Virtue, immortal virtue! born to please,The child of nature and the source of ease,Bids every bliss on human life attend;To every rank a kind and faithful friend;Inspirits nature ’midst the scenes of toil,Smooths languor’s cheek, and bids fell want recoil:Shines from the mitre with unsullied rays,Glares on the crest, and gives the star to blaze;Supports distinction, spreads ambition’s wings,Forms saints of queens, and demi-gods of kings;O’er grief, oppression, envy, scorn, prevails,And makes a cottage greater than Versailles.
Virtue, immortal virtue! born to please,The child of nature and the source of ease,Bids every bliss on human life attend;To every rank a kind and faithful friend;Inspirits nature ’midst the scenes of toil,Smooths languor’s cheek, and bids fell want recoil:Shines from the mitre with unsullied rays,Glares on the crest, and gives the star to blaze;Supports distinction, spreads ambition’s wings,Forms saints of queens, and demi-gods of kings;O’er grief, oppression, envy, scorn, prevails,And makes a cottage greater than Versailles.
Virtue, immortal virtue! born to please,
The child of nature and the source of ease,
Bids every bliss on human life attend;
To every rank a kind and faithful friend;
Inspirits nature ’midst the scenes of toil,
Smooths languor’s cheek, and bids fell want recoil:
Shines from the mitre with unsullied rays,
Glares on the crest, and gives the star to blaze;
Supports distinction, spreads ambition’s wings,
Forms saints of queens, and demi-gods of kings;
O’er grief, oppression, envy, scorn, prevails,
And makes a cottage greater than Versailles.
A free, open, unconstrained intercourse with mankind, has also the advantage of reconciling us to the peculiarities of others, and of teaching us the important lesson how to accommodate our minds and manners to such principles, opinions, and dispositions, as may differ from our own. The learned and enlightened cannot maintain an intercourse with the illiterate, without exercising an extraordinary degree of patience, conceding many points which appear unnatural, and forbearing to feel those little vexations so adherent to characters who have lived in retirement. The philosopher, in order to teach virtue to the world with any hope of success, must humor its vices to a certain degree, and sometimes even adopt the follies he intends to destroy. To inculcate wisdom, it is necessary to follow the examples of Socrates and Wieland, and, separating from morals all that is harsh, repulsive, and anti-social, adopt only the kind and complacent tenets of the science. A German author of the present day, whom I glory to call both my countryman and my friend, observes, with the sagacity and discrimination of a critic, in his “Remarks on the Writings and Genius of Franklin,” that the compositions of that great and extraordinary character are totally free from that pomp of style and parade of erudition, which so frequently disfigure the writings of other authors, and defeat their intended effect. The pen of Franklin renders the most abstract principles easy and familiar. He conveys his instructions in pleasing narrations, lively adventures, or humorous observations; and while his manner wins upon the heart, by the friendly interest he appears to take in the concerns of mankind, his matter instils into the mind the soundest principles of morals and good policy.He makes fancy the handmaid to reason in her researches into science, and penetrates the understanding through the medium of the affections. A secret charm pervades every part of his works. He rivets the attention by the strength of his observations, and relieves it by the variety of pleasing images with which he embellishes his subject. The perspicuity of his style, and the equally easy and eloquent turn of his periods, give life and energy to his thoughts; and, while the reader feels his heart bounding with delight, he finds his mind impregnated with instruction. These high advantages resulted entirely from his having studied the world, and gained an accurate knowledge of mankind. An author, indeed, may acquire an extraordinary fund of knowledge in solitude; but it is in society alone that he can learn how to render it useful. Before he can instruct the world, he must be enabled to view its fooleries and vices with calm inspection; to contemplate them without anger, as the unavoidable consequences of human infirmity; to treat them with tenderness; and to avoid exasperating the feelings of those whose depravity he is attempting to correct. A moral censor whose disposition is kind and benevolent, never suffers his superior virtue, knowledge, or talents, however great they may be, to offend the feelings of others; but, like Socrates, he will appear as if he were receiving himself the instruction he is imparting. It is a fine observation of the celebrated Goethe, that kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together: those who have had the happiness to converse with that extraordinary man, must have perceived the anxiety with which he endeavors to temper the strength of his genius by the mildness and amenity of his conversation.
Men of letters, however awkward the habits of seclusion may have rendered them, would, I am convinced, be, in general, if not always, treated with great politeness and attention, if they would be careful to treat others with the common candor which humanity requires, and with that indulgence and affability which true liberality of sentiment will ever dictate; but how few, alas! are there who, by complacency and condescension, entitle themselves to the kindness and civility of which they stand so much in need, and so arrogantly expect! How is it possible for those who are vigilantly anxious to depress the rising merit of others, ever to gain their friendship or esteem? Friendship can only be acquired by an open, sincere, liberal, andmanly conduct; but he whose breast is filled with envy and jealousy, who cautiously examines, before he speaks, every sentiment and feeling, lest his tongue should betray the meanness of his heart, and the poverty of his mind; who seizes every light indiscretion, or trifling error, that many inadvertently escape from his companions; who silently repines at every excellency, both moral and intellectual, which they may discover; who, even when surrounded by those who wish him well, continues with guarded circumspection, and suspicious caution, to weigh the motives of their actions and conversation, as if he were surrounded by the bitterest enemies, must be utterly incapable of esteeming others, or being esteemed himself; and to suppose that the generous flame of friendship, that holy fire which, under the deepest adversity, so comfortably warms and cheers the heart, can ever spring up from such cold materials, and ashy embers, would be extravagant and ridiculous.
The delight which the heart experiences in pouring forth the fulness of its feelings, with honest confidence, into the bosom of a faithful friend, is permanent and unbounded. The pleasures which spring from the acquisition of fame, whether resulting from the generous voice of an approving public, or extorted from the reluctant tongues of envious rivals and contemporaries, will bear no comparison with those which thrill through the exulting bosom of him who can justly exclaim, “To the heart of this unhappy man I have given returning hopes, and made him look forward with confidence to the enjoyment of peace; to his wounded spirit I have imparted the balm of comfort and tranquillity; and from the bleeding bosom of my friend have driven despair!” But to perform such offices as these, it is indispensably necessary that we should have recommended ourselves to the confidence, and have gained the affections of those we intend to serve. This great and necessary property, however, those who live secluded lives very seldom possess: but, much as they may in general disdain to practise this high virtue, it is necessary that they should know that it tends more to ennoble the sentiments of the mind, and to raise the feelings of the heart, than their most successful researches to discover something before unheard of in the regions of science, and which they pursue with as much avidity as if truth were liable to decay, unless sustained by the aid of novelty.
It is justly and beautifully said by one of the apocryphal writers, thata faithful friend is the medicine of life. A variety of occasions happen, when to pour forth the heart to one whom we love and trust, is the chief comfort, perhaps the only relief we can enjoy. Miserable is he who, shut up within the narrow inclosure of selfish interest, has no person to whom he can at all times, with full confidence, expand his soul. But he who can only feel an affection for such as listen continually to the suggestions of vanity, as applaud indiscriminately the imaginary prodigies of his wit, or never contradict the egotism of his opinions, is totally unfit for friendship, and utterly unworthy of respect. It is men of learning and of retired habits, who are most likely to adopt this disengaging disposition. There are, I am sorry to say it, many men, distinguished in the paths of science, who affect to possess the most refined sensibility, and whose tongues are continually proclaiming the virtues of benevolence, but who, when they are called upon to practise those virtues in behalf of some distressed companion, turn a deaf ear to the appeal, form some poor excuse for not interfering, and, if pressed to come forward with some promised assistance, deny to afford it, because the unhappy sufferer has neglected to approve of some extravagant conjecture, or to adopt all the visionary notions and Utopian systems they may have framed. He who neglects to perform the common charities of life, because his idle vanity may have been offended by the neglect or indifference of his companions, will never find, and cannot become, a real friend. There is also an inferior order of fops in literature, (if any order can be inferior to that which I have last described,) who carry with them, wherever they go, a collection of their latest compositions, and by importunately reading them to every one they meet, and expecting an unreserved approbation of their merits, render themselves so unpleasantly troublesome on all occasions that, instead of conciliating the least regard or esteem, their very approach is dreaded as much as a pestilence or a famine. Every man of real genius will shun this false ambition of gratifying vanity by forced applause; because he will immediately perceive, that instead of gaining the hearts of his auditors, he only exposes himself to the ridicule, and loses all chance of their esteem.
The disadvantages, however, which studious characters have been described to experience from habits ofsolitary seclusion, and by neglecting the manners of society, must not be indiscriminately applied. It is the morose and surly pedant, who sits silently in his solitary study, and endeavors to enforce a character for genius in opposition to nature, who adopts the mean and unworthy arts of jealousy, suspicion, and dishonest praise. Far different the calm, happy, and honorable life of him who, devoted to the cultivation of a strong understanding, and the improvement of a feeling heart, is enabled, by his application and genius, to direct the taste of the age by his liberality of spirit, to look on his equals without jealousy, and his superiors with admiration; and, by his benevolence, to feel for the multitude he instructs, indulgence and affection; who, relying on the real greatness of his temper, makes no attempt to increase his importance by low raillery or unfounded satire; whose firm temper never sinks into supine indolence, or grovelling melancholy; who only considers his profession as the means of meliorating mankind; who perseveres in the cause of truth with cheerful rectitude, and virtuous dignity; whose intellectual resources satisfactorily supply the absence of society; whose capacious mind enables him to increase his stores of useful knowledge; whose discriminating powers enable him to elucidate the subject he explores; who feels as great a delight in promoting the beneficial discoveries of others, as in executing his own; and who regards his professional contemporaries, not as jealous rivals, but as generous friends, striving to emulate each other in the noble pursuits of science, and in the laudable task of endeavoring to improve the morals of mankind.
Characters of this description, equally venerable and happy, are numerous in Europe, both within and without the shades of academic bowers, and afford examples which, notwithstanding the tribe of errors and absurdities solitude occasionally engenders, should induce men of worldly pleasures to repress the antipathies they are in general inclined to feel against persons of studious and retired lives.
The powers of imagination are great; and the effects produced by them, under certain circumstances, upon the minds of men of warm and sensible tempers, extraordinary and surprising. Multitudes have been induced by perturbed imaginations, to abandon the gay and cheerful haunts of men, and to seek, in dreary desolation, comfort and repose. To such extremes has this faculty, when distorted, hurried its unhappy subjects, that they have endured the severest mortification, denied themselves the common benefits of nature, exposed themselves to the keenest edge of winter’s cold, and the most scorching rays of summer’s heat, and indulged their distempered fancies in the wildest chimeras. These dreadful effects appear, on a first view, to be owing to some supernatural cause, and they agitate our senses, and confuse the understanding, as phenomena beyond the comprehension of reason; but the wonder vanishes when the cause is coolly and carefully explored; and the extravagances are traced up to their real source, and natural organization of man. The wild ideas of the hermit Anthony, who, in his gloomy retreat, fancied that Beelzebub appeared to him in the form of a beautiful female to torture his senses, and disturb his repose, originated in his natural character and disposition. His distempered fancy conjured up a fiend, which, in fact, existed in his unsubdued passions and incontinent desires.
… From the enchanting cupWhich fancy holds to all, the unwary thirstOf youth oft swallows a Circæan draught,That sheds a baleful tincture o’er the eyeOf reason, till no longer he discerns,And only lives to err: then revel forthA furious band, that spurn him from the throne,And all is uproar. Hence the fevered heartPants with delirious hope for tinsel charms.
… From the enchanting cupWhich fancy holds to all, the unwary thirstOf youth oft swallows a Circæan draught,That sheds a baleful tincture o’er the eyeOf reason, till no longer he discerns,And only lives to err: then revel forthA furious band, that spurn him from the throne,And all is uproar. Hence the fevered heartPants with delirious hope for tinsel charms.
… From the enchanting cup
Which fancy holds to all, the unwary thirst
Of youth oft swallows a Circæan draught,
That sheds a baleful tincture o’er the eye
Of reason, till no longer he discerns,
And only lives to err: then revel forth
A furious band, that spurn him from the throne,
And all is uproar. Hence the fevered heart
Pants with delirious hope for tinsel charms.
Solitude excites and strengthens the powers of the imagination to an uncommon degree, and thereby enfeebles the effect of the controlling powers of reason. The office of the latter faculty of the mind is, to examine with nice discernment and scrupulous attention, to compare the several properties of thoughts and thingswith each other, and to acquire, by cool and deliberate investigation, correct ideas of their combinations and effects. The exercise of their power suspends the vehemence of action, and abates the ardor of desire; but fancy performs her airy excursions upon light and vagrant wings, and flying around her objects without examination, embraces every pleasing image with increasing delight. Judgment separates and associates the ideas the mind has gained by sensation and reflection, and by determining their agreement or disagreement, searches after truth through the medium of probability; but the imagination employs itself in raising unsubstantial images, and portraying the form of things unknown in nature, and foreign to truth. It has, indeed, like memory, the power of reviving in the mind the ideas which, after having been imprinted there, have disappeared; but it differs from that faculty by altering, enlarging, diversifying, and frequently distorting, the subjects of its power.
It bodies forth the form of things unknown,And gives to airy nothingsA local habitation and a name.
It bodies forth the form of things unknown,And gives to airy nothingsA local habitation and a name.
It bodies forth the form of things unknown,
And gives to airy nothings
A local habitation and a name.
But the irregular and wild desires which seize upon the mind through the avenues of an untamed fancy and disordered imagination, are not exclusively the produce of solitude. The choice of wisdom or folly is offered to us in all places, and under every circumstance; but the mind of man is unhappily prone to that which is least worthy of it. I shall therefore endeavor to show, by some general observations, in what instances solitude is most likely to create those flights of imagination which mislead the mind, and corrupt the heart.
Imagination is said to be the simple apprehension of corporeal objects when they are absent; which absence of the object it contemplates, distinguishes this faculty fromsensation, and has occasioned some metaphysicians to call itrecorded sensation. Upon the due regulation, and proper management, of this great and extraordinary power of the mind, depends, in a great measure, the happiness or misery of life. It ought to consist of a happy combination of those ideas we receive through the organs of bodily sense, and those which we derive from the faculties of moral perception; but it too frequently consists of a capricious and ill-formedmixture of heterogeneous images, which though true in themselves, are false in the way they are applied. Thus a person, the circulation of whose blood in any particular member is suddenly stopped,imaginesthat needles are pricking the disordered part. The sensation in this case is real, but the conclusion from it is fallacious. So in every mental illusion, imagination, when she first begins to exercise her powers, seizes on some fact, of the real nature of which the mind has but an obscure idea, and, for want of tracing it through all its connexions and dependences, misleads reason into the darkest paths of error. The wild conjectures, and extravagant opinions which have issued from this source are innumerable. The imagination receives every impulse with eagerness, while the passions crowd around her splendid throne, obedient to her dictates. They act, indeed, reciprocally on each other. The imagination pours a concourse of contrary ideas into the mind, and easily disregards, or reconciles their incongruities. The voice of the calm inquirer, reason, is incapable of being heard amidst the tumult; and the favorite image is animated and enlarged by the glowing fire of the passions. No power remains to control or regulate, much less to subdue, this mental ray, which inflames the whole soul, and exalts it into the fervor of enthusiasm, hurries it into the extravagance of superstition: or precipitates it into the furious frenzies of fanaticism.
The powerful tumult reigns in every part,Pants in the breast, and swells the rising heart.
The powerful tumult reigns in every part,Pants in the breast, and swells the rising heart.
The powerful tumult reigns in every part,
Pants in the breast, and swells the rising heart.
Enthusiasm is that ecstacy of the mind, that lively transport of the soul, which is excited by the pursuit or contemplation of some great and noble object, the novelty of which awakens attention, the truth of which fixes the understanding, and the grandeur of which, by firing the fancy, engages the aid of every passion, and prompts the mind to the highest undertakings. A just and rightly formed enthusiasm is founded in reason, and supported by nature, and carries the mind above its ordinary level, into the unexplored regions of art and science. The rational enthusiast, indeed, rises to an elevation so far above the distinct view of vulgar eyes, that common understandings are apt to treat him either with blind admiration, or cool contempt, only because they are incapable of comprehending his realcharacter; and while some bow to him as an extraordinary genius, others rail at him as an unhappy lunatic. The powers of enthusiasm, however, when founded upon proper principles, so strengthen and invigorate the faculties of the mind, as to enable it to resist danger undismayed, and to surmount difficulties that appear irresistible. Those, indeed, who have possessed themselves of this power to any extraordinary degree, have been considered asinspired, and their great achievements conceived to have been directed by councils, and sustained by energies of a divine or super-mundane nature. Certain it is, that we owe to the spirit of enthusiasm whatever is great in art, sublime in science, or noble in the human character: and the elegant and philosophic Lord Shaftsbury, while he ridicules the absurdities of this wonderfully powerful and extensive quality, admits that it is impossible to forbear ascribing to it whatever is greatly performed by heroes, statesmen, poets, orators, and even philosophers themselves: and who that is not contented to wallow in the mire of gross sensuality, would not quit the noisy scenes of tumultuous dissipation, and repair with joy and gladness to solitary shades, to the bower of tranquillity, and the fountain of peace, to majestic forests, and to verdant groves, to acquire this necessary ingredient to perfect excellence? Who would not willingly pierce the pensive gloom, or dwell among the brighter glories of the golden age, to acquire by a warm and glowing, but correct and chaste contemplation of the beautiful and sublime works of nature, these ravishing sensations, and gain this noble fervor of the imagination? A proper study of the works of nature amidst the romantic scenery of sylvan solitude, is certainly the most likely means of inspiring the mind with true enthusiasm, and leading genius to her most exalted heights; but the attempt is dangerous. There are few men in whose minds airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize. “To indulge the power of fiction,” says a celebrated writer, “and send imagination out upon the wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent speculation. When we are alone, we are not always busy; the labor of excogitation is too violent to last long; the ardor of inquiry will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundlessfuturity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinations, riots in delights which nature and fortune, with all their bounty, cannot bestow. In time some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind in weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favorite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time despotic: then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten on the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish. This is one of the dangers of solitude.”
These observations lead us to consider the character of the fanatical visionary, who feels, like the happy enthusiast, the same agitation of passion, and the same inflammation of mind; but as the feelings of one are founded upon knowledge, truth, and nature, so the feelings of the other are the result of ignorance and error, and all the glittering meteors of his brain the effects of imposture and deception. Of this species of enthusiasm Mr. Locke gives the following description: “In all ages men in whom melancholy has mixed with devotion, or whose conceit of themselves has raised them into an opinion of a greater familiarity with God, and a nearer admittance to his favors, than is afforded to others, have often flattered themselves with a persuasion of an immediate intercourse with the Deity, and frequent communication with his divine spirit. Their minds being thus prepared, whatever groundless opinion comes to settle itself strongly upon their fancies, is an illumination from the Spirit of God, and whatever odd action they find in themselves a strong inclination to do, that impulse is concluded to be a call or direction from heaven, and must be obeyed; it is a commission from above, and they cannot err in executing it. This species of enthusiasm, though arising from the conceit of a warm and overweening brain, works, when it once gets footing, more powerfully on the persuasions and actions of men than either reason, revelation, or both together; men being forwardly obedient to all the impulses they receive from themselves.” The fantastic images, indeed, which the wildness of his imaginationcreates, subdues his reason, and destroys the best affections of his heart, while his passions take the part of their furious assailants, and render him the victim of his visionary conceptions. It is not, however, from sources of fanatical devotion, or irrational solitude, that this vicious species of enthusiasm alone arises. The follies of faquiers, the extravagance of orgaists, the absurdities of hermits, and the mummery of monks, are not more enthusiastically injurious to the true interests of mankind, or more pregnant with all the calamitous effects of this baleful vice, than those unprincipled systems of politics and morals which have been of late years obtruded on the world, and in which good sense is sacrificed, and true science disgraced.
The growth of fanaticism, whether moral, political, religious, or scientific, is not confined exclusively to any age or country; the seeds of it have been but too plentifully sown in all the regions of the earth; and it is almost equally baneful and injurious in whatever soil they spring. Every bold, turbulent, and intriguing spirit, who has sufficient artifice to inflame the passions of the inconstant multitude, the moment he calls the demon of fanatacism to his aid, becomes troublesome, and frequently dangerous, to the government under which he lives. Even the affectation of this powerful but pernicious quality, is able to produce fermentations, highly detrimental to the peace of society. In the very metropolis of Great Britain, and among the enlightened inhabitants of that kingdom, Lord George Gordon, in the present age, was enabled, by assuming the hypocritical appearance of piety, and standing forth as a champion of a religious sect, to convulse the nation, and endanger its safety. In the twenty-first year of the reign of his Britannic Majesty, the present powerful and illustrious King George III. an act of parliament was passed to relieve the Roman Catholics residing in England from the penalties and disabilities which had been imposed on them at the revolution. An extension of the same relief to the Catholics of Scotland was also said to be intended by parliament. The report spread an immediate alarm throughout the country; societies were formed for the defence of the Protestant faith; committees appointed, books dispersed, and, in short, every method taken to inflame the zeal of the people. These attempts being totally neglected by government, and but feebly resisted by the more liberal minded in the country, produced all their effects. A furious spiritof bigotry and persecution soon showed itself, and broke out into the most outrageous acts of violence against the Papists at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and elsewhere; but as government did not think it advisable to repress this spirit by force, the just and benevolent intentions of the legislature were laid aside. The successful resistance of the zealots in Scotland to any relaxation of the penal laws against the Papists, seems to have given the first rise to the Protestant Association in England; for about the same time bills were dispersed, and advertisements inserted in the newspapers, inviting those who wished well to the cause to unite under that title; and Lord George Gordon, who had been active at the head of the malcontents in Scotland, was chosen their President. The ferment was suffered to increase during a course of several years. His lordship was a member of the senate, and his extraordinary conduct in the house, and frequent interruption he gave to the business of parliament, as well as the unaccountable manner in which he continually brought in and treated matters relative to religion and the danger of popery, and the caprice with which he divided the house upon questions wherein he stood nearly or entirely alone, were passed over, along with other singularities in his dress and manners, rather as subjects of pleasantry than of serious notice or reprehension. On Monday, the 29th of May, 1780, a meeting was held at Coachmaker’s Hall, pursuant to a public advertisement, in order to consider of the mode of presenting a petition to the House of Commons. Lord George Gordon took the chair; and, after a long inflammatory harangue, in which he endeavoured to persuade his hearers of the rapid and alarming progress that popery was making in the kingdom, he proceeded to observe, that the only way to stop it, was going in a firm, manly, and resolute manner to the house and showing their representatives that they were determined to preserve their religious freedom with their lives; that, for his part, he would run all hazards with the people; and if the people were too lukewarm to run all hazards with him, when their conscience and their country called them forth, they might get another president, for that he would tell them candidly, he was not a lukewarm man himself; and that, if they meant to spend their time in mock debate, and idle opposition, they might get another leader. This speech was received with the loudest applause, and hislordship then moved the following resolution: “That the whole body of the Protestant Association do attend in St. George’s Fields, on Friday next, at ten o’clock in the morning, to accompany their president to the House of Commons at the delivery of the Protestant petition;” which was carried unanimously. His Lordship then informed them, that if less than twenty thousand of his fellow citizens attended him on that day, he would not present their petition. Accordingly, on Friday, the 2d day of June, 1780, at ten in the forenoon, several thousands assembled at the place appointed, marshalling themselves in ranks, and waiting for their leader, who arrived about an hour afterward, and they all proceeded to the houses of parliament. Here they began to exercise the most arbitrary power over both lords and commons, by obliging almost all the members to put blue cockades on their hats, and call out “no popery!” Some they compelled to take oaths to vote for the repeal of this obnoxious act; others they insulted in the most indecent and insolent manner. They took possession of all the avenues up to the very door of both houses of parliament, which they twice attempted to force open, and committed many outrages on the persons of the members. Nor were they dispersed, or the remaining members able to leave their seats, until a military force arrived. The houses were adjourned to the 19th of June. But so dreadful a spectacle of calamity and horror was never known in any age or country, as that which the metropolis of England exhibited on the evening and the day which succeeded this seditious congregation. These astonishing effects produced by the real or pretended fanaticism of a simple individual, sufficiently display the power of this dangerous quality, when artfully employed to inflame the passions of the unthinking multitude. But it is worthy of observation, that while this incendiary sustained among his followers the character of a pious patriot, of a man without the smallest spot or blemish, of being, in short, the most virtuous guardian of the established religion of the country, he regularly indulged his holy fervors, and sanctified appearances, every evening, in the company of common prostitutes, or professed wantons.
The fire of fanaticism is, indeed, so subtilely powerful, that it is capable of inflaming the coldest mind. The mildest and the most rational dispositions have been occasionally injured by its heat. The rapidity of itsprogress certainly depends, in a great degree, on the nature of the materials on which it acts; but, like every dangerous conflagration, its first appearances should be watched, and every means taken to extinguish its flames. The extinction is, perhaps, most happily and readily effected by those counteractions which the common occupations, and daily duties of life produce on the mind, when judiciously opposed to this flagrant evil. Of the advantages, at least, of this resource, a circumstance in the history of the late Dr. Fothergill affords a remarkable example. This celebrated physician possessed the greatest tranquillity of mind, and had obtained so complete a dominion over his passions, that he declared to a friend, recently before his death, that he could not recollect a single instance, during the whole course of his life, in which they had been improperly disturbed. This temper, which perfectly suited to the character of the religion he professed, the tenets of which he strictly practised, he maintained on all occasions; nor was there any thing in his general conduct or manner that betrayed to his most familiar friends the least propensity toward enthusiasm; and yet, distant as the suspicion must be, under these circumstances, that he should ever be under the influence of superstition, it is well known, that while he was a student at Edinburgh, where he was distinguished for the mildness of his manners and the regularity of his conduct, he one day, in an eccentric sally of fanaticism ran, almost entirely naked through the streets of that city, warning all its inhabitants of the impending wrath of heaven; and exhorting them in the most solemn manner, to avert the approaching danger, by humbly imploring the mercy of the offended Deity; but this religious paroxysm was of short duration. He was at this time in habits of intimacy with the great characters who then filled the professional chairs of the university, and ardently engaged in the pursuits of study; and the exercises which his daily tasks required, together with the company and conversation of these rational, well-informed, and thinking men, preserved his reason, and soon restored him to the full and free enjoyment of those faculties, from which both science and humanity afterward derived so many benefits.
The conduct of St. Francis, commonly called the holy Francis of Assisi, was in some degree similar; excepting that the madness of this fanatic continued throughout his life, while the delirium of Fothergilllasted but a day. This saint was born at Assisi, in the province of Umbria, in the year 1182. His real name of baptism was John; but, on account of the facility with which he acquired the French language, so necessary at that time in Italy, especially for the business for which he was intended, he was called Francis. He is said to have been born with the figure of a cross on his right shoulder, and to have dreamt that he was designed by heaven to promote the interests of that holy sign. His disposition was naturally mild, his comprehension quick, his feelings acute, his manners easy, his imagination vivid, and his passions inordinately warm. A careless and unrestrained indulgence of the propensities of youth had led him into a variety of vicious habits and libertine extravagances, until the solitude to which a fit of sickness confined him, brought him to a recollection, and forced him to reflect upon the dangerous tendency of his past misconduct. His mind started with horror at the dreadful scene his retrospection presented to his view; and he resolved to quit the company of his former associates, to reform the profligacy of his life, to restore his character, and to save, by penitence and prayer, his guilty soul. These serious reflections wrought so powerfully on his dejected mind, that he fell into an extravagant kind of devotion, more resembling madness than religion. Fixing on a passage in St. Matthew, in which our Saviour desires his apostles toprovide neither gold nor silver, nor brass in their purses; nor scrip for their journey; neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, he was led to consider a voluntary and absolute poverty as the essence of the gospel, and to prescribe this poverty as a sacred rule, both to himself and to the few who followed him. He accordingly wandered through the streets of Assisi, in garments that scarcely concealed his nakedness, in order, as he said, to inure himself to the taunts and ridicule of his former companions, whom he now called the children of sin, and followers of satan. The father of the young saint, supposing, from these extravagances, that the sickness under which he had so long labored had disordered his intellects, prepared to provide him with some proper place of confinement, until time or medical regimen should restore him to his right senses; but the saint, having been informed of his father’s friendly intention, declined his parental care, and quitting his house, sought a sanctuary in the palace of the bishop of Assisi. The diocesan immediately sentto the father of the fugitive, and, after hearing him upon the subject of his right to provide for the safety of his son, he turned calmly to the son and desired him to reply. The son immediately tore off the tattered garments which he then wore, and casting them with scorn and indignation at the feet of his astonished parent exclaimed, “there, take back all your property. You were, indeed, my earthly father; but henceforth I disclaim you; for I own no father but him who is in heaven.” The bishop, either really or affectedly delighted with this unnatural rant of the young enthusiast, threw his own mantle over the saint, and exhorted him to persevere in his holy resolution, and to cherish with increasing ardor, the divine inspiration of his pious mind. The frantic youth, animated by the warm approbation of the bishop proceeded in his religious course, and abandoning the city, retired into the deepest gloom of an adjacent forest, to indulge the fervors of that false enthusiasm which had overpowered his brain. In this retreat a second vision confirmed him in his holy office; and being encouraged by pope Innocent III, and Honorius, he established, in the year 1209, the Order of Saint Francis. If this ridiculous enthusiast had corrected the extravagances of his overheated imagination, by a cool and temperate exercise of his reason, by studying, like the celebrated physician we have just mentioned, some liberal science, he might, with the talents he possessed, have become a really useful member of society. But these wild shoots, if suffered to grow to any height, cannot afterward be easily eradicated: and even Fothergill, if he had lived like Francis, in an age of superstitious delusion, and had been encouraged to believe the truth of his fanatic conceptions, his temporary frenzy might have continued through life; and his character, instead of being revered as a promoter of an useful science, have been held up by an ignorant multitude to the contempt and ridicule of posterity.
The vacancy of solitude, by leaving the mind to its own ideas, encourages to a great excess these wild and eccentric sallies of the imagination. He who has an opportunity to indulge, without interruption or restraint the delightful musings of an excursive fancy, will soon lose all relish for every other pleasure, and neglect every employment which tends to interrupt the gratification of such an enchanting though dangerous propensity. During the quietude of a sequestered life,imagination usurps the throne of reason, and all the feeble faculties of the mind obey her dictates, until her voice becomes despotic. If the high powers be exercised on the agreeable appearances of nature, and the various entertainments, poetry, painting, music, or any of the elegant arts, are capable of affording,
… Then the inexpressive strainDiffuses its enchantment; fancy dreamsOf sacred fountains, and elysian groves,And vales of bliss; the intellectual PowerBends from his awful throne a wandering ear,And smiles; the passions, gently smoothed away,Sink to divine repose, and love and joyAlone are waking.
… Then the inexpressive strainDiffuses its enchantment; fancy dreamsOf sacred fountains, and elysian groves,And vales of bliss; the intellectual PowerBends from his awful throne a wandering ear,And smiles; the passions, gently smoothed away,Sink to divine repose, and love and joyAlone are waking.
… Then the inexpressive strain
Diffuses its enchantment; fancy dreams
Of sacred fountains, and elysian groves,
And vales of bliss; the intellectual Power
Bends from his awful throne a wandering ear,
And smiles; the passions, gently smoothed away,
Sink to divine repose, and love and joy
Alone are waking.
But if the mind, as in the solitude of monastic seclusion, fixes its attention on ascetic subjects, and fires the fancy with unnatural legends, the soul, instead of sinking to divine repose, feels a morbid melancholy and discontented torpor, which extinguishes all rational reflection, and engenders the most fantastic visions.
Men even of strong natural understandings, highly improved by education, have, in some instances, not been able to resist the fatal effects of intense application, and long continued solitude. The learned Molanus, having, during a course of many years, detached his mind from all objects of sense, neglected all seasonable and salutary devotion, and giving an uncontrolled license to his imagination fancied, in the latter part of his life, that he was abarley corn; and although he received his friends with great courtesy and politeness, and conversed upon subjects both of science and devotion with great ease and ingenuity, he could never afterward be persuaded to stir from home, lest, as he expressed his apprehension, he should be picked up in the street, and swallowed by a fowl.
The female mind is still more subject to these delusions of disordered fancy; for, as their feelings are more exquisite, their passions warmer, and their imaginations more active than those of the other sex, solitude, when carried to excess, affects them in a much greater degree. Their bosoms are much more susceptible to the injurious influence of seclusion, to the contagion of example, and to the dangers of illusion. This may, perhaps, in some degree, account for the similarity of disposition which prevails in cloisters, andother institutions which confine women entirely to the company of each other. The force of example and habit is, indeed, in such retreats, surprisingly powerful. A French medical writer, of great merit, and undoubted veracity, relates, that in a convent of nuns, where the sisterhood was unusually numerous, one of those secluded fair ones was seized with a strange impulse to mew like a cat; that several others of the nuns in a short time followed her example; and that at length this unaccountable propensity became general throughout the convent; the whole sisterhood joined, at stated periods, in the practice of mewing, and continued it for several hours. But of all the extraordinary fancies recorded of the sex, none can exceed that which Cardan relates to have happened in one of the convents of Germany, during the fifteenth century. One of the nuns, who had long been secluded from the sight of man, was seized with the strange propensity to bite all her companions; and extraordinary as it may seem, this disposition spread until the whole house was infected with the same fury. The account, indeed, states, that this mania extended even beyond the walls of the convent, and that the disease was conveyed to such a degree from cloister to cloister, throughout Germany, Holland, and Italy, that the practice at length prevailed in every female convent in Europe.
The instances of the pernicious influence of a total dereliction of society, may possibly appear to the understandings of the present generation extravagant and incredible; but they are certainly true; and many others of a similar nature might be adduced from the most authentic histories of the times. The species, when prevented from enjoying a free intercourse and rational society with each other, almost change their nature; and the mind, feeding continually on the melancholy musings of the imagination, in the cold and cheerless regions of solitude, engenders humors of the most eccentric cast. Excluded from those social communications which nature enjoins, with the means of gratifying the understanding, amusing the senses, or interesting the affections, fancy roves at large into unknown spheres, and endeavors to find in ideal forms entertainment and delight. Angelic visions, infernal phantoms, amazing prodigies, the delusions of alchemy, the frenzies of philosophy, and the madness of metaphysics, fill the disordered brain. The intellect fastens uponsome absurd idea, and fosters it with the fondest affection, until its increasing magnitude subdues the remaining powers of sense and reason. The slightest retrospect into the conduct of the solitary professors of every religious system, proves the lamentable dangers to which they expose their mental faculties, by excluding themselves from the intercourse of rational society. From the prolific womb of solitude sprung all the mysterious ravings and senseless doctrines of the New Platonists. The same cause devoted the monks and anchorites of the Christian church to folly and fanaticism. Fakirs, Bramins, and every other tribe of religious enthusiasts, originated from the same source. By abandoning the pleasures of society, and renouncing the feelings of nature, they sacrificed reason upon the altar of superstition, and supplied its place with ecstatic fancies, and melancholy musings. There is nothing more evident, than that our holy religion, in its original constitution, was set so far apart from all refined speculations, that it seemed in a manner diametrically opposite to them. The great founder of Christianity gave one simple rule of life to all men; but his disciples, anxious to indulge the natural vanity of the human mind, and misled, in some degree, by the false philosophy which at that period overspread the heathen world, introduced various doctrines of salvation, and new schemes of faith. Bigotry, a species of superstition never known before, took place in men’s affections, and armed them with new jealousies against each other: barbarous terms and idioms were every day invented; monstrous definitions imposed, and hostilities, the fiercest imaginable, exercised on each other by the contending parties. Fanaticism, with all the train of visions, prophecies, dreams, charms, miracles, and exorcises, succeeded; and spiritual feats, of the most absurd and ridiculous nature, were performed in monasteries, or up and down, by their mendicant or itinerant priests and ghostly missionaries. Solitude impressed the principles upon which these extravagances were founded, with uncommon force on the imagination; and the mind, working itself into holy fervors and inspirations, give birth to new extravagances. The causes which operated on the minds of men to produce such ridiculous effects, acted with double force on the ardent temper, warm imagination, and excessive sensibility of the female world. That which was mere fantasy with the one sex, became frenzy with theother. Women, indeed, are, according to the opinion of Plato, the nurses of fanaticism; and their favorite theme is that which has been dignified by the appellation ofa sublime passion for poetry: an ardent, refined love of heaven; but which, in fact, is only the natural effects of the heart, swollen intumescently by an unreined, prolific, and too ardent imagination. Instances of this kind are discoverable in all the accounts that have been published of the holy fervors of these penitents, particularly in those of Catherine of Sienna, of Joan of Cambray, of Angelina of Foligny, of Matilda of Saxony, of Maria of the Incarnation, of Mary Magdalen of Pazzio, of Gertrude of Saxony, and many others. The celebrated Armelle, who was born in the year 1606, at Campenac, in the diocese of St. Malo, and who died at Vannes in the year 1671, possessed great personal beauty, a quick and lively mind, and an uncommon tenderness of heart. Her parents, who were honest and industrious villagers, placed her as a menial servant in the house of a neighboring gentleman, with whom she lived for five and thirty years in the practice of the most exemplary piety and extraordinary virtue, at least, according to the accounts which he gave from time to time of her conduct. During the time she resided with this gentleman, his groom, finding the kitchen door fastened, had the curiosity to peep through the key-hole, where he discovered the pious maid, in a paroxysm of divine ecstacy, performing the humble office of spitting a capon. The agitation of this holy spirit so affected the mind of the astonished youth, that, it is said by the Ursuline sister who has written the life of this great luminary of French sanctity, under the title ofThe school for the love of God, he became immediately enamored with the beauties of religion, and renouncing the pomps and vanities of the world, entered into a monastery, at the same time that his holy companion thought proper to withdraw from future observation into the convent of Vannes, where she devoted the remainder of her life, and died, as it is reported, in an excess of divine love. The youthful days of Armelle had been passed in almost total solitude; for her occupation at the house in which she was placed by her parents, was confined entirely to the kitchen, and she had scarcely any other intercourse than with its furniture. It appears, however, from the history of her life, that she was from her childhood excessively fond of reciting anaveorpaternoster; and while occupied intending the flocks, her original employment, amused herself in telling her rosary; “by which means,” says the Ursuline sister, “she made, even in her pastoral state of simplicity and ignorance, such great advances in divine love that, the first moment she was allowed to pay her adoration to the crucifix the fervency of her pious passion burst forth with such ecstacy, that she eagerly snatched the holy object to her arms, and embraced it with a transport so warmly affectionate, that streams of tenderness rushed from her eyes.”
It is truly said by a celebrated English writer, to be “of the utmost importance to guard against extremes of every kind in religion. We must beware lest by seeking to avoid one rock we split upon another. It has been long the subject of remark, that superstition and enthusiasm are two capital sources of delusion: superstition, on the one hand, attaching men with immoderate zeal to the ritual and external points of religion; and enthusiasm, on the other, directing their whole attention to internal emotions and mystical communications with the spiritual world; while neither the one nor the other had paid sufficient regard to the great moral duties of the Christian life. But running with intemperate eagerness from these two great abuses of religion, men have neglected to observe that there are extremes opposite to each of them, into which they are in hazard of precipitating themselves. Thus the horror of superstition has sometimes reached so far as to produce contempt for all external institutions; as if it were possible for religion to subsist in the world without forms of worship, or public acknowledgment of God. It has also happened, that some, who, in the main are well affected to the cause of goodness, observing that persons of a devout turn have at times been carried away by warm affections into unjustifiable excesses, have thence hastily concluded that all devotion was akin to enthusiasm; and separating religion totally from the heart and affections, have reduced it to a frigid observance of what they call the rules of virtue.” These extremes are to be carefully avoided. True devotion is rational and well founded; and consists in the lively exercise of that affection which we owe to the Supreme Being, comprehending several emotions of the heart, which all terminate in the same great object.
These are among the evils which an irrational solitude is capable of producing upon an unrestrained andmisdirected imagination; but I do not mean to contend indiscriminately, that solitude is generally to be considered as dangerous to the free indulgence of this delightful faculty of the mind. Solitude, well chosen, and rationally pursued, is so far from being either the open enemy, or the treacherous friend of a firm and fine imagination, that it ripens its earliest shoots, strengthens their growth, and contributes to the production of its richest and most valuable fruits. To him who has acquired the happy art of enjoying in solitude the charms of nature, and of indulging the powers of fancy without impairing the faculty of reason