Essays in a series of letters ... The eighth edition

Front matter

ESSAYS IN A SERIES OF LETTERS. BY JOHN FOSTER, AUTHOR OF "AN ESSAY ON POPULAR IGNORANCE." So . THE NINTH EDITION, CORRECTED. LONDON : HOLDSWORTH AND BALL, 18, st. Paul's church yard. MDCCCXXX. LONDON : R. CLAY, TR1NTEK, 7, BKF.AD-S TREET-HILL, CHEAPSIDE.

ADVERTISEMENT.

. Perhaps it will be thought that pieces written so much in the manner of set compositions as the following, should not have been denominated Letters ; it may therefore be proper to say, that they are so called because they were actually addressed to a friend. They were written however with an intention to put them in print, if, when they were finished, the writer could per suade himself that they deserved it ; and the temper of even the most inconsiderable pretenders to literature in these times is too well known for any one to be surprised that he could so persuade himself. When he began these letters, his intention was to confine himself within such limits, that essays on twelve or fifteen subjects might be comprised in a volume. But he soon found that so narrow a space would exclude many illustrations not less appropriate or useful than any which would be introduced.

Letter I

Affectionate interest with which we revert to our past lite. — It deserves a brief record for our own use. — Very few things to be noted of the multitude that have occurred. — Direction and use of such a review as would be, required for writing a Memoir. — Importance of our past life considered as the beginning of an endless duration of existence. — General deficiency of self-observation. — Oblivion of the greatest number of our past feelings. — Occasional glimpses of vivid recollection. — Associations with things and places. — The different and unknown associations of different persons with the same places Page 1

Letter II

All past life an education. — Discipline and influence from — direct instruction — companionship — books — scenes of nature — and the state of society p. 13 LETTER Hi. Very powerful impressions sometimes from particular facts, tending l(j form discriminated characters. — Yet very few strongly discri minated and individual characters found. — Most persons belong to general classes ofeliaracter. — Immense number and diversity of impressions, of indefinitely various tendency, which the moral being has undergone in the course of life. — Might be expected that such a confusion of influences would not permit the formation dl" any settled character.- — That such a character is, nevertheless, CONTENTS. acquired and maintained, is owing to some one leading determination, given by whatever means, to the mind, generally in early life. — Common self-deceptive belief that we have maintained moral rectitude, and the exercise of sound reason, under the impressions that have been forming our characters p. 2 1

Letter IV

Most of the influences under which the characters of men are forming unfavourable to wisdom, virtue, and happiness. — Proof of this if a number of persons, suppose a hundred, were to give a clear account of the circumstances that have most affected the state of their minds. — A few examples — a misanthropist — a lazy preju diced thinker — a man fancying himself a genius — a projector — an antiquary in excess — a petty tyrant p. 37

Letter V

An Atheist. — Slight sketch of the process by which a man in the humbler order of abilities and attainments may become one. .p. 15

Letter VI

The influence of Religion counteracted by almost all other influences. — Pensive reflections on the imperfect manifestation of the Supreme Being — on the inefiicacy of the belief of such a being — on the strangeness of that ineflicacy — and on the debasement and infeli (iiy consequent on it. — Happiness of a devout man p. 55

Letter VII

Self-knowledge being supposed the principal object in writing the memoir, the train of exterior fortunes and actions will claim but a subordinate notice in it. — If it were intended for the amusement i >f the public, the writer woidd do well to fill it Hither with incident and action. — Yet the mere mental history of some men would be interesting to reflecting renders — of a man, for example, of a -["■'illative disposition, who has passed through many changes of opinion. — Influences that warp opinion. — Effects of lime and experience on the notions and feelings cherished in early life. — Feelings of a sensible old man "ii viewing a picture of his own mind drawn by himself when he was young. — Failure of excellent I. ns ; disappointment of sanguine hopes. — Degree of explicitness required in flu record.—* onscience. — Impudence and canting falsu pretences ol many writers of " confessions." — Rousseau, ... CONTENTS. ESSAY II. ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.

Letter I

Examples of the distress and humiliation incident to an irresolute mind. — Such a mind cannot be said to belong to itself. — Manner in which a man of decisive spirit deliberates, and passes into action. — Cæsar. — Such a spirit prevents the fretting away, in harassing alternations of will, of the animated feelings required for sustaining the vigour of action. — Averts impertinent inteference. — Acquires, if free from harshness of manner, an undisputed and beneficial ascendency over associates. — Its last resource inflexible pertinacity. — Instance in a man on a jury p. 89

Letter II

Brief inquiry into the constituents of this commanding quality. — Physical constitution. — Possibility, nevertheless, of a firm mind in a feeble body.— Confidence in a man's own judgment. — -This an uncommon distinction. — Picture of a man who wants it.- — This confidence distinguished from obstinacy. — Partly founded on experience. — Takes a high tone of independence in devising schemes. — Distressing dilemmas p. 103

Letter III

Energy of feeling as necessary as confidence of opinion. — Conduct that results from their combination. — Effect and value of a ruling passion. — -Great decision of character invests even wicked beings with something which we are tempted to admire. — Satan. — Zanga. — A Spanish assassin. — Remarkable example of this quality in a man who was a prodigal and became poor, but turned miser and became rich. — Howard. — Whitefield. — Christian missionaries p. 1 14

Letter IV

Courage a chief constituent of the character. — Effect of this in en countering censure and ridicule. — Almagro, Pizarro, and De Luques. — Defiance of danger. — Luther. — Daniel. — Another in dispensable requisite to decision is the full agreement of all the powers of the mind. — Lady Macbeth. — Richard III. — Cromwell. — A father who had the opportunity of saving one "i two soue from death p, CONTENTS.

Letter V

Formidable power of mischief which this high quality gives to bad men. — Care required to prevent its rendering good men uncouci liating and overbearing. — Independence and overruling manner in consultation. — Lord Chatham. — Decision of character not incom patible with sensibility and mild manners. — But probably the majority of the most eminent examples of it deficient in the kinder affections. — King of Prussia. — Situations in which it may be an absolute duty to act in opposition to the promptings of those affections P- 138

Letter VI

Circumstances tending to consolidate this Character. — Opposition — Desertion. — Marius. — Satan. — Charles de Moor. — Success has the Millie tendency. — Caesar. — Habit of associating with inferiors. — Voluntary means of forming or confirming this character. — The acquisition of perfect knowledge in the department in which we are to act. — The cultivation of a connected and conclusive manner of reasoning. — The resolute commencement of action, in a manner to commit ourselves irretrievably. — Ledyard. — The choice of a dignified order of concerns. — -The approbation of conscience. — \ ft melancholy to consider how many of the most distinguished pos sessors of the quality have been wicked p. 148 ESSAY III. ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EPITHET ROMANTIC.

Letter I

Great convenience of having a number of words tiuit will answer the purposes of ridicule or reprobation without having any precise meaning. — Puritan — Methodist — Jacobin. — The word Romantic of the greatest service to persons, who, wanting to show their scom, liavinot wlirivwitli.il in the way of sense or wit. — Whenever tliis epithet u applied, let the exact meaning be demanded. — Does it attribute, to what it is applied to, the kind of absurdity pre in the works called Romances? — That absurdity was from the predominance, in various modes, of imagination over judgment — .M.ut.il character of the early Romance writers. — Opposite character of Cervantes. — Delightful, delusive, and mischievous operation of a predominant imagination, — Yet desirable, for several reasons, that the imagination should have this ascendency in early life . . p. CONTENTS.

XV LETTER IJ. One i if the modes of this ascendency justly called Romantic, is, (he unfounded persuasion of something peculiar and extraordinary in a person's destiny. — This vain expectation may be relative to great talent and achievement, nr to great felicity. — Things ardently anti cipated which not only cannot be attained, but would be imadapted to the nature and condition of man if they could. — A person that hoped to out-do rather than imitate Gregory Lopez, the hermit. — Absurd expectations of parents. — Utopian anticipations of philosophers. — Practical absurdity of the age of chivalry. — The extravagant and exclusive passion for what is grand p. IS"

Letter III

The epithet applicable to hopes and projects inconsistent with the known relations between ends and means. — Reckoning on happy casualties. — Musing on instances of good luck. — Novels go more than half the length of the older Romance in promoting this per nicious tendency of the mind. — Specimen of what they do in this way. — Fanc\ magnifies the smallest means into an apparent com petence to the greatest ends. — This delusive calculation apt to be admitted in schemes of benevolence. — Projects for civilizing savage nations. — Extravagant expectations of the efficacy of direct instruction, in the lessons of education, and in preaching. — Reformers apl to overrate the power of means. — The fancy about the omnipotence of truth. — Our expectations ought to be limited by what we actually see and know of human nature. — Estimate of that nature. — Preva lence of passion and appetite against conviction p, 200

Letter IV

Christianity the grand appointed mean of reforming the world. — But though the religion itself be a communication from heaven, the administration of it by human agents is to be considered as a merely human mean, excepting so far as a special divine energy is made to accompany it. — Its comparatively small success proves in what an extremely limited measure that energy, as yet, accompanies it. — Impotence of man to do what it leaves undone. — Irrational to expect from its progressive administration a measure of success indefinitely surpassing the present state of its operations, till we see some signs of a great change in the Divine Government of the world. — Folly of projects to reform mankind which disclaim Religion. — Nothing in human nature to meet and give effect t.> the Behemes and expedients of the moral revolution ist. — Wretched state ■ >)' lhat nature. — Sample of the absurd esti mates of its condition l>\ the irreligious menders of society, .p. CONTENTS.

Letter V

Melancholy reflections. — No consolation amidst the mysterious economy hut in an assurance that an infinitely good Being presides, mid will at length open out a new moral world. — Yet many moral projectors are solicitous to keep their schemes for the amendment of the world clear of any reference to the Almighty. — Even good men are guilty of placing too much dependence on subordinate powers and agents. — The representations in this Essay not intended to depreciate to nothing the worth and use of the whole stock of means, but to reduce them, and the effects to be expected from them, to a sober estimate. — A humble thing to be a man. — Incul cation of devout submission, and diligence, and prayer. — Sublime quality and indefinite efficacy of this hist, as a mean. — Conclusion; briefly marking out a few general characters of sentiment and action to which, though very uncommon, the epithet Romantic is unjustly applied p. 234 ESSAY V. ON SOME OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVANGELICAL RELIGION HAS BEEN RENDERED UNACCEPTABLE TO PERSONS OF CUL- TIVATED TASTE.

Letter I

Nature of the displacency with which some of the most peculiar features of Christianity are regarded by many cultivated men, who do not deny or doubt the divine authority of the religion. — Brief notice of the term Evangelical p. 251

Letter II

One of the causes of the displacency is, that Christianity, being the religion of a great number of persons of weak and uncultivated minds, presents its doctrines to the view of men of taste associated with the characteristics of those minds; and though some parts of the religion instantaneously redeem themselves from that association by their philosophic dignity, other parts may require a con siderable effort to detach them from it. — This easily done if the men of taste were powerfully pre-occupied and aflecttd by the .11. — Reflections of one of them in this case. — But the men CONTENTS.

XVII "I taste now in question are not in this ease. — Several specific causes of injurious impreasion, from this association of evangelical doctrines and sentiments with the intellectual littleness of the per sons entertaining them. — Their deficiency and dislike of all strictly intellectual exercise on religion. — Their reducing the whole of religion to one or two favourite notions, and continually dwelling on them. — The perfect indifference of some of them to general knowledge, even when not destitute of means of acquiring it; and the consequent voluntary and contented poverty of their religious ideas and language. — Their admiration of things in a literary sense utterly bad. — Their complacency in their deficiencies. — Their in judicious habits and ceremonies. — Their unfortunate metaphors and similes. — Suggestion to religious teachers, that they should nut run to its last possible extent the parallel between the pleasures <>t piety and those of eating and drinking. — Mischief of such prac tices. — Effect of the ungracious collision between uncul seniors and a young person of literary and philosophic taste. — Exp ratulation with this intellectual young person, on the folly and guilt of suffering his mind to trike the impression of evangelical religion from any thing wlu'ch he knows to I» J inferior to that religion itself, as exhibited by the New Testament, and by the most elevated of its disciples p. 260

Letter III

Another cause-, the Peculiarity of Language adopted in religious dis course and writing. — Classical standard of language. — The theological deviation from it barbarous. — Surprise and perplexity of a sensible heathen foreigner who, having learnt our language according to its best standard alone, should be introduced to licar a public evangelical discourse. — Distinctive characters of this Theo logical Dialect — Reasons against employing it.— Coiopri our language to express all religious ideas without the aid of this uncouth peculiarity. — Advantages that would attend the use of the language of mere general intelligence, with the addition of an ex tremely small number of words that may be considered as necessary technical terms in theology p- 292

Letter IV

Answer to the plea, in behalf of the dialect in question, that it is formed from the language of the Bible. — Description of the manner in wlii. ]i it is so formed. — This way of employing biblical language very different from simple quotation. — Grace and utility with which CONTENTS. brief forms of words, whether sentences or single phrases, may be introduced from the Bible, if they are brought in as pure pieces and particles of the sacred composition, set In our own composition as something distinct from it and foreign to it. — But the biblical phraseology in the Theological Dialect, instead of thus appearing in distinct bright points and gems, is modified and mixed up throughout the whole consistence of the diction, so as at once to lose its own venerable character, and to give a pervading uncouth ness, without dignity, to the whole composition.

Let the scripture language be quoted often, but not degraded into a barbarous com pound phraseology. — Even if it were advisable to construct the language of theological instruction in some kind of resemblance to that of the Bible, it would not follow that it should be constructed in imitation of the phraseology of an antique version. — License to very old theologians to retain in a great degree this peculiar dialect. — Young ones recommended to learn to employ in religion the language in which cultivated men talk and write on general sub jects. — The vast mass ofwriting in a comprehensive liteTary sense bad, on the subjects of evangelical theology, one great cause of the distaste felt by men of intellectual refinement — Several kinds of this bad writing specified p. 319

Letter V

A grand cause of displacencv encountered by evangelical religion among men of taste is, that the great .school in which that taste is formed, that of polite literature, taken in the widest sense of the phrase, is hostile to that religion. — Modern literature intended principally to be animadverted on. — Brief notice of the ancient. — Heathen theology, metaphysics, and morality. — Harmlessncss of the two former; deceptiveiresa of the hist. — But the chief influence is I'n mi so much of the history as may be called Biography, and from the Poetry. — Homer.- — Manner in which the interest he excites is hostile to the spirit of the Christian religion. — Virgil p. 340

Letter VI

Lucan. — Influence of the moral sublimity of his heroes. — Plutarch. — Che Historians. — Antichristian effect of admiring the moral greatness of the eminent heathens. — Points of essential difference between excellence according to Christian principles, and the mi' i el ;ik>d excellence of ihf Heathens. — An unqualified compla ■ i \ in Ihe latter produces an alienation of affection and admira tion from the former p. CONTENTS. XIX

Letter VII

When a communication, declaring the true theory of both religion and morals, was admitted as coming from heaven, it was reasonable to expect thai, from the time of this revelation to the end of the world, all by whom ii was sn admitted would be religiously careful to maintain, in whatever they taught on subjects within its cognizance, a systematic and punctilious conformity to its principles. — Absurdity, impiety, and pernicious effect, of disregarding this sovereign claim to conformity. — The greatest number of outfine writers have incurred this and done this mischief. — They are antichristian, in the first place, by omission; they exclude from their moral sentiments the modifying interference of the Christian principles. — Extended illustration of ilie fact, and of its conse quences p. 375

Letter VIII

More specific forms of their contrariety to the principles of Revela tion. — Their good man not ;\ Christian — Contrasted with St. Paul. — Tluir theory of happiness essentially different from the evangeli cal. — Short statement of both. — In moralizing on life, they do not habitually consider, and they prevent their readers from considering, the present state as introductory to another. — Their consolations tor distress, old age, and death, widely different, on the whole, from those which constitute so much of the value of the Gospel, — The grandeur and heroism in death, which they have represented with irresistible eloquence, emphatically and perniciously opposite to the Christian doctrine and examples of sublimity and happiness in death. — Examples from tragedy p. 389

Letter IX

The estimate of the depraved moral condition of human nature is (juite different in revelation and polite literature. — Consequently, the Redemption In Jesus Christ, which appears with such momentous importance in the one, is, in comparison, a trifle in the other, — Our fine writers employ and justify antiehristian motives to action, espi daily the love of fame. — The morality of this passion argued. — The earnest repression of it shown to be a duty. — Some of the lighter order of tmr popular writers have aided the counteraction of literature to evangelical religion by careless or malignanf ridicule of things associated with it. — Brief notice of the X X CONTENTS. classes of fine writers, as lying under the charge of contributing to alienate men of taste from the doctrines and moral spirit of the New Testament. — Moral philosophers. — Historians. — Essayists. — Addison.— Johnson.— The Poets. — Exception iu favour of Milton, &c. — Pope — Antichristian quality of hisEssay onMan. — 'Novels. — Melancholy reflections on the Review. — Conclusion p. ESSAY I. ON A MAN'S WAITING MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF.

Letter I. My Dear Friend

Every one knows with what interest it is natural to retrace the course of our own lives. The past states and periods of a man's being are retained in a connexion Avith the present by that principle of self-love, which is unwilling to relinquish its hold on what has once been his. Though he cannot but be sensible of how little consequence his life can have been in the creation, compared with many other trains of events, yet he has felt it more important to himself than all other trains together ; and you will very rarely find him tired of narrating again the little history, or at least the favourite parts of the little history, of himself. To turn this partiality to some account, I recollect having proposed to two or three of my friends that they should write, each principally however for his own use, memoirs of their OAvn fives, endeavouring not so much to enumerate u AVRITING the mere facts and events of life, as to discriminate the successive states of the mind, and so trace the progress of what may be called the character.

In this progress consists the chief importance of life ; but even on an inferior account also to this of what the character has become, and regarded merely as supplying a constant series of interests to the affections and passions, wre have all accounted our life an in estimable possession, which it deserved incessant cares and labours to retain, and which continues in most cases to be still held with anxious at tachment. What has been the object of so much partiality, and has been dehghted and pained by so many emotions, might claim, even if the highest interest were out of the question, that a short memorial should be retained by him avIio has possessed it, has seen it all to this moment depart, and can never recall it. To write memoirs of many years, as twenty, thirty, or forty, seems, at the first glance, a very onerous task.

To reap the products of so many acres of earth indeed might, to one person, be an undertaking of mighty toil. But the mate rials of any value that all past fife can supply to a recording pen, would be reduced by a discerning selection to a very small and modest amount. Would as much as one page of moderate size be deemed by any man's self-importance to be due, on an average, to each of the days that he has lived? No man would judge more than one in ten thousand of all his thoughts, sayings, and actions, worthy to be mentioned, if memory were capable of recalling them.* Necessarily a very large portion of what has occupied the successive years of life was of a kind to be utterly useless for a history of it ; being merely for the accommodation of the time. Perhaps in the space of forty or fifty years, millions of sentences are proper to be uttered, and many thousands of affairs requisite to be transacted, or of journeys to be performed, which it Avould be ridiculous to record.

They are a kind of material for the common expenditure and waste of the day. Yet it is often by a detail of this subordinate economy of life, that the works of fiction, the nanatives of age, the journals of travellers, and even grave biographical accounts, are made so unreasonably long. As well might a chronicle of the coats that a man has worn, with the colour and date of each, be called his life, for any important uses of relating its his tory. As well might a man, of whom I inquire the dimensions, the internal divisions, and the use, of some remarkable building, begin to tell me hoAV much wood was employed in the scaf folding, Avhere the morter was prepared, or how often it rained while the work was proceeding. But, in a deliberate review of all that we can * An exception may be admitted for the few individuals whose daily deliberations, discourses, and proceedings, affect the interests of mankind on a grand scale, B remember of past life, it will be possible to select a certain proportion which may Avith the most propriety be regarded as the history of the man.

What I am recommending is, to follow the order of time, and reduce your recollections, from the earliest period to the present, into as simple a statement and explanation as you can, of your feelings, opinions, and habits, and of the principal circumstances through each stage that have influenced them, till they have become at last what they now are. Whatever tendencies nature may justly be deemed to have imparted in the first instance, you would probably find the greater part of the moral constitution of your being composed of the contributions of many years and events, consolidated by degrees into what we call cha racter ; and by investigating the progress of the accumulation, you would be assisted to judge more clearly hoAV far the materials are valuable, the mixture congruous, and the whole con formation worthy to remain unaltered.

With respect to any friend who greatly interests us, we have a curiosity to obtain an accurate account of tbe past train of his life and feelings : and whatever other reasons there may be for such a wish, it partly springs from a consciousness how much this retrospective knoAvledge would assist to complete our estimate of that friend ; but our estimate of ourselves is of more serious consequence. The elapsed periods of life acquire importance too from the prospect of its continuance. The smallest thing rises into consequence when regarded as the commencement of what has advanced, or is advancing, into magnificence. The first rude settlement of Romulus would have been an insignificant circumstance, and might justly have sunk into obliAion, if Rome had not at length commanded the world. The little rill, near the source of one of the great American rivers, is an interesting object to the traveller, who is apprised, as he steps across it, or walks a few miles along its bank, that this is the stream which runs so far, and which gradually swells into so vast a flood.

So, while I anticipate the endless progress of life, and won der through what unknown scenes it is to take its course, its past years lose that character of vanity Avhich would seem to belong to a train of fleeting perishing moments, and I see them assuming the dignity of a commencing eternity. In them I have begun to be that conscious existence which I am to be through endless duration : and I feel a strange emotion of cu riosity about this little life, in Avhich I am setting out on such a progress ; I cannot be content without an accurate sketch of the windings thus far of a stream which is to bear me on for ever. I try to imagine hoAV it vvrill be to recollect, at a far distant point of my era, what I was when here ; and wish if it were possible to retain, as I advance, some clear trace of the whole course of my existence within the scope of reflection ; to fix in my mind so strong an idea of what I have been in this original period of my time, that I may possess this idea in ages too remote for calculation.

The review becomes still more important, when I learn the influence which this first part of the progress will have on the happiness or misery of the next. One of the greatest difficulties in the way of executing the proposed task will have been caused by the extreme deficiency of that self observation, which is of no common habit either of youth or any later age. Men are content to have no more intimate sense of their existence than what they feel in the exercise of their faculties on extraneous objects. The vital being, with all its agency and emotions, is so blended and absorbed in these its exterior in terests, that it is very rarely collected and con centrated in the consciousness of its own absolute self, so as to be recognised as a thing internal, apart, and alone, for its own inspection and knowledge.

Men carry their minds as for the most part they carry their watches, content to be ignorant of the constitution and action within, and attentive only to the little exterior circle of things, to which the passions, like indexes, are pointing. It is surprising to see how little self knowledge a person not watchfully observant of himself may have gained, in the whole course of an active, or even an inquisitive life. He may have lived almost an age, and traversed a continent, minutely examining its curiosities, and interpreting the half-obliterated characters on its monuments, unconscious the while of a process operating on his own mind, to impress or to erase characteristics of much more im portance to him than all the figured brass or marble that Europe contains. After having explored many a cavern or dark ruinous avenue, he may have left undetected a darker recess within, where there Avould be much more striking discoAreries.