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fine a contingent event to be something, the occurrence of which is certainly known to be uncertain, and yet, of which the certain occurrence is, or may be, certainly known. That the existence of absolutely contingent events is a gratuitous supposition, cannot be denied. No one has ever been able to point out any such event in nature. Experience, on the contrary, has constantly taught, that events happen in a continued chain of cause and effect. Nor has one single occurrence, either of motion, thought, or existence of any sort, been ascertained to have shewn itself independent of some prior connecting event, which acted necessarily as a cause or reason. But a contingent event is either without a cause, or else its cause co-exists with it, and is included in it. On the latter supposition, the event would not be contingent, since it was influenced by something else, and the contingency would be transferred to the co-existent cause. There is no end of this; and we must either at once boldly deny the doctrine of cause and effect, or be content to be lost (like the Niger in its sands) in the wilderness of infinite se

ries.

The next point to which the reve rend author directs his attention, is best gleaned from his own words. “Whatever has been, is, or will be, could (not as some say) be otherwise. We, vain and insignificant creatures, full of our own importance, imagine, that we act from ourselves, that we can deliberate, choose, reject, command, obey, forbid, contrive, hasten, or hinder a thousand things-when, in fact, this is all delusion. We are but members of the machine, like the rest; and though we may please ourselves with thinking that we act an independent part, the real truth is, we have no voice, no power, no control, in what is going on; all would take its course just the same, whether for good or for ill, were we to give ourselves no concern whatever in the matter. Such, I believe, is a fair statement of the doctrine of philosophical necessity, or predestination, confined to this life." The reverend author, no doubt, may

believe this to be a fair statement; but it is not so. Before going into the question, however, it is necessary to extend the quotation, in order that the scope and drift of the argument may be fully understood. The Discourse proceeds thus: "If we cast our eyes upon the world, we readily perceive, that the activity and energy of men is encreased by a persuasion, that they have it in their power to attain certain ends, and that they never think of attempting that which they know to be impossible, or beyond their reach, or not capable of being obtained or averted by any thing they can do. To be taking measures for procuring a fertile season, or for stopping the mouth of a volcano, would be certain proof of insanity. Men do indeed often engage in vain and chimerical undertakings, but it is under a belief of their practicability; as soon as they discover their error, they leave off. ********** Of the two grand motives which actuate reasonable beings, hope and fear, the influence is always diminished, in proportion to the opinion men have of the unalterable conditions under which they are placed. ***The

fact, it is presumed, will hardly be denied, that when men really believe, and the belief is present in their minds, that a decree has passed upon them, their own motives to action are weakened, if not wholly extinguished."

The above sentences are probably sufficient to shew, that the argument here intended is the favourite point in the pamphlet of Mr Dawson, quoted in the preface. It is of old standing, and is neither more nor less than that celebrated cavil with which the Epicureans puzzled and twitted the Stoics, and which is known by the name of Ignava Ratio. It is plausible, and is so from its including more than one fallacy. The first fallacious supposition is that of the kind of necessity which the mind of the person subjected to this principle of inaction, must imagine to itself. The principle rests upon the mind assuming some insulated event or events, as being arbitrarily fixed and decreed; without the necessity, also, of the means which are

This branch of the controversy is considered at length in vol. VIII. p. 172 of this Magazine, article "Igitava Ratio ;" and I take the opportunity of correcting a sentence in the first page, in which, from an inadvertence, the term "fatalists" is applied to the followers of Epicurus, instead of the Stoics.

to lead to the occurrence of such events, being adverted to. Now, this is notoriously at variance with the necessitarian hypothesis, which supposes, that causes are decreed as well as effects, and means as well as ends. And unless this arbitrary and partial sort of necessity be supposed, the accusation of inaction being consequent on a belief in necessity, includes in itself this glaring and direct absurdity. It supposes a Necessitarian to reason with himself thus: that all events being unalterable, and he being unable, by any action or exertion, either to ameliorate or deteriorate his condition and lot; therefore, he will ameliorate it by the enjoyment of ease, and the omission of labour:-a direct contradiction in terms; as it is saying, I cannot alter any thing, and therefore I shall alter something.

The motives, however, under which the Necessitarian acts, and rationally and unavoidably acts, are capable of being pointed out. Let a given event of importance, say death, be taken as an example. If this, the objector says, be absolutely fixed to take place at some certain period, and then only, why do you trouble yourself about an event which can neither be hastened nor retarded? in short, why do you eat or drink, or distrust fire or water, or shun personal danger, from a fear of its tendency to produce the catas trophe in question? The answer is shortly thus: Whether my death is to take place now, or at some distant time, is, I know, already fixed and determined; but, not knowing how it is determined, my death, as to time, is to me a contingent event; for aught I know, it may be now, or it may be then. It will be allowed, however, that I very naturally would prefer the latter decree to the former; and am glad of all evidence which goes to prove that the last supposed decree is, in fact, the real decree. Now, I know that means are necessary to an end; and when I see means and the power of using them afforded, I consider that as the best evidence of the end being intended. Therefore, I use every means in my power to retard the time of my death; using food, caution, &c. as means directly tending to, and intimating the probability of a desired end.

As an objection to the foregoing reasoning, it may be asked, perhaps, why, if this be the process which takes place

in the mind of the necessitarian agent, it is not better known, and more frequently pointed out? Why,-because men easily analyse their mental processes; and because men in general follow up the means to an end, merely because they evidently seem to lead to it. They do not stop to inquire whether they are making a path, or following a path already made for them. This is the plain proximate cause of men's actions. They are taught, by perpetual experience, that means are necessary to an end; and, under this persuasion, they eagerly take every preparatory step; each step, as far as it strengthens the evidence of the certainty of the desired event, and brings the agent nearer that event, being more and more devoutly welcomed. Nor is it of any consequence, whether or not a man is told, that in tracing this chain, he is only fulfilling a prior decree. It is happiness he wants, not liberty. Suppose, by way of illustration, that a messenger knocks at a man's door, and informs him that government intends him a pension; and further, that he is to go immediately to some certain place, where he should receive the first payment, if he arrived in time; and that if he did not go, he should be hanged. Suppose further, that at every step of his progress, the delighted pensioner was reminded that he was only fulfilling a decree, would that alter his satisfaction? on the contrary, every step which proved to him the certainty of the whole series, would be eagerly taken, as bringing nearer, and ratifying, the certainty of the wished-for conclusion. To say, that a man, the events, good and bad, of whose future life, were decreed, and to whom the particulars of that decree were known, would be subjected to inaction, is to put an unnatural and useless case. If the decree were independent of the will of him concerning whom it was made, then the supposition does not apply; because philosophical necessity is laid down to be in the will itself. If the will be included in the decree, then there is no room for any supposeable alteration, either in conduct or disposition.

Against the Ignava Ratio the appeal to experience is decisive; and perhaps the hastiest assertion in Dr Coplestone's book is, that "the universal and actual tendency of such belief as

the Necessitarian inculcates, is to relax our exertions, in proportion as that belief predominates." Let the name of one enlightened Necessitarian be quoted in corroboration. Dr Coplestone allows, that "fatalists are ready to quote instances of illustrious men, and even of whole sects, under the profession of fatalists, who lived exactly as other people do." Here is the testimony of thousands; and how does the reverend author get rid of these inconvenient quotations? he merely says, that these illustrious individuals and their sects do not really believe what they profess," and "affect to talk like philosophers," while they " act as the

vulgar!" Now, really, if the reverend doctor had proved his own side of the question with the certainty of mathematical demonstration, this would have made a very pretty syllogism. All who really believe necessity, relax in their exertions, but these men did not relax; therefore, they did not really believe necessity. At present, it only reminds one of the physician in one of Voltaire's tales, who, when somebody recovered under treatment which was in opposition to his opinion, wrote a pamphlet to prove that he ought to have died. I am, &c.

T. D.

MARTIN, THE CARDER, A WEST-MEATHIAN TALE. MR EDITOR. In the summer of eighteen hundred and sixteen, when a lawless feeling was very general throughout Ireland, the counties of Westmeath and Longford were particularly disturbed. Secret associations were formed, hostile at first, more to the landlords and gentry than to the government, though, in a little time, from factious spirits, it no doubt grew into an organized plan of rebellion. The members gave themselves the name of carders, from the instrument with which they inflicted punishment on their enemies, among which were numbered chiefly inform ers, and those who took or let land above what they considered the fair valuation. Harassed by the unavoidable distress of the country, and inflamed by spokesmen, who had travelled in England in search of harvest work, and had seen, and invidiously compared, the comforts of the English husbandman with their own privations, they attributed their ills to partial government and oppression. "Worse nor I am I can't be," was the reasoning by which they prepared themselves for what they called a stir. Besides, various prophecies and mysterious bodings floated about the country, that the reign of protestantism was to terminate in the year seventeen; and an interpretation of the Apocalypse, written by one Walmsey, entitled, Pastorini's Christian Church, was spread not only by oral accounts, but by the volume itself, through the country. All their purposes, however, were happily frustrated by the vigilance of the magistrates of the county, Lord C-, Captain D, Captain C, to

whom the government and the country owe much. But I will not enter further into political discussion, it be ing merely my purpose to record a noble trait of Irish character, and a specimen of Irish eloquence, somewhat different from that vulgarly so called.

Martin was one of the chief of these desperadoes, and had signalized himself in taking vengeance on the marked men, and in levying far and near vast contributions of arms, money being a booty which the fraternity disdained to take. One of their attacks was on the house of a man named Timms, who, retreating up stairs, made a gallant defence in the garret, killed some of them, and wounded Martin. The wound, and the loss of blood in consequence, caused him to faint, unnoticed by Timms, as his companions retreated. When he came to his senses, still undiscovered, as the house was left altogether without light, he bethought himself of the best means of escaping, left alone as he was, though unperceived, in the room with his enemy; he concluded by making a rush at the window, and leaping through it, very probably not recollecting the height it was from the ground. His back was broken, it seems, by the fall, yet he contrived to roll himself over the garden, till he was taken by some of his friends, and conveyed to a place of secrecy, in one of the Islands of Lough Ree.

He was traced by his blood from the place where he fell to where he rolled, and every exertion was used to discover the lurking place of the wounded man. The search was vain for some time, till an account was brought to Cap

tain C, a most active and praiseworthy magistrate of that county, of Martin's lying wounded in some of the islands of the lake. Early in the morning the Captain took the revenue boat, well-manned, and proceeded on his quest. While busied in searching one island, he perceived a boat putting off from the other, rowed by two women, and a head evidently bobbing in the stern, the wind being high, and the water rough. All hands were called to the pursuit; and though the boat was but a little a-head, the two lasses beat the revenue barge, with its eight oars, the whole breadth of the lake to the wood of St John's, where dropping Martin " on dry land, up to his neck in the water," as they themselves would have said, they made down the wind, away from the dreaded magistrate. The Captain in vain endeavoured to come up with them, not to put them in irons, as they supposed, but to help them from his whisky bottle for having so gallantly outstripped him. Poor Martin, ne

vertheless, was taken in the wood, where he had thrown himself into a furze bush, and in spite of the gathering of the country people, he was secured, and at length lodged safe in the jail of Mullingar.

He was tried, and condemned to die, but had frequent offers of pardon, if he would confess and name his associates. All solicitations of the kind were vain; he was resolute in betraying none. I was present at his execution; it took place near the fatal scene of his last attack. As he ascended the ladder, he turned round to address the assembled crowd, consisting of his old friends and accomplices. He eyed each with a look of recognition, and though pale and ghastly from his hurt and sickness, I shall never forget the impressiveness with which he uttered these last words,—“ It is a bad business, boys, and drop it; but, boys, I die clane."*

Those who know what heroic sentiment is, I leave to form their own conclusion.

*By clane he meant true,—that he had betrayed nothing; the expression of "a clean heart," "a clean conscience," is very common with them.

MY DEAR KIT,

FAMILIAR EPISTLES TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH,
From an Old Friend with a New Face.

LETTER II.

On ANASTASIUS. By

I HAVE been struck with wonder at the compassionate review of the three new Cantos of Don Juan in your last Number. But though you may be pardoned in that instance, considering the great pains poor Byron has of late taken to write himself down, I cannot forgive you for the part you have hitherto affected to play towards the impostor Anastasius. In a word, Kit, to be familiar with you, as our ancient friendship fully authorizes me to be, I beg to know how it is that you have allowed the soft-headed world to believe so long that the aforesaid rascally Greek is a legitimate son of "the upholsterer." You know as well as I do, that the stuff and bam about dedicating, and not dedicating to Louisa, is a piece of quizzical humbug to cajole the gullibility of the reading public. How Byron must chuckle at the success of the device! I am, however, the more

-Lord Byron.*

angry at the suppression of your wonted sagacity on this occasion, as the work, though full of a clever innate scoundrelism, is really not only too bad in many of its details, but calculated to profane many serious and sacred things. But what can be said for Hope, who having been so laughed at, for his skill in contriving receptacles for sitting parts, and disguises for certain utensils, has been beguiled to stand godfather to Byron's abandoned progeny? He knows that the Thomas Hope, who writes so dedicatorily to Louisa from Duchess Street, but whose name is not ventured on the title-page, is meant for him who possesses so many noseless statues and cracked pitchers of antiquity, and that he has as little to say to the composition of Anastasius as the Whigs have to the hospitalities of the King's reception in Ireland. Why he should, therefore, assent to the cajolery of taking in the

Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Greek; written at the close of the eighteenth century. 3 vols. London. Murray, 1820.

public with this licentious story, is beyond my comprehension. Mr Hope is a very respectable and decorous gentleman, he can write, with some endeavour, passably about chests of drawers, paper hangings, and cushions as soft as his own or any other brains, but that he has either the courage or the power to compile such a work as Anastasius, I utterly and entirely deny. None but a man who was conscious of previously possessing some influence on public opinion would have dared to send out such a book. Mr Hope has no such influence.

But, not to deal too largely in the expression of my general persuasion of the fact, I would call your attention to a few circumstances that, I conceive, you will allow, constitute strong proofs that Anastasius is the production of Byron. In the first place, one of the great features of the work is an intimate knowledge of the localities of many of the scenes, and an easy applicable familiarity with the vernacular terms for all Greek and Ottoman things, grades, and offices. Who ever heard of Hope possessing any such knowledge? The localities, it is true, might be described from books of travels some of them are-but those which are so borrowed can be easily discriminated from the allusions to places which the author actually visited. With respect to the vernacular terms, they too inight be obtained from dictionaries; but where are such dictionaries to be found? They have no existence in any Pagan, Christian, or Mahomedan language. Is it not, then, probable that this minute kind of knowledge was acquired by the author himself? and it is known that Lord Byron, during his residence in Turkey, made considerable progress in the languages of the country. Besides, it is quite in his lordship's way to employ the original names of things in the scenes where he places his actions. No other author has adopted this fashion so much on principle; indeed few, from their own knowledge, were able to do it with true effect. Is it probable that such a man as Hope could so well assume one of the most decided peculiarities of so peculiar an author as Byron? He is not qualified -he has neither the minute knowledge, nor is it in his power, or that of any other man, through so long a story as Anastasius, to take upon him

self such an undeniable criterion of identity. Short essays, characteristic of the blemishes and originalities of writers, have been often well executed; but such sports of fancy have ever been easily discovered from genuine productions-caricature is always obvious. But that any other than the original author should be able to treat at so much length, and with such circumstantiality, of such a variety of things, considering them as Byron alone would consider them, is a supposition too absurd to be seriously entertained. It would argue a resemblance in mind without parallel; or rather, an assumption of character, more extraor dinary than that transfusion of nature, habits, and propensities, which is supposed to accompany a transfusion of the blood of one animal into the veins of another. I will as soon believe, that, by the operation of transfusion, a frog can be made to sing like Catalani, as that any nick-knacky gentleman, like Hope, could so inhale from Byron's works, the spirit of his bold, satirical, and libertine genius, as to be able to write a book, so like a book of his as the work in question. The conception of the story, and the general style of the narrative, is decidedly like Byron's conceptions and execution. The character, too, of Anastasius, is exactly of a piece with Lord Byron's; that is, with the one which pervades all his works, and so charitably considered as his own. The spirit of Anastasius is that of Don Juan. Would Lord Byron have made so obvious a copy from the work of any other artist? The whole story seems the chalk sketch of the poem; and Anastasius himself, in his riper years, is but another version of all the varieties of his Lordship's poetical progeny, from Childe Harold to Beppo. Is it likely that any other but the original author would imagine such a character? or rather, have so melted all Byron's characters into one? for Anastasius is a compilation of all those which, under different names, have been spoken of as different individuals, but which are, in reality, but different aspects of the same liberal, licentious, learned, brave, impassioned, and misanthropic being.

But, to leave generalities, I will now proceed to give you a few proofs from the work itself, in corroboration of the opinion which I have here expressed;

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