XVIII.-FAR COUNTRIES.

IMAGINATION, though no mean thing, is not a proud one. If it looks down from its wings upon common-places, it only the more perceives the vastness of the region about it. The infinity into which its flight carries it, might indeed throw back upon it a too great sense of insignificance, did not Beauty or Moral Justice, with its equal eye, look through that blank aspect of power, and re-assure it; shewing it that there is a power as much above power itself, as the thought that reaches to all, is to the hand that can touch only thus far.

But we do not wish to get into this tempting region of speculation just now. We only intend to shew the particular instance, in which imagination instinctively displays its natural humility: we mean, the fondness which imaginative times and people have shewn for what is personally remote from them; for what is opposed to their own individual consciousness, even in range of space, in farness of situation.

There is no surer mark of a vain people than their treating other nations with contempt, especially those of whom they know least. It is better to verify the proverb, and take every thing unknown for magnificent, than predetermine it to be worthless. The gain is greater. The instinct is more judicious. When we mention the French as an instance, we do not mean to be invidious. Most nations have their

good as well as bad features. In Vanity Fair there are many booths.

The French, not long ago, praised one of their neighbours so highly, that the latter is suspected to have lost as much modesty, as the former gained by it. But they did this as a set-off against their own despots and bigots. When they again became the greatest power in Europe, they had a relapse of their old egotism. The French, though an amiable and intelligent people, are not an imaginative one. The greatest height they go is in a balloon. They get no farther than France, let them go where they will. They run the great circle and are still at home," like the squirrel in his rolling cage. Instead of going to Nature in their poetry, they would make her come to them, and dress herself at their last new toilet. In philosophy and metaphysics, they divest themselves of gross prejudices, and then think they are in as graceful a state of nakedness as Adam and Eve.

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At the time when the French had this fit upon them of praising the English (which was nevertheless the honester one of the two), they took to praising the Chinese for numberless unknown qualities. This seems a contradiction to the near-sightedness we speak of: but the reason they praised them was, that the Chinese had the merit of religious toleration: a great and extraordinary one certainly, and not the less so for having been, to all appearance, the work of one All the romance of China, such as it was,—

man.

any thing in which they differed from the French,— their dress, their porcelain towers, their Great Wall, -was nothing. It was the particular agreement with the philosophers.

It happened curiously enough, that they could not have selected for their panegyric a nation apparently more contemptuous of others; or at least more selfsatisfied and unimaginative. The Chinese are cunning and ingenious; and have a great talent at bowing out ambassadors who come to visit them. But it is somewhat inconsistent with what appears to be their general character, that they should pay strangers even this equivocal compliment; for under a prodigious mask of politeness, they are not slow to evince their contempt of other nations, whenever any comparison is insinuated with the subjects of the Brother of the Sun and Moon. The knowledge they respect in us most is that of gun-making, and of the EastIndian passage. When our countrymen shewed them a map of the earth, they enquired for China; and on finding that it only made a little piece in a corner, could not contain their derision. They thought that it was the main territory in the middle, the apple of the world's eye.

On the other hand, the most imaginative nations, in their highest times, have had a respect for remote countries. It is a mistake to suppose that the ancient term barbarian, applied to foreigners, suggested the meaning we are apt to give it. It gathered some

such insolence with it in the course of time; but the more intellectual Greeks venerated the countries from which they brought the elements of their mythology and philosophy. The philosopher travelled into Egypt, like a son to see his father. The merchant heard in Phoenicia the far-brought stories of other realms, which he told to his delighted countrymen. It is supposed, that the mortal part of Mentor in the Odyssey was drawn from one of these voyagers. When Anacharsis the Scythian was reproached with his native place by an unworthy Greek, he said, “My country may be a shame to me, but you are a shame to your country." Greece had a lofty notion of the Persians and the Great King, till Xerxes came over to teach it better, and betrayed the softness of their skulls.

It was the same with the Arabians, at the time when they had the accomplishments of the world to themselves; as we see by their delightful tales. Every thing shines with them in the distance, like a sunset. What an amiable people are their Persians! What a wonderful place is the island of Serendib ! You would think nothing could be finer than the Caliph's city of Bagdat, till you hear of “Grand Cairo;" and how has that epithet and that name towered in the imagination of all those, who have not had the misfortune to see the modern city? Sindbad was respected, like Ulysses, because he had seen so many adventures and nations. So was Aboul

faouris the Great Voyager, in the Persian Tales. His very name sounds like a wonder.

With many a tempest had his beard been shaken.

It was one of the workings of the great Alfred's mind, to know about far-distant countries. There is a translation by him of a book of geography; and he even employed people to travel: a great stretch of intellectual munificence for those times. About the same period, Haroun al Raschid (whom our manhood is startled to find almost a less real person than we thought him, for his very reality) wrote a letter to the Emperor of the West, Charlemagne. Here is Arabian and Italian romance, shaking hands in

person.

The Crusades pierced into a new world of remoteness. We do not know whether those were much benefited, who took part in them; but for the imaginative persons remaining at home, the idea of going to Palestine must have been like travelling into a supernatural world. When the campaign itself had a good effect, it must have been of a very fine and highly-tempered description. Chaucer's Knight had

been

Sometime with the lord of Palatie
Agen another hethen in Turkie:

And evermore he had a sovereign price;

And though that he was worthy, he was wise,
And of his port as meek as is a mayde.

How like a return from the moon must have been