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to be the richest garden of the Muse, yields no growth to her in this hapless island but cypress and weeds. In truth, the poet who would embellish his song with allusions to Irish names and events, must be contented to seek them in those early periods when our character was yet unalloyed and original, before the impolitic craft of our conquerors had divided, weakened, and disgraced us. The sole traits of heroism, indeed, which he can venture at this day to commemorate, either with safety to himself, or honour to his country, are to be looked for in those ancient times when the native monarchs of Ireland displayed and fostered virtues worthy of a better age; when our Malachies wore around their necks collars of gold which they had won in single combat from the invader 1, and our Briens deserved and won the warm affections of a people by exhibiting all the most estimable qualities of a king. It may be said that the magic of tradition has shed a charm over this remote period, to which it is in reality but little entitled, and that most of the pictures, which we dwell on so fondly, of days when this island was distinguished amidst the gloom of Europe, by the sanctity of her morals, the spirit of her knighthood, and the polish of her schools, are little more than the inventions of national partiality,—that bright but spurious offspring which vanity engenders upon ignorance, and with which the first records of every people abound. But the sceptic is scarcely to be envied who would pause for stronger proofs than we already possess of the early glories of Ireland; and were even the veracity of all these proofs surrendered, yet who would not fly to such flattering fictions from the sad degrading truths which the history of later times presents to us?

The language of sorrow, however, is, in general, best suited to our Music, and with themes of this nature the poet may be amply supplied. There is scarcely a page of our annals that will not furnish him a subject, and while the national Muse of other countries adorns her temple proudly with

1 See Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i. book ix. 2 Statius, Thebaid. lib. xii.

3" A sort of civil excommunication (says Gibbon), which separated them from their fellow-citizens by a peculiar brand of infamy; and this declaration of the supreme magistrate tended to justify, or at least to excuse, the insults of a fanatic populace. The sectaries were gradually disqualified for the possession of honourable or lucrative employments, and Theodosius was satisfied with his own justice when he decreed, that, as the Eunomians distinguished the nature of the Son from that of the Father, they should be incapable of making their wills, or of receiving any advantage from testamentary donations."

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There is a well-known story, related of the Antiochians under the reign of Theodosius, which is not only honourable to the powers of music in general, but which applies so peculiarly to the mournful melodies of Ireland, that I cannot resist the temptation of introducing it here.- The piety of Theodosius, would have been admirable, had it not been stained with intolerance; but under his reign was, I believe, first set the example of a disqualifying penal code enacted by Christians against Christians. Whether his interference with the religion of the Antiochians had any share in the alienation of their loyalty is not expressly ascertained by historians; but severe edicts, heavy taxation, and the rapacity and insolence of the men whom he sent to govern them, sufficiently account for the discontents of a warm and susceptible people. Repentance soon followed the crimes into which their impatience had hurried them; but the vengeance of the Emperor was implacable, and punishments of the most dreadful nature hung over the city of Antioch, whose devoted inhabitants, totally resigned to despondence, wandered through the streets and public assemblies, giving utterance to their grief in dirges of the most touching lamentation. At length, Flavianus, their bishop, whom they had sent to intercede with Theodosius, finding all his entreaties coldly rejected, adopted the expedient of teaching these songs of sorrow which he had heard from the lips of his unfortunate countrymen to the minstrels who performed for the Emperor at table. The heart of Theodosius could not resist this appeal; tears fell fast into his cup while he listened, and the Antiochians were forgiven. — Surely, if music ever spoke the misfortunes of a people, or could ever conciliate forgiveness for their errors, the music of Ireland ought to possess those powers.

4 Μέλη τινα ολοφυρμού πλήρη και συμπαθείας συνθέμενοι, ταις Mehandiαis Endov. — Nicephor. lib. xii. cap. 43. This story is told also in Sozomen, lib. vii. cap. 23.; but unfortunately Chrysostom says nothing whatever about it, and he not only had the best opportunities of information, but was too fond of music, as appears by his praises of psalmody (Exposit. in Psalm xli.), to omit such a flattering illustration of its powers. He imputes their reconciliation to the interference of the Antiochian solitaries, while Zozimus attributes it to the remon. strances of the sophist Libanius. - Gibbon, I think, does not even allude to this story of the musicians.

THE SCEPTIC,

A PHILOSOPHICAL SATIRE.

Νομον παντων βασιλέα.

PINDAR. ap. Herodot, lib. iii.

PREFACE.

THE Sceptical Philosophy of the Ancients has been no less misrepresented than the Epicurean. Pyrrho may perhaps have carried it to rather an irrational excess;- but we must not believe, with Beattie, all the absurdities imputed to this philosopher; and it appears to me that the doctrines of the school, as explained by Sextus Empiricus1, are far more suited to the wants and infirmities of human reason, as well as more conducive to the mild virtues of humility and patience, than any of those systems of philosophy which preceded the introduction of Christianity. The Sceptics may be said to have held a middle path between the Dogmatists and Academicians; the former of whom boasted that they had attained the truth, while the latter denied that any attainable truth existed. The Sceptics, however, without either asserting or denying its existence, professed to be modestly and anxiously in search of it; or, as St. Augustine expresses it, in his liberal tract against the Manichæans, "nemo nostrum dicat jam se invenisse veritatem; sic eam quæramus quasi ab utrisque nesciatur."2 From this habit of impartial investigation, and the necessity which it imposed upon them, of studying not only every system of philosophy, but every art and science, which professed to lay its basis in truth, they necessarily took a wider range of erudition, and were far more travelled in the regions of philosophy than those whom conviction or bigotry had domesticated in any particular system. It required all the learning of dogmatism to overthrow the dogmatism of learning; and the Sceptics may be said to resemble

1 Pyrrh. Hypoth. The reader may find a tolerably clear abstract of this work of Sextus Empiricus in La Vérité des Sciences, by Mersenne, liv. i. chap. fi. &c.

in this respect, that ancient incendiary, who stole from the altar the fire with which he destroyed the temple. This advantage over all the other sects is allowed to them even by Lipsius, whose treatise on the miracles of the Virgo Hallensis will sufficiently save him from all suspicion of scepticism. "Labore, ingenio, memoria," he says, " supra omnes pene philosophos fuisse.-Quid nonne omnia aliorum secta tenere debuerunt et inquirere, si poterunt refellere? res dicit. Nonne orationes varias, raras, subtiles inveniri ad tam receptas, claras, certas (ut videbatur) sententias evertendas?" &c. &c. 3— Manuduct. ad Philosoph. Stoic. Dissert. 4.

Between the scepticism of the ancients and the moderns the great difference is, that the former doubted for the purpose of investigating, as may be exemplified by the third book of Aristotle's Metaphysics+, while the latter investigate for the purpose of doubting, as may be seen through most of the philosophical works of Hume. Indeed, the Pyrrhonism of latter days is not only more subtle than that of antiquity, but, it must be confessed, more dangerous in its tendency. The happiness of a Christian depends so essentially upon his belief, that it is but natural he should feel alarm at the progress of doubt, lest it should steal by degrees into that region from which he is most interested in excluding it, and poison at last the very spring of his consolation and hope. Still, however, the abuses of doubting ought not to deter a philosophical mind from indulging mildly and rationally in its use; and there is nothing, surely, more consistent with the meek spirit of Christianity, than that humble scepticism which professes

4 Έστι δε τοις ευπορήσαι βουλομένοις προύργου το διαπορησαν nahas. — Metaphys. lib. iii. cap. 1.

5 Neither Hume, however, nor Berkeley, are to be judged

* Lib. contra Epist. Manichæi quam vocant Fundamenti, by the misrepresentations of Beattie, whose book, however Op. Paris. tom. vi.

* See Martin. Schoockius de Scepticismo, who endeavours, -weakly, I think, -to refute this opinion of Lipsius.

amiably intended, puts forth a most unphilosophical appeal to popular feelings and prejudices, and is a continued petitio principii throughout.

not to extend its distrust beyond the circle of human pursuits, and the pretensions of human knowledge. A follower of this school may be among the readiest to admit the claims of a superintending Intelligence upon his faith and adoration: it is only to the wisdom of this weak world that he refuses, or at least delays, his assent ;-it is only in passing through the shadow of earth that his mind undergoes the eclipse of scepticism. No follower of Pyrrho has ever spoken more strongly against the dogmatists than St. Paul himself, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians; and there are passages in Ecclesiastes and other parts of Scripture, which justify our utmost diffidence in all that human reason originates. Even the Sceptics of antiquity refrained carefully from the mysteries of theology, and, in entering the temples of religion, laid aside their philosophy at the porch. Sextus Empericus thus declares the acquiescence of his sect in the general belief of a divine and fore-knowing Power: Τῳ μεν βιῳ κατακολουθούντες αδοξαστως φαμεν ειναι θεους, και σεβομεν θεους και προνοειν αυτους φαμεν. 1 In short, it appears to me, that this rational and well regulated scepticism is the only daughter of the Schools that can safely be selected as a handmaid for Piety. He who distrusts the light of reason, will be the first to follow a more luminous guide; and if, with an ardent love for truth, he has sought her in vain through the ways of this life, he will but turn with the more hope to that better world, where all is simple, true, and everlasting for, there is no parallax at the zenith ;it is only near our troubled horizon that objects deceive us into vague and erroneous calculations.

:

1 Lib. iii. cap. 1.

2 "The particular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire or snow are really in them, whether any one perceive them or not, and therefore they may be called real qua. lities, because they really exist in those bodies; but light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are no more really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them; let not the eye see light or colours, nor the ears hear sounds; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell, and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease." - Locke, book ii. chap. 8.

Bishop Berkeley, it is well known, extended this doctrine even to primary qualities, and supposed that matter itself has but an ideal existence. But, how are we to apply his theory to that period which preceded the formation of man, when our system of sensible things was produced, and the sun shone, and the waters flowed, without any sentient being to witness them? The spectator, whom Whiston supplies, will scarcely solve the difficulty: "To speak my mind freely," says he, "I believe that the Messias was there actually present.". - See Whiston, of the Mosaic Creation.

3 Boetius employs this argument of the Sceptics among his consolatory reflections upon the emptiness of fame. "Quid quod diversarum gentium mores inter se atque instituta discordant, ut quod apud alios laude, apud alios supplicio dignum judicetur?"— Lib. ii. prosa 7. Many amusing instances of diversity, in the tastes, manners, and morals of different nations,

THE SCEPTIC.

2

As the gay tint, that decks the vernal rose,
Not in the flower, but in our vision glows;
As the ripe flavour of Falernian tides
Not in the wine, but in our taste resides;
So when, with heartfelt tribute, we declare
That Marco's honest and that Susan's fair,
"Tis in our minds, and not in Susan's eyes
Or Marco's life, the worth or beauty lies:
For she, in flat-nos'd China, would appear
As plain a thing as Lady Anne is here;
And one light joke at rich Loretto's dome
Would rank good Marco with the damn'd at Rome.

There's no deformity so vile, so base, That 'tis not somewhere thought a charm, a grace; No foul reproach, that may not steal a beam From other suns, to bleach it to esteem. 3 Ask, who is wise?-you'll find the self-same man A sage in France, a madman in Japan; And here some head beneath a mitre swells, Which there had tingled to a cap and bells : Nay, there may yet some monstrous region be, Unknown to Cook, and from Napoleon free, Where C-stl-r-gh would for a patriot pass, And mouthing M- -ve scarce be deem'd an ass!

"List not to reason (Epicurus cries), "But trust the senses, there conviction lies :"4Alas! they judge not by a purer light, Nor keep their fountains more unting'd and bright:

may be found throughout the works of that amusing Sceptic, Le Mothe le Vayer. See his Opuscule Sceptique, his Treatise" De la Secte Sceptique," and, above all, those Dialogues, not to be found in his works, which he published under the name of Horatius Tubero. The chief objection to these writings of Le Vayer (and it is a blemish which may be felt also in the Esprit des Loix), is the suspicious obscurity of the sources from whence he frequently draws his instances, and the indiscriminate use made by him of the lowest populace of the library,- those lying travellers and wonder-mongers, of whom Shaftesbury, in his Advice to an Author, complains, as having tended in his own time to the diffusion of a very shallow and vicious sort of scepticism.Vol. i. p. 352. The Pyrrhonism of Le Vayer, however, is of the most innocent and playful kind; and Villemandy, the author of Scepticismus Debellatus, exempts him specially in the declaration of war which he denounces against the other armed neutrals of the sect, in consideration of the orthodox limits within which he confines his incredulity.

4 This was the creed also of those modern Epicureans, whom Ninon de l'Enclos collected around her in the Rue des Tournelles, and whose object seems to have been to decry the faculty of reason, as tending only to embarrass our wholesome use of pleasures, without enabling us, in any degree, to avoid their abuse. Madame des Houlières, the fair pupil of Des Barreaux in the arts of poetry and gallantry, has devoted most of her verses to this laudable purpose, and is even such a de

Habit so mars them, that the Russian swain
Will sigh for train-oil, while he sips champagne;
And health so rules them, that a fever's heat
Would make even Sh-r-d-n think water sweet.

Just as the mind the erring sense believes, The erring mind, in turn, the sense deceives; And cold disgust can find but wrinkles there, Where passion fancies all that's smooth and fair. P****, who sees, upon his pillow laid,

Thus, self-pleas'd still, the same dishonouring chain She binds in Ireland, she would break in Spain; While prais'd at distance, but at home forbid, Rebels in Cork are patriots at Madrid.

If Grotius be thy guide, shut, shut the book, —
In force alone for Laws of Nations look.
Let shipless Danes and whining yankees dwell
On naval rights, with Grotius and Vattel,
While C-bb-t's pirate code alone appears

A face for which ten thousand pounds were paid, Sound moral sense to England and Algiers.

Can tell, how quick before a jury flies

The spell that mock'd the warm seducer's eyes.

Woe to the Sceptic, in these party days,
Who wafts to neither shrine his puffs of praise!

Self is the medium through which Judgment's For him no pension pours its annual fruits,

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Nature, élève-nous à la clarté des anges,

Ou nous abaisse au sens des simples animaux."

Which may be thus paraphrased: —

Had man been made, at nature's birth,

Of only flame or only earth,

Had he been form'd a perfect whole

Of purely that, or grossly this,

Then sense would ne'er have clouded soul,
Nor soul restrain'd the sense's bliss.

Oh happy, had his light been strong,
Or had he never shar'd a light,

Which shines enough to show he's wrong,
But not enough to lead him right.

1 See, among the fragments of Petronius, those verses beginning "Fallunt nos oculi," &c. The most sceptical of the ancient poets was Euripides; and it would, I think, puzzle the whole school of Pyrrho to produce a doubt more startling than the following:

Τις δ' οίδεν ει ζην τουθ' ὁ κέκληται θανείν,

Το ζην δε θνησκειν εστι.

See Laert. in Pyrrh.

Socrates and Plato were the grand sources of ancient scepticism. According to Cicero (de Orator. lib. iii.), they supplied Arcesilas with the doctrines of the Middle Academy; and how closely these resembled the tenets of the Sceptics,

No fertile sinecure spontaneous shoots;

Not his the meed that crown'd Don H-kh-m's

rhyme,

Nor sees he e'er, in dreams of future time,
Those shadowy forms of sleek reversions rise,
So dear to Scotchmen's second-sighted eyes.
Yet who, that looks to History's damning leaf,
Where Whig and Tory, thief oppos'd to thief,
On either side in lofty shame are seen,3
While Freedom's form hangs crucified between-
Who, B-rd-tt, who such rival rogues can see,
But flies from both to Honesty and thee?

If, weary of the world's bewild'ring maze,+ Hopeless of finding, through its weedy ways,

may be seen even in Sextus Empiricus (lib. i. cap. 33.), who, with all his distinctions, can scarcely prove any difference. It appears strange that Epicurus should have been a dogmatist; and his natural temper would most probably have led him to the repose of scepticism, had not the Stoics, by their violent opposition to his doctrines, compelled him to be as obstinate as themselves. Plutarch, indeed, in reporting some of his opinions, represents him as having delivered them with considerable hesitation. - Επικουρος ουδεν απογίνωσκει τούτων, EXOμLEVOS TOU ENDεxousvou. — De Placit. Philosoph. lib. ii. cap. 13. See also the 21st and 22d chapters. But that the leading characteristics of the sect were self-sufficiency and dogmatism, appears from what Cicero says of Velleius, De Natur. Deor." Tum Velleius, fidenter sanè, ut solent isti, nihil tam verens quam ne dubitare aliquá de re videretur."

Acts, chap. xix. "For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen."

3" Those two thieves," says Ralph, "between whom the nation is crucified."— Use and Abuse of Parliaments.

4 The agitation of the ship is one of the chief difficulties which impede the discovery of the longitude at sea; and the tumult and hurry of life are equally unfavourable to that calm level of mind which is necessary to an inquirer after

truth.

In the mean time, our modest Sceptic, in the absence of truth, contents himself with probabilities, resembling in this respect those suitors of Penelope, who, on finding that they could not possess the mistress herself, very wisely resolved to put up with her maids ; τη Πηνελοπη πλησιάζειν μη δυνατ μένοι, ταις ταύτης εμίγνυντο θεραπαιναις. — Plutarch, Περι IIadav Aywyns.

Ꮮ.

One flower of truth, the busy crowd we shun,
And to the shades of tranquil learning run,
How many a doubt pursues! how oft we sigh,
When histories charm, to think that histories lie!
That all are grave romances, at the best,

And when, perhaps, in pride of chemic powers,
We think the keys of Nature's kingdom ours,
Some Davy's magic touch the dream unsettles,
And turns at once our alkalis to metals.
Or, should we roam, in metaphysic maze,

And M―sgr-ve's 2 but more clumsy than the rest. Through fair-built theories of former days,

By Tory Hume's seductive page beguil❜d,
We fancy Charles was just and Strafford mild;
And Fox himself, with party pencil, draws
Monmouth a hero, "for the good old cause!" 4
Then, rights are wrongs, and victories are defeats,
As French or English pride the tale repeats;
And, when they tell Corunna's story o'er,
They'll disagree in all, but honouring Moore:
Nay, future pens, to flatter future courts,
May cite perhaps the Park-guns' gay reports,
To prove that England triumph'd on the morn
Which found her Junot's jest and Europe's scorn.

In Science, too-how many a system, rais'd
Like Neva's icy domes, awhile hath blaz'd
With lights of fancy and with forms of pride,
Then, melting, mingled with the oblivious tide!
Now Earth usurps the centre of the sky,
Now Newton puts the paltry planet by;
Now whims revive beneath Descartes's 5
pen,
Which now, assail'd by Locke's, expire again.

Some Dr-mm-d6 from the north, more ably

skill'd,

Like other Goths, to ruin than to build,
Tramples triumphant through our fanes o'erthrown,
Nor leaves one grace, one glory of his own.

Oh Learning, whatsoe'er thy pomp and boast, Unletter'd minds have taught and charm'd men

most.

The rude, unread Columbus was our guide
To worlds, which learn'd Lactantius had denied;
And one wild Shakspeare, following Nature's lights,
Is worth whole planets, fill'd with Stagyrites.

See grave Theology, when once she strays
From Revelation's path, what tricks she plays;
What various heav'ns,-all fit for bards to sing,-
Have churchmen dream'd, from Papias7 down to
King! 8

While hell itself, in India nought but smoke,9
In Spain's a furnace, and in France—a joke.

1 See a curious work, entitled "Reflections upon Learning," written on the plan of Agrippa's " De Vanitate Scientiarum," but much more honestly and skilfully executed.

2 This historian of the Irish rebellions has outrun even his predecessor in the same task, Sir John Temple, for whose character with respect to veracity the reader may consult Carte's "Collection of Ormond's Original Papers," p. 207. See also Dr. Nalson's account of him, in the introduction to the second volume of his "Historic. Collect."

3 He defends Strafford's conduct as "innocent and even laudable." In the same spirit, speaking of the arbitrary sentences of the Star Chamber, he says, "The severity of the Star Chamber, which was generally ascribed to Laud's passionate disposition, was perhaps, in itself, somewhat blameable."

the Dutch were accustomed to reply to the statements of ambassadors. See Lloyd's State Worthies, art. Sir Thomas Wyat.

5 Descartes, who is considered as the parent of modern scepticism, says, that there is nothing in the whole range of philosophy which does not admit of two opposite opinions, and which is not involved in doubt and uncertainty. "In Philosophia nihil adhuc reperiri, de quo non in utramque partem disputatur, hoc est, quod non sit incertum et dubium." Gassendi is likewise to be added to the list of modern Sceptics, and Wedderkopff, in his Dissertation "De Scepticismo profano et sacro" (Argentorat. 1666), has denounced Erasmus also as a follower of Pyrrho, for his opinions upon the Trinity, and some other subjects. To these if we add the names of Bayle, Mallebranche, Dryden, Locke, &c. &c., I think there is no one who need be ashamed of doubting in such company.

6 See this gentleman's Academic Questions.

7 Papias lived about the time of the apostles, and is supposed to have given birth to the heresy of the Chilliastæ, whose heaven was by no means of a spiritual nature, but rather an anticipation of the Prophet of Hera's elysium. See Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. iii. cap. 33., and Hieronym. de Scriptor. Ecclesiast. From all I can find in these authors concerning Papias, it seems hardly fair to impute to him those gross imaginations in which the believers of the sensual millennium indulged.

4 That flexibility of temper and opinion, which the habits of scepticism are so calculated to produce, are thus pleaded for by Mr. Fox, in the very sketch of Monmouth to which I allude; and this part of the picture the historian may be thought to have drawn from himself. "One of the most conspicuous features in his character seems to have been a remarkable, and, as some think, a culpable degree of flexibility. That such a disposition is preferable to its opposite extreme will be admitted by all, who think that modesty, even in excess, is more nearly allied to wisdom than conceit and self-sufficiency. He who has attentively considered the political, or indeed the general concerns of life, may possibly go still further, and may rank a willingness to be convinced, or, in some cases, even without conviction, to concede our own opinion to that of other men, among the principal ingredients in the composition of practical wisdom."— It is right to observe, however, that the Sceptic's readiness of concession arises rather from uncertainty than conviction, more from a suspicion that his own opinion may be wrong, than from any persuasion that the opinion of his adversary is right. "It may be so," was the courteous and sceptical formula, with which be burned hereafter.

8 King, in his Morsels of Criticism, vol. i., supposes the sun to be the receptacle of blessed spirits.

9 The Indians call hell "the House of Smoke." See Picart upon the Religion of the Banians. The reader who is curious about infernal matters, may be edified by consulting Rusca de Inferno, particularly lib. ii. cap. 7, 8., where he will find the precise sort of fire ascertained in which wicked spirits are to

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