Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

That the British government has incurred a most awful responsibility in the sight of God, for the encouragement, protection, and support it has given to popery, in both England and Ireland, for the last century, is a fact, the proof of which will, probably, ere long, be written in characters legible enough to be read in its punishment from the same source, by men of fewer eyes than your correspondent professes to enjoy. God grant that many eyes, now blind to approaching events, may not be opened to conviction, only to be instantly closed in a violent death! I am, sir, yours,

S. TUCKER. Brookhouse, Lancashire, Feb. 28, 1832.

DETRACTION.

(By the Rev. J. Young.)

"Our innocence is not our shield: They take offence who have not been offended, They seek our ruin too, who speak us fair, And death is often ambush'd in their smiles: We know not whom we have to fear."-Dr. Young. THE observation made by Dr. Johnson, in his elegant life of Addison, of the propriety rather to say "nothing that is false, than all that is true," is worthy the serious attention every person who has any regard for his own respectability, or for the welfare of others. Whether the Doctor was always governed by the invaluable precept which he uttered, is not necessary to inquire; but that far too few of our fellows are so, requires not all the subtile powers of learning to prove to be sadly certain.

of

Every city furnishes its delinquents, and every little market-town has its violators of the trite observation referred to. Here, as from a hot-bed, the litigious shoot-up persons, who being gifted with the wonderful faculty of understanding other people's affairs better than their own, they are empowered, by inuendos and significant signs, to communicate to their fellow-townsmen, not only all that exists concerning others, but that, likewise, which, excepting in their own fertile imagination, never had a being. Evil seems to possess chameleon properties, presenting different appearances as viewed in different positions. While to some, one species of evil appears hideous, to another it presents attractions which render it perfectly harmless, or altogether irresistible ; still it is evil, and, under every modification, remains in its nature substantially and ne

more especially, when a decree of one of their great and immutable councils, ordering that "no faith should be kept with heretics, when the interests of the church require its violation," stands to this day unrepealed, is it prudent to trust such men with political power in a protestant state!

cessarily the same, unchanged by custom, opinion, or apology; and, as such, is reprobated by truth and righteousness. There is at least one evil, which at no point of observation can appear otherwise than execrablenone can admire it-no, not even the creatures who are found in the constant practice of it. However suitable it may be to their purposes, or agreeable to their nature, and with whatever degree of sophistry they may manage for a while to cheat themselves into an imaginary approval of it, yet even they can scarcely avoid hating themselves, as they are hated, it is-DETRACTION!

It is not always easy to account for things of whose existence we are most conscious, and with which we are most familiar. There are ten thousand phænomena which every moment press upon our notice, concerning whose nature, the light of science and the research of philosophy have not been able to furnish any satisfactory explanation. This is precisely the case with the present subject. Certain general principles may, indeed, be laid down, upon which theoretical arguments may be raised, or, without reasoning at all, it may at once be declared to result from the general source of all evil,-the depravity of human nature; and although this is certainly correct, it furnishes not such a solution to the moral enigma as an inquisitive mind might desire.

All, however, are not slaves to this debasing and destructive evil, and yet all are naturally depraved; but as this essay is not intended to be a metaphysical dissertation on the subject of Detraction, but a simple exposé of its nature and evils, in order to induce a desire after a cure, I shall not pursue such a course of reasoning as I was unconsciously on the point of entering into. It will be sufficient, for the purposes just stated, to observe, that detraction is the exhibition of a depraved nature, and of a little, contemptible, and uninformed mind. It may, and doubtless does, in many arise from what Ovid calls, Studiumque immane loquendi,- -a huge desire of talking. And, as to such, it is a matter of perfect indifference as to the subject upon which they exercise their voluble powers-reckless of all consequences, they pounce upon the character of others, like the filthy carrionvulture of Carthagena, or disgusting aquiline of Cairo. Or, perhaps, from long yielding to the powerful and unconquerable propensity of talking, they have exhausted all other topics to which their childish minds could reach; or they have become so established in this, that detraction is to them a kind of impure element in which they live.

The motives to detraction are many

dark, and intricate, while the malicious things which are searched out, as matter for their horrid purposes, are multiplied. Passion, envy, hatred, and malice, are the general sources whence the detractor obtains his poisonous supplies, and replenishes himself with destructive materials. Individuals who have been raised by habits of industry, and the blessing of Providence, or by low and cunning intrigue, to a standing among their fellows, to which mind never entitled them, conceive themselves justified in demanding from all, with whom they are brought into contact, and where fortune has not shed her golden rays, the attention and homage due to superior beings; and woe be to those who, in the exercise of their rational powers, dissent from, or unintentionally pass them by. There is, on the part of such, what may without impropriety be called, a satanic ingenuity put into exercise, to devise means by which most effectually to blast the character, detract from the usefulness, and destroy the comfort of its objects.

The invariable practice of the detractor is, to seize upon every opportunity to attack and traduce the character of those whose honest fame has raised them to an elevation in public notice and esteem, which them selves could never attain,

"They hate the excellence they cannot reach," and, therefore, torture their heavy inventions to find means by which to reduce them, in public opinion, to a nearer level with themselves. Alas! too many are the instances in which such murderers of reputation have succeeded in their dark projects, and brought down to misery and ruin those who, but for such assassins, would have lived-blessed and blessing. Nevertheless, the whole race of detractors is infinitely below the anger of a wise man, supposing he could lawfully give way to it. They are much more fit objects for his pity or contempt. They appear too mean to contend with, and, having lost all sensibility; all the fine feeling which distinguishes man from the brute creation, reproof and advice to such would, in all probability, be uselessly employed.

66

The fable by Boccalini supports the above position, who relates, that a traveller was so annoyed with the chirping of grasshoppers, that he alighted from his horse in anger, to kill the whole: "This," says the author, was troubling himself to no manner of purpose. Had he pursued his jour ney, without taking notice of them, the troublesome insects would have died of themselves in a few weeks, and he would have suffered nothing from them."

Occasions, however, will arise, to render it indispensable that defamation should be confronted by truth, both for the sake of public peace and safety, as well as for individual and private credit. Any disruption that can be effected between man and man, or want of confidence gendered in the bosom of one individual against another, is striking at the root of that social compact which must, for general good, exist between the family of man. Every tie thus broken, tends fatally and effectually, although imperceptibly, to dissolve that entire union, without which the prosperity of a nation can by no possibility exist. It is like poison infused into the system, which, while it destroys the vigour of health, and enervates the frame, works insidiously until the vital spark itself is extinguished.

What extent of mischief such are capable of accomplishing, is, perhaps, incalculable; concerning such the old adage may be employed in its utmost latitude, "The hand that cannot erect a hovel, may demolish a palace." They are a kind of moral vampyre, of which animal, it is said, that they possess an insatiable propensity to suck the blood of men and beasts during their sleep. Na. turalists report, that they are frequently known, in the island of Java, to attack persons so situated, causing them to pass from sleep to death. Their dexterity is not less notorious than their thirst for blood. They insinuate their aculeated tongue into a vein, and continue to draw the blood without causing pain; and, during the process, fan the heated air with their wings in so pleasing a manner as to throw the sufferer into a still sounder sleep than at first overpowered him.

With the soft insinuating tongue of professed friendship, the character we are contemplating fans off the fiery breath of suspicion, and insinuates himself into the confidence of his unsuspecting victims, until, with a subtility not surpassed by the treacherous vampyre, they suck away the life's-blood of their reputation. Of such treacherous conduct David had reason to complain, "It was not an enemy that did it;" not one whose nobleness of soul would have scorned the guise of an assassin, and have publicly challenged to combat; neither was it one who proclaimed openly his enmity, from such he could have defended or hid himself,-no! it was a professed friend, a bosom friend; "the words of whose mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords," Psalm lv. These modern Ahithophels and Judases speak fair, and salute with a kiss of

friendship, in order that they may more securely and perfectly work their deeds in darkness, and accomplish their schemes of destruction. The fate of such, David, as a prophet, has foretold in all the glowing language of awful certainty: "Thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction,-deceitful men shall not live out half their days."

The means by which the detractor accomplishes his purpose are varied according to the circumstances of the individual upon whom his infernal practices are to be exercised. No art, or stratagem, is left untried— no act of weariness is objected to, nor dark insinuation of positive falsehood rejected, so that the absorbing desire of their souls can be effected. They are, as has already been intimated, creatures of little and unfurnished minds, and perfectly impotent in all but the conceiving and executing plans of de. traction, of RUIN; Lord Verulam finely observed, "That a man who has no virtue in himself, ever envies virtue in others;" the most cursory observation will demonstrate the correctness of the statement:

It would be well, if the degrading vice, of which we are now treating, were confined to the rougher sex; for although, in them, it is loathsome as putridity itself, yet when the softness and sympathy which should possess the female breast are made to yield to the ruling power of detraction, it assumes a character so vile, so loathsome, that language seems to labour to describe it, and the sensitive mind turns away from its contemplation, even sickened with a kind of climaxed disgust. "I know not," observes Sir Richard Steel, "how it comes to pass; but detraction, through all ages, has been found a vice which the fair sex too easily give into." The evidence of a man like Sir Richard, should be, I am aware, received with the utmost caution; and, did it not too fully coincide with almost daily proof, might be at once rejected. However much it is to be lamented that truth should be found in such assertion, yet so it is; happily there are noble and multiplied exceptions to be found in females, who would

Rather conceal the faults they can but see In either sex, than spread the infamy. Who love the excellence they may not reach, Nor scorn to learn from those they cannot teach. Plato, hearing it was asserted by some persons, that he was a very bad man, observed, "I will take care so to live, that nobody shall believe them." This was speaking like a philosopher, and is a resolution worthy the adoption of all; but it will not always be found to be practicable; at least it will not always secure from the steel-pointed

shafts of detraction. Mole-like, the calumniator digs unseen, and, before any evil is conceived of, the fair palace of reputation is undermined, and, like a building whose foundation has been sapped, it falls, perhaps, into irretrievable ruin:

The garb of sympathy is not unfrequently assumed when the sappers and miners commence their operations. With a face drawn to unusual dimensions, and a seriousness of look and tone awful as death, they preface their destructive work with a halfsuppressed sigh, or significant palsied motion of the head; and then inquire, if the painful report which they have been compelled, although most unwillingly, to hear, be true? their own reputation they feel so implicated, that they have been wretched past endurance, since the sad, sad tale first reached them. If, as is most likely, the inquired of profess ignorance on the subject, a solemn

Bless me," is ejaculated, "have you not heard that," &c. &c.; or, "Well, I sincerely hope it may not be correct, but, I assure you, I have heard it from such a quarter that I dare not disbelieve it: however, I will hope for the best; something is wrong, that is most certain, or the report, you know, could not have existed; but, for the world, do not repeat it, it may do harm where none was intended, and I am sure I would not have my name mentioned, in such an affair, for any thing I know of."

Such kind sympathizing souls remind us of the boa constrictor, which, upon the capture of any animal whose bulk renders it difficult to gorge him, he commences his task by licking the whole body over with his tongue, and thus covers it with a mucilaginous or slimy substance, thereby rendering his captive smooth and pliable of digestion. One uninstructed in the history and habits of this monster, might suppose, while beholding the process, that kindness and affection were displayed; but, alas, the sequel proves too plainly, that the creature was only preparing the victim of his voracious and insatiable appetite; and that all the apparent kindness displayed was only a necessary preparation, to enable him more easily to make an end of his prey. "So," observes an excellent living author, "are the sleek, wheedling, canting, insinuating mortals under consideration." "The very kisses of their mouths are deceit," Prov. xxvii. 6. We are, while thinking of such, strongly reminded of the saying of Tacitus, "There is not a more pestilent enemy than a malevolent praiser;" to which the Spanish proverb might justly be appended, "Save me from my friends-I will save myself from my foes."

That persons of so low and base a character should be met with in this unfriendly world, the inhabitants of which are described as using deceit with their tongues, and as being hated, and hating one another, cannot excite much surprise; but that such should be found in the church of Christ, professing to be followers of him, whose example is so eminently calculated to induce, and whose solemn and reiterated command is to love, and love thinketh no evil-is passing strange; yet such is the fact. The wheat and the tares grow together, but the harvest-time is coming, when the uselessness of all profession, without principle, will be awfully demonstrated. Once again, He who will be their Judge addresses them, in order to reclaim them, "Thy tongue frameth deceit; thou sittest and speakest against thy brother, thou slanderest thine own mother's son. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes," Psalm 1. 19-21.

Happy will it be, if those who have long been led captive by the evil spirit of Detraction, shall find repentance and forgive ness; the genuiness of whose abhorrence of the evil shall be marked by an immediate departure from a course which can only here foster the basest passion of their fallen nature-induce the most wretched experience, which can be known in this worldand lead to certain ruin, beneath which they

will be crushed in a future state!

THE SLAVE MARKET AT CHARLESTON.

[From Captain Basil Hall's America.]

"My attention was arrested on the way by a circumstance which I might certainly have expected at Charleston, but somehow had not looked for. On reaching the exchange, in the centre of which the post-office is placed, I heard the sound of several voices in the street, like those of an auctioneer urging an audience to bid for his goods. I walked in the side of the gallery, overlooking a court or square, in which a number of people were collected to purchase slaves and other property. The auctioneer having told the names of each, and described their qualifications, requested the surrounding gentlemen to bid. One hundred dollars for each member of the family, or 500 for the whole party, was the first offer. This gradually rose to 150, at which sum they were finally knocked down; that is to say, 750 dollars for the whole, or about £170. Several other families were then put up in succession, who brought

from 250 to 260 dollars each member, including children at the breast, as well as other people quite incapable of work.

[ocr errors]

"The next party was exceedingly interesting. The principal person was a stout well-built man; or, as the auctioneer called him, a fellow who was a capital driver.' His wife stood by his side—a tall, finely proportioned, and really handsome woman, though as black as jet. Her left arm encircled a child about six months old, who rested, in Oriental fashion, on the hipbone. To preserve the balance, her body was inclined to the right, where two little urchins clung to her knee; one of whom, evidently much frightened, clasped its mother's hand, and never relinquished it during the sale which followed. The husband looked grave, and somewhat sad; but there was a manliness in the expression of his countenance, which appeared strange in a person placed in so degraded a situation. What struck me most, however, was an occasional touch of anxiety about his eye, as it glanced from bidder to bidder, when new offers were made. It seemed to imply a perfect acquaintance with the character of the different parties competing for him; and his happiness or misery for life, he might think turned upon a word! The whole of this pretty group were neatly dressed, and altogether so decorous in their manner, that I felt my interest in them rising at every instant. The two little boys, who appeared to be twins, kept their eyes fixed steadily on their mother's face. At first they were quite terrified, but eventually they became as tranquil as their parents. The struggle amongst the buyers continued for nearly a quarter of an hour, till at length they were knocked down for 290 dollars apiece, or 1,450 dollars (about £330) for the whole family.

"I learnt from a gentleman afterwards, that the negroes, independently of the important consideration of being purchased by good masters, have a singular species of pride on these occasions, in fetching a high price; holding it, amongst themselves, as disgraceful to be sold for a small sum of money. The fact, besides shewing how difficult it is to subdue utterly the love of distinction, may perhaps be useful in teaching us never to take for granted that any one boasting the human form, however degraded in the scale, is without some traces of generous feeling. Indeed, I have frequently heard from judicious and kindhearted slave-holders-for many such there are in America-that however difficult and thankless it often proves, yet there is always sufficient encouragement-sometimes as a

BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

matter of feeling, sometimes a matter of interest to treat these poor people not as the inferior animals, with so many of whose attributes we are apt to invest them; but, on the contrary, as men gifted more or less with generous, motives, capable of being turned to account."

BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, HELD AT YORK, FOURTH DAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1831.

NO. IV.

(Continued from p. 178.)

On this day, Lord Milton took the chair, but, being obliged to retire, his place was supplied by the vice-president, Mr. Vernon Harcourt.

The first paper read was one by Mr. John Dalton, of Manchester, entitled, Experiments on the quantity of food taken by a person in health, compared with the quantity of secretions, and insensible perspiration." The same paper had been read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, on the 5th of March, 1830. The experiment had been performed on Mr. Dalton himself.

The next paper was by Mr. R. C. Potter, jun., of Manchester. The subject was, on a new theory of the reflection of light from the surfaces of bodies, as formerly proposed by the late M. Fresnel. By calculations of the quantity of light reflected from various bodies, Mr. Potter endeavoured to shew that Fresnel's hypothesis was totally inadmissible.

The third paper was by W. Hutton, esq., Fellow of the Geological Society, on the Whin Sill, in the north of England. The basalt, generally called the whin sill, and which formed the subject of this paper, rises in Alston Moor, about twenty miles east of Carlisle. It has been traced in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Northumberland, for nearly one hundred miles, and its appearance minutely described by Mr. Hutton. During the whole of its course, it is stratiform, and found in connexion with every species of rock in the formation. The most interesting part of investigation, is the relative age of the whin sill. Professor Sedgwick thinks that it was formed by the lateral injection of volcanic matter, after the deposition of metalliferous limestone. Mr. Hutton differs from the professor, and ascribes a much earlier date to it. He thinks that it had been caused by an overflowing of lava, and formed before the beds which lie above it, and after those which lie under it; instead of having been injected between them. A diagram of a section of the

271

whin was exhibited, in which it was shewn, that beds of limestone, shale, and sandstone, lay above it. From which the author of the paper inferred, that it could not possibly have been forced in under so many beds, without a most violent mechanical rupture, but of which we have no traces.

Mr. Murchison made a few observations on the paper, which, he said, was a very valuable one. He, however, acknowledged that he preferred Professor Sedgwick's theory, and thought it very desirable that the whin dykes in the county of Durham should be investigated, to ascertain whether they were emanations from the great whin sill, or had been formed posterior to it. One of these, Bolam dyke in particular, broke off into various branches, all pointing to the whin sill, and he thought that they must have been forcibly injected into the carboniferous limestone after its deposition, and even into more recent strata.

Mr. Phillips gave it as his opinion, that the great portion of this basaltic mass had been thrown up from below during the deposition of the metalliferous limestone, and must, of course, have been anterior to some beds, and posterior to others. He detailed, at considerable length, his reasons for this opinion, and expressed his belief, that it was very probable, that the opposite theories of Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Hutton would be found, on further investigation, to be parts of one great whole.

Mr. Rotch thought that this subject opened the prospect for a discussion of great interest at their next meeting at Oxford, by which time it will have been viewed in all its bearings, and better investigated. Mr. Murchison observed, he had no doubt that they would then settle all their differences.

The next paper was by Mr. J. F. W. Johnstone, and related to the new metal Vanadium, which is nearly allied to cromium. It was discovered, almost simultaneously, about the close of last year, by Sefstrom, a Swedish professor, and Mr. Johnstone, who obtained it in combination with lead, at Wanlock-head.

Mr. Johnstone gave a minute description of the properties and characteristics of the metal, and its various combinations. The one is found in hexagonal prisms, in its crystallized state. It was found in an old mine, which had not been wrought for five or six years; and part of the vein seemed to have suffered great violence.

Henry Witham, esq. then read a paper on Fossil Vegetation, and the Formation of the Coal-field. The business of the morning was then concluded by Mr. Phillips reading

« ForrigeFortsæt »