.

TO BE SANE IN A WORLD OF MADMEN, plunged and rolled himself in the liquid poison, and came out as mad and not more wretched than his neighbors and acquaintance.

from men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like vinum Dæmonum (as a Father calleth poetry) but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition. and unpleasing to themselves?"

A melancholy, a too general, but not, I trust, a universal truth!—and even where it does apply, yet in many instances not irremediable. Such at least must have been my persuasion: or the present work must have been wittingly written to no purpose. If I believe our nature fettered to all this wretchedness of head and heart by an absolute and innate necessity, at least by a necessity which no human power, no efforts of reason ar eloquence could remove or lessen; I should deem it even presumptuous to aim at other or higher object than that of amusing a small portion of the reading public.

The plan of THE FRIEND is comprised in the motto to this Essay. This tale or allegory seems to me to contain the objections to its practicability in all their strength. Either, says the Skeptic, you are the Blind offering to lead the Blind, or you are talking the language of Sight to those who do not possess the sense of seeing. If you mean to be read, try to entertain and do not pretend to instruct. To such objections it would be amply sufficient, on any system of faith, to answer, that we are not all blind, but all subject to distempers of "the mental sight," differing in kind and in degree; that though all men are in error, they are not all in the same error, nor at the same time; and that each therefore may possibly heal the other, even as two or more physicians, all diseased in their general health yet under the immediate action of the disease on different days, may remove or alleviate the complaints of each other. But in respect to the entertainingness of moral writings, if in entertainment be included whatever delights the imagination or affects the generous passions, so far from rejecting such a mean of persuading the human soul, my very sys-ligation, and ambitious of procuring pastime and selftem compels me to defend not only the propriety but the absolute necessity of adopting it, if we really intend to render our fellow-creatures better or wiser.

But it is with dullness as with obscurity. It may be positive, and the author's fault; but it may likewise be relative, and if the author has presented his bill of fare at the portal, the reader has himself only to blame. The main question then is, of what class are the persons to be entertained?" One of the later schools of the Grecians (says Lord Bacon) is at a stand to think what should be in it that men should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. I cannot tell why, this same truth is a naked and open day-light, that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the present world half so stately and daintily, as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, which showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of lies doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken

* (Translation.)—Believe me, it requires no little confidence, to promise Help to the Struggling, Counsel to the Doubtful, Light to the Blind, Hope to the Despondent, Refreshment to the Weary. These are indeed great things, if they be accomplished; trifles if they exist but in a promise. I however aim not so much to prescribe a Law for others, as to set forth the Law of my own Mind; which let the man, who shall have approved of it, abide by; and let him, to whom it shall appear not reasonable, reject it. It is my earnest wish, I confess, to employ my understanding and acquirements in that mode and direction, in which I may be enabled to benefit the largest number possible of my fellowcreatures.

And why not? whispers worldly prudence. To amuse though only to amuse our visiters is wisdom as well as good-nature, where it is presumption to at tempt their amendment. And truly it would be most convenient to me in respects of no trifling im portance, if I could persuade myself to take the advice. Relaxed by these principles from all moral ob

oblivion for a race, which could have nothing noble to remember, nothing desirable to anticipate, I might aspire even to the praise of the critics and dilettante of the higher circles of society; of some trusty guide of blind fashion; some pleasant Analyst of TASTE, as it exists both in the palate and the soul; some living gauge and mete-wand of past and present genius. But alas! my former studies would still have left a wrong bias! If instead of perplexing my common sense with the flights of Plato, and of stiffening over the meditations of the imperial Stoic, I had been laboring to imbibe the gay spirit of a CASTI, or had employed my erudition, for the benefit of the favored few, in elucidating the interesting de formities of ancient Greece and India, what might I not have hoped from the suffrage of those, who turn in weariness from the Paradise Lost.-because compared with the prurient heroes and grotesque monsters of Italian Romance, or even with the narrative dialogues of the melodious Metastasio,-that-" Adventurous Song,

"Which justifies the ways of God to man," has been found a poor substitute for Grimaldi, a most inapt medicine for an occasional propensity to yawn? For, as hath been decided, to fill up pleasantly the brief intervals of fashionable pleasures, and above all to charm away the dusky Gnome of Ennul, is the chief and appropriate business of the Poet and-the Novelist! This duty unfulfilled, Apollo will have lavished his best gifts in vain; and Urania henceforth must be content to inspire Astronomers alone, and leave the Sons of Verse to more amusive PatronAnd yet and yet-but it will be time to be serious, when my visiters have sat doum.

esses.

THE FRIEND.

ESSAY II.

Sic oportet ad librum, presertim miscellanei generis, legendum accedere lectorem, ut solet ad convivium conviva civilis. Convivator annititur omnibus satisfacere: et tamen si quid apponitur, quod hujus aut illius palato non respondeat, et hic et ille urbane dissimulant, et alia fercula probant, ne quid contristent convivatorem. Quis enim eum convivam ferat, qui tantum hoc animo veniat ad mensam, ut carpens quæ apponuntur nec vescatur ipse, nec alios vesci sinat? et tamen his quoque reperias inciviliores, qui palam, qui sine fine damnent ac lacerent opus, quod nunquam legerint. Ast hoc plusquam sycophanticum est damnare quod nescias.

ERASMUS.

THE musician may tune his instrument in private, ere his audience have yet assembled; the architect conceals the foundation of his building beneath the superstructure. But an author's harp must be tuned in the hearing of those, who are to understand its after harmonies; the foundation stones of his edifice must lie open to common view, or his friends will hesitate to trust themselves beneath the roof.

From periodical Literature the general Reader deems himself entitled to expect amusement, and some degree of information; and if the writer can convey any instruction at the same time and without demanding any additional thought (as the Irishman, in the hackneyed jest, is said to have passed off a light guinea between two halfpence) this supererogatory merit will not perhaps be taken amiss. Now amusement in and for itself may be afforded by the gratification either of the curiosity or of the passions. I use the former word as distinguished from the love of knowledge, and the latter in distinction from those emotions which arise in well ordered minds, from the perception of truth or falsehood, virtue or vice :-emotions, which are always preceded by thought, and linked with improvement. Again, all information pursued without any wish of becoming wiser or better thereby, I class among the gratifications of mere curiosity, whether it be sought for in a light Novel or a grave History. We may therefore omit the word Information, as included either in Amusement or Instruction.

same delight, and desirous of attaining it by the same process. I heard a whisper too from within, (I trust that it proceeded from Conscience not Vanity) that a duty was performed in the endeavor to render it as much easier to them, than it had been to me, as could be effected by the united efforts of my understanding and imagination.*

Actuated by this impulse, the Writer wishes, in the following Essays, to convey not instruction merely, but fundamental instruction; not so much to show my Reader this or that fact, as to kindle his own torch for him, and leave it to himself to choose the particular objects, which he might wish to examine by its light. THE FRIEND does not indeed exclude from his plan occasional interludes, and vacations of innocent entertainment and promiscuous information; but still in the main he proposes to himself the communication of such delight as rewards the march of Truth, rather than to collect the flowers which diversify its track, in order to present them apart from the homely yet foodful or medicinal herbs, among which they had grown. To refer men's opinions to their absolute principles, and thence their feelings to the appropriate objects, and in their true degrees; and finally, to apply the principles thus ascertained, to the formation of steadfast convictions concerning the most important questions of Politics, Morality, and Religion-these are to be the objects and the contents of this work.

Themes like these not even the genius of a Plato or a Bacon could render intelligible, without demanding from the reader THOUGHT Sometimes, and ATTENTION generally. By THOUGHT I here mean the voluntary production in our own minds of those states of consciousness, to which, as to his fundamental facts, the Writer has referred us; while ATTENTION has for its object the order and connexion of Thoughts and Images, each of which is in itself already and familiarly known. Thus the elements of Geometry require attention only; but the analysis of our primary faculties, and the investigation of all the absolute grounds of Religion and Morals, are impossible without energies of thought in addition to the effort of Attention. THE FRIEND will not attempt to dis

*In conformity with this anxious wish I shall make no

say.

(Translation.) A reader should sit down to a book, especially of the miscellaneous kind, as a well-behaved visiter does to a banquet. The master of the feast exerts himself to satisfy all his guests; but if after all his care and pains there should still be something or other put on the table that does not suit this or that person's taste, they politely pass it over without noticing the circumstance, and commend other dishes,

that they may not distress their kind host, or throw any damp

The present Work is an experiment; not whether apology for subjoining a Translation of my Motto to this Esa writer may honestly overlook the one, or successfully omit the other, of the two elements themselves, which serious Readers at least persuade themselves, they pursue; but whether a change might not be hazarded of the usual order, in which periodical writers have in general attempted to convey them. Having myself experienced that no delight either in kind or degree, was equal to that which accompanies the distinct perception of a fundamental truth, relative to our moral being; having, long after the completion of what is ordinarily called a learned education, discovered a new world of intellectual profit opening on me-not from any new opinions, but lying, as it were, at the roots of those which I had been taught in child-this sinks below the baseness of an Informer, yea, though he hood in my Catechism and Spelling-book; there arose a soothing hope in my mind that a lesser Public might be found, composed of persons susceptible of the

on his spirits. For who could tolerate a guest that accepted
an invitation to your table with no other purpose but that of
finding fault with every thing put before him, neither eating
himself, or suffering others to eat in comfort. And yet you
may fall in with a still worse set than even these,-with churls
that in all companies and without stop or stay will condemn
and pull to pieces a work which they had never read. But

were a false witness to boot! The man, who abuses a thing
of which he is utterly ignorant, unites the infamy of both-
and in addition to this, makes himself the pander and syco-
phant of his own and other men's envy and malignity.
377

guise from his Readers that both Attention and Thought are Efforts, and the latter a most difficult and laborious Effort; nor from himself, that to require it often or for any continuance of time is incompatible with the nature of the present Publication, even were it less incongruous than it unfortunately is with the present habits and pursuits of Englishmen. Accordingly I shall be on my guard to make the Numbers as few as possible, which would require from a well-educated Reader any energy of thought and voluntary abstraction.

But Attention, I confess, will be requisite throughout, except in the excursive and miscellaneous Essays that will be found interposed between each of the three main divisions of the Work. On whatever subject the mind feels a lively interest, attention, though always an effort, becomes a delightful effort. I should be quite at ease, could I secure for the whole Work as much of it, as a card-party of earnest whist-players often expend in a single evening, or a lady in the making-up of a fashionable dress. But where no interest previously exists, attention (as every schoolmaster knows) can be procured only by terror: which is the true reason why the majority of mankind learn nothing systematically, except as school-boys or apprentices.

Happy shall I be, from other motives besides those of self-interest, if no fault or deficiency on my part shall prevent the Work from furnishing a presumptive proof, that there are still to be found among us a respectable number of Readers who are desirous to derive pleasure from the consciousness of being instructed or ameliorated, and who feel a sufficient interest as to the foundations of their own opinions in Literature, Politics, Morals, and Religion, to afford that degree of attention, without which, however men may deceive themselves, no actual progress ever was or ever can be made in that knowledge, which supplies at once both strength and nourish

When I first undertook the present Publication for the sake and with the avowed object of referring men in all things to PRINCIPLES or fundamental truths, I was well aware of the obstacles which the plan itself would oppose to my success. For in order to the regular attainment of this object, all the driest and least attractive Essays must appear in the first fifteen or twenty Numbers, and thus subject me to the necessity of demanding effort or soliciting patience in that part of the Work where it was most my interest to secure the confidence of my readers by winning their favour. Though I dared warrant for the pleasantness of the journey on the whole; though I might promise that the road would, for the far greater part of it, be found plain and easy, that it would pass through countries of various prospect, and that at every stage there would be a change of company; it still remained a heavy disadvantage, that I had to start at the foot of a high and steep hill: and I foresaw, not without occasional feelings of despondency, that during the slow and laborious ascent it would require no common management to keep my passen gers in good humour with the vehicle and its driver. As far as this inconvenience could be palliated by sincerity and previous confessions, I have no reason to accuse myself of neglect. In the prospectus of THE FRIEND, which for this cause I re-printed and annexed to the first number, I felt it my duty to inform such as might be inclined to patronize the publication, that I must submit to be esteemed dull by those who sought chiefly for amusement: and this I hazarded as a general confession, though in my own mind I felt a cheerful confidence that it would apply almost exclusively to the earlier Numbers. I could not therefore be surprised, however much I may have been depressed, by the frequency with which you hear The Friend complained of for its abstruseness and obscurity; nor did the highly flattering expressions, with which you accompanied your com. munication, prevent me from feeling its truth to the whole extent.

An author's

exercise. That part of the blame which rests on pen, like children's legs, improves by myself, I am exerting my best faculties to remove.

A man long accustomed to silent and solitary medita- intelligibility of my principles I can prove to others tion, in proportion as he increases the power of think- only as far as I can prevail on them to retire into ing in long and connected trains, is apt to lose or less-themselves and make their own minds the objects of en the talent of communicating his thoughts with their steadfast attention. But, on the other hand, I grace and perspicuity. Doubtless, too, I have in feel too deeply the importance of the convictions, some measure injured my style, in respect to its faci- which first impelled me to the present undertaking, lity and popularity, from having almost confined my to leave unattempted any honorable means of recom reading, of late years, to the works of the Ancients mending them to as wide a circle as possible. and those of the elder Writers in the modern languages. We insensibly imitate what we habitually admire; and an aversion to the epigrammatic, unconnected periods of the fashionable Anglo-Gallican taste has too often made me willing to forget, that the stately march and difficult evolutions, which characterize the eloquence of Hooker, Bacon, Milton, and Jeremy Taylor, are, notwithstanding their intrinsic excellence, still less suited to a periodical Essay. This fault I am now endeavoring to correct; though I can never so far sacrifice my judgment to the desire of being immediately popular, as to cast my sentences in the French moulds, or affect a style which an ancient critic would have deemed purposely invented for persons troubled with the asthma to read, and for those to comprehend who labor under the more pitiable asthma of a short-witted intellect. It cannot but be injurious to the human mind never to be called into effort; the habit of receiving pleasure without any exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity and sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects of habitual novel reading. It is true that these short and unconnected sentences are easily and instantly understood: but it is equally true, that wanting all the cement of thoughts as well as of style, all the connections, and (if you will forgive too trivial a metaphor) all the hooks-and-eyes of the memory, they are as easily forgotten: or rather, it is scarcely possible that they should be remembered.-Nor is it less true, that those who confine their reading to such books dwarf their own faculties, and finally reduce their understanding to a deplorable imbecility: the fact you mention, and which I shall hereafter make use of, is a fair instance and a striking illustration. Like idle morning visiters, the brisk and breathless periods hurry in and hurry off in quick and profitless succession; each indeed for the moments of its stay prevents the pain of vacancy, while it indulges the love of sloth; but all together they leave the mistress of the house (the soul I mean) flat and exhausted, incapable of attending to her own concerns, and unfitted for the conversation of more rational guests.

Hitherto, my dear Sir, I have been employed in laying the foundation of my work. But the proper merit of a foundation is its massiveness and solidity The conveniences and ornaments, the gilding and stucco work, the sunshine and sunny prospects, will come with the superstructure. Yet I dare not flatter myself, that any endeavors of mine, compatible with the duty I owe to truth and the hope of permanent utility, will render THE FRIEND agreeable to the majority of what is called the reading public. I never expected it. How indeed could I, when I was to borrow so little from the influence of passing events, and when I had absolutely excluded from my plan all appeals to personal curiosity and personal interests? Yet even this is not my greatest impediment. No real information can be conveyed, no important errors rectified, no widely-injurious prejudices rooted up, without requiring some effort or thought on the part of the reader. But the obstinate (and toward a contemporary Writer, the contemptuous) aversion to all intellectual effort is the mother evil of all which I had proposed to war against, the Queen Bee in the hive of our errors and misfortunes, both private and national. To solicit the attention of those, on whom these debilitating causes have acted to their full extent, would be no less absurd than to recommend exercise with the dumb-bells, as the only mode of cure, to a patient paralytic in both arms. You, my dear Sir, well know, that my expectations were more modest as well as more rational. I hoped that my readers in general would be aware of the impracticability of suiting every Essay to every taste in any period of the work; and that they would not attribute wholly to the author, but in part to the necessity of his plan, the austerity and absence of the lighter graces in the first fifteen or twenty numbers. In my cheerful moods I sometimes flattered myself, that a few even among those, who foresaw that my lucubrations would at all times require more attention than from the nature of their own employments they could afford them, might yet find a pleasure in supporting the FRIEND during its infancy, so as to give it a chance of attracting the notice of others, to whom I know you will not suspect me of fostering so idle its style and subjects might be better adapted. But a hope, as that of obtaining acquittal by recrimina- my main anchor was the hope, that when circumtion; or think that I am attacking one fault, in order stances gradually enabled me to adopt the ordinary that its opposite may escape notice in the noise and means of making the publication generally known, smoke of the battery. On the contrary, I shall do there might be found throughout the Kingdom a sufmy best, and even make all allowable sacrifices, toficient number of meditative minds, who, entertainrender my manner more attractive and my matter more generally interesting. In the establishment of principles and fundamental doctrines, I must of necessity require the attention of my reader to become my fellow-laborer. The primary facts essential to the

ing similar convictions with myself, and gratified by the prospect of seeing them reduced to form and system, would take a warm interest in the work from the very circumstance that it wanted those allurements of transitory interests, which render particular

In these three introductory Numbers, THE FRIEND has endeavored to realize his promise of giving an honest bill of fare, both as to the objects and the style of the Work. With reference to both I conclude with a prophecy of Simon Grynæus, from his son have granted, with no shadow of right can we be sus