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In the same strain and with equal success, I might contrast your ironpointed staff with my gig whip-and your thick-soled and clouted shoon with my Sunday Wellingtons or travelling tops.

I think I have now made out a sufficient case against you and Mr Wordsworth, and demonstrated that, in all points of view, my character and history are eminently suited for the hero of a great philosophical poem, and that yours are as eminently the reverse. But before closing my letter let me shortly advert to those points which Mr Wordsworth, conscious of an impending attack, has put forward in his defence.

Mr Wordsworth says that he has ever been ready "to pay homage to the aristocracy of nature," in which category he seems to include your case. I am not sure that I understand the phrase that here occurs in the poet's prose. If by the aristocracy of nature is meant the pre-eminence of mere natural genius, the idea is not peculiarly applicable to your situation, and by comprehending too much will be found to contain nothing at all. In that view, a philosophical poem might be written to celebrate the natural genius of a coallieaver, or hackneycoachman, for I presume that such genius, if it exists, may be found alike in all situations of life. But I would ask whether, in the creation of her aristocracy, Nature does not give carte blanche to Education? It seems pretty plain, at least, that Education must affix the seal before the patent can be issued. If by the aristocracy of nature is meant the nobility which results from educated genius, or genius sufficiently educated to make itself seen, the principle contended for may be true, but it is certainly not new. Every body pays homage to genius where it appears, and where it does not appear, homage cannot be expected.

If, again, it is not intended to refer to genius, but to good sense or respectability, here, too, the sentiment is sufficiently trite, but it is not very relevant. Every body may not pay "homage," in a literal sense, to an honest or sagacious man in a shabby coat, but every body that knows what he is will have a certain regard for him proportioned to his good qualities. But it is one thing to have a liking or

respect for a worthy or decent man in the rank of a mechanic or travelling merchant, and another thing to exalt him above other men, equally worthy and decent, but of higher station and accomplishments, and to make him the oracle of a philosophical poem.

In short, the more I consider the expression in which this apology for you is conveyed, the less I understand it. We are all of us, in one sense, of nature's making, and, in another sense, we are all of us the product, not of nature, but of education and society. Mr Wordsworth does not mean to set up as a model a man of natural genius with no education and no calling or social employment; for he gives even you some education, and he gives you a profession not more natural than that of a general officer or a retired judge. If some education, then, may enter into the composition of nature's aristocracy, why not a good education? If some profession may be allowed, why not the best and most extensive? Sure I am that, if the aristocracy of nature may be illustrated in you, it may be equally found in me, being, as I am, of at least equal natural endowments, and of analogous though superior pursuits. If nature allows her "peerage", to tramp about the country as pedlars, she need not to object to recognise them when driving their gig as bagmen. Upon the whole, I suspect we should return to our old notions on this subject, and admit that the seeming prejudices of society are here, as elsewhere, founded in truth. As a ge neral rule, it will be found that noblemen, gentlemen, and bagmen are in the most favourable position for mental improvement, and that the idea of making heroes and sages out of pedlars or potters is visionary and absurd. But indeed Mr Wordsworth shows us, in Peter Bell, the true effects of a wandering pedestrian life. Peter, from birth and habits, might have been called up to nature's House of Lords as well as yourself. But the truth there was too clear to be tampered with; and thus one of your associates by act of Parliament (see supra, Edward VI.), is written down a blackguard, while you, who are not essentially different, are promoted to be a gentleman and an aristocrat.

But Mr Wordsworth refers to an authority in prose in support of his

poetry. He appeals to Heron's Journey in Scotland. Now I have been often enough at the assizes as party or bystander to know that this evidence would be treated as coming from a somewhat suspicious quarter. Heron, if I mistake not, was a native of Scotland, and it would be rash to trust too far to the testimony of a Scotchman, particularly of the last century, where the honour of his country, or the station of his countrymen, was involved. But let us examine what the witness says, and see whether it bears internal evidence of sober truth and strict impartiality. Passing over the reference to ancient history as mere hearsay, and the sneer against missionaries as not to the purpose, we come to his description of what he professes to know as actual facts.

"It is further to be observed," Mr Heron says, "for the credit of this most useful class of men, that they commonly contribute, by their personal manners, no less than by the sale of their wares, to the refinement of the people among whom they travel." This is somewhat new. In this view, the manners of a packman should have become proverbial, yet I never heard them so characterised. A vagrant Chesterfield is quite an original idea.

This

nary haberdasher's shop? "As in their peregrinations they have opportunity of contemplating the manners of various men, and various cities, they become eminently skilled in the knowledge of the world." What are the various cities you were acquainted with Two or three at the most; Perth and Dumfries, Edinburgh and Carlisle. But what parts of those cities did you visit? Not certainly the most elegant or improving; who ever saw you on Prince's Street in the metropolis of your own country? No one; you put up at the Highlander's Salutation in the Grassmarket, nor ever visited a more fashionable district than the Candlemaker Row, or Bristo Port: while your houffs in the other places were of a similar respectability. "As they wander, each alone, through thinly inhabited districts, they form habits of reflection and sublime contemplation." seems the main passage in the evidence; but I think I have already obviated it. I can allow of no sublime contemplation in a traveller who bears a burden on his back, that won't let him hold up his head, or look beyond his shoe-tie. "With all these qualifications, no wonder that they should often be, in remote parts of the country, the BEST MIRRORS OF FASHION "Their dealings form them to and censors of manners; and should great quickness of wit, and acuteness contribute much to polish the roughof judgment!" That you may be acute ness, and soften the rusticity of our enough in your dealings I don't deny, peasantry!" O Murdoch, this of you; but it is a pity that your poet's plan you the best mirror of fashion! with did not permit him to give us speci- those corduroy knees, drab-coloured mens of the wit here lauded. May spats, as you call them, and ribbed blue we soon expect a collection of your stockings between; not to speak of mots? If you don't favour us, how- that waistcoat with the flaps! This ever, we can fall back on the merry is too much; it out-Herons Heron; and humorous achievements of John" Gentlemen of the jury," as my Cheap the Chapman, a pamphlet well known in your own country, affording, for the price of one halfpenny, a good deal of wit, but not certainly remarkable for that refinement which Mr Heron had praised in the preceding sentence. "Having constant occasion to recommend themselves and their goods, they acquire habits of the most obliging attention, and the most insinuating address." In recommending your goods, Puff, the auctioneer, was probably nothing to you, but as to your insinuating address, what did it consist in beyond what belongs to the most ordinary shopman in the most ordi

friend Buckram used to say, "after this can you believe a word that this witness has told you?"

From the rest of this MrHeron's statement it appears that the travelling merchant turns out, after all, to be no waiter, but a Knight Templar. "When, after twenty years absence in that ho nourable line of employment, he returned with his acquisitions to his native country, he was regarded as a gentleman to all intents and purposes !" So then the Pedlar does not rest satisfied with belonging to the aristocracy of nature, but takes his place as an Esquire in the ranks of artificial socie

ty, and probably dines once a month with Custos Rotulorum himself, if he does not ultimately sit for the county. This shifting of your ground won't do, Murdoch. It is very plain, on your poet's own showing, that you are no gentleman, even in your retirement; and if in this and other points the testimony in your favour is shaken, it must altogether fall.

But if there is any truth in the passage quoted from Heron, assuredly it applies not to you but to me. Mutato nomine de ME Fabula narratur. There would be nothing absurd in applying to me all the encomiums that are so misplaced as they stand. The personal manners and refinement quickness of wit, and acuteness of judgment-the habits of obliging attention and insinuating address, all belong more appropriately to Tomkins the Bagman than to any other being. Then unquestionably my peregrinations give me that opportunity of contemplating the manners of various men and various cities, and of acquiring an eminent knowledge of the world, the possession of which can be but scantily predicated of you. As to solitary wanderings and the formation of habits of reflection and sublime contemplation, who can boast of these advantages so justly or so largely as myself? Alone in my gig I traverse, not only the

most populous, but also the most thinly inhabited districts of the island. Within an hour's drive from my own door in Sheffield, I find myself on my midland circuit in the wildest solitudes of the Derbyshire hills, and there, inspired. by the genius of the place and an occasional auxiliary to enthusiasm of a more potent kind, I can indulge my sublime contemplations to a degree of intensity that would be incompatible with the prosecution of a pitiful pedestrian journey. With all these qualifications, indeed, no wonder that I should be often the "best mirror of fashion" that a country bumpkin can dress himself by. But you that is a very different affair.

Nothing more, then, need be said. The Excursion is undoubtedly a fine poem, and Mr Wordsworth is the greatest poet of his day; but he was quite wrong when he chose you for a hero, instead of giving the preference

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ON CATHOLICISM, PROTESTANTISM, AND PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE.

BY M. GUIZOT.

We have, in several papers of late years, given our readers many interesting details respecting the state of religion in France. We have therein expressed our opinion that the subject in that country is becoming gradually ascendant, and experience has completely justified this opinion. The very fact that M. Guizot has felt himself called upon to publish a grave essay, having the above title, proves this. That distinguished person is, by his position, and the character of his mind, eminently a practical man, and he would not devote an hour of his time to any matter which he did not deem had immediate practical bearings. Religious questions then have, it appears, come to have an acknowledged importance in France, which will, we feel persuaded, become more and more prominent every day. When one of the most illustrious authors, and one of the soundest statesmen in Europe, gives to the world, therefore, under this conviction, his deliberate thoughts on such serious topics, the sentiments he enunciates thereupon cannot fail to attract general attention, and to exert a considerable influence on the public mind. There

is something very striking, too, in an active politician, in one who has been a leading Cabinet Minister in a great nation, and who is likely to be so again, considering discussions of a theological nature to fall within the domain of politics. But the reason of this is, that the political condition of the French kingdom is palpably affect ed, not merely remotely so, as it were, by under-currents of health, or of disease, but materially, on its surface as well as in its heart, both by the general indifference and laxity, and by the very partial earnestness of religious belief which prevail throughout that land. It is then necessity-a dire political necessity which there urges men, engrossed in state affairs, to pay an anxious attention to the external effects of the two adverse Christian creeds, and of philosophy, in the positions which they respectively hold in France. Deeper than this they enquire not, and there is, therefore, nothing satisfactory in

their speculations. Politicians who are philosophers rather than Christians, are, of all men, the most inapt to understand even the political operations of religion. The little work of M. Guizot, now under our consideration, makes this most manifest. It is, nevertheless, a singularly important production. It may be almost regarded as an historic document, and future historians may refer to it as to a most authentic source of information respecting the moral and religious situation of the French people at the present period. We shall consequently, although it has been already widely circulated in the French journals, lay it, with as little mutilation as possible, before our readers. From its literary merit alone it deserves a careful translation. It is, indeed, a masterpiece of the artful style of composition. Never before, perhaps, except in the writings of Bossuet, was there an instance of more skill than this essay exhibits, in giving to superficiality, by the shadow of a deep mind reflected on it, the appearance of profundity. We shall reserve our comments for the concluding part of this article, and proceed now to the translation.

"It is," M. Guizot begins, "of Catholicism and of Protestantism, not of religion, nor even of Christianity in general, that I design to speak. I regret that it is not possible to designate philosophy by any definite denomination. But, to be at once and clearly understood, I hasten to say, that, on the present occasion, I mean by philosophy, every opinion, under any name or any form, which admits not of any system of faith as obligatory on the human intelligence, and which leaves man, on the subject of religion, as on all others, free to believe or not to believe, depending solely on himself for his interior convictions. It is of France and of France alone that I write. The state of Catholicism, of Protestantism, and of philosophy, is not the same in France, after our moral and social revolutions, in a country which has undergone such revolutions, as it is elsewhere. I will advance nothing which does not result from positive facts, and

which cannot have a practical application. The moment has arrived to confront facts themselves, real facts, and to discard general terms which elude the questions they seem to decide. I am convinced that Catholicism, Protestantism, and philosophy, may, in the bosom of our new society, in the France of the Charte, subsist together in peace among themselves, and with her,—in a peace not only material but moral, not merely forced but voluntary, without renouncing or compromising their distinct and separate views,-in truth and in honour. This I will prove.

"I maintain as my first argument absolutely, that this must be, it must be necessarily. The following is the state of things:-The Catholicism, the Protestantism, and the philosophy of the new French society can neither destroy each other, nor undergo such modifications as may seem good either to the one or to the other of them. They are ancient facts, powerful, full of life, indestructible, at least for an incalculable length of time. They have stood their ground in the midst of the severest trials-trials of periods of tranquillity and order-and of seasons of violence and chaotic confusion. Our New France, the France of the Charte, has been in process of formation and developement for centuries. All things have warred with her, and all has concurred to her triumph; the church, the nobility, royalty, the court; the grandeur of Louis XIV., the indolence of Louis XV., the Wars of the Empire, and the Peace of the Restoration. She has risen above her own faults as above the ascendency of her enemies. Catholicism was born at the same time as modern Europe, in the same cradle. It has been identified with all the operations of European civilisation. It has survived all its transformations. In our days it has encountered the most terrible shock which ever struck a creed or a church. It has been lifted up even by the hand of its destroyers. It is regaining strength visibly day by day. Let us enter domestic circles; let us visit the provinces, and we shall see what power it still possesses, despite the lukewarmness of many of its adherents, and even of many of its priests. The destinies of Protestantism in France have been severe. It has been opposed by our kings and the people, by the literature

VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLXXVI.

At

of the seventeenth century, and the
philosophy of the eighteenth.
times it has seemed to be extirpated
by Catholicism, and at others to be
absorbed by philosophy; but it has
succumbed neither to persecution nor
to disdain; it subsists, and hardly has
it been endowed with liberty, when it
recovers at the same time its ancient
fervour. As to philosophy, it has ex-
perienced many checks in the midst of
its triumphs; its vanities and mistakes
may be easily exposed; it has much
to repair, but nothing to fear; it re-
mains master of the field. The prin-
ciples which it has proclaimed have
become rights; these rights have be-
come facts; the new social state which
it has produced will be no less favour-
able to it than the old one it has van-
quished. Evidently these three pow-
ers are full of life, and have long pros-
pects before them. They have been
roughly assailed, but in vain ; they have
received no mortal blow, neither are
they more subject to change than to
death. Doubtless they may adopt cer-
tain modifications in accordance with
their new situation; they will listen
to reason; they will recognise neces-
sity; but without denying their prin-
ciples, without abdicating their nature.
Such concessions they cannot make;
all that is characteristic and vital in
them will endure. Without transfor-
mation, then, and such as God and
time has made them, they must exist,
side by side, under the same social
canopy.

"If they live not together in peace,
in sincere peace, what will happen?
We shall see recommence the wars
which our fathers have witnessed; the
war between Catholicism and Pro-
testantism; the war between Chris-
tian creeds and philosophy; between
the Church and the New State; we
shall see a revival of every sort of fa-
naticism, lay and ecclesiastic, philoso-
phic and religious. But this is not
probable. One meets here and there,
in books and in journals, sometimes
even in graver publications, certain
attempts towards such a retrogression,
certain Catholic acerbities against
Protestant impiety, Protestant against
Papist idolatry, bigoted against rea-
son and enlightenment, philosophical
against faith and the clergy. Yet all
this constitutes mere verbal disputes,
often sincere, generally cold, and al-
ways impotent.
No doubt the old

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