Where? where ?—I'll wring it from thy lips-Where? where ? Piero. Lady, at the Marchesa Aldabella's. Bianca. Thou liest, false slave: 'twas at the Ducal Palace, 'Twas at the arsenal with the officers, "Twas with the old rich senator-him-him-him The man with a brief name: 'twas gaming, dicing, With thy black tidings ?--Nay, nay: good my friend; Piero. It grieves me much: Thou'lt find it but too true. Bianca. 'twas not Fazio. With thy cold courteous face! Thou seest I'm wretched : Ye would behold the bare and bleeding heart, With all its throbs, its agonies.-Oh Fazio ! Oh Fazio ! 322.-THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. SHERLOCK. [DR. THOMAS SHERLOCK, one of the most eminent Divines of the last century, was born in 1678; died in 1761. During this long life he was an indefatigable preacher and defender of Christianity. He was successively Master of the Temple, Bishop of Bangor, of Salisbury, and of London.] Had it not been for philosophy, there had remained perhaps no footsteps of any unbelievers in this great article; for the sense of nature would have directed all right; but philosophy misguided many. For those who denied immortality, did not deny the common sense of nature, which they felt as well as others; but they rejected the notice, and thought it false, because they could not find physical causes to support the belief, or thought that they found physical causes effectually to overthrow it. This account we owe to Cicero, one of the best judges of antiquity, who tells us plainly, that the reason why many rejected the belief of the immortality of the sonl was because they could not form a conception of an unbodied soul. So that infdelity is of no older a date than philosophy; and a future state was not doubted of till men had puzzled and confounded themselves in their search after the physical reason of the soul's immortality. And now consider how the case stands, and how far the evidence of nature is weakened by the authority of such unbelievers. All mankind receive the belief of a future life, urged to it every day by what they feel transacted in their own breasts: but some philosophers reject this opinion, because they have no conception of a soul distinct from the body; as if the immortality of the soul depended merely upon the strength of human imagination. Were the natural evidence of immortality built upon any particular notion of a human soul, the evidence of nature might be overthrown by showing the impossibility or improbability of such notion: but the evidence of nature is not concerned in any notion; and all the common notions may be false, and yet the evidence of nature stand good, which only supposes man to be rational, and consequently accountable; and if any philosopher can prove the contrary, he may then, if his word will afterwards pass for anything, reject this and all other evidence whatever. The natural evidence, I say, supposes only that a man is a rational accountable creature; and, this being the true foundation in nature for the belief of the immortality, the true notion of nature must needs be this, that man, as such, shall live to account for his doings. The question, then, upon the foot of nature, is this: What constitutes the man? And who ever observes with any care will find that this is the point upon which the learned of antiquity divided. The vulgar spoke of men after death just in the same manner as they did of men on earth: and Cicero observes, that the common error, as he calls it, so far prevailed, that they supposed such things to be transacted apud inferos, quæ sine corporibus nec fieri possent nec intelligi; which could neither be done, nor conceived to be done, without bodies. The generality of men could not arrive to abstracted notions of unbodied spirits; and though they could not but think that the body, which was burnt before their eyes, was dissipated and destroyed; yet so great was the force of nature, which was ever suggesting to them that men should live again, that they continued to imagine men with bodies in another life, having no other notion or conception of men. But, with the learned, nothing was held to be more absurd than to think of having bodies again in another state; and yet they knew that the true foundation of immortality was laid in this point, that the same individuals should continue. The natural consequence then was, from these principles, to exclude the body from being any part of the man; and all, I believe, who asserted any immortality, agreed in this notion. The Platonists undoubtedly did; and Cicero has everywhere declared it to be his opinion: Tu habito, (says he) te non esse mortalem, sed corpus: Nec enim is es quem forma ista declarat; sed mens cujusque is est quisque. It is not you, but your body, which is mortal; for you are not what you appear to be; but it is the mind which is the man. This being the case, the controversy was necessarily brought to turn upon the nature of the soul; and the belief of immortality either prevailed or sunk, according as men conceived of the natural dignity and power of the soul. For this reason the corporealists rejected the opinion: for, since it was universally agreed among the learned that all that was corporeal of man died, they who had no notion of anything else necessarily concluded that the whole man died. From this view you may judge how the cause of immortality stood, and what difficulties attended it, upon the foot of natural religion. All men had a natural sense and expectation of a future life. The difficulty was to account how the same individuals, which lived and died in this world, and one part of which evidently went to decay, should live again in another world. The vulgar, who had no other notion of a man but what came in by their eyes, supposed that just such men as lived in this world should live in the next; overlooking the difficulties which lay in their way, whilst they ran hastily to embrace the sentiments of nature. This advantage they had, however, that their opinion preserved the identity of individuals, and they conceived themselves to be the very same with respect to the life to come as they found themselves to be in regard to the life present. But then, had they been pressed, they could not have stood the difficulties arising from the dissolution of the body, the loss of which, in their way of thinking, was the loss of the individual. The learned, who could not but see and feel this difficulty, to avoid it, shut out the body from being any part of the man, and made the soul alone to be the perfect individuum. This engaged them in endless disputes upon the nature of the soul; and this grand article of natural religion, by this means, was made to hang by the slender threads of philosophy; and the whole was entirely lost, if their first position proved false, that the soul is the whole of man; and it is an assertion which will not perhaps stand the examination. The maintainers of this opinion, though they supposed a sensitive, as well as a rational soul in man, which was the seat of the passions, and consequently the spring of all human actions; yet this sensitive soul they gave up to death as well as the body, and preserved nothing but the pure intellectual mind. And yet it is something surprising to think that a mere rational mind should be the same individual with a man, who consists of a rational mind, a sensitive soul, and a body. This carries no probability with it at first sight, and reason cannot undertake much in its behalf. But, whatever becomes of these speculations, there is a farther difficulty, which can hardly be got over; which is, that this notion of immortality and future judgment can never serve the ends and purposes of religion, because it is a notion which the generality of mankind can never arrive at. Go to the villages, and tell the ploughmen, that if they sin, yet their bodies shall sleep in peace; no material, no sensible fire shall ever reach them; but there is something within them purely intellectual, which will suffer to eternity; you will hardly find that they have enough of the intellectual to comprehend your meaning. Now natural religion is founded on the sense of nature; that is, upon the common apprehensions of mankind; and therefore abstracted metaphysical notions, beat out upon the anvil of the schools, can never support natural religion, or make any part of it. In this point, then, nature seems to be lame, and not able to support the hopes of immortality which she gives to all her children. The expectation of the vulgar, that they shall live again, and be just the same flesh and blood which now they are, is justifiable upon no principles of reason or nature. What is there in the whole compass of things which yields a similitude of dust and ashes rising up again into regular bodies, and to perpetual immortality On the other side, that the intel lectual soul should be the whole man, how justifiable soever it may be in other respects, yet it is not the common sense of nature, and therefore most certainly no part of natural religion. But it may be worth inquiring, how nature becomes thus defective in this material point. Did not God intend men originally for religious creatures; and, if he did, is it not reasonable to expect an original and consistent scheme of religion? which yet in the point now before us seems to be wanting. The account of this we cannot learn from reason or nature: but in the sacred history the fact is cleared beyond dispute. * Lastly, if we consider how our Saviour has enlightened this doctrine, it will ap pear that he has removed the difficulty at which nature stumbled. As death was no part of the state of nature, so the difficulties arising from it were not provided for in the religion of nature. To remove these was the proper work of revelation; these our Lord has effectually cleared by his Gospel, and shown us that the body may and shall be united to the spirit in the day of the Lord, so that the complete man shall stand before the great tribunal, to receive a just recompense of reward for the things done in the body. * * This has restored religion, which had * hardly one sound foot to stand on, and made our faith and our reason consistent, which were before at too great a distance. Nature indeed taught us to hope for immortality; but it was in spite of sense and experience, till the great Prince of our peace appeared, who brought life and immortality to light through his Gospel. 323. THE MODERN DRAMATIC POETS.-III. THE HUNCHBACK. SHERIDAN KNOWLES. [MR. KNOWLES is the most prolific dramatic poet of our day; and, with reference to stage success, the most popular. It is not that he possesses higher poetical capacity-nicer discrimination of character-a deeper insight into human nature-than his contemporaries; but that his Plays will act, and that he constructed them to be acted. Mr. Knowles was an accomplished actor himself, and he thoroughly understood the requirements of the Stage. Let it not be thought, as too many poets have thought, that this knowledge is beneath a great artist. It is the very perfection of Art that its creations should be absolutely and entirely adapted to their use and purpose. Shakspere, and the great Elizabethan dramatists, did not write plays to be read; and that is one of the secrets that they actually read better than what are called closet-dramas. They are full of warmth and vitality, instead of being cold and statuesque. Mr. Knowles has well studied the old masters of his art, and has caught their ease and naturalness, if not their loftier inspirations. Government have granted him a pension, to their own honour; and an amateur company of gentlemen, whose eminence in literature and art have rendered their performances unusually attractive, have added largely to a fund for securing an annuity for Mr. Knowles. The following scene is from The Hunchback.'] Tinsel. Believe me. You shall profit by my training; A bevy of your former friends, who fain Had shaken hands with you. You gave them fingers! Enter WILLIAMS. Will. A gentleman would see your lordship. What's that? Will. A gentleman would see his lordship. Tin. How know you, sir, his lordship is at home? Is he at home because he goes not out? He's not at home, though there you see him, sir, Bring up the name of the gentleman, and then [WILLIAMS goes out. Your man was porter to some merchant's door, The thing? Rochdale. Do you know Right well! I' faith a hearty fellow, Son to a worthy tradesman, who would do Great things with little means; so enter'd him Tin. You've said enough! His lordship's not at home. [WILLIAMS goes out.] We do not go Blood-though it only were a drop—his heart Enter WILLIAMS. Will. One Master Jones hath ask'd to see your lordship. Tin. And what was your reply to Master Jones? Will. Tin. I knew not if his lordship was at home. You'll do. Who's Master Jones ? Roch. A curate's son. Tin. A curate's. Better be a yeoman's son ! And may become a bishop. He goes light. He may be called the yeoman of the church, Roch. We read Latin and Greek together. Tin. Dropping them As, now that you 're a lord, of course you've done— One Richard Cricket likewise is below. Tin. Who? Richard Cricket! You must see him, Rochdale ! A noble little fellow ! A great man, sir! Not knowing whom, you would be nobody ! I won five thousand pounds by him! Roch. I never heard of him. Who is he? What never heard Tin. |