Chapter XLII: Conclusion (1)

Lord Anophel one morning paid Anthelia his usual visit. ‘You must be aware, Miss Melincourt,’ said he, ‘that if your friends could have found you out, they would have done it before this; but they have searched the whole country far and near, and have now gone home in despair.’

_Anthelia._ That, my Lord, I cannot believe; for there is one, at least, who I am confident will never be weary of seeking me, and who, I am equally confident, will not always seek in vain.

_Lord Anophel Achthar._ If you mean the young lunatic of Redrose Abbey, or his friend the dumb Baronet, they are both gone to London to attend the opening of the Honourable House; and if you doubt my word, I will show you their names in the _Morning Post_, among the Fashionable Arrivals at Wildman’s Hotel.

_Anthelia._ Your Lordship’s word is quite as good as the authority you have quoted.

_Lord Anophel Achthar._ Well, then, Miss Melincourt, I presume you perceive that you are completely in my power, and that I have gone too far to recede. If, indeed, I had supposed myself an object of such very great repugnance to you, which I must say (_looking at himself in a glass_) is quite unaccountable, I might not, perhaps, have laid this little scheme, which I thought would be only settling the affair in a compendious way; for that any woman in England would consider it a very great hardship to be Lady Achthar, and hereafter Marchioness of Agaric, and would feel any very mortal resentment for means that tended to make her so, was an idea, egad, that never entered my head. However, as I have already observed, you are completely in my power: both our characters are compromised, and there is only one way to mend the matter, which is to call in Grovelgrub, and make him strike up ‘Dearly beloved.’

_Anthelia._ As to your character, Lord Anophel, that must be your concern. Mine is in my own keeping; for, having practised all my life a system of uniform sincerity, which gives me a right to be believed by all who know me, and more especially by all who love me, I am perfectly indifferent to private malice or public misrepresentation.

_Lord Anophel Achthar._ There is such a thing, Miss Melincourt, as tiring out a man’s patience; and, ‘pon honour, if gentle means don’t succeed with you, I must have recourse to rough ones, ‘pon honour.

_Anthelia._ My Lord!

_Lord Anophel Achthar._ I am serious, curse me. You will be glad enough to hush all up, then, and we’ll go to court together in due form.

_Anthelia._ What you mean by hushing up, Lord Anophel, I know not: but of this be assured, that under no circumstances will I ever be your wife; and that whatever happens to me in any time or place, shall be known to all who are interested in my welfare. I know too well the difference between the true quality of a pure and simple mind and the false affected modesty which goes by that name in the world, to be intimidated by threats which can only be dictated by a supposition that your wickedness would be my disgrace, and that false shame would induce me to conceal what both truth and justice would command me to make known.

Lord Anophel stood aghast for a few minutes, at the declaration of such unfashionable sentiments. At length saying, ‘Ay, preaching is one thing, and practice another, as Grovelgrub can testify,’ he seized her hand with violence, and threw his arm round her waist. Anthelia screamed, and at that very moment a violent noise of ascending steps was heard on the stairs; the door was burst open, and Sir Oran Haut-ton appeared in the aperture, with the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub in custody, whom he dragged into the apartment, followed by Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax. Mr. Forester flew to Anthelia, who threw herself into his arms, hid her face in his bosom, and burst into tears: which when Sir Oran saw, his wrath grew boundless, and quitting his hold of the Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub (who immediately ran downstairs, and out of the castle, as fast as a pair of short thick legs could carry him), seized on Lord Anophel Achthar, and was preparing to administer natural justice by throwing him out at the window; but Mr. Fax interposed, and calling Mr. Forester’s attention, which was totally engaged with Anthelia, they succeeded in rescuing the terrified sprig of nobility; who immediately, leaving the enemy in free possession, flew downstairs after his reverend tutor; whom, on issuing from the castle, he discovered at an immense distance on the sands, still running with all his might. Lord Anophel gave him chase, and after a long time came within hail of him, and shouted to him to stop. But this only served to quicken the reverend gentleman’s speed; who, hearing the voice of pursuit, and too much terrified to look back, concluded that the dumb Baronet had found his voice, and was then in the very act of gaining on his flight. Therefore, the more Lord Anophel shouted ‘Stop!’ the more nimbly the reverend gentleman sped along the sands, running and roaring all the way, like Falstaff on Gadshill; his Lordship still exerting all his powers of speed in the rear, and gaining on his flying Mentor by very imperceptible gradations: where we shall leave them to run _ad libitum_, while we account for the sudden appearance of Mr. Forester and his friends.

We left them walking along the shore of the sea, which they followed till they arrived in the vicinity of Alga Castle, from which the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub emerged in evil hour, to take a meditative walk on the sands. The keen sight of the natural man descried him from far. Sir Oran darted on his prey; and though it is supposed that he could not have overtaken the swift-footed Achilles,[133] he had very little difficulty in overtaking the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, who had begun to run for his life as soon as he was aware of the foe. Sir Oran shook his stick over his head, and the reverend gentleman dropping on his knees, put his hands together, and entreated for mercy, saying ‘he would confess all.’ Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax came up in time to hear the proposal: the former restrained the rage of Sir Oran, who, however, still held his prisoner fast by the arm; and the reluctant divine, with many a heavy groan, conducted his unwelcome company to the door of Anthelia’s apartments.

‘O Forester!’ said Anthelia, ‘you have realised all my wishes. I have found you the friend of the poor, the enthusiast of truth, the disinterested cultivator of the rural virtues, the active promoter of the cause of human liberty. It only remained that you should emancipate a captive damsel, who, however, will but change the mode of her durance, and become your captive for life.’

It was not long after this event, before the Reverend Mr. Portpipe and the old chapel of Melincourt Castle were put in requisition, to make a mystical unit of Anthelia and Mr. Forester. The day was celebrated with great festivity throughout their respective estates, and the Reverend Mr. Portpipe was _voti compos_, that is to say, he had taken a resolution on the day of Anthelia’s christening, that he would on the day of her marriage drink one bottle more than he had ever taken at one sitting on any other occasion; which resolution he had now the satisfaction of carrying into effect.

Sir Oran Haut-ton continued to reside with Mr. Forester and Anthelia. They discovered in the progress of time that he had formed for the latter the same kind of reverential attachment as the Satyr in Fletcher forms for the Holy Shepherdess:[134] and Anthelia might have said to him in the words of Corin:

They wrong thee that do call thee rude:
Though thou be’st outward rough and tawny-hued,
Thy manners are as gentle and as fair
As his who boasts himself born only heir
To all humanity.

His greatest happiness was in listening to the music of her harp and voice: in the absence of which he solaced himself, as usual, with his flute and French horn. He became likewise a proficient in drawing; but what progress he made in the art of speech we have not been able to ascertain.

Mr. Fax was a frequent visitor at Melincourt, and there was always a cover at the table for the Reverend Mr. Portpipe.

Mr. Hippy felt half inclined to make proposals to Miss Evergreen; but understanding from Mr. Forester that, from the death of her lover in early youth, that lady had irrevocably determined on a single life,[135] he comforted himself with passing half his time at Melincourt Castle, and dancing the little Foresters on his knee, whom he taught to call him ‘grandpapa Hippy,’ and seemed extremely proud of the imaginary relationship.

Mr. Forester disposed of Redrose Abbey to Sir Telegraph Paxarett, who, after wearing the willow twelve months, married, left off driving, and became a very respectable specimen of an English country gentleman.

We must not conclude without informing those among our tender-hearted readers who would be much grieved if Miss Danaretta Contantina Pinmoney should have been disappointed in her principal object of making a _good match_, that she had at length the satisfaction, through the skilful management of her mother, of making the happiest of men of Lord Anophel Achthar.

THE END

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.

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Footnote 1:

The following is the motto of the title-page of the first
edition:—‘Nous nous moquons des Paladins! quand ces maximes
romanesques commencèrent à devenir ridicules, ce changement fut moins
l’ouvrage de la raison que celui des mauvaises mœurs.’—ROUSSEAU.

Footnote 2:

Written in 1817.—Published in 1818.

Footnote 3:

Hor. Epist. I. ii. 27–30.

Footnote 4:

Junius.

Footnote 5:

For Lucy Gray and Alice Fell, see Mr. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads.

Footnote 6:

Coleridge’s ‘Friend.’

Footnote 7:

‘There is not any burden that some would gladlier post off to
another than the charge and care of their religion. There be of
Protestants and professors who live and die in as arrant and
implicit faith as any lay Papist of Loretto. A wealthy man, addicted
to his pleasure and to his profits, finds religion to be a traffic
so entangled and of so many peddling accounts, that, of all
mysteries, he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade.
What should he do? Fain would he have the name to be religious: fain
would he bear up with his neighbours in that. What does he,
therefore, but resolves to give over toiling, and to find himself
out some factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole
management of his religious affairs; some divine of note and
estimation that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole
warehouse of his religion, with all the locks and keys, into his
custody, and, indeed, makes the very person of that man his
religion, esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and
commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say, his religion
is now no more within himself, but is become a dividual movable, and
goes and comes near him according as that good man frequents the
house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him:
his religion comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and
sumptuously laid to sleep, rises, is saluted, and after the malmsey,
or some well-spiced brewage, and better breakfasted than he whose
morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany
and Jerusalem, his religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his
kind entertainer in the shop, trading all day without his
religion.’—MILTON’S _Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing_.

Footnote 8:

‘I think I have established his humanity by proof that ought to
satisfy every one who gives credit to human testimony.’—_Ancient
Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 40.

‘I have brought myself to a perfect conviction that the oran outang is
a human creature as much as any of us.’—_Ibid._

‘Nihil humani ei deesse diceres praeter loquelam.’—BONTIUS.

‘The fact truly is, that the man is easily distinguishable in him; nor
are there any differences betwixt him and us, but what may be
accounted for in so satisfactory a manner that it would be
extraordinary and unnatural if they were not to be found. His body,
which is of the same shape as ours, is bigger and stronger than
ours, ... according to that general law of nature above observed
(_that all animals thrive best in their natural state_). His mind is
such as that of a man must be, uncultivated by arts and sciences, and
living wild in the woods.... One thing, at least, is certain: that if
ever men were in that state which I call natural, it must have been in
such a country and climate as Africa, where they could live without
art upon the natural fruits of the earth. “Such countries,” Linnaeus
says, “are the native country of man; there he lives naturally; in
other countries, _non nisi coacte_, that is, by force of art.” If this
be so, then the short history of man is, that the race, having begun
in those fine climates, and having, as is natural, multiplied there so
much that the spontaneous productions of the earth could not support
them, they migrated into other countries, where they were obliged to
invent arts for their subsistence; and with such arts, language, in
process of time, would necessarily come.... That my facts and
arguments are so convincing as to leave no doubt of the humanity of
the oran outang, I will not take upon me to say; but thus much I will
venture to affirm, that I have said enough to make the philosopher
consider it as problematical, and a subject deserving to be inquired
into. _For, as to the vulgar, I can never expect that they should
acknowledge any relation to those inhabitants of the woods of Angola_;
but that they should continue, through a false pride, to think highly
derogatory from human nature what the philosopher, on the contrary,
will think the greatest praise of man, that from the savage state in
which the oran outang is, he should, by his own sagacity and industry,
have arrived at the state in which we now see him.’—_Origin and
Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 5.

Footnote 9:

‘L’Oran Outang, ou l’homme des bois, est un être particulier à la zone
torride de notre hémisphère: le Pline de la nation qui l’a rangé dans
la classe de singes ne me paroît pas conséquent; car il résulte des
principaux traits de sa description que c’est un homme
dégénère.’—_Philosophie de la Nature._

Footnote 10:

‘The dispositions and affections of his mind are mild, gentle, and
humane.’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4.

‘The oran outang whom Buffon himself saw was of a sweet
temper.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 11:

‘But though I hold the oran outang to be of our species, it must not
be supposed that I think the monkey or ape, with or without a tail,
participates of our nature: on the contrary, I maintain that, however
much his form may resemble man’s, yet he is, as Linnaeus says, of the
Troglodyte, _nec nostri generis nec sanguinis_. For as the mind, or
internal principle, is the chief part of every animal, it is by it
principally that the ancients have distinguished the several species.
Now it is laid down by Mr. Buffon, and I believe it to be a fact that
cannot be contested, that neither monkey, ape, nor baboon, have
anything mild or gentle, tractable or docile, benevolent or humane in
their dispositions; but, on the contrary, are malicious and
untractable, to be governed only by force and fear, and without any
_gravity or composure in their gait or behaviour, such as the oran
outang has_.’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4.

Footnote 12:

‘He is capable of the greatest affection, not only to his brother oran
outangs, but to such among us as use him kindly. And it is a fact well
attested to me by a gentleman who was an eye-witness of it, that an
oran outang on board his ship conceived such an affection for the
cook, that when upon some occasion he left the ship to go ashore, the
gentleman saw the oran outang shed tears in great abundance.’—_Ibid._
book ii. chap. 4.

Footnote 13:

‘One of them was taken, and brought with some negro slaves to the
capital of the kingdom of Malemba. He was a young one, but six feet
and a half tall. Before he came to this city he had been kept some
months in company with the negro slaves, and during that time was tame
and gentle, and took his victuals very quietly; but when he was
brought into the town, such crowds of people came about him to gaze at
him, that he could not bear it, but grew sullen, abstained from food,
and died in four or five days.’—_Ibid._ book ii. chap. 4.

Footnote 14:

‘He has the capacity of being a musician, and has actually learned to
play upon the pipe and harp: a fact attested, not by a common
traveller, but by a man of science, Mr. Peiresc, and who relates it,
not as a hearsay, but as a fact consisting with his own knowledge. And
this is the more to be attended to, as it shows that the oran outang
has a perception of numbers, measure, and melody, which has always
been accounted peculiar to our species. But the learning to speak, as
well as the learning music, must depend upon particular circumstances;
and men living as the oran outangs do, upon the natural fruits of the
earth, with few or no arts, are not in a situation that is proper for
the invention of language. The oran outangs who played upon the pipe
had certainly not invented this art in the woods, but they had learned
it from the negroes or the Europeans; and that they had not at the
same time learned to speak, may be accounted for in one or other of
two ways: either the same pains had not been taken to teach them
articulation; or, secondly, music is more natural to man, and more
easily acquired than speech.’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book
ii. chap. 5.

Footnote 15:

‘Ces animaux,’ dit M. de la Brosse, ‘ont l’instinct de s’asseoir à
table comme les hommes; ils mangent de tout sans distinction; ils se
servent du couteau, de la cuillère, et de la fourchette, pour prendre
et couper ce qu’on sert sur l’assiette: _ils boivent du vin et
d’autres liqueurs_: nous les portâmes à bord; quand ils étoient à
table ils se faisoient entendre des mousses lorsqu’ils avoient besoin
de quelque chose.’—BUFFON.

Footnote 16:

‘If I can believe the newspapers, there was an oran outang of the
great kind, that was some time ago shipped aboard a French East India
ship. I hope he has had a safe voyage to Europe, and that his
education will be taken care of.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p.
40.

Footnote 17:

_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4.

Footnote 18:

‘Homo nocturnus, Troglodytes, silvestris, orang outang Bontii. Corpus
album, incessu erectum.... Loquitur sibilo, cogitat, ratiocinatur,
credit sui causa factam tellurem, se aliquando iterum fore
imperantem.’—LINNAEUS.

Footnote 19:

‘Il n’a point de queue: ses bras, ses mains, ses doigts, ses ongles,
sont pareils aux nôtres: il marche toujours debout: il a des traits
approchans de ceux de l’homme, des oreilles de la même forme, des
cheveux sur la tête, de la barbe au menton, et du poil ni plus ni
moins que l’homme en a dans l’état de nature. Aussi les habitans de
son pays, les Indiens policés, n’ont pas hésité de l’associer à
l’espèce humaine, par le nom d’oran outang, _homme sauvage_. Si l’on
ne faisoit attention qu’à la figure, on pourroit regarder l’oran
outang comme le premier des singes ou le dernier des hommes, parce
qu’à l’exception de l’âme, il ne lui manque rien de tout ce que nous
avons, et parce qu’il diffère moins de l’homme pour le corps qu’il ne
diffère des autres animaux auxquels on a donné le même nom de
singe.—S’il y avoit un degré par lequel on pût descendre de la nature
humaine à celle des animaux, si l’essence de cette nature consistoit
en entier dans la forme du corps et dépendoit de son organisation,
l’oran outang se trouveroit plus près de l’homme que d’aucun animal:
assis au second rang des êtres, s’il ne pouvoit commander en premier,
il feroit au moins sentir aux autres sa supériorité, et s’efforceroit
à ne pas obéir: si l’imitation qui semble copier de si près la pensée
en étoit le vrai signe ou l’un des résultats, il se trouveroit encore
à une plus grande distance des animaux et plus voisin de
l’homme.’—BUFFON.

‘On est tout étonné, d’après tous ces aveux, que M. de Buffon ne fasse
de l’oran outang qu’une espèce de magot, essentiellement circonscrit
dans les bornes de l’animalité: il falloit, ou infirmer les rélations
des voyageurs, ou s’en tenir à leurs résultats.—Quand on lit dans ce
naturaliste l’histoire du Nègre blanc, on voit que ce bipède diffère
de nous bien plus que l’oran outang, soit par l’organisation, soit par
l’intelligence, et cependant on ne balance pas à le mettre dans la
classe des hommes.’—_Philosophie de la Nature._

Footnote 20:

‘Les jugemens précipités, et qui ne sont point le fruit d’une raison
éclairée, sont sujets à donner dans l’excès. Nos voyageurs font sans
façon des bêtes, sous les noms de pongos, de mandrills, d’oran
outangs, de ces mêmes êtres, dont, sous le nom de satyres, de faunes,
de sylvains, les anciens faisoient des divinités. Peut-être, après des
recherches plus exactes, trouvera-t-on que ce sont des
hommes.’—ROUSSEAU, _Discours sur l’Inégalité_, note 8.

‘Il est presque démontré que les faunes, les satyres, les sylvains,
les ægipans, et toute cette foule de demi-dieux, difformes et
libertins, à qui les filles des Phocion et des Paul Émile s’avisèrent
de rendre hommage, ne furent dans l’origine que des oran outangs. Dans
la suite, les poëtes chargèrent le portrait de l’homme des bois, en
lui donnant des pieds de chèvre, une queue et des cornes; mais le type
primordial resta, et le philosophe l’apperçoit dans les monumens les
plus défigurés par l’imagination d’Ovide et le ciseau de Phidias. Les
anciens, très embarrassés de trouver la filiation de leurs sylvains,
et de leurs satyres, se tirèrent d’affaire en leur donnant des dieux
pour pères: les dieux étoient d’un grand secours aux philosophes des
temps reculés, pour résoudre les problèmes d’histoire naturelle; ils
leur servoient comme les cycles et les épicycles dans le système
planétaire de Ptolomée: avec des cycles et des dieux on répond à tout,
quoiqu’on ne satisfasse personne.’—_Philosophie de la Nature._

Footnote 21:

Orphica, Hymn. XI. (X _Gesn._)

Footnote 22:

The words in italics are from the _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. pp.
41, 42. Lord Monboddo adds: ‘I hold it to be impossible to convince
any philosopher, or any man of common sense, who has bestowed any time
to consider the mechanism of speech, that such various actions and
configurations of the organs of speech as are necessary for
articulation can be natural to man. Whoever thinks this possible,
should go and see, as I have done, Mr. Braidwood of Edinburgh, or the
Abbé de l’Epée in Paris, teach the dumb to speak; and when he has
observed all the different actions of the organs, which those
professors are obliged to mark distinctly to their pupils with a great
deal of pains and labour, so far from thinking articulation natural to
man, he will rather wonder how, by any teaching or imitation, he
should attain to the ready performance of such various and complicated
operations.’

‘Quoique l’organe de la parole soit naturel à l’homme, la parole
elle-même ne lui est pourtant pas naturelle.’—ROUSSEAU, _Discours sur
l’Inégalité_, note 8.

‘The oran outang, so accurately dissected by Tyson, had exactly the
same organs of voice that a man has.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii.
p. 44.

‘I have been told that the oran outang who is to be seen in Sir Ashton
Lever’s collection, had learned before he died to articulate some
words.’—_Ibid._ p. 40.

Footnote 23:

‘I desire any philosopher to tell me the specific difference between
an oran outang sitting at table, and behaving as M. de la Brosse or M.
Buffon himself has described him, and one of our dumb persons; and in
general I believe it will be very difficult, or rather impossible, for
a man who is accustomed to divide things according to specific marks,
not individual differences, to draw the line betwixt the oran outang
and the dumb persons among us: they have both their organs of
pronunciation, and both show signs of intelligence by their
actions.’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4.

Footnote 24:

_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iv. p. 55.

Footnote 25:

‘Toute la terre est couverte de nations, dont nous ne connoissons que
les noms, et nous nous mêlons de juger le genre humain! Supposons un
Montesquieu, un Buffon, un Diderot, un Duclos, un d’Alembert, un
Condillac, ou des hommes de cette trempe, voyageant pour instruire
leurs compatriotes, observant et décrivant comme ils sçavent faire, la
Turquie, l’Égypte, la Barbarie, l’Empire de Maroc, la Guinée, le pays
des Caffres, l’intérieur de l’Afrique et ses côtes orientales, les
Malabares, le Mogol, les rives du Gange, les royaumes de Siam, de Pégu
et d’Ava, la Chine, la Tartarie, et sur-tout le Japon; puis dans
l’autre hémisphère le Méxique, le Pérou, le Chili, les Terres
Magellaniques, sans oublier les Patagons vrais ou faux, le Tucuman, le
Paraguai, s’il étoit possible, le Brésil, enfin les Caraïbes, la
Floride, et toutes les contrées sauvages, voyage le plus important de
tous, et celui qu’il faudroit faire avec le plus de soin; supposons
que ces nouveaux Hercules, de retour de ces courses mémorables,
fissent à loisir l’histoire naturelle, morale, et politique de ce
qu’ils auroient vus, nous verrions nous-mêmes sortir un monde nouveau
de dessous leur plume, et nous apprendrions ainsi à connoître le
nôtre: je dis que quand de pareils observateurs affirmeront d’un tel
animal que c’est un homme, et d’un autre que c’est une bête, il faudra
les en croire: mais ce seroit une grande simplicité de s’en rapporter
là-dessus à des voyageurs grossiers, sur lesquels on seroit
quelquefois tenté de faire la même question qu’ils se mêlent de
résoudre sur d’autres animaux.’—ROUSSEAU, _Discours sur l’Inégalité_,
note 8.

Footnote 26:

ΑΝΩΦΕΛον ΑΧΘος ΑΡουρας. _Terrae pondus inutile._

Footnote 27:

_Agaricus_, in Botany, a genus of plants of the class Cryptogamia,
comprehending the mushroom, and a copious variety of toadstools.

Footnote 28:

ἐγγυς γαρ νυκτος τε και ἡματος εἰσι κελευθοι.

Footnote 29:

‘Ils sont si robustes, dit le traducteur de l’Histoire des Voyages,
que dix hommes ne suffiroient pas pour les arrêter.’—ROUSSEAU.

‘The oran outang is prodigiously strong.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol.
iv. p. 51; vol. v. p. 4.

‘I have heard the natives say, he can throw down a palm-tree, by his
amazing strength, to come at the wine.’—_Letter of a Bristol Merchant
in a note to the Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4.

Footnote 30:

See Louvet’s _Récit de mes Périls_.

Footnote 31:

Rousseau, _Émile_, liv. 5.

Footnote 32:

‘L’issue aucthorise souvent une tres-inepte conduitte. Nostre
entremise n’est quasy qu’une routine, et plus communement
consideration d’usage et d’exemple que de raison.... L’heur et le
malheur sont à mon gré deux souveraines puissances. C’est imprudence
d’estimer que l’humaine prudence puisse remplir le roolle de la
fortune. Et vaine est l’entreprinse de celuy qui presume d’embrasser
et causes et consequences, et meiner par la main le progrez de son
faict.... Qu’on reguarde qui sont les plus puissans aux villes, et
qui font mieulx leurs besongnes, on trouvera ordinairement que ce
sont les moins habiles.... Nous attribuons les effects de leur bonne
fortune à leur prudence.... Parquoy je dy bien, en toutes façons,
que les evenements sont maigres tesmoings de nostre prix et
capacité.’—MONTAIGNE, liv. iii. chap. 8.

Footnote 33:

Ecclesiastes, chap. iv.

Footnote 34:

_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4.

Footnote 35:

‘I have endeavoured to support the ancient definition of man, and to
show that it belongs to the oran outang, though he have not the use of
speech. And indeed it appears surprising to me that any man,
pretending to be a philosopher, should not be satisfied with the
expression of intelligence in the most useful way for the purposes of
life; I mean by actions; but should require likewise the expression of
them, by those signs of arbitrary institution we call _words_, before
they will allow an animal to deserve the name of _man_. Suppose that,
upon inquiry, it should be found that the oran outangs have not only
invented the art of building huts, and of attacking and defending with
sticks, _but also have contrived a way of communicating to the absent,
and recording their ideas by the method of painting or drawing_, as is
practised by many barbarous nations (and the supposition is not at all
impossible, or even improbable); and suppose they should have
contrived some form of government, and should elect kings or rulers,
which is possible, and, according to the information of the Bristol
merchant above mentioned, is reported to be actually the case, what
would Mr. Buffon then say? Must they still be accounted brutes,
because they have not yet fallen upon the method of communication by
articulate sounds?’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap.
4.

Footnote 36:

Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey.’

Footnote 37:

The _Iliad_.

Footnote 38:

The _Odyssey_.

Footnote 39:

The _Prometheus_ of Aeschylus.

Footnote 40:

The _Philoctetes_ of Sophocles.

Footnote 41:

The _Hippolytus_ of Euripides.

Footnote 42:

‘Je l’ai vu présenter sa main pour reconduire les gens qui venoient le
visiter; se promener gravement avec eux et comme de compagnie,
etc.’—BUFFON. _H. N. de l’Oran Outang._

Footnote 43:

Fletcher’s ‘Sea Voyage.’

Footnote 44:

Anima certe, quia spiritus est, in sicco habitare non potest.

Footnote 45:

_Edinburgh Review_, No. liii. p. 10.

Footnote 46:

See the preface to the third volume of the _Ancient Metaphysics_. See
also Rousseau’s _Discourse on Inequality_ and that on the _Arts and
Sciences_.

Footnote 47:

nam si Pieria quadrans tibi nullus in umbra
ostendatur, ames nomen victumque Machaerae,
et vendas potius commissa quod auctio vendit, etc.—JUV.

Footnote 48:

‘They use an artificial weapon for attack and defence, viz. a stick,
which no animal merely brute is known to do.’—_Origin and Progress of
Language_, book ii. chap. 4.

Footnote 49:

‘There is a story of one of them, which seems to show they have a
sense of justice as well as honour. For a negro having shot a female
of this kind, that was feeding among his Indian corn, the male, whom
our author calls the husband of this female, pursued the negro into
his house, of which having forced open the door, he seized the negro
and dragged him out of the house to the place where his wife lay dead
or wounded, and the people of the neighbourhood could not rescue the
negro, nor force the oran to quit his hold of him, till they shot him
likewise.’—_Origin and Progress of Language_, book ii. chap. 4.

Footnote 50:

See Chap. IV.

Footnote 51:

‘Homer has said nothing, positively, of the size of any of his heroes,
but only comparatively, as I shall presently observe: nor is this to
be wondered at; for I know no historian, ancient or modern, that says
anything of the size of the men of his own nation, except
comparatively with that of other nations. But in that fine episode of
his, called by the ancient critics the Τειχοσκοπια or _Prospect from
the Walls_, he has given us a very accurate description of the persons
of several of the Greek heroes; which I am persuaded he had from very
good information. In this description he tells us that Ulysses was
shorter than Agamemnon by the head, shorter than Menelaus by the head
and shoulders, and that Ajax was taller than any of the Greeks by the
head and shoulders; consequently, Ulysses was shorter than Ajax by two
heads and shoulders, which we cannot reckon less than four feet. Now,
if we suppose heroes to have been no bigger than we, then Ajax must
have been a man about six feet and a half, or at most seven feet; and
if so Ulysses must have been most contemptibly short, not more than
three feet, which is certainly not the truth, but a most absurd and
ridiculous fiction, such as we cannot suppose in Homer: whereas, if we
allow Ajax to have been twelve or thirteen feet high, and, much more,
if we suppose him to have been eleven cubits, as Philostratus makes
him, Ulysses, though four feet short of him, would have been of a good
size, and, with the extraordinary breadth which Homer observes he had,
may have been as strong a man as Ajax.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol.
iii. p. 146.

Footnote 52:

‘It was only in after-ages, when the size of men was greatly
decreased, that the bodies of those heroes, if they happened to be
discovered, were, as was natural, admired and exactly measured. Such a
thing happened in Laconia, where the body of Orestes was discovered,
and found to be of length seven cubits, that is, ten feet and a half.
The story is most pleasantly told by Herodotus, and is to this effect:
The Lacedemonians were engaged in a war with the Tegeatae, a people of
Arcadia, in which they were unsuccessful. They consulted the oracle at
Delphi, what they should do in order to be more successful. The oracle
answered ‘That they must bring to Sparta the bones of Orestes, the son
of Agamemnon.’ But these bones they could not find, and therefore they
sent again to the oracle to inquire where Orestes lay buried. The god
answered in hexameter verse, but so obscurely and enigmatically that
they could not understand what he meant. They went about inquiring
everywhere for the bones of Orestes, till at last a wise man among
them, called by Herodotus _Liches_, found them out, partly by good
fortune, and partly by good understanding; for, happening to come one
day to a smith’s shop in the country of the Tegeatae, with whom at
that time there was a truce and intercourse betwixt the two nations,
he looked at the operations of the smith, and seemed to admire them
very much; which the smith observing, stopped his work, and,
“Stranger,” says he, “you that seem to admire so much the working of
iron would have wondered much more if you had seen what I saw lately;
for, as I was digging for a well in this court here, I fell upon a
coffin that was seven cubits long; but _believing that there never
were at any time bigger men than the present_, I opened the coffin,
and found there a dead body as long as the coffin, which having
measured I again buried.” Hearing this, the Spartan conjectured that
the words of the oracle would apply to a smith’s shop, and to the
operations there performed; but taking care not to make this discovery
to the smith, he prevailed on him, with much difficulty, to give him a
lease of the court; which having obtained, he opened the coffin, and
carried the bones to Sparta. After which, says our author, the
Spartans were upon every occasion superior in fight to the
Tegeatae.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 146.

‘The most of our philosophers at present are, I believe, of the
opinion of the smith in Herodotus, who might be excused for having
that opinion at a time when perhaps no other heroic body had been
discovered. But in later times, I believe there was not the most
vulgar man in Greece, who did not believe that those heroes were very
much superior, both in mind and body, to the men of after-times.
Indeed, they were not considered as mere men, but as something betwixt
gods and men, and had _heroic_ honours paid them, which were next to
the _divine_. On the stage they were represented as of extraordinary
size, both as to length and breadth; for the actor was not only raised
upon very high shoes, which they called _cothurns_, but he was put
into a case that swelled his size prodigiously (and I have somewhere
read a very ridiculous story of one of them, who, coming upon the
stage, fell and broke his case, so that all the trash with which it
was stuffed, came out and was scattered upon the stage in the view of
the whole people). This accounts for the high style of ancient
tragedy, in which the heroes speak a language so uncommon, that, if I
considered them as men nowise superior to us, I should think it little
better than fustian, and should be apt to apply to it what Falstaff
says to Pistol: “Pr’ythee, Pistol, speak like a man of this world.”
And I apply the same observation to Homer’s poems. If I considered his
heroes as no more than men of this world, I should consider the things
he relates of them as quite ridiculous; but believing them to be men
very much superior to us, I read Homer with the highest admiration,
not only as a poet, but as the historian of the noblest race of men
that ever existed. Thus, by having right notions of the superiority of
men in former times, we both improve our philosophy of man and our
taste in poetry.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 150.

Footnote 53:

‘But though we should give no credit to those ancient authors, there
are monuments still extant, one particularly to be seen in our own
island, which I think ought to convince every man that the men of
ancient times were much superior to us, at least in the powers of the
body. The monument I mean is well known by the name of Stonehenge, and
there are several of the same kind to be seen in Denmark and Germany.
I desire to know where are the arms now, that, with so little help of
machinery as they must have had, could have raised and set up on end
such a number of prodigious stones, and put others on the top of them,
likewise of very great size? Such works are said by the peasants in
Germany to be the works of giants, and I think they must have been
giants compared with us. And, indeed, the men who erected Stonehenge
could not, I imagine, be of size inferior to that man whose body was
found in a quarry near to Salisbury, within a mile of which Stonehenge
stands. The body of that man was fourteen feet ten inches. The fact is
attested by an eye-witness, one Elyote, who writes, I believe, the
first English-Latin Dictionary that ever was published. It is printed
in London in 1542, in folio, and has, under the word _Gigas_, the
following passage: “About thirty years past and somewhat more, I
myself beynge with my father Syr Rycharde Elyote at a monastery of
regular canons, called Juy Churche, two myles from the citie of
Sarisburye, beholde the bones of a deade man founde deep in the
grounde, where they dygged stone, which being joined togyther, was in
length xiiii feet and ten ynches, there beynge mette; whereof one of
the teethe my father hadde, whych was of the quantytie of a great
walnutte. This have I wrytten, because some menne wylle believe
nothynge that is out of the compasse of theyre owne knowledge, and yet
some of them presume to have knowledge, above any other, contempnynge
all men but themselfes or suche as they favour.” It is for the reason
mentioned by this author that I have given so many examples of the
greater size of men than is to be seen in our day, to which I could
add several others concerning bodies that have been found in this our
island, particularly one mentioned by Hector Boece in his _Description
of Scotland_, prefixed to his Scotch History, where he tells us that
in a certain church which he names in the shire of Murray, the bones
of a man of much the same size as those of the man mentioned by
Elyote, viz. fourteen feet, were preserved. One of these bones Boece
himself saw, and has particularly described.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_,
vol. iii. p. 156.

‘But without having recourse to bones or monuments of any kind, if a
man has looked upon the world as long as I have done with any
observation he must be convinced that the size of man is diminishing.
I have seen such bodies of men as are not now to be seen: I have
observed in families, of which I have known three generations, a
gradual decline in that, and I am afraid in other respects. Others may
think otherwise; but for my part I have so great a veneration for our
ancestors, that I have much indulgence for that ancient superstition
among the Etrurians, and from them derived to the Romans, of
worshipping the _manes_ of their ancestors under the names of _Lares_
or domestic gods, which undoubtedly proceeded upon the supposition
that they were men superior to themselves, and their departed souls
such genii as Hesiod has described,

ἐσθλοι, ἀλεξικακοι, φυλακες θνητων ἀνθρωπων.

And if antiquity and the universal consent of nations can give a
sanction to any opinion, it is to this, that our forefathers were
better men than we. Even as far back as the Trojan war, the best age
of men of which we have any particular account, Homer has said that
few men were better than their fathers, and the greater part worse:

οἱ πλεονες κακιους, παυροι δε τε πατρος ἀρειους.

And this he puts into the mouth of the Goddess of Wisdom.... But when
I speak of the universal consent of nations, I ought to except the
men, and particularly the young men, of this age, who generally
believe themselves to be better men than their fathers, or than any of
their predecessors.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 161.

Footnote 54:

ἡμεις μεν προπαν ἡμαρ, ἐς ἡελιον καταδυντα,
ἡμεθα, δαινυμενοι κρεα τ’ ἀσπετα και μεθυ ἡδυ κτλ.

Footnote 55:

The nightingale is gay,
For she can vanquish night,
Dreaming, she sings of day,
Notes that make darkness bright.

But when the refluent gloom
Saddens the gaps of song,
We charge on her the dolefulness,
And call her crazed with wrong.—PATMORE.

Footnote 56:

Hudibras, Part III. ii. 1493.

Footnote 57:

See Forsyth’s _Principles of Moral Science_.

Footnote 58:

‘Il buvoit du vin, mais le laissoit volontiers pour du lait, du thé,
ou d’autres liqueurs douces.’—BUFFON _of the Oran Outang, whom he saw
himself in Paris_.

Footnote 59:

See Mr. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads.

Footnote 60:

The figures of speech marked in italics are familiar to the admirers
of parliamentary rhetoric.

Footnote 61:

_Supplices_, 807, ed. Schutz.

Footnote 62:

Matthew xi. 19.

Footnote 63:

‘He that will mould a modern bishop into a primitive, must yield him
to be elected by the popular voice, undiocesed, unrevenued, unlorded,
and leave him nothing but brotherly equality, matchless temperance,
frequent fasting, incessant prayer and preaching, continual watchings
and labours in his ministry, which, what a rich booty it would be,
what a plump endowment to the many-benefice-gaping mouth of a prelate,
what a relish it would give to his canary-sucking and swan-eating
palate, let old bishop Mountain judge for me.—They beseech us, that we
would think them fit to be our justices of peace, our lords, our
highest officers of state, though they come furnished with no more
knowledge than they learnt between the cook and the manciple, or more
profoundly at the college audit, or the regent house, or to come to
their deepest insight, at their patron’s table.’—MILTON: _Of
Reformation in England_.

Footnote 64:

‘Much have those travellers to answer for, whose casual intercourse
with this innocent and simple people tends to corrupt them:
disseminating among them ideas of extravagance and dissipation—giving
them a taste for pleasures and gratifications of which they had no
ideas—inspiring them with discontent at home—and tainting their rough
industrious manners with idleness and a thirst after dishonest means.

‘If travellers would frequent this country with a view to examine its
grandeur and beauty, or to explore its varied and curious regions with
the eye of philosophy—if, in their passage through it, they could be
content with such fare as the country produces, or at least reconcile
themselves to it by manly exercise and fatigue (for there is a time
when the stomach and the plainest food will be found in perfect
harmony)—if they could thus, instead of corrupting the manners of an
innocent people, learn to amend their own, by seeing in how narrow a
compass the wants of human life may be compressed—a journey through
these wild scenes might be attended, perhaps, with more improvement
than a journey to Rome or Paris. Where manners are polished into
vicious refinement, simplifying is the best mode of improving; and the
example of innocence is a more instructive lesson than any that can be
taught by artists and literati.

‘But these parts are too often the resort of gay company, who are
under no impressions of this kind—who have no ideas but of extending
the sphere of their amusements, or of varying a life of dissipation.
The grandeur of the country is not taken into the question, or at
least it is not otherwise considered than as affording some new mode
of pleasurable enjoyment. Thus, even the diversions of Newmarket are
introduced—diversions, one would imagine, more foreign to the nature
of this country than any other. A number of horses are carried into
the middle of the lake in a flat boat: a plug is drawn from the
bottom: the boat sinks, and the horses are left floating on the
surface. In different directions they make to land, and the horse
which arrives soonest secures the prize.’—GILPIN’S _Picturesque
Observations on Cumberland and Westmoreland_, vol. ii. p. 67.

Footnote 65:

‘The necessary consequence of men living in so unnatural a way with
respect to houses, clothes, and diet, and continuing to live so for
many generations, each generation adding to the vices, diseases, and
weaknesses produced by the unnatural life of the preceding, is, that
they must gradually decline in strength, health, and longevity, till
at length the race dies out. To deny this would be to deny that the
life allotted by nature to man is the best life for the preservation
of his health and strength; for, if it be so, I think it is
demonstration that the constant deviation from it, going on for many
centuries, must end in the extinction of the race.’—_Ancient
Metaphysics_, vol. v. p. 237.

Footnote 66:

‘Rome, le siège de la gloire et de la vertu, si jamais elles en eurent
un sur la terre.’—ROUSSEAU.

Footnote 67:

——extrema per illos
Justitia, excedens terris, vestigia fecit.—VIRG.

Footnote 68:

_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8.

Footnote 69:

_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8.

Footnote 70:

See _Xenophon’s Memorabilia_.

Footnote 71:

_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8.

Footnote 72:

si tantum culti solus possederis agri,
quantum sub Tatio populus Romanus arabat.—JUV.

Footnote 73:

_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. v. book iv. chap. 8.

Footnote 74:

‘Pochi compagni avrai per l’altra via:
Tanto ti prego più, gentile spirto,
Non lasciar la magnanima tua impresa.’—PETRARCA.

Footnote 75:

‘If it were seriously asked (and it would be no untimely question),
who of all teachers and masters that have ever taught hath drawn the
most disciples after him, both in religion and in manners, it might be
not untruly answered, Custom. Though Virtue be commended for the most
persuasive in her theory, and Conscience in the plain demonstration of
the spirit finds most evincing; yet, whether it be the secret of
divine will, or the original blindness we are born in, so it happens
for the most part that Custom still is silently received for the best
instructor. Except it be because her method is so glib and easy, in
some manner like to that vision of Ezekiel, rolling up her sudden book
of implicit knowledge, for him that will to take and swallow down at
pleasure; which proving but of bad nourishment in the concoction, as
it was heedless in the devouring, puffs up unhealthily a certain big
face of pretended learning, mistaken among credulous men for the
wholesome habit of soundness and good constitution, but is, indeed, no
other than that swoln visage of counterfeit knowledge and literature
which not only in private mars our education, but also in public is
the common climber into every chair where either religion is preached
or law reported, filling each estate of life and profession with
abject and servile principles, depressing the high and heaven-born
spirit of man, far beneath the condition wherein either God created
him, or sin hath sunk him. To pursue the allegory, Custom being but a
mere face, as Echo is a mere voice, rests not in her unaccomplishment,
until by secret inclination she accorporate herself with Error, who
being a blind and serpentine body, without a head, willingly accepts
what he wants, and supplies what her incompleteness went seeking:
hence it is that Error supports Custom, Custom countenances Error, and
these two, between them, would persecute and chase away all truth and
solid wisdom out of human life, were it not that God, rather than man,
once in many ages calls together the prudent and religious counsels of
men deputed to repress the encroachments, and to work off the
inveterate blots and obscurities wrought upon our minds by the subtle
insinuating of Error and Custom, who, with the numerous and vulgar
train of their followers, make it their chief design to envy and cry
down the industry of free reasoning, under the terms of humour and
innovation, as if the womb of teeming Truth were to be closed up, if
she presume to bring forth aught that sorts not with their unchewed
notions and suppositions; against which notorious injury and abuse of
man’s free soul, to testify and oppose the utmost that study and true
labour can attain, heretofore the incitement of men reputed grave hath
led me among others, and now the duty and the right of an instructed
Christian calls me through the chance of good or evil report TO BE THE
SOLE ADVOCATE OF A DISCOUNTENANCED TRUTH.’—MILTON: _The Doctrine and
Discipline of Divorce_.

Footnote 76:

Ιλ. Ζ. 261.

Footnote 77:

The words in italics are Lord Monboddo’s: _Ancient Metaphysics_, vol.
iii. preface, p. 79.

Footnote 78:

ῥιζῃ μεν μελαν ἐστι, γαλακτι δε εἰκελον ἀνθος,
ΜΩΛΥ δε μιν καλεουσι θεοι, χαλεπον δε τ’ ὀρυσσειν
θνητοις ἀνθρωποισι.

Footnote 79:

The reader who is desirous of elucidating the mysteries of the words
and phrases marked in italics in this chapter may consult the German
works of Professor Kant, or Professor Born’s Latin translation of
them, or M. Villar’s _Philosophie de Kant, ou Principes fondamentaux
de la Philosophie Transcendentale_; or the first article of the second
number of the _Edinburgh Review_, or the article ‘Kant,’ in the
_Encyclopaedia Londinensis_, or Sir William Drummond’s _Academical
Questions_, book ii. chap. 9.

Footnote 80:

Πρωτευς Ὀλβοδοτης, _Proteus the giver of riches_, certainly deserves a
place among the _Lares_ of every poetical and political turncoat.

Footnote 81:

See the Βατραχοι of Aristophanes.

Footnote 82:

informi limo glaucaque exponit in ulva.

Footnote 83:

_Coleridge’s Lay Sermon_, p. 10.

Footnote 84:

_Ibid._

Footnote 85:

_Ibid._ p. 21.

Footnote 86:

_Ibid._ p. 25.

Footnote 87:

_Ibid._ p. 27.

Footnote 88:

_Ibid._ pp. 45, 46 (where the reader may find in a note the two worst
jokes that ever were cracked).

Footnote 89:

_Ibid._ p. 17.

Footnote 90:

‘Some travellers speak of his strength as wonderful; greater they say,
than that of ten men such as we.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p.
105.

Footnote 91:

_Esquisse d’un Tableau historique des Progrès de l’Esprit humain._

Footnote 92:

_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 139.

Footnote 93:

_Ibid._ p. 193.

Footnote 94:

_Ibid._ p. 191.

Footnote 95:

_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 181.

Footnote 96:

_Ibid._ p. 182.

Footnote 97:

Cottle’s Edda, or, as the author calls it, _Translation_ of the Edda,
which is a misnomer.

Footnote 98:

_Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 237.

Footnote 99:

_Ibid._

Footnote 100:

_Ibid._ p. 252.

Footnote 101:

_Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 252.

Footnote 102:

_Ibid._

Footnote 103:

_Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 226.

Footnote 104:

_Ibid._

Footnote 105:

_Ibid._ p. 236.

Footnote 106:

_Ibid._ p. 226.

Footnote 107:

_Ibid._ p. 228.

Footnote 108:

_Ibid._

Footnote 109:

_Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 273, _et passim_.

Footnote 110:

_Ibid._ p. 258.

Footnote 111:

_Ibid._

Footnote 112: