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(cerned, therefore, it seems evident, that the best taste must be that which belongs to the best affections, the most active fancy, and the most attentive habits of observation. It will follow pretty exactly too, that all men's perceptions of beauty will be nearly in proportion to the degree of their sensibility and social sympathies; and that those who have no affections towards sentient beings, will be as certainly insensible to beauty in external objects, as he, who cannot hear the sound of his friend's voice, must be deaf to its echo. In so far as the sense of beauty is regarded as a mere source of enjoyment, this seems to be the only distinction that deserves to be attended to; and the only cultivation that taste should ever receive, with a view to the gratification of the individual, should be through the indirect channel of cultivating the affections and powers of observation. If we aspire, however, to be creators, as well as observers of beauty, and place any part of our happiness in ministering to the gratification of others as artists, or poets, or authors of any sort then, indeed, a new distinction of tastes, and a far more laborious system of cultivation, will be necessary. A man who pursues only his own delight, will be as much charmed with objects that suggest powerful emotions in consequence of personal and accidental associations, as with those that introduce similar emotions by means of associations that are universal and indestructible. To him, all objects of the former class are really as beautiful as those of the latter and for his own gratification, the creation of that sort of beauty is just as important an occupation: but if he conceive the ambition of creating beauties for the admiration of others, he must be cautious to employ only such objects as are the natural signs, or the inseparable concomitants of emotions, of which the greater part of mankind are susceptible; and his taste will then deserve to be called bad and false, if he obtrude upon the public, as beautiful, objects that are not likely to be associated in common minds with any interesting impressious.

For a man himself, then, there is no taste that is either bad or false; and the only difference worthy of being being attended to, is that between a great deal and a very little. Some who have cold affections, sluggish imaginaSous, and no habits of observation, can with diticulty discern beauty in any thing; while others, who are full of kindness and sensibility, and who have been accustomed to attend to all the objects around them, feel it almost in every thing. It is no matter what other people may think of the objects of their Imiration; nor ought it to be any concern

of theirs that the public would be astonished or offended, if they were called upon to join in that admiration. So long as no such call is made, this anticipated discrepancy of feeling need give them no uneasiness; and the suspicion of it should produce no contempt in any other persons. It is a strange aberration indeed of vanity that makes us despise persons for being happy-for having sources of enjoyment in which we cannot share:-and yet this is the true source of the ridicule, which is so generally poured upon individuals who seek only to enjoy their peculiar tastes unmolested:-for, if there be any truth in the theory we have been expounding, no taste is bad for any other reason than because it is peculiar as the objects in which it delights must actually serve to suggest to the individual those common emotions and universal affections upon which the sense of beauty is every where founded. The misfortune is, however, that we are apt to consider all persons who make known their peculiar relishes, and especially all who create any objects for their gratification, as in some measure dictating to the public, and setting up an idol for general adoration; and hence this intolerant interference with almost all peculiar perceptions of beauty, and the unsparing derision that pursues all deviations from acknowledged standards. This intolerance, we admit, is often provoked by something of a spirit of proselytism and arrogance, in those who mistake their own casual associations for natural or universal relations; and the consequence is, that mortified vanity ultimately dries up, even for them, the fountain of their peculiar enjoyment; and disenchants, by a new association of general contempt or ridicule, the scenes that had been consecrated by some innocent but accidental emotion.

As all men must have some peculiar associations, all men must have some peculiar notions of beauty, and, of course, to a certain extent, a taste that the public would be entitled to consider as false or vitiated. For those who make no demands on public admiration, however, it is hard to be obliged to sacrifice this source of enjoyment; and, even for those who labour for applause, the wisest course, perhaps, if it were only practicable, would be, to have two tastes-one to enjoy, and one to work by-one founded upon uni versal associations, according to which they finished those performances for which they challenged universal praise and another guid. ed by all casual and individual associations, through which they might still look fondly upon nature, and upon the objects of the secret admiration.

(November, 1812.)

De la Littérature considérée dans ses Rapports avec les Institutions Sociales. Par MAD. L STAEL-HOLSTEIN. Avec un Précis de la Vie et les Ecrits de l'Auteur. 2 tomes. 12mo. pp. 600. London: 1812.*

WHEN we say that Madame de Staël is de-and manners; or who has thrown so strong a

cidedly the most eminent literary female of ner age, we do not mean to deny that there may be others whose writings are of more direct and indisputable utility-who are distinguished by greater justness and sobriety of thinking, and may pretend to have conferred more practical benefits on the existing generation. But it is impossible, we think, to deny, that she has pursued a more lofty as well as a more dangerous career; that she has treated of subjects of far greater difficulty, and far more extensive interest; and, even in her failures, has frequently given indication of greater powers, than have sufficed for the success of her more prudent contemporaries. While other female writers have contented themselves, for the most part, with embellishing or explaining the truths which the more robust intellect of the other sex had previously established-in making knowledge more familiar, or virtue more engaging-or, at most, in multiplying the finer distinctions which may be detected about the boundaries of taste or of morality and in illustrating the importance of the minor virtues to the general happiness of life-this distinguished person has not only aimed at extending the boundaries of knowledge, and rectifying the errors of received opinions upon subjects of the greatest importance, but has vigorously applied her self to trace out the operation of general causes, and, by combining the past with the present, and pointing out the connection and reciprocal action of all coexistent phenomena, to develope the harmonious system which actually prevails in the apparent chaos of human affairs; and to gain something like an assurance as to the complexion of that futurity towards which our thoughts are so anxiously driven, by the selfish as well as the generous principles of our nature.

We are not acquainted, indeed, with any writer who has made such bold and vigorous attempts to carry the generalizing spirit of true philosophy into the history of literature

* I reprint this paper as containing a more comprehensive view of the progress of Literature, especially in the ancient world, than any other from which I could make the selection; and also, in

some degree, for the sake of the general discussion on Perfectibility, which I still think satisfactorily conducted. I regret that, in the body of the article, ane portions that are taken from Madame de Staël are not better discriminated from those for which I only am responsible. The reader, however, will not go far wrong, if he attribute to that distinguished person the greater part of what may strike him as bold, imaginative, and original, and leave to t the humbler province of the sober, corrective, and

distrustful.

light upon the capricious and apparently unaccountable diversities of national taste, ge. nius, and morality-by connecting them with the political structure of society, the accidents of climate and external relation, and the va riety of creeds and superstitions. In her lighte works, this spirit is indicated chiefly by the force and comprehensiveness of those general observations with which they abound; and which strike at once, by their justness and novelty, and by the great extent of their application. They prove also in how remarkable a degree she possesses the rare talent of embodying in one luminous proposition those sentiments and impressions which float unquestioned and undefined over many an understanding, and give a colour to the character, and a bias to the conduct, of multitudes, who are not so much as aware of their existence. Besides all this, her novels bear testimony to the extraordinary accuracy and minuteness of her observation of human character, and to her thorough knowledge of those dark and secret workings of the heart, by which misery is so often elaborated from the pure element of the affections. Her knowledge, however, we must say, seems to be more of evil than of good: For the predominating sentiment in her fictions is, despair of human happiness and human virtue; and their interest is founded almost entirely on the inherent and almost inevitable heartlessness of polished man. The impression which they leave upon the mind, therefore, though powerfully pathetic, is both painful and humiliating; at the same time that it proceeds, we are inclined to believe, upon the double error of supposing that the bulk of intelligent people are as selfish as those splendid victims of fashion and philosophy from whom her characters are selected; and that a sensibility to unkindness can long survive the extinction of all kindly emotions. The work before us, however, exhibits the fairest specimen which we have yet seen of the systematizing spirit of the author, as well as of the moral enthusiasm by which she seems to be possessed.

The professed object of this work is to show that all the peculiarities in the literature of different ages and countries, may be explained by a reference to the condition of society, and the political and religious institutions of each; -and at the same time, to point out in what way the progress of letters has in its turn modified and affected the government and religion of those nations among whom they have flourished. All this, however, is bot tomed upon the more fundamental and fa

vourite proposition, that there is a progress, to produce these effects that letters and intelligence are in a state of constant, universal, and irresistible advancement-in other words, that tuman nature is tending, by a slow and intermunable progression, to a state of perfection. This fascinating idea seems to have been kept constantly in view by Madame de Staël, from the beginning to the end of the work before us; and though we conceive it to have been pursued with tar too sanguine and assured a spirit, and to have led in this way to most of what is rash and questionable in her conchsious, it is impossible to doubt that it has also heiped her to many explanations that are equally solid and ingenious, and thrown a bght upon many phenomena that would otherwise have appeared very dark and unaccountable.

In the range which she here takes, indeed, she has need of all the lights and all the aids that can present themselves; -for her work contains a critique and a theory of all the literature and philosophy in the world, from the days of Homer to the tenth year of the French revolution. She begins with the early learning and philosophy of Greece; and after characterizing the national taste and genius of that illustrious people, in all its departments, and in the different stages of their progress, she proceeds to a similar investi

gation of the literature and science of the Romans; and then, after a hasty sketch of the decline of arts and letters in the later days of the empire, and of the actual progress of the human mind during the dark ages, when it is supposed to have slumbered in complete inactivity, she enters upon a more detailed examination of the peculiarities, and the causes of the peculiarities, of all the different aspects of national taste and genius that characterize the literature of Italy, Spain, England. Germany, and France-entering, as to each, into a pretty minute exposition of its general merits and defects and not only of the circumstances in the situation of the country that have produced those characteristics, but even of the authors and productions, in which they are chiefly exemplified. To go through all this with tolerable success, and without committing any very gross or ridiculous blunders, evidently required, in the first place, a greater allowance of learning than has often fallen to the lot of persons of the learned gender, who lay a pretty bold claim to distinction upon the ground of their learning alone; and, in the next place, an extent of general knowledge, and a power and comprehensiveness of thinking, that has still more rely been the ornament of great scholars. Madame de Staël may be surpassed, perhaps, in scholarship (so as relates to accuracy at leest, if not extent,) by some-and in sound philosophy by others. But there are few indeed who can boast of having so much of both; and no one, so far as we know, who has applied the one to the elucidation of the other with so much boldness and success But it is time to give a little more particular ccount of her lucubrations.

far

There is a very eloquent and high-toned Introduction, illustrating, in a general way the influence of literature on the morals, the glory, the freedom, and the enjoyments of the people among whom it flourishes. It is full of brilliant thoughts and profound observations; but we are most struck with those sentiments of mingled triumph and mortification by which she connects these magnificent speculations with the tumultuous aspect of the times in which they were nourished.

"Que ne puis-je rappeler tous les esprits éclairés à la jouissance des méditations philosophiques! Les contemporains d'une Révolution perdent souvent tout intérêt à la recherche de la vérité. Tant d'événemens décidés par la force, tant de crimes absous par le succès, tant de vertus flétries par le blâme, tant d'infortunes insultées par le pouvoir, tant de sentimens généreux devenus l'objet de la moquerie, tant de vils calculs philosophiquement commentés; tout lasse de l'espérance les hommes les plus fidèles au culte de la raison. Néanmoins ils doivent se ranimer en observant, dans l'histoire de l'esprit humain, qu'il n'a existé ni une pensée utile, ni une vérité profonde qui n'ait trouvé son siècle et ses admirateurs. C'est sans doute un triste effort que

de transporter son intérêt, de reposer son attente, à travers l'avenir, sur nos successeurs, sur les étrangers bien loin de nous, sur les inconnus, sur tous les hommes enfin dont le souvenir et l'image ne peuvent se retracer à notre esprit. Mais, hélas! si l'on en excepte quelques amis inaltérables, la plupart de ceux qu'on se rappelle après dix années de

révolution, contristent votre cœur, étouffent vos mouvemens, en imposent à votre talent même, non par leur supériorité, mais par cette malveillance qui ne cause de la douleur qu'aux ames douces, et ne fait souffrir que ceux qui ne la méritent pas."-Tom. i. p. 27, 28.

The connection between good morals and that improved state of intelligence which Madame de Staël considers as synonymous with the cultivation of literature, is too obvious to require any great exertion of her talents for its elucidation. She observes, with great truth, that much of the guilt and the misery which are vulgarly imputed to great talents, really arise from not having talent enoughand that the only certain cure for the errors which are produced by superficial thinking, is to be found in thinking more deeply:-At the same time it ought not to be forgotten, that all men have not the capacity of thinking deeply-and that the most general cultivation of literature will not invest every one with talents of the first order. If there be a degree of intelligence, therefore, that is more unfavourable to the interests of morality and just opinion, than an utter want of intelli. gence, it may be presumed, that, in very enlightened times, this will be the portion of the greater multitude or at least that nations and individuals will have to pass through this troubled and dangerous sphere, in their way to the loftier and purer regions of perfect understanding. The better answer therefore probably is, that it is not intelligence that does the mischief in any case whatsoever, but the presumption that sometimes accompanies the lower degrees of it; and which is best disjoined from them, by making the higher degrees more attainable. It is quite true, as Madame de Staël observes, that the

The introduction ends with an eloquent profession of the author's unshaken faith in the philosophical creed of Perfectibility:upon which, as it does not happen to be our creed, and is very frequently brought inما notice in the course of the work, we must here be indulged with a few preliminary observations.

power of public opinion, which is the only lofty aims which connect us with a long sure and ultimate guardian either of freedom futurity. or of virtue, is greater or less exactly as the public is more or less enlightened; and that this public can never be trained to the habit of just and commanding sentiments, except under the influence of a sound and progressive literature. The abuse of power, and the abuse of the means of enjoyment, are the great sources of misery and depravity in an advanced stage of society. Both originate with those who stand on the highest stages of human fortune; and the cure is to be found, in both cases, only in the enlightened opinion of those who stand a little lower.

This splendid illusion, which seems to have succeeded that of Optimism in the favour of philosophical enthusiasts, and rests, like it, upon the notion that the whole scheme of a beneficent Providence is to be developed in this world, is supported by Madame de Staël upon a variety of grounds: and as, like most other illusions, it has a considerable admixture of truth, it is supported, in many points, upon grounds that are both solid and ingenious. She relies chiefly, of course, upon the experience of the past; and, in particular, upon the marked and decided superiority of the moderns in respect of thought and refiection-their more profound knowledge of human feelings, and more comprehensive views of human affairs. She ascribes less importance than is usually done to our attainments in mere science, and the arts that relate to matter; and augurs less confidently as to the future fortune of the species, from the exploits of Newton, Watt, and Davy, than from those of Bacon, Bossuet, Locke, Hume, and Voltaire. In eloquence, too, and in taste and fancy, she

Liberty, it will not be disputed, is still more clearly dependent on intelligence than morality itself. When the governors are ignorant, they are naturally tyrannical. Force is the obvious resource of those who are incapable of convincing; and the more unworthy any one is of the power with which he is invested, the more rigorously will he exercise that power. But it is in the intelligence of the people themselves that the chief bulwark of their freedom will be found to consist, and all the principles of political amelioration to originate. This is true, however, as Madame de Staël observes, only of what she terms "la haute littérature;" or the general cultivation of philosophy, eloquence, history, and those other departments of learning which refer chiefly to the heart and the understanding, and depend upon a knowledge of human nature, and an attentive study of all that admits that there has been a less conspicuons

advancement; because, in these things, there is a natural limit or point of perfection, which has been already attained: But there are no boundaries to the increase of human knowledge, or to the discovery of the means of human happiness; and every step that is gained in those higher walks, is gained, she conceives, for posterity, and for ever.

contributes to its actual enjoyments. What is merely for delight, again, and addresses itself exclusively to the imagination, has neither so noble a genealogy, nor half so illustrious a progeny. Poetry and works of gaiety and amusement, together with music and the sister arts of painting and sculpture, have much slighter connection either with virtue or with freedom. Though among their most graceful ornaments, they may yet flour-check which the arts and civility of life re

a

The great objection derived from the signal

ceived from the inroads of the northern bar barians on the decline of the Roman power, and the long period of darkness and degradation which ensued, she endeavours to obviate, by a very bold and ingenious speculation. It is her object here to show that the invasion of the northern tribes not only promoted their own civilization more effectually than any thing else could have done, but actually imparted to the genius of the vanquished, a character of energy, solidity, and seriousness, which could never have sprung up of itselt in the volatile regions of the South. The amalgamation of the two races, she thinks, has produced a mighty improvement on both;

ish under tyrants, and be relished in the midst of the greatest and most debasing corruption of manners. It is a fine and a just remark too, of Madame de Staël, that the pursuits which minister to mere delight, and give to life its charm and voluptuousness, generally produce a great indifference about dying. They supersede and displace all the stronger passions and affections, by which alone we are bound very closely to existence; and, while they habituate the mind to transitory and passive impressions, seem naturally connected with those images of indolence and intoxication and slumber, to which the idea of death is so readily assimilated, in characters of this description. When life, in short, and the vivacity, the elegance and versatility is considered as nothing more than an amuse- of the warmer latitudes, been mingled, inment, its termination is contemplated with finitely to their mutual advantage, with the

far less emotion, and its course, upon the whole, is overshadowed with deeper clouds of ennui, than when it is presented as a scene of high duties and honourable labours, and holds out to us at every turn-not the perishable pastimes of the passing hour, but the fixed and distant objects of those serious and

majestic melancholy, the profound thought, and the sterner morality of the North. This combination, again, she conceives, could have been effected in no way so happily as by the successful invasion of the ruder people; and the conciliating influence of that common faith, which at once repressed the frivolous

and mollified the ferocious tendencies of our nature. The temporary disappearance therefore of literature and politeness, upon the first shock of this mighty collision, was but the

subsidence of the sacred flame under the heaps of fuel which were thus profusely provided for its increase; and the seeming waste and sterility that ensued, was but the tirst aspect of the fertilizing flood and accumulated manure under which vegetation was buried for a while, that it might break out at last with a richer and more indestructible luxuriance. The human intellect was neither dead nor inactive, she contends, during that long slumber, in which it was collecting vigour for unprecedented exertions; and the occupations to which it was devoted, though not of the most brilliant or attractive description, were perhaps the best fitted for its ultimate and substantial improvement. The subtle distinctions, the refined casuistry, and ingenious logic of the school divines, were all favourable to habits of careful and accurate thinking; and led insensibly to a far more thorough and profound knowledge of human nature-the limits of its faculties and the grounds of its duties-than had been attained by the more careless inquirers of antiquity. When men, therefore, began again to reason upon human affairs, they were found to have made an immense progress during the period when all appeared to be either retrograde or stationary; and Shakspeare, Bacon, Machiavel, Montaigne, and Galileo, who appeared almost at the same time, in the most distant countries of Europe, each displayed a rach of thought and a power of reasoning which we should look for in vain in the elozoent dissertaions of the classical ages. To them ceeded such men as Jeremy Taylor,

people; and are every day extending ther empire, and multiplying their progeny. Ma. dame de Staël sees no reason to doubt, there. fore, that they will one day inherit the whole earth; and, nd, under their reign, she takes it to be clear, that war, and poverty, and all the misery that arises from vice and ignorance, will disappear from the face of society; and that men, universally convinced that justice and benevolence are the true sources of enjoyment, will seek their own happiness in a constant endeavour to promote that of their neighbours.

It would be very agreeable to believe all this in spite of the grudging which would necessarily arise, from the reflection that we ourselves were born so much too soon for virtue and enjoyment in this world. But it is really impossible to overlook the manifold imperfections of the reasoning on which this splendid anticipation is founded;-though it may be worth while to ascertain, if possible, in what degree it is founded in truth.

The first thing that occurs to a sober-minded listener to this dream of perfectibility, is the extreme narrowness of the induction from which these sweeping conclusions are so con fidently deduced. A progress that is in its own nature infinite and irresistible, must necessarily have been both universal and unremitting; and yet the evidence of its existence is founded, if we do not deceive ourselves, upon the history of a very small portion of the human race, for a very small number of generations. The proposition is, that the human species is advancing, and has always been advancing, to a state of perfection, by a law of their nature, of the existence of which their past history and present state leave no room to doubt. But when we cast

Mon.re, Pascal, Locke, and La Bruyère-all a glance upon this high destined species,

entered into the

of them observers of a character, to which there is nothing at all parallel in antiquity; and yet only preparing the way, in the succeeling age, for Montesquieu, Hume, Voltaire, Smith, Burke, Bentham, Malthus, and so many dhers; who have made the world familiar with truths, which, however important and demonstrable at all times, certainly never conception on of the earlier inhantants of the world. Those truths, and thers still more important, of which they ane destined to be the parents, have already, according to Madame de Staël, produced a prodigious alteration, and an incalculable improvement on the condition of human nature. Through their influence, assisted no doubt by that of the Gospel, slavery has been abolished, rate and industry set free from restriction, and war disarmed of half its horrors; while, in private life, women have been restored to their just rank in society; sentiments of justice and humanity have been universally cultivated, and public opinion been armed with & power which renders every other both safe and salutary.

Many of these truths, which were once the doubtful or derided discoveries of men of eozmal genius, are now admitted as elementary principles in the reasonings of ordinary

we find this necessary and eternal progress scarcely begun, even now, in the old inhabited continent of Africa-stationary, as far back as our information reaches, in Chinaand retrograde, for a period of at least twelve centuries, and up to this day, in Egypt, India, Persia, and Greece. Even in our own Europe, which contains probably less than one tenth part of our kind, it is admitted, that, for upwards of a thousand years, this great work of moral nature not only stood still, but went visibly backwards, over its fairest regions; and though there has been a prodigious progress in England and France and Germany during the last two hundred years, it may be doubted whether any thing of this sort can be said of Spain or Italy; or various other portions, even of this favoured quarter of the world. It may be very natural for Madame de Staël, or for us, looking only to what has happened in our own world, and in our own times, to indulge in those dazzling views of the unbounded and universal improvement of the whole human race; but such speculations would appear rather wild, we suspect, to those whose lot it is to philosophize among the unchanging nations of Asia; and would probably carry even something of ridicule with them, if propounded upon the ruins of

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