[1798.] 3rdly., the affection of mind produced by either of these. He then maintains, that aggregate, and simple abstract, words, do only occasionally, and then usually by a particular effort, produce the second of these effects; that compound abstract words never produce this effect; and that poetry and rhetoric principally affect, not by exhibiting to the mind any distinct images, but by exciting immediately those feelings with which the words employed on the occasion have by habit been associated in our minds.-This is very ingenious, and I believe original. OCT. the 11th. Looked through Aristotle's Poetics. He derives Poetry from a natural love in man of imitating and beholding imitations. Like most of the antient philosophers, he wastes himself in subtle distinctions on the surface of the art, instead of exploring the foundation of its laws in the constitution of things and of the human mind; yet he gives the elements of most of the rules of criticism which obtain at the present day. His definition of a conjunction and an article (chapter 20) seems pretty nearly to coalesce with Harris's; and Tooke might have sprung, at once, on the nobler game of Aristotle. OCT. the 14th. Finished the 4th. Vol. of Bolingbroke's Correspondence while Secretary to Queen Anne. I can discover in this work no traces of his adherence to the cause of the Pretender, though strong traits of his dislike to the House of Hanover. How noble is his style, how masterly his manner, and how felicitously turned are his compliments and his rebukes! He transmutes whatever he touches, however base, to gold. Finished the life of the Empress of Russia. Catharine's Proclamation on the Death of Peter the III., in my opinion convicts her of his murder. The last gorgeous féte of Prince Potemkin, in which all the elaborate contrivances of European refinement administered to the magnificent profusion of Oriental luxury, contrasted with the gloomy despondency and forebodings of its donor, is at once affecting and instructive! Read Burke's Short Account of a Late Administration; a clear, calm, well-digested and dexterous memorial ;-a perfect model for compositions of this nature:--and, afterwards, his Observations on a Late state of the Nation; in which we see, in the germ, many of those principles which he afterwards more fully unfolded in his political career. One observation in the latter piece, particularly shews the depth of his [1798.] reflection and the extent of his views:-" Politics ought to be adjusted, not to hu man reasonings, but human nature; of which the reason is but a part, and by no means the greatest part." The account of the mode and the consequences of a dereliction of party and principle, towards the close of this piece, is exquisitely given, and evinces a deep insight into human nature.It is curious, that the main part of Burke's first, and of his last, political labour, should have been an exposition and defence of the resources of his country, against the croakings of despondency. OCT. the 17th. Read Burke's Thoughts on the Present Discontents. He here assumes his proper and peculiar tone; and winding gracefully into his subject, opens the political grievances of the times with his characteristic plenitude of thought and vigour of exposition. It is usual with party writers, in the vehemence of their zeal and contraction of their views, to urge arguments, which, if a different course of conduct is required by any turn of affairs, must inevitably involve them in the charge of inconsistency in this piece of Burke's, on the contrary, are registered, as if by a prophetic forecast, the rudiments of many of those principles which he has expanded and enforced in his latter productions; but which, at the time, must have appeared superfluously cautionary; and gave rise, probably, to those imputations of Jesuitism, with which, from my earliest remembrance, he was calumniated by his enemies, without much strenuous opposition from the zealots of his own party. He was never relished, I believe, he was never formed to be relished,—as a party man. OCT. the 19th. Read the first four Books of Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix. He makes the national characteristic requisite to the due support of a democratic government, Virtue; of a Monarchical, Honour; of Despotism, Fear: and evidently inclines to the popular side. There is an affectation of sententious smartness in his manner, very offensive to my taste. Read Burke's Speech on American Taxation (1770); which from the beginning to the end, is strictly argumentative. He takes the subject up entirely as a question of expediency-Whether we should be content to derive advantage from our colonies through the old economy of commercial regulation, under which both parties had flourished; or persist in the new, and at the same time, odious and unprofitable scheme of drawing a direct revenue from them, began in the Grenville Administration by the [1798.] Stamp Act of 1764, and revived, in the shape of duties, after its abolition by the Rockingham Administration in 1766. This masterly address, must, in its form at least, have been extemporary, as it takes the shape of a reply.-In his subsequent Speech, on Conciliation with America, he occupies pretty nearly the same ground, putting entirely aside the discussion of right: "The question with me, is,” says he, "not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do: not whether the spirit in America deserves praise or blame, but what we shall do with it." How strangely has Burke's conduct respecting America been misconceived, to be charged upon him as an inconsistency!-So far from his appearing ever to have been inclined to popular courses, in an election speech at Bristol, in 1780, he actually goes out of his way to combat the doctrine of instructing representatives. OCT. the 24th. Read the 11th. and 12th. Books of Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix:-on Political Liberty; which he places, in the assured power of doing whatever the laws do not prohibit. Liberty, as it respects the constitution, he makes to depend on the proper distribution of the legislative, executive, and judicial powers; and, as it respects the individual citizen, on the favourableness of the laws to personal security. His ideas on the subject do not appear to me to have been very clear; and he has the weakness to say, (c. 6, L. 11) "Comme dans un etat libre tout homme qui est censé avoir une ame libre, doit être gouverné par lui-même, il faudroit que le peuple en corps eut la puissance législative:" as if all government, let it be placed where it may, was not, in its essence, a restraint on individual will; and the idea of the people's governing themselves, in the sense meant to be conveyed by it, and which has deluded multitudes, sheer nonsense, shrouded only in the generality of the terms. It is in this chapter that Montesquieu gives his elaborate and eulogistic description of the British Constitution; of which, however, he only sees the surface. Read Burke's Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol; in which he combats the decision of political questions on metaphysical and abstract principles then (1777) coming into vogue, and the specious cant of imputing corruption to all political parties a weed of congenial growth,-with the spirit, and almost in the terms, of his latter productions. His two subsequent Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol, in defence of an unpopular concurrence on his part in the repeal of some restrictive Laws on Irish Trade, strikingly evince the liberality and extent, and at the same time the minute [1798.] exactness, of his views on commercial subjects; nor can any thing exceed the easy and happy mode in which his arguments are brought home to the feelings and understandings of his mercantile constituents. OCT. the 25th. Read Burke's Speech on Economical Reform. This is, I think, the most magnificent of Burke's performances; and studiously of that character. It displays a mind most thoroughly purified from all party passions and party views; tender to personal interests, even where they interfere with national concerns; and, though ardently engaged in reform, most carefully guarded against the intemperate pursuit of it. It was on this Speech, I believe, somebody observed of Burke, that he seemed equally prepared to regenerate empires, or compose a Red Book. Pursued Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix.-In the last chapter of the 19th. Book is an elaborate portrait of the British genius and character, most flattering from a foreigner and à Frenchman.-In the 6th. chapter of the 20th. Book, it is observed of us, that we regulate our commerce by internal laws, and not by treaties; and make our politics subservient to our commerce, and not, as other nations, our commerce to our politics. This, I think, is just. OCT. the 28th.. Pursued Burke's Works. His Address to the Electors at Bristol, previous to the election in 1780, I have always regarded as the most perfect of all his effusions; nor is it, perhaps, to be equalled by any composition of the same length in the English language. His Speech on Fox's East India Bill, has something of an air of pomposity; owing, perhaps, to his necessary conversance at the time with Oriental topics: -it wields, it must be acknowledged, most ponderous interests.-The Representation on a Speech from the Throne, moved June 14th,, 1784, strikes me as the heaviest, and the most tinctured with a party spirit, of any of his productions:-not that it does not contain a very just and weighty censure of the means, through court intrigue and popular delusion, by which the present Administration came into power. OCT. the 30th. Looked into Mitford's History of Greece. The Athenian Democracy imparts no sort of relish for that sort of government, and justifies Aristotle in saying, [1798.] с Ἡ Δημοκρατία η τελευ]αΐα Τυραννίς εςι;-and of the worst sort, we may add... 'H The account of the expedition and retreat of the 10,000, is above measure interesting. How more than men, do the Greeks appear, compared with the effeminate and pusillanimous Persians! one can hardly believe them of the same species! Finished St. Mark's Gospel. Disdaining to conciliate where he undertakes to inform, this Evangelist appears to have made a brief collection of the most remarkable deeds and sayings of Christ; which, for the want of a more continued narrative to introduce and support them, must present a front "un peu herissé de merveilles”, I should suppose, to a mind not previously prepared to receive them with requisite submission. A feature of our Lord's conduct particularly enforced in this Gospel, is the sedulity with which he shunned the obtrusive throng which his doctrines and his miracles gathered round him; and in perfect conformity with this reserve, are the repeated injunctions of secrecy he is stated to have delivered, respecting the wonders he performed: but was it possible to suppose that gratitude could be silent, or admiration dumb, at such benevolent and astonishing displays of supernatural power? and would not the strict observance of these commands have defeated, in a great measure, the very purpose for which such manifestations of divine authority were exhibited, not only by limiting their immediate effect, while the prohibition lasted, but by furnishing grounds for suspecting their authenticity, when it was removed? NOVEMBER the 9th. Finished Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix. In chap. 15, Book 26, he maintains, that the proposition "Que le bien particulier doit ceder au bien public," is true with respect to the liberty, though false with respect to the property, of a citizen; but assigns no satisfactory reason for this distinction, nor am I able to discern one. An ambition to appear profound and sagacious by an air of dogmatism and reserve, is one of Montesquieu's predominant foibles. Read Paley's Horæ Paulinæ. His object is, to prove the genuineness of the Acts of the Apostles considered as Memoirs of St. Paul, and of St. Paul's Epistles. His method is this: if there is fabrication in the case, either the Memoirs are composed from the Letters, or the Letters are forged from and adapted to the Memoirs, or both the Memoirs and Letters are constructed out of traditional facts. On the first supposition, the intention may be honest; in the two others, it must be fraudulent: but in all three, the coincidencies between the Letters and the Memoirs must be the effect of design; confessed in the first instance and apparent; and traceable in the last, since no less effort is necessary to produce coincidence between different parts |