Chapter 11

"O suavis anima, quale in te dicam bonumAntehac fuisse; tales cum sint reliquiæ."[416]

"O suavis anima, quale in te dicam bonum

Antehac fuisse; tales cum sint reliquiæ."[416]

It is no excuse that the illegitimate bantling is a very little one. Its parents may think themselves hardly treated when they are called lineal successors of Tony Fire-the-faggot:but, degenerate though they be, such is their ancestry. Let every allowance be made for them: but their unholy fire must be trodden out; so long as a spark is left, nothing but fuel is wanted to make a blaze. If this cannot be done, let the flame be confined to theology, though even there it burns with diminished vigor: and let charity, candor, sense, and ridicule, be ready to play upon it whenever there is any chance of its extending to literature and science.

"What would be the consequence if this test-signing absurdity were to grow? Deep would call unto deep; counter-declaration would answer declaration, each stronger than the one before. The moves would go on like the dispute of two German students, of whom each is bound to a sharper retort on a graduated scale, until at last comesdummer Junge![417]—and then they must fight. There is a gentleman in the upper fifteen of the signers of the writ—the hawking of whose names appears to me very bad taste—whom I met in cordial cooperation for many a year at a scientific board. All I knew about his religion was that he, as a clergyman, must in some sense or other receive the 39 Articles:—all that he could know about mine was that I was some kind of heretic, or so reputed. If we had come to signing opposite manifestoes, turn-about, we might have found ourselves in the lowest depths of party discussion at our very council-table. I trust the list of subscribers to the declaration, when it comes to be published, will show that the bulk of those who have really added to our knowledge have seen the thing in its true light.

"The promoters—I say nothing about the subscribers—of the movement will, I trust, not feel aggrieved at the course I have taken or the remarks I have made. Walter Scott says that before we judge Napoleon by the temptation to which he yielded, we ought to remember how much he may have resisted: I invite them to apply this rule to myself; they can have no idea of the feeling with which Icontemplate all attempts to repress freedom of inquiry, nor of the loathing with which I recoil from the proposal to be art and part. They have asked me to give a public opinion upon a certain point. It is true that they have had the kindness to tender both the opinion they wish me to form, and the shape in which they would have it appear: I will let them draw me out, but I will not let them take me in. If they will put an asterisk to my name, and this letter to the asterisk, they are welcome to my signature. As I do not expect them to relish this proposal, I will not solicit the favor of its adoption. But they have given a right to think, for they have asked me to think; to publish, for they have asked me to allow them to publish; to blame them, for they have asked me to blame their betters. Should they venture to find fault because my direction of disapproval, publicly given, is half a revolution different from theirs, they will be known as having presented a loaded document at the head of a traveler in the highway of discussion, with—Your signature or your silence!"

THE FLY-LEAF PARADOX.

The paradox being the proposition of something which runs counter to what would generally be thought likely, may present itself in many ways. There is afly-leaf paradox, which puzzled me for many years, until I found a probable solution. I frequently saw, in the blank leaves of old books, learned books, Bibles of a time when a Bible was very costly, etc., the name of an owner who, by the handwriting and spelling, must have been an illiterate person or a child, followed by the date of the book itself. Accordingly, this uneducated person or young child seemed to be the first owner, which in many cases was not credible. Looking one day at a Barker's[418]Bible of 1599, I saw aninscription in a child's writing, which certainly belonged to a much later date. It was "Martha Taylor, her book, giuen me by Granny Scott to keep for her sake." With this the usual verses, followed by 1599, the date of the book. But it so chanced that the blank page opposite the title, on which the above was written, was a verso of the last leaf of a prayer book, which had been bound before the Bible; and on the recto of this leaf was a colophon, with the date 1632. It struck me immediately that uneducated persons and children, having seen dates written under names, and not being quite up in chronology, did frequently finish off with the date of the book, which stared them in the face.

Always write in your books. You may be a silly person—for though your reading my book is rather a contrary presumption, yet it is not conclusive—and your observations may be silly or irrelevant, but you cannot tell what use they may be of long after you are gone where Budgeteers cease from troubling.

I picked up the following book, printed by J. Franklin[419]at Boston, during the period in which his younger brother Benjamin was his apprentice. And as Benjamin was apprenticed very early, and is recorded as having learned the mechanical art very rapidly, there is some presumption that part of it may be his work, though he was but thirteen at the time. As this set of editions of Hodder[420](byMose[421]) is not mentioned, to my knowledge, I give the title in full:

"Hodder's Arithmetick: or that necessary art made most easy: Being explained in a way familiar to the capacity of any that desire to learn it in a little time. By James Hodder, Writing-master. The Five and twentieth edition, revised, augmented, and above a thousand faults amended, by Henry Mose, late servant and successor to the author. Boston: printed by J. Franklin, for S. Phillips, N. Buttolph, B. Elliot, D. Henchman, G. Phillips, J. Elliot, and E. Negus, booksellers in Boston, and sold at their shops. 1719."

The book is a very small octavo, the type and execution are creditable, the woodcut at the beginning is clumsy. It is a perfect copy, page for page, of the English editions of Mose's Hodder, of which the one called seventeenth is of London, 1690. There is not a syllable to show that the edition above described might not be of Boston in England. Presumptions, but not very strong ones, might be derived from the name ofFranklin, and from the large number of booksellers who combined in the undertaking. It chanced, however, that a former owner had made the following note in my copy:

"Wednessday, July ye14, 1796, att ten in yeforenoon we saildfrom Boston, came too twice, once in King Rode, and once in yeNarrows. Saildby yelighthouse in yeeveng."

No ordinary map would decide these points: so I had to apply to my friend Sir Francis Beaufort,[422]and the charts at the Admiralty decided immediately for Massachusetts.

PARADOXES OF ORTHOGRAPHY AND COMPUTATION.

The French are able paradoxers in their spelling of foreign names. The Abbé Sabatier de Castres,[423]in 1772, gives an account of an imaginary dialogue between Swif, Adisson, Otwai, and Bolingbrocke. I had hoped that this was a thing of former days, like the literal roasting of heretics; but the charity which hopeth all things must hope for disappointments. Looking at a recent work on the history of the popes, I found referred to, in the matter of Urban VIII[424]and Galileo, references to the works of two Englishmen, the Rev. Win Worewel and the Rev. Raden Powen. [Wm. Whewell and Baden Powell].[425]

I must not forget the "moderate computation" paradox. This is the way by which large figures are usually obtained. Anything surprisingly great is got by the "lowest computation," anything as surprisingly small by the "utmost computation"; and these are the two great subdivisions of "moderate computation." In this way we learn that 70,000 persons were executed in one reign, and 150,000 personsburned for witchcraft in one century. Sometimes this computation is very close. By a card before me it appears that all the Christians, including those dispersed in heathen countries, those of Great Britain and Ireland excepted, are 198,728,000 people, and pay their clergy 8,852,000l.But 6,400,000 people pay the clergy of the Anglo-Irish Establishment 8,896,000l.; and 14,600,000 of other denominations pay 1,024,000l.When I read moderate computations, I always think of Voltaire and the "mémoires du fameux évêque de Chiapa, par lesquels il paraît qu'il avait égorgé, ou brulé, ou noyé dix millions d'infidèles en Amérique pour les convertir. Je crus que cet évêque exaggérait; mais quand on réduisait ces sacrifices à cinq millions de victimes, cela serait encore admirable."[426]

CENTRIFUGAL FORCE.

My Budget has been arranged by authors. This is the only plan, for much of the remark is personal: the peculiarities of the paradoxer are a large part of the interest of the paradox. As to subject-matter, there are points which stand strongly out; the quadrature of the circle, for instance. But there are others which cannot be drawn out so as to be conspicuous in a review of writers: as one instance, I may take thecentrifugal force.

When I was about nine years old I was taken to hear a course of lectures, given by an itinerant lecturer in a country town, to get as much as I could of the second half of a good, sound, philosophical omniscience. The first half (and sometimes more) comes by nature. To this end I smelt chemicals, learned that they were different kinds ofgin, saw young wags try to kiss the girls under the excuse of what was calledlaughing gas—which I was surewas not to blame for more than five per cent of the requisite assurance—and so forth. This was all well so far as it went; but there was also the excessive notion of creative power exhibited in the millions of miles of the solar system, of which power I wondered they did not give a still grander idea by expressing the distances in inches. But even this was nothing to the ingenious contrivance of the centrifugal force. "You have heard what I have said of the wonderful centripetal force, by which Divine Wisdom has retained the planets in their orbits round the Sun. But, ladies and gentlemen, it must be clear to you that if there were no other force in action, this centripetal force would draw our earth and the other planets into the Sun, and universal ruin would ensue. To prevent such a catastrophe, the same wisdom has implanted a centrifugal force of the same amount, and directly opposite," etc. I had never heard of Alfonso X of Castile,[427]but I ventured to think that if Divine Wisdom had just let the planets alone it would come to the same thing, with equal and opposite troubles saved. The paradoxers deal largely in speculation conducted upon the above explanation. They provide external agents for what they call the centrifugal force. Some make the sun's rays keep the planets off, without a thought about what would become of our poor eyes if thepushof the light which falls on the earth were a counterpoise to all its gravitation. The true explanation cannot be given here, for want of room.

CAMBRIDGE POETS.

Sometimes a person who has a point to carry will assert a singular fact or prediction for the sake of his point; andthis paradox has almost obtained the sole use of the name. Persons who have reputation to care for should beware how they adopt this plan, which now and then eventuates a spanker, as the American editor said. Lord Byron, in "English Bards, etc." (1809), ridiculing Cambridge poetry, wrote as follows:

"But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave,The partial muse delighted loves to lave;On her green banks a greener wreath she wove,To crown the bards that haunt her classic grove;Where Richards[428]wakes a genuine poet's fires,And modern Britons glory in their sires."[429]

"But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave,

The partial muse delighted loves to lave;

On her green banks a greener wreath she wove,

To crown the bards that haunt her classic grove;

Where Richards[428]wakes a genuine poet's fires,

And modern Britons glory in their sires."[429]

There is some account of the Rev. Geo. Richards, Fellow of Oriel and Vicar of Bampton, (M.A. in 1791) in theLiving Authorsby Watkins[430]and Shoberl[431](1816). In Rivers'sLiving Authors, of 1798, which is best fitted for citation, as being published before Lord Byron wrote, he is spoken of in high terms. TheAboriginal Britonswas an Oxford (special) prize poem, of 1791. Charles Lamb mentions Richards as his school-fellow at Christ's Hospital, "author of theAboriginal Britons, the most spirited of the Oxford Prize Poems: a pale, studious Grecian."

As I never heard of Richards as a poet,[432]I conclude that his fame is defunct, except in what may prove to be a very ambiguous kind of immortality, conferred by Lord Byron. The awkwardness of a case which time has broken downis increased by the eulogist himself adding so powerful a name to the list of Cambridge poets, that his college has placed his statue in the library, more conspicuously than that of Newton in the chapel; and this although the greatness of poetic fame had some serious drawbacks in the moral character of some of his writings. And it will be found on inquiry that Byron, to get his instance against Cambridge, had to go back eighteen years, passing over seven intermediate productions, of which he had either never heard, or which he would not cite as waking a genuine poet's fires.

The conclusion seems to be that theAboriginal Britonsis a remarkable youthful production, not equalled by subsequent efforts.

To enhance the position in which the satirist placed himself, two things should be remembered. First, the glowing and justifiable terms in which Byron had spoken,—a hundred and odd lines before he found it convenient to say no Cambridge poet could compare with Richards,—of a Cambridge poet who died only three years before Byron wrote, and produced greatly admired works while actually studying in the University. The fame of Kirke White[433]still lives; and future literary critics may perhaps compare his writings and those of Richards, simply by reason of the curious relation in which they are here placed alongside of each other. And it is much to Byron's credit that, in speaking of the deceased Cambridge poet, he forgot his own argument and its exigencies, and proved himself only a paradoxerpro re nata.

Secondly, Byron was very unfortunate in another passage of the same poem:

"What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism, and gas.In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare,Till the swoln bubble bursts—and all is air!"

"What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!

The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism, and gas.

In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare,

Till the swoln bubble bursts—and all is air!"

Three of the bubbles have burst to mighty ends. The metallic tractors are disused; but the force which, if anything, they put in action, is at this day, under the name of mesmerism, used, prohibited, respected, scorned, assailed, defended, asserted, denied, declared utterly obscure, and universally known. It was hard lines to select for candidates for oblivion not one of whom got in. I shall myself, I am assured, be some day cited for laughing at the great discovery of ——: the blank is left for my reader to fill up in his own way; but I think I shall not be so unlucky in four different ways.

FALSIFIED PREDICTION.

The narration before the fact, as prophecy has been called, sometimes quite as true as the narration after the fact, is very ridiculous when it is wrong. Why, the pre-narrator could not know; the post-narrator might have known. A good collection of unlucky predictions might be made: I hardly know one so fit to go with Byron's as that of the Rev. Daniel Rivers, already quoted, about Johnson's biographers. Peter Pindar[434]may be excused, as personal satire was his object, for addressing Boswell and Mrs. Piozzi[435]as follows:

"Instead of adding splendor to his name,Your books are downright gibbets to his fame;You never with posterity can thrive,'Tis by the Rambler's death alone you live."

"Instead of adding splendor to his name,

Your books are downright gibbets to his fame;

You never with posterity can thrive,

'Tis by the Rambler's death alone you live."

But Rivers, in prose narrative, was not so excusable. He says:

"As admirers of the learning and moral excellence of their hero, we glow at almost every page with indignation that his weaknesses and his failings should be disclosed to public view.... Johnson, after the luster he had reflected on the name of Thrale ... was to have his memory tortured and abused by her detested itch for scribbling. More injury, we will venture to affirm, has been done to the fame of Johnson by this Lady and her late biographical helpmate, than his most avowed enemies have been able to effect: and if his character becomes unpopular with some of his successors, it is to those gossiping friends he is indebted for the favor."

Poor dear old Sam! the best known dead man alive! clever, good-hearted, logical, ugly bear! Where would he have been if it had not been for Boswell and Thrale, and their imitators? What would biography have been if Boswell had not shown how to write a life?

Rivers is to be commended for not throwing a single Stone at Mrs. Thrale's second marriage. This poor lady begins to receive a little justice. The literary world seems to have found out that a blue-stocking dame who keeps open house for a set among them has a right, if it so please her, to marry again without taking measures to carry on the cake-shop. I was before my age in this respect: as a boy-reader of Boswell, and a few other things that fell in my way, I came to a clearness that the conduct of society towards Mrs. Piozzi wasblackguard. She wanted nothing but what was in that day a woman's only efficient protection, a male relation with a brace of pistols, and a competent notion of using them.

BYRON AND WORDSWORTH.

Byron's mistake about Hallam in the Pindar story may be worth placing among absurdities. For elucidation, suppose that some poet were now to speak—

"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruitEve gave to Adam in his birthday suit—"

"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Eve gave to Adam in his birthday suit—"

and some critic were to call it nonsense, would that critic be laughing at Milton? Payne Knight,[436]in hisTaste, translated part of Gray'sBardinto Greek. Some of his lines are

θερμὰ δ' ὁ τὲγγων δάκρυα στοναχαῖςοὖλον μέλος φοβερᾷηἔιδε φωνᾷ.

θερμὰ δ' ὁ τὲγγων δάκρυα στοναχαῖς

οὖλον μέλος φοβερᾷ

ηἔιδε φωνᾷ.

Literally thus:

"Wetting warm tears with groans,Continuous chant with fearfulVoice he sang."

"Wetting warm tears with groans,

Continuous chant with fearful

Voice he sang."

On which Hallam remarks: "The twelfth line [our first] is nonsense." And so it is, a poet can no more wet his tears with his groans than wet his ale with his whistle. Now this first line is from Pindar, but is only part of the sense; in full it is:

θερμὰ δὲ τέγγων δάκρυα στοναχαῖςὅρθιον φώνασε.

θερμὰ δὲ τέγγων δάκρυα στοναχαῖς

ὅρθιον φώνασε.

Pindar'sτέγγωνmust be Englished byshedding, and he stands alone in this use. He says, "shedding warm tears, he cried out loud, with groans." Byron speaks of

"Classic Hallam, much renowned for Greek:"

and represents him as criticisingthe Greekof all Payne's lines, and not discovering that "the lines" were Pindar'suntil after publication. Byron was too much of a scholar to make this blunder himself: he either accepted the facts from report, or else took satirical licence. And why not? If you want to laugh at a person, and he will not give occasion, whose fault is it that you are obliged to make it? Hallam did criticise some of Payne Knight's Greek; but with the caution of his character, he remarked that possibly some of these queer phrases might be "critic-traps" justified by some one use of some one author. I remember well having a Latin essay to write at Cambridge, in which I took care to insert a few monstrous and unusual idioms from Cicero: a person with a Nizolius,[437]and without scruples may get scores of them. So when my tutor raised his voice against these oddities, I was up to him, for I came down upon him with Cicero, chapter and verse, and got round him. And so my own solecisms, many of them, passed unchallenged.

Byron had more good in his nature than he was fond of letting out: whether he was a soured misanthrope, or whether hisveinlay that way in poetry, and he felt it necessary to fit his demeanor to it, are matters far beyond me. Mr. Crabb Robinson[438]told me the following story more than once. He was at Charles Lamb's chambers in the Temple when Wordsworth came in, with the newEdinburgh Reviewin his hand, and fume on his countenance. "These reviewers," said he, "put me out of patience! Here is a young man—they say he is a lord—who has written a volume of poetry; and these fellows, just because he is a lord, set upon him, laugh at him, and sneer at his writing. The young man will do something, if he goes on as he has begun. But these reviewers seem to thinkthat nobody may write poetry, unless he lives in a garret." Crabb Robinson told this long after to Lady Byron, who said, "Ah! if Byron had known that, he would never have attacked Wordsworth. He went one day to meet Wordsworth at dinner; when he came home I said, 'Well, how did the young poet get on with the old one?' 'Why, to tell you the truth,' said he, 'I had but one feeling from the beginning of the visit to the end, and that was—reverence!'" Lady Byron told my wife that her husband had a very great respect for Wordsworth. I suppose he would have said—as the Archangel said to his Satan—"Our difference is po[li = e]tical."

I suspect that Fielding would, if all were known, be ranked among the unlucky railers at supposed paradox. In hisMiscellanies(1742, 8vo) he wrote a satire on the Chrysippus or Guinea, an animal which multiplies itself by division, like the polypus. This he supposes to have been drawn up by Petrus Gualterus, meaning the famous usurer, Peter Walter. He calls it a paper "proper to be read before the R——l Society": and next year, 1743, a quarto reprint was made to resemble a paper in thePhilosophical Transactions. So far as I can make out, one object is ridicule of what the zoologists said about the polypus: a reprint in the form of theTransactionswas certainly satire on the Society, not on Peter Walter and his knack of multiplying guineas.

Old poets have recognized the quadrature of the circle as a well-known difficulty. Dante compares himself, when bewildered, to a geometer who cannot find the principle on which the circle is to be measured:

"Quale è 'l geometra che tutto s' affigePer misurar lo cerchio, e non ritruova,Pensando qual principio ond' egli indige."[439]

"Quale è 'l geometra che tutto s' affige

Per misurar lo cerchio, e non ritruova,

Pensando qual principio ond' egli indige."[439]

And Quarles[440]speaks as follows of thesummum bonum:

"Or is't a tart idea, to procureAn edge, and keep the practic soul in ure,Like that dear chymic dust, or puzzling quadrature?"

"Or is't a tart idea, to procure

An edge, and keep the practic soul in ure,

Like that dear chymic dust, or puzzling quadrature?"

The poetic notion of the quadrature must not be forgotten. Aristophanes, in theBirds, introduces a geometer who announces his intention tomake a square circle. Pope, in theDunciad, delivers himself as follows, with a Greek pronunciation rather strange in a translator of Homer. Probably Pope recognized, as a general rule, the very common practice of throwing back the accent in defiance of quantity, seen in o´rator, au´ditor, se´nator, ca´tenary, etc.

"MadMathesisalone was unconfined,Too mad for mere material chains to bind,—Now to pure space lifts her ecstatic stare,Now, running round the circle, finds it square."

"MadMathesisalone was unconfined,

Too mad for mere material chains to bind,—

Now to pure space lifts her ecstatic stare,

Now, running round the circle, finds it square."

The author's note explains that this "regards the wild and fruitless attempts of squaring the circle." The poetic idea seems to be that the geometers try to make a square circle. Disraeli quotes it as "findsitssquare," but the originals do not support this reading.

DE BECOURT.

I have come in the way of a work, entitledThe Grave of Human Philosophies(1827), translated from the French of R. de Bécourt[441]by A. Dalmas. It supports, but I suspect not very accurately, the views of the old Hindu books.That the sun is only 450 miles from us, and only 40 miles in diameter, may be passed over; my affair is with the state of mind into which persons of M. Bécourt's temperament are brought by a fancy. He fully grants, as certain, four millions of years as the duration of the Hindu race, and 1956 as that of the universe. It must be admitted he is not wholly wrong in saying that our errors about the universe proceed from our ignorance of its origin, antiquity, organization, laws, and final destination. Living in an age of light, he "avails himself of that opportunity" to remove this veil of darkness, etc. The system of the Brahmins is the only true one: he adds that it has never before been attempted, as it could not be obtained except by him. The author requests us first, to lay aside prejudice; next, to read all he says in the order in which he says it: we may then pronounce judgment upon a work which begins by taking the Brahmins for granted. All the paradoxers make the same requests. They do not see that compliance would bring thousands of systems before the world every year: we have scores as it is. How is a poor candid inquirer to choose. Fortunately, the mind has its grand jury as well as its little one: and it will not put a book upon its trial without aprima faciecase in its favor. And with most of those who really search for themselves, that case is never made out without evidence of knowledge, standing out clear and strong, in the book to be examined.

BEQUEST OF A QUADRATURE.

There is much private history which will never come to light,caret quia vate sacro,[442]because no Budgeteer comes across it. Many years ago a man of business, whose life was passed in banking, amused his leisure with quadrature, was successful of course, and bequeathed the result in a sealed book, which the legatee was enjoined not to sellunder a thousand pounds. The true ratio was 3.1416: I have the anecdote from the legatee's executor, who opened the book. That a banker should square the circle is very credible: but how could a City man come by the notion that a thousand pounds could be got for it? A friend of mine, one of the twins of my zodiac, will spend a thousand pounds, if he have not done it already, in black and white cyclometry: but I will answer for it that he, a man of sound business notions, never entertained the idea ofπrecouping him, as they now say. I speak of individual success: of course if a company were formed, especially if it were of unlimited lie-ability, the shares would be taken. No offence; there is nothing but what a pun will either sanctify, justify, or nullify:

"It comes o'er the soul like the sweet SouthThat breathes upon a bank ofvile hits."

"It comes o'er the soul like the sweet South

That breathes upon a bank ofvile hits."

The shares would be at a premium of 3⅛ on the day after issue. If they presented me with the number of shares I deserve, for suggestion and advertisement, I should stand up for the Archpriest of St. Vitus[443]and 3-1/5, with a view to a little more gold on the bridge.

I now insert a couple of reviews, one about Cyclopædias, one about epistolary collections. Should any reader wish for explanation of this insertion, I ask him to reflect a moment, and imagine me set to justify all the additions now before him! In truth these reviews are the repositories of many odds and ends: they were not made to the books; the materials were in my notes, and the books came as to a ready-made clothes shop, and found what would fit them. Many remember Curll's[444]bequest of some very good titleswhich only wanted treatises written to them. Well! here were some tolerable reviews—as times go—which only wanted books fitted to them. Accordingly, some tags were made to join on the books; and then as the reader sees.

I should find it hard to explain why the insertion is made in this place rather than another. But again, suppose I were put to make such an explanation throughout the volume. The improver who laid out grounds and always studied what he calledunexpectedness, was asked what name he gave it for those who walked over his grounds a second time. He was silenced; but I have an answer: It is that which is given by the very procedure of taking up my book a second time.

REVIEW OF CYCLOPÆDIAS.

October 19, 1861.The English Cyclopædia.Conducted by Charles Knight.[445]22 vols.: viz.,Geography, 4 vols.;Biography, 6 vols.;Natural History, 4 vols.;Arts and Sciences, 8 vols. (Bradbury & Evans.)The Encyclopædia Britannica: a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature.Eighth Edition. 21 vols. and Index. (Black.)

October 19, 1861.The English Cyclopædia.Conducted by Charles Knight.[445]22 vols.: viz.,Geography, 4 vols.;Biography, 6 vols.;Natural History, 4 vols.;Arts and Sciences, 8 vols. (Bradbury & Evans.)

The Encyclopædia Britannica: a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature.Eighth Edition. 21 vols. and Index. (Black.)

The two editions above described are completed at the same time: and they stand at the head of the two great branches into which pantological undertakings are divided, as at once the largest and the best of their classes.

When the works are brought together, the first thing that strikes the eye is the syllable of difference in the names. The wordCyclopædiais a bit of modern purism. Thoughἐγκυκλοπαιδεια[446]is not absolutely Greek of Greece, we learn from both Pliny[447]and Quintilian[448]that the circleof the sciences was so called by the Greeks, and Vitruvius[449]has thence naturalizedencycliumin Latin. Nevertheless we admit that the initialenwould have euphonized but badly with the wordPenny: and theEnglish Cyclopædiais the augmented, revised, and distributed edition of thePenny Cyclopædia. It has indeed been said that Cyclopædia should mean the educationofa circle, just as Cyropædia is the educationofCyrus. But this is easily upset by Aristotle's wordκυκλοφορία,[450]motionina circle, and by many other cases, for which see the lexicon.

The earliest printed Encyclopædia of this kind was perhaps the famous "myrrour of the worlde," which Caxton[451]translated from the French and printed in 1480. The original Latin is of the thirteenth century, or earlier. This is a collection of very short treatises. In or shortly after 1496 appeared theMargarita Philosophicaof Gregory Reisch,[452]the same we must suppose, who was confessor to the Emperor Maximilian.[453]This is again a collection of treatises, of much more pretension: and the estimation formed of it is proved by the number of editions it went through. In 1531 appeared the little collection ofworksof Ringelberg,[454]which is truly called an Encyclopædia byMorhof, though the thumbs and fingers of the two hands will meet over the length of its one volume. There are more small collections; but we pass on to the first work to which the name ofEncyclopædiais given. This is a ponderousScientiarum Omnium Encyclopædiaof Alsted,[455]in four folio volumes, commonly bound in two: published in 1629 and again in 1649; the true parent of all the Encyclopædias, or collections of treatises, or works in which that character predominates. The first greatdictionarymay perhaps be taken to be Hofman'sLexicon Universale[456](1677); but Chambers's[457](so called)Dictionary(1728) has a better claim. And we support our proposed nomenclature by observing that Alsted accidentally called his workEncyclopædia, and Chambers simply Cyclopædia.

We shall make one little extract from themyrrour, and one from Ringelberg. Caxton's author makes a singular remark for his time; and one well worthy of attention. The grammar rules of a language, he says, must have been invented by foreigners: "And whan any suche tonge was perfytely had and usyd amonge any people, than other people not used to the same tonge caused rulys to be made wherby they myght lerne the same tonge ... and suche rulys be called the gramer of that tonge." Ringelberg says that if the right nostril bleed, the little finger of the right hand should be crooked, and squeezed with great force; and the same for the left.

We pass on totheEncyclopédie,[458]commenced in 1751; the work which has, in many minds, connected the wordencyclopædistwith that ofinfidel. Readers of our day are surprised when they look into this work, and wonder what has become of all the irreligion. The truth is, that the work—though denouncedab ovo[459]on account of the character of its supporters—was neither adapted, nor intended, to excite any particular remark on the subject: no work of which D'Alembert[460]was co-editor would have been started on any such plan. For, first, he was a realsceptic: that is, doubtful, with a mind not made up. Next, he valued his quiet more than anything; and would as soon have gone to sleep over an hornet's nest as have contemplated a systematic attack upon either religion or government. As to Diderot[461]—of whose varied career of thought it is difficult to fix the character of any one moment, but who is very frequently taken among us for a pure atheist—we will quote one sentence from the article "Encyclopédie," which he wrote himself:—"Dans le moral, il n'y a que Dieu qui doit servir de modèle a 1'homme; dans les art, que la nature."[462]

A great many readers in our country have but a very hazy idea of the difference between the political Encyclopædia, as we may call it, and theEncyclopédie Méthodique,[463]which we always take to be meant—whether rightly or not we cannot tell—when we hear of the "great French Encyclopædia." This work, which takes much from itspredecessor, professing to correct it, was begun in 1792, and finished in 1832. There are 166 volumes of text, and 6439 plates, which are sometimes incorporated with the text, sometimes make about 40 more volumes. This is still the monster production of the kind; though probably the German Cyclopædia of Ersch and Gruber,[464]which was begun in 1818, and is still in progress, will beat it in size. The great French work is a collection of dictionaries; it consists of Cyclopædias of all the separate branches of knowledge. It is not a work, but a collection of works, one or another department is to be bought from time to time; but we never heard of a complete set for sale in one lot. As ships grow longer and longer, the question arises what limit there is to the length. One answer is, that it will never do to try such a length that the stern will be rotten before the prow is finished. This wholesome rule has not been attended to in the matter before us; the earlier parts of the great French work were antiquated before the whole were completed: something of the kind will happen to that of Ersch and Gruber.

The production of a great dictionary of either of the kinds is far from an easy task. There is one way of managing theEncyclopædia which has been largely resorted to; indeed, we may say that no such work has been free from it. This plan is to throw all the attention upon the great treatises, and to resort to paste and scissors, or some process of equally easy character, for the smaller articles. However it may be done, it has been the rule that the Encyclopædia of treatises should have its supplemental Dictionary of a very incomplete character. It is true that the treatises are intended to do a good deal; and that the Index, if it be good, knits the treatises and the dictionary into one whole of reference. Still there are two stools, and between them a great deal will fall to the ground. The dictionary portion of theBritannicais not to be compared with itstreatises; the part called Miscellaneous and Lexicographical in theMetropolitana[465]is a great failure. The defect is incompleteness. The biographical portion, for example, of the Britannica is very defective: of many names of note in literature and science, which become known to the reader from the treatises, there is no account whatever in the dictionary. So that the reader who has learnt the results of a life in astronomy, for example, must go to some other work to know when that life began and ended. This defect has run through all the editions; it is in the casting of the work. The reader must learn to take the results at their true value, which is not small. He must accustom himself to regard the Britannica as a splendid body of treatises on all that can be called heads of knowledge, both greater and smaller; with help from the accompanying dictionary, but not of the most complete character. Practically, we believe, this defect cannot be avoided: two plans of essentially different structure cannot be associated on the condition of each or either being allowed to abbreviate the other.

The defect of all others which it is most difficult to avoid is inequality of performance. Take any dictionary you please, of any kind which requires the association of a number of contributors, and this defect must result. We do not merely mean that some will do their work better than others; this of course: we mean that there will be structural differences of execution, affecting the relative extent of the different parts of the whole, as well as every other point by which a work can be judged. A wise editor will not attempt any strong measures of correction: he will remember that if some portions be below the rest, which is a disadvantage, it follows that some portions must be above the rest, which is an advantage. The only practical level, iflevel there must be, is that of mediocrity, if not of absolute worthlessness: any attempt to secure equality of strength will result in equality of weakness. Efficient development may be cut down into meager brevity, and in this way only can apparent equality of plan be secured throughout. It is far preferable to count upon differences of execution, and to proceed upon the acknowledged expectation that the prominent merits of the work will be settled by the accidental character of the contributors; it being held impossible that any editorial efforts can secure a uniform standard of goodness. Wherever the greatest power is found, it should be suffered to produce its natural effect. There are, indeed, critics who think that the merit of a book, like the strength of a chain, is that of its weakest part: but there are others who know that the parallel does not hold, and who will remember that the union of many writers must show exaggeration of the inequalities which almost always exist in the production of one person. The true plan is to foster all the good that can be got, and to give development in the directions in which most resources are found: a Cyclopædia, like a plant, should grow towards the light.

ThePenny Cyclopædiahad its share of this kind of defect or excellence, according to the way in which the measure is taken. The circumstance is not so much noticed as might be expected, and this because many a person is in the habit of using such a dictionary chiefly with relation to one subject, his own; and more still want it for the pure dictionary purpose, which does not go much beyond the meaning of the word. But the person of full and varied reference feels the differences; and criticism makes capital of them. The Useful Knowledge Society was always odious to the organs of religious bigotry; and one of them, adverting to the fact that geography was treated with great ability, and most unusual fullness, in thePenny Cyclopædia, announced it by making it the sole merit ofthe work that, with sufficient addition, it would make a tolerably good gazetteer.

Some of our readers may still have hanging about them the feelings derived from this old repugnance of a class to all that did not associate direct doctrinal teaching of religion with every attempt to communicate knowledge. I will take one more instance, by way of pointing out the extent to which stupidity can go. If there be an astronomical fact of the telescopic character which, next after Saturn's ring and Jupiter's satellites, was known to all the world, it was the existence of multitudes of double stars, treble stars, etc. A respectable quarterly of the theological cast, which in mercy we refrain from naming, was ignorant of this common knowledge,—imagined that the mention of such systems was a blunder of one of the writers in thePenny Cyclopædia, and lashed the presumed ignorance of the statement in the following words, delivered in April, 1837:

"We have forgotten the name of that Sidrophel who lately discovered that the fixed stars were not single stars, but appear in the heavens like soles at Billingsgate, in pairs; while a second astronomer, under the influence of that competition in trade which the political economists tell us is so advantageous to the public, professes to show us, through his superior telescope, that the apparently single stars are really three. Before such wondrous mandarins of science, how continually musthomunculilike ourselves keep in the background, lest we come between the wind and their nobility."

Certainly these little men ought to have kept in the background; but they did not: and the growing reputation of the work which they assailed has chronicled them in literary history; grubs in amber.

This important matter of inequality, which has led us so far, is one to which theEncyclopædiais as subject as theCyclopædia; but it is not so easily recognized as a fault.We receive the first book as mainly a collection of treatises: we know their authors, and we treat them as individuals. We see, for instance, the names of two leading writers on Optics, Brewster[466]and Herschel.[467]It would not at all surprise us if either of these writers should be found criticising the other by name, even though the very view opposed should be contained in the sameEncyclopædiawith the criticism. And in like manner, we should hold it no wonder if we found some third writer not comparable to either of those we have named. It is not so in theCyclopædia: here we do not know the author, except by inference from a list of which we never think while consulting the work. We do not dissent from this or that author: we blame the book.

TheEncyclopædia Britannicais an old friend. Though it holds a proud place in our present literature, yet the time was when it stood by itself, more complete and more clear than anything which was to be found elsewhere. There must be studious men alive in plenty who remember when they were studious boys, what a literary luxury it was to pass a few days in the house of a friend who had a copy of this work. The present edition is a worthy successor of those which went before. The last three editions, terminating in 1824, 1842, and 1861, seem to show that a lunar cycle cannot pass without an amended and augmented edition. Detailed criticism is out of the question; but we may notice the effective continuance of the plan of giving general historical dissertations on the progress of knowledge. Of some of these dissertations we have had to take separate notice; and all will be referred to in our ordinary treatment of current literature.[468]

The literary excellence of these two extensive undertakings is of the same high character. To many this willneed justification: they will not easily concede to the cheap and recent work a right to stand on the same shelf with the old and tried magazine, newly replenished with the best of everything. Those who are cognizant by use of the kind of material which fills thePenny Cyclopædiawill need no further evidence: to others we shall quote a very remarkable and certainly very complete testimony. TheCyclopædia of the Physical Sciences, published by Dr. Nichol[469]in 1857 (noticed by us, April 4), is one of the most original of our special dictionaries. The following is an extract from the editor's preface:

"When I assented to Mr. Griffin's proposal that I should edit such a Cyclopædia, I had it in my mind that I might make thescissorseminently effective. Alas! on narrowly examining our best Cyclopædias, I found that the scissors had become blunted through too frequent and vigorous use. One great exception exists: viz., thePenny Cyclopædiaof Charles Knight.[470]The cheapest and the least pretending, it is really the most philosophical of ourscientificdictionaries. It is not made up of a series of treatises, some good and many indifferent, but is a thoroughDictionary, well proportioned and generally written by the best men of the time. The more closely it is examined, the more deeply will our obligation be felt to the intelligence and conscientiousness of its projector and editor."

After Dr. Nichol's candid and amusing announcement of his scissorial purpose, it is but fair to state that nothing of the kind was ultimately carried into effect, even upon the work in which he found so much to praise. I quote this testimony because it is of a peculiar kind.

The success of thePenny Magazineled Mr. Charles Knight in 1832 to propose to the Useful Knowledge Society a Cyclopædia in weekly penny numbers. These two works stamp the name of the projector on the literature of our day in very legible characters. Eight volumes of 480 pages each were contemplated; and Mr. Long[471]and Mr. Knight were to take the joint management. The plan embraced a popular account of Art and Science, with very brief biographical and geographical information. The early numbers of the work had some of thePenny Magazinecharacter: no one can look at the pictures of the Abbot and Abbess in their robes without seeing this. By the time the second volume was completed, it was clearly seen that the plan was working out its own extension: a great development of design was submitted to, and Mr. Long became sole editor. Contributors could not be found to make articles of the requisite power in the assigned space. One of them told us that when he heard of the eight volumes, happening to want a shelf to be near at hand for containing the work as it went on, he ordered it to be made to hold twenty-five volumes easily. But the inexorable logic of facts beat him after all: for the complete work contained twenty-six volumes and two thick volumes of Supplement.

The penny issue was brought to an end by the state of the law, which required, in 1833, that the first and last page of everything sold separately should contain the name and address of the printer. The penny numbers contained this imprint on the fold of the outer leaf: andqui tam[472]informations were laid against the agents in various towns.It became necessary to call in the stock; and the penny issue was abandoned. Monthly parts were substituted, which varied in bulk, as the demands of the plan became more urgent, and in price from one sixpence to three. The second volume of Supplement appeared in 1846, and during the fourteen years of issue no one monthly part was ever behind its time. This result is mainly due to the peculiar qualities of Mr. Long, who unites the talents of the scholar and the editor in a degree which is altogether unusual. If any one should imagine that a mixed mass of contributors is a punctual piece of machinery, let him take to editing upon that hypothesis, and he shall see what he shall see and learn what he shall learn.

TheEnglishcontains about ten per cent more matter than thePenny Cyclopædiaand its supplements; including the third supplementary volume of 1848, which we now mention for the first time. The literary work of the two editions cost within 500l.and 50,000l.: that of the two editions of theBritannicacost 41,000l.But then it is to be remembered that theBritannicahad matter to begin upon, which had been paid for in the former editions. Roughly speaking, it is probable that the authorship of a page of the same size would have cost nearly the same in one as in the other.

The longest articles in thePenny Cyclopædiawere "Rome" in 98 columns and "Yorkshire" in 86 columns. The only article which can be called a treatise is the Astronomer Royal's "Gravitation," founded on the method of Newton in the eleventh section, but carried to a much greater extent. In theEnglish Cyclopædia, the longest article of geography is "Asia," in 45 columns. In natural history the antelopes demand 36 columns. In biography, "Wellington" uses up 42 columns, and his great military opponent 41 columns. In the division of Arts and Sciences, which includes much of a social and commercial character, the length of articles often depends upon the state of thetimes with regard to the subject. Our readers would not hit the longest article of this department in twenty guesses: it is "Deaf and Dumb" in 60 columns. As other specimens, we may cite Astronomy, 19; Banking, 36; Blind, 24; British Museum, 35; Cotton, 27; Drama, 26; Gravitation, 50; Libraries, 50; Painting, 34; Railways, 18; Sculpture, 36; Steam, etc., 37; Table, 40; Telegraph, 30; Welsh language and literature, 39; Wool, 21. These are the long articles of special subdivisions: the words under which theEncyclopædia gives treatises are not so prominent. As in Algebra, 10; Chemistry, 12; Geometry, 8; Logic, 14; Mathematics, 5; Music, 9. But the difference between the collection of treatises and the dictionary may be illustrated thus: though "Mathematics" have only five columns, "Mathematics, recent terminology of," has eight: and this article we believe to be by Mr. Cayley,[473]who certainly ought to know his subject, being himself a large manufacturer of the new terms which he explains. Again, though "Music"in genere, as the schoolmen said, has only nine columns, "Temperament and Tuning," has eight, and "Chord" alone has two. And so on.

In a dictionary of this kind it is difficult to make a total clearance ofpersonality: by which we mean that exhibition of peculiar opinion which is offensive to taste when it is shifted from the individual on the corporate book. The treatise of the known author may, as we have said, carry that author's controversies on its own shoulders: and even his crotchets, if we may use such a word. Butthe dictionary should not put itself into antagonism with general feeling, nor even with the feelings of classes. We refer particularly to the ordinary and editorial teaching of the article. If, indeed, the writer, being at issue with mankind, should confess the difference, and give abstract of his full grounds, the case is altered: the editor then, as it were, admits a correspondent to a statement of his own individual views. The dictionary portion of the Britannica is quite clear of any lapses on this point, so far as we know: the treatises and dissertations rest upon their authors. The Penny Cyclopædia was all but clear: and great need was there that it should have been so. The Useful Knowledge Society, starting on the principle of perfect neutrality in politics and religion, was obliged to keep strict watch against the entrance of all attempt even to look over the hedge. There were two—we believe only two—instances of what we have called personality. The first was in the article "Bunyan." It is worth while to extract all that is said—in an article of thirty lines—about a writer who is all but universally held to be the greatest master of allegory that ever wrote:

"His works were collected in two volumes, folio, 1736-7: among them 'The Pilgrim's Progress' has attained the greatest notoriety. If a judgment is to be formed of the merits of a book by the number of times it has been reprinted, and the many languages into which it has been translated, no production in English literature is superior to this coarse allegory. On a composition which has been extolled by Dr. Johnson, and which in our own times has received a very high critical opinion in its favor [probably Southey], it is hazardous to venture a disapproval, and we, perhaps, speak the opinion of a small minority when we confess that to us it appears to be mean, jejune and wearisome."

—If the unfortunate critic who thus individualized himself had been a sedulous reader of Bunyan, his power overEnglish would not have been sojejuneas to have needed that fearful word. This little bit of criticism excited much amusement at the time of its publication: but it was so thoroughly exceptional and individual that it was seldom or never charged on the book. The second instance occurred in the article "Socinians." It had been arranged that the head-words of Christian sects should be intrusted to members of the sects themselves, on the understanding that the articles should simply set forth the accounts which the sects themselves give of their own doctrines. Thus the article on the Roman Church was written by Dr. Wiseman.[474]But the Unitarians were not allowed to come within the rule: as in other quarters, they were treated as the gypsies of Christianity. Under the head "Socinians"—a name repudiated by themselves—an opponent was allowed not merely to state their alleged doctrines in his own way, but to apply strong terms, such as "audacious unfairness," to some of their doings. The protests which were made against this invasion of the understanding produced, in due time, the article "Unitarians," written by one of that persuasion. We need not say that these errors have been amended in the English Cyclopædia: and our chief purpose in mentioning them is to remark, that this is all we can find on the points in question against twenty-eight large volumes produced by an editor whose task was monthly, and whose issue was never delayed a single hour. How much was arrested before publication none but himself can say. We have not alluded to one or two remonstrances on questions of absolute fact, which are beside the present purpose.

Both kinds of encyclopædic works have been fashioned upon predecessors, from the very earliest which had a predecessor to be founded upon; and the undertakings before us will be themselves the ancestors of a line of successors. Those who write in such collections should becareful what they say, for no one can tell how long a mis-statement may live. On this point we will give the history of a pair of epithets. When the historian De Thou[475]died, and left the splendid library which was catalogued by Bouillaud[476]and the brothers Dupuis[477](Bullialdus and Puteanus), there was a manuscript of De Thou's friend Vieta,[478]theHarmonicon Cœleste, of which it is on record, under Bouillaud's hand, that he himself lent it to Cosmo de' Medici,[479]to which must be added that M. Libri[480]found it in the Magliabecchi Library at Florence in our own day. Bouillaud, it seems, entirely forgot what he had done. Something, probably, that Peter Dupuis said to Bouillaud, while they were at work on the catalogue, remained on his memory, and was published by him in 1645, long after; to the effect that Dupuis lent the manuscript to Mersenne,[481]from whom it was procured by some intending plagiarist, who would not give it back. This was repeated by Sherburne,[482]in 1675, who speaks of the work, which "being communicated to Mersennus was, by some perfidious acquaintance of that honest-minded person, surreptitiously taken from him, and irrecoverably lost or suppressed, to the unspeakable detriment of the lettered world." Now let thereader look through the dictionaries of the last century and the present, scientific or general, at the article, "Vieta," and he will be amused with the constant recurrence of "honest-minded" Mersenne, and his "surreptitious" acquaintance. We cannot have seen less than thirty copies of these epithets.

REVIEW OF MACCLESFIELD LETTERS.

October 18, 1862.Correspondence of Scientific Men of the Seventeenth Century, in the Collection of the Earl of Macclesfield.[483]2 vols. (Oxford, University Press.)

Though the title-page of this collection bears the date 1841, it is only just completed by the publication of its Table of Contents and Index. Without these, a work of the kind is useless for consultation, and cannot make its way. The reason of the delay will appear: its effect is well known to us. We have found inquirers into the history of science singularly ignorant of things which this collection might have taught them.

In the same year, 1841, the Historical Society of Science, which had but a brief existence, published a collection of letters, eighty-three in number, edited by Mr. Halliwell,[484]of English men of science, which dovetails with the one before us, and is for the most part of a prior date. The two should be bound up together. The smaller collection runs from 1562 to 1682; the larger, from 1606 to past 1700. We shall speak of the two as the Museum collection and the Macclesfield collection. And near them should be placed, in every scientific library, the valuable collection published, by Mr. Edleston,[485]for Trinity College, in 1850.

The history of these letters runs back to famous John Collins, the attorney-general of the mathematics, as he has been called, who wrote to everybody, heard from everybody, and sent copies of everybody's letter to everybody else. He was in England what Mersenne[486]was in France: as early as 1671, E. Bernard[487]addresses him as "the very Mersennus and intelligence of this age." John Collins[488]was never more than accountant to the Excise Office, to which he was promoted from teaching writing and ciphering, at the Restoration: he died in 1682. We have had a man of the same office in our own day, the late Prof. Schumacher,[489]who made the little Danish Observatory of Altona the junction of all the lines by which astronomical information was conveyed from one country to another. When the collision took place between Denmark and the Duchies, the English Government, moved by the Astronomical Society, instructed its diplomatic agents to represent strongly to the Danish Government, when occasion should arise, the great importance of the Observatory of Altona to the astronomical communications of the whole world. But Schumacher had his own celebrated journal, theAstronomische Nachrichten, by which to work out part of his plan; private correspondence was his supplementary assistant. Collins had only correspondence to rely on. Nothing is better known than that it was Collins's collection which furnished the materials put forward by the Committee of the Royal Society in 1712, as a defence of Newton against the partisans of Leibnitz. The notedCommercium Epistolicumis but the abbreviation of a title which runs on with "D. Johannis Collins et aliorum ..."

The whole of this collection passed into the hands ofWilliam Jones,[490]the father of the Indian Judge of the same name, who died in 1749. Jones was originally a teacher, but was presented with a valuable sinecure by the interest of George, second Earl of Macclesfield, the mover of the bill for the change of style in Britain, who died President of the Royal Society. This change of style may perhaps be traced to the union of energies which were brought into concert by the accident of a common teacher: Lord Macclesfield and Lord Chesterfield,[491]the mover and the seconder, and Daval,[492]who drew the bill, were pupils of De Moivre.[493]Jones, who was a respectable mathematician though not an inventor, collected the largest mathematical library of his day, and became possessor of the papers of Collins, which contained those of Oughtred[494]and others. Some of these papers passed into the custody of the Royal Society: but the bulk was either bequeathed to, or purchased by, Lord Macclesfield; and thus they found their way to Shirburn Castle, where they still remain.

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