1849.J Moral Tone of Literature. 129 peating, like a parrot, the names by which they are designated. It will carve out a log and hew out a stone and worship it as a divinity. The unbelieving and independent priest of reason becomes the devotee of superstition. A religious spirit, which regards the end and not simply the means, is necessary to relieve science itself of its imperfections, to breathe life into the withered flower, to bid the dead stand up and live. Unless man have faith in spiritual powers before which he is an ignorant and feeble child, unless his philosophy rise above the visible and the tangible, and he feel the dependence of the finite upon the infinite, the seen upon the unseen, the created upon the Creator,unless he look for his motives and objects beyond "this bank and shoal of time," and his spirit be touched by the powers of eternity, how can his mind expand to the dimension of those themes which, as a scholar, he is bound to be conversant with? Of necessity he must fall below the tone of feeling requisite for the appreciation of the grand and beautiful in human life, and in nature itself; he will be a poor critic and a false prophet. As a statesman or a moralist, in natural philosophy as truly as in spiritual, he will carry the seeds of error and confusion. Is it not the moral tone of literature, from Aeschylus and Plato downward, which gives it its true grandeur? How have the great, bards ever been imbued with the ethical spirit! What but this has carried them to the profoundest depths, has bid them soar on boldest wing, has imparted to them a permanent interest, the same from age to age, unharmed by fashion, by caprice, by revolutions? Is it not precisely this which gives the prince of the modern drama his strongest hold on the heart? In his Tragedies, the mind is hurried away from its temporal, economical calculations, by the vast current of thought and feeling sweeping on towards the ultimate destiny of existence. Life is rendered dignified, awful, by its relations to infinite results. To teach morality is not the object of Shakspeare; but in some of his scenes there is the essence of a thousand homilies, and it is this solemn spirit, answering to the hopes, the fears, the trembling solicitude of the universal heart of the race, which informs those great works and makes them speak to every human soul. The catastrophe of each can be explained and justified only in reference to futurity, and thence it happened that the sceptical ages of English history were those in which this great poet sank comparatively out of sight; they knew him not. Hence, too, in the department of criticism, he has received the severest treatment at the hands of that nation whose lack of faith is their intellectual, no less than their moral curse. Another consideration of no small consequence is, that many of the profoundest questions of the day, those to which the mind of every scholar should be awake, are those in which the moral element is most prominent. The great problems in philosophy, in government, in philanthropy, not only cannot be solved, but cannot even be intelligently approached, but by a serious and earnest mind. There are grave questions to be determined in our day. It is not very wild to presume that the immense extension of our control over physical agents, the annihilation of distances, the throwing open to civilization of hitherto untouched domains, the increase of international sympathy, the wide-flowing currents of population pressing upon the heels of the pioneers, the unsettled elements of governments, the activity and energy of popular will-that all these, to say nothing of profounder moral facts, betoken at some time a vehement strife of opinion, to be paralleled, it may be, in former times, but not probably surpassed. Nor is it very difficult to see that many of the questions likely to arise are essentially religious in their grand characteristics. They are such as the authority and sanctions of law, the relations of governments and of governed, the conflict or the harmony of reason and faith, the means and the objects of philanthropy,-not to speak of those which pertain more especially to the nature, relations, and prospects of the In these wide subjects, the practical and the speculative meet. We cannot shrink from at least entertaining these questions, without forfeiting our rights as scholars; for whether we regard them or not, they will occupy the public attention, and a favorable or disastrous judgment will be pronounced. Themes beyond the apprehension of the undevout are ever present to the religious student; themes, before which those of ordinary concern, yes, and the grandest and saddest of secular history fade entirely from our vision. For him there is antiquity which the other has never thought of, and a future which no imagination has ventured to depict. We may approach the same conclusion by another road. It has been generally conceded, that no study demands a broader mind, a profounder philosophy, or a better acquaintance with practical affairs than the really thorough study of history. But in most of the great epochs for the last 1800 years, the religious element has been most prominent, -the era of Gregory the Great, of Hildebrande, of Innocent III, of the Crusades, of the Reformation, of the English Commonwealth,— periods which no contemptuous, sneering spirit can comprehend, still less assign their true value in the progress of the race. Ever since the birth of Christianity, that gentle and subtle but mighty element has been working at the heart of all the activities of the civilized world. Everything that we see or hear is touched by it. The painting, the statue, the cathedral, the poem, the history, the oration, all are informed 1849.] Main Elements of a Scholar's Life. 131 with ideas that the old heathen never dreamed of. Nay, more: every dwelling house, with its comfortable and modest adjustments, every rail-road, every commonest and most practical arrangement of social life, bespeak the presence and activity of spiritual principles, such as the ancients never knew. What then are the anticipations, sentiments, speculations, faith, all that goes to make up the intellectual life of the modern? Are they not modified by the religious element of the times? And can literature, which is one expression of these sentiments, be truly interpreted, can there be a profound and philosophical criticism, without a mind in harmony with this all-pervading, plastic power? Even more certain, without such a mind, will be the impossibility of forming a just estimate of the great historical periods, or of seeing anything but a loose and purposeless flux and reflux in the strange currents of human affairs. The progress of the race will become an impracticable, but not harmless dream, or be resolved into a fixed cycle, where the magnus saeculorum ordo shall bring round again, after a while, the same series of madness, and follies, and crimes. The mind which rests its hope, not in a fluctuating present, nor in a visionary future, but in the expressed purpose of Providence, will alone have security against disappointment. We cannot fully understand the parts without knowing something of the whole. Had the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to his gigantic learning but added a devout spirit, what an insight would it not have given him into the philosophy of his grand and melancholy theme! How it would have checked his sneering scepticism and rendered his work a more sublime monument to his genius, as well as more wholesome and safe. Had the moral tone of the historian of England but equalled the intellectual acuteness, how much broader, fairer, and profounder would have been both the investigations and the conclusions of his work; how much stronger his sympathy with moral and religious heroism, of which there were within his scope examples so abundant; how much more genial and earnest his care for human welfare; how much nobler his sentiments! With all the acuteness of that subtle genius, there was wanting the moral sympathies absolutely essential for estimating fairly a nation like the English, as truly as for judging wisely of the progress and the hopes of humanity. We have thus endeavored to detail some of the elements of a scholar's life, mainly as springing from his most prominent relations,-his relations to truth, to his fellow men, to his country, and to God, in order to fix a little more definitely than may be usual, the spirit which we should bring to study, or, as scholars, carry into the business of life; the spirit with which every professional man, and every lover of learn ing should pursue his course, in order to leave the best impress upon his age, since it cannot but be of consequence to any people to secure a right aim and temper to its learned men. For the proper training of educated men, we must look mainly to our colleges and universities. We cannot create a literature by a wish or a word, or by long discourses. This is not the place to discuss the importance or the responsibilities of our highest institutions of education, yet from them have descended the strongest and best influences upon learning, and it is no mean element in our prosperity that they be liberally sustained and wisely guided. So far as these elements of a scholar's life are violated, or become depressed and despised and neglected, will his prevailing tendencies bear evidence of it. The best days of literature have been those in which were cherished sentiments most elevated, pure, patriotic, religious, and in proportion as these have failed, intellectual strength has fallen too. Sentiments which one age would have been ashamed to utter, have become the common possession of the next, but the loss of virtue has ever been the loss of life and energy. Unfortunate for our institutions, and the best interests of sound learning will be the day when educated men neglect the high aims which, in all circumstances, even in those most adverse to letters, they are bound faithfully to cherish, or at least to remember and revere; the spirit of one familiar with great thoughts, refined, elevated, gentle, earnest, devout; the spirit which attended on Dante as he wandered, an exile, from the door of one reluctant patron to another; which went with Spenser to wild, distracted Ireland; and solaced Raleigh in prison. No learning, no skill, no measure of talent can afford the least substitute for this. There is nothing truly great in letters to be hoped for without it. Nay, without it, we almost shrink from learning itself, as from the earthy touch of Caliban, or the deadly evil of Iago. Indeed it is no mean, no common thing to be a scholar. He may receive little public favor, the outward incidents of his life may be the briefest and least note-worthy, yet he may have fixed the laws of the world's thought for ages. Because of him, empires may flourish or go to premature decay, and, century after city and tower have sunk to their primitive dust, his name may hallow the very ground on which they stood. The ruined Parthenon has a beauty quite distinct from its exquisite symmetry, when we call to mind Aeschylus and Sophocles; we walk along the sands of the Troad with a fresher step when we know that once Homer passed along there. We stand upon the pyramid with a more thoughtful and solemn spirit, when we remember that perhaps the foot of Plato once pressed the same summit, and his eye looked off to Memphis and old Thebes. 1849.] Great Scholars speak to all Times. 133 A scholar's life is inward and spiritual, but not therefore ineffective. It is invisible, and its power may not be at once detected. Thoughts and feelings, sufferings and enjoyments, these records of the mind and heart, we are not anxious to protrude to the common gaze. They are the sacred treasure of the man, and when messengers from foreign kings come to him he is not, like the Hebrew monarch, so vain as to carry them through the secret chambers of his glory and power. How little do we know of the inner life of him who, when he was a young man, went from his native Stratford, lived carelessly with his fellowplayers, wrote his thirty-seven dramas, then went quietly back again to the banks of the beautiful Avon, and spent serenely the remainder of his days; or of that other bard sublime who, blind and deserted, solaced the sad evening of his hopes with visions of immortality. In the common affairs which men call great, they had little share, and those faculties by which they wrought their work upon earth, were as much a mystery to themselves as to others; but in what civilized land, in whatever so remote age, will their power be unacknowledged? Great scholars speak to all time. What is earthly in them goes down to the common grave of mortality; their better part lives forever. Plato, in the Critias, still argues of obedience to the law; in the Phaedo, of immortality. Cicero discourses on old age, on friendship, on oratory. Kepler and Newton will hold their schools down to the end of time; Bacon, always propound his aphorisms; Butler, to the latest age, discourse on the Analogy. Fit audience shall they all find, speaking ever to the choicest minds. Those kings and priests of learning, we may follow, afar off indeed, but with true loyalty and faith. The aims of every true-hearted scholar of even the humblest pretensions, are the same with theirs. To be of large mind, of broad sympathies, to comprehend, if possible, art, science, practice, life itself; to bring a unity into the various branches of knowledge, to raise the public tastes, direct the public thought, conserve the public welfare,-these are the purposes, this the spirit of both. In a country like ours, whose activities are so various and so intense, where public virtue is so universal that you cannot find a man afraid or unwilling to assume any responsibility, ne quid detrimenti respublica caperet, it is the more important as it may be more difficult, to see to it that learning loses none of its honor, and in order that it should not, that scholars should cultivate the best spirit, should never forget that their mission is to be sacredly joined to every other. Learning has been often opposed and its institutions suffered to languish in want, or actually to die from inanition, on account of low prejudices against knowledge, or a blind fear that it would oppose some vulgar VOL. VI. No. 21. 12 |