimate object, without inquiring at every step why he should perform for want of studying in right order, all the world them, or amusing himself with imagining cases and situations in which they would be liable to limitations and exceptions. Duty is far more than love. It is the upholding law through which the weakest become strong, without which all strength is unstable as water. No character, however harmoniously framed and gloriously gifted, can be complete without this abiding principle: it is the cement which binds the whole moral edifice together, without which all power, goodness, intellect, truth, happiness, love itself, can have no permanence; but all the fabric of existence crumbles away from under us, and leaves us at last sitting in the midst of a ruin,-astonished at our own desolation. MRS. JAMESON. He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches sublimity. LAVATER. If it is our glory and happiness to have a rational nature, that is endued with wisdom and is in confusion. MILTON. We ought to profess our dependence upon him, and our obligations to him for the good things we enjoy. We ought to publish to the world our sense of his goodness with the voice We ought to comfort his servants and children of praise, and tell of all his wondrous works. in their afflictions, and relieve his poor distressed members in their manifold necessities; for he that giveth alms sacrificeth praise. : ROBERT NELSON. No man's spirits were ever hurt by doing his duty on the contrary, one good action, one temptation resisted and overcome, one sacrifice of desire or interest purely for conscience's sake, beyond what either indulgence, or diversion, or will prove a cordial for weak and low spirits far company can do for them. PALEY. The great business of a man is to improve his mind and govern his manners; all other projects and pursuits, whether in our power to compass or not, are only amusements. PLINY. I will suppose that you have no friends to share or rejoice in your success in life,—that you cannot look back to those to whom you owe gratitude, or forward to those to whom you Questionless, duty moves not so much upon command as promise: now, that which proposes the greatest and most suitable rewards to obedience, and the greatest punishments to disobedience, doubtless is the most likely to enforce the one and prevent the other. SOUTH. He who endeavours to know his duty, and practises what he knows, has the equity of God to stand as a mighty wall or rampart between him and damnation for any infirmities. SOUTH. Whatever you dislike in another person take care to correct in yourself. SPRAT. A wise man who does not assist with his counsels, a rich man with his charity, and a poor man with his labour, are perfect nuisances in a commonwealth. SWIFT. We are not solicitous of the opinion and censures of men, but only that we do our duty. JEREMY TAYLOR. All our duty is set down in our prayers, because in all our duty we beg the divine assistance, and remember that you are bound to do all those duties for the doing of which you have prayed for the divine assistance. JEREMY TAYLOR. Nor provided our duty be secured, for the degrees and instruments every man is permitted to himself. JEREMY TAYLOR. The gospel chargeth us with piety towards God, and justice and charity to men, and temperance and chastity in reference to ourselves. TILLOTSON. These two must make our duty very easy: a considerable reward in hand, and the assurance of a far greater recompense hereafter. TILLOTSON. Religion or virtue, in a large sense, includes duty to God and our neighbour; but, in a proper sense, virtue signifies duty towards men, and religion duty to God. DR. I. WATTS. To pursue and persevere in virtue, with regard to themselves; in justice and goodness, with regard to their neighbours; and piety towards God. DR. I. WATTS. Knowledge of our duties is the most useful part of philosophy. WHATELY. Every man has obligations which belong to his station. Duties extend beyond obligations, and direct the affections, desires, and intentions, as well as the actions. WHEWELL. What it is our duty to do we must do because it is right, not because any one can demand it of us. WHEWELL. That we ought to do an action, is of itself a sufficient and ultimate answer to the questions, Why we should do it?-how we are obliged to do it? The conviction of duty implies the soundest reason, the strongest obligation, of which our nature is susceptible. WHEWELL. Nothing is properly his duty but what is really his interest. BISHOP WILKINS. |
