A PEOPLE'S BULWARK.

31

subsists, while father, and wife, and children, are all racked with employment? What sort of population will that country possess to meet the vicissitudes of trade itself,—and those far greater vicissitudes which the political changes of the world throw into it?

English Opium-Eater. Say,-what is the bulwark of a people the foundation of its greatness and the substance of its power?-The virtue of the people; their courage, their independence, the severe fortitude of their souls, their hearts filled with just and strong loves, the power of their happiness. This is the conception we form of the people of this island from north to south. This is the character which all tongues have spoken-which has been avouched from age to agethe traditionary faith received by our childhood; and now we look around, and tremble to discover that the dream has passed away from the land. The overflow of wealth has run through it, unsettling all ancient conditions-breaking up the bonds of life, casting, even upon the husbandman amidst his fields, the restless, ungoverned, aspiring spirit of commerce-dazzling and blinding the imaginations of the people, and scattering among them the vices of prosperity, if it has not brought them its enjoyments.

Shepherd. Dinna mak me despond o' the kintra, Mr De Quinshy. Hoo aften, when a's black in natur, outbursts the sun, and the warld's filled wi' licht! Oh man! but there's a majestic meaning in thae twa words-GREAT BRITAIN ! Think ye it 'ill ever hae a Decline and Fa' like the Roman Empire?

English Opium-Eater. It seemeth alike to my reason and my imagination, Immortal.

Shepherd. And then think, sir, o' the march o' intelleck. That strengthens a state.

English Opium-Eater. It does. But not without the flow of feeling.

Shepherd. Capital! I was just gaun to hae said that, when you took the words out o' my mouth.

English Opium-Eater. We want not, Mr Hogg, a quantity of reasonable, contented, steady, sober, industrious inhabitants-mere Chineses, and nothing more; but we want men, who, if invaded, will spring up as one man-loving their ancestors, who cannot feel their gratitude

Shepherd. It would be unreasonable to expeck it

English Opium-Eater. and doing everything for their posterity, who have done and can do nothing for them

Shepherd. Gie them first time to get intil existence-and then they'll

English Opium-Eater. men among whom crime is restrained, not by a vigilant police, but by an awful sense of right and wrong-who love their soil, and not only see it to be rich, but feel it to be sacred-yea! to whom poverty and its scanty hard-wrung pittances are the gift of God

Shepherd. That's roosin! You're an eloquent

English Opium-Eater. who are sustained and animated in this life, by the operation on their minds of their convictions of another-a people in whose vigorous spirit joy is strong, under all external pressure, and who, stooping out of the low doors of their huts-clay-built, perhaps, yet flowercovered-hold up smiling faces in the sunshine, and from their bold foreheads fling back the blue beauty of their native skies.

Shepherd. "Fling back the blue beauty o' their native skies!" I'll bring in that in my speech, the first time I return thanks for my health at a public denner.

English Opium-Eater. I have been speaking, sir, of Scotland-a country naturally poor

Shepherd. No sae naturally poor's it looks like, sir. In the Kerse o' Gowrie the sile's fifty yards deep-a fine rich broon black moold, that shoots up wheat and beans twunty feet high; and even in the Forest, what wi' the decay o' great auld aik-trees, and what not, there's sic a deposit, that in diggin wells, you hae to gang doun amaist to the verra centre-pint o' the yerth, afore ye can get quit o' the loam, and jingle wi' your pick again' the grevvel. The Heelans to be sure's geyan stany-perfeckly mountawneous a'thegither -but there, sir, you hear the lowin o' cattle on a thousan' hills-and the river-fed glens (naturally puir indeed!) arena they rich wi' the noblest o' a' craps ?-craps o' men, sir (to say naething the noo o' the snooded lasses), that

"Plaided and plumed in their tartan array,"

(ane o' the best lines that, in a' poetry), hae frichtened the French out o' their senses time and place without number, and immemorial, frae Fontenoy to Waterloo?

GENIUS.-AMBITION.

33

English Opium-Eater. I do not disesteem your national enthusiasm, Mr Hogg, but I must not suffer it to disturb the course of my observations; - and I was about to say, that in richer and merry England, there may be less of that dignity of which I spoke, because less is overcome, the spirit may be less free even, perhaps, in some respects, because the body is better endowed;-yet hath not such a people great conceptions? Yea, the people of England feel the greatness of their country-because they know that she has been always free and enlightened from Alfred-Magna Charta-the Reformation-the Armada-the SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-EIGHT —that she has ever been awful in the sight of nations.-And since, sir, you speak of France, our Harry it was that, like a lion, ramped among the Lilies--our Black Prince, that, in his tent with captive kings

Shepherd. 'Twas lucky for them baith that they never tried the fechtin on this side o' the Tweed, wi' Scotchmen, or aiblins, wi' bluidy noses, they would hae bitten the dust at Roslin or Bannockburn.

English Opium-Eater. I forget the precise lines, sir, but Shakespeare makes some one in that noble drama, Henry the Fifth, speak of the "weasel Scot," who, during his conquest of France, "stole in, and sucked his princely eggs

Shepherd. And a great goose he was for layin them in an unprotected nest amang the nettles. Haw, haw, haw!

North. Gentlemen, gentlemen! But let me throw a little light upon the subject.

[MR NORTH touches a spring, and the chandelier pendant from the roof of the Arbour is set suddenly in stars. Shepherd. My sowl burns and loups within me and I feel as if I could write upon the spat a glorious poem ! Tickler. On what subject?

Shepherd. On ony subjeck, or on nae subjeck. Oh! but it's a divine idea-the idea o' immortal fame!

English Opium-Eater. There are two great sources of the energy of the human mind, Mr Hogg ;-one, Delight in the works of God, from which the energy of Genius springs-and one, Pride in its own powers, from which springs the energy of Ambition.

Shepherd. In ma opinion, baith thae twa sources o' energy are in a' minds whatsomever, sir.

VOL. III.

34 THE BENEFACTORS AND THE AFFLICTERS OF MANKIND.

English Opium-Eater. Yes, Mr Hogg, they are; but in different allotment. One, either by nature, or by the sources of life, will be predominant. If the delight in good, in natural and moral beauty, be the stronger principle, then all the energy that springs from the consciousness of strength and skill, and from the pleasure of activity, falls into subservience to the nobler power; and those men are produced, who, if their talents are great, and fall in with great occasions, receive the name of teachers, deliverers, fathers of their countries. But if imagination is weak-and the delight in contemplation of all that is great and beautiful in the world, has little sway in the mind, but the pride in its own powers is strong, then spring up the afflicters of mankind, then comes that Love of Glory, which is not, as in nobler minds, a generous delight in the sympathy and approbation of their fellow-men, but an insatiable thirst for renown, that the voice of mankind, though it were of their groans, may bear witness to their transcendent might, and feed their own consciousness of it, then come those disordered and tormenting passions, stung by rival glory, and maddened by opposition, which engender the malignant character of genius. For if there be genius in such a mind, it cannot maintain its nature against such evil influences, but lends itself to any the most accursed work.

North. Nor matters it what the power may be, sir, whether merely external, as from birth and place, which, without much native power, has made the common tyrants of the world—or whether it be the intensest power of an extraordinary mind. If it be intellectual glory and empire among men which it seeks, it will tear down Truth and set up Falsehood

Shepherd. Ay, gin it can.

North. And it can, and often does, shaming morality and even religion out of the world. In all cases alike, there is the same subserviency of the energies of genius to the energy of ambition. But look, James, to their respective works. The spirit of genius is naturally creative; its works have in themselves a principle of duration - because it creates in conformity to the laws of nature-and therefore the laws of nature preserve its works. The arts which genius has invented, maintain themselves by their importance to mankind. Its beautiful productions are treasured up by their love, and

NAPOLEON.-ALFRED.

35

delivered over from one generation to another, the laws it has given blend themselves with the existence of society,the empires it has established stand by the wisdom in which they were founded. But the spirit of ambitious power is naturally a destroyer; and when it attempts to create, it departs from its character and fails. It creates against nature, and therefore nature rejects its works, and the process of her laws shall overthrow them. It shall build up in the kingdom of mind, error, superstition, and illusion, which shall tyrannise for a time, and then pass away for ever. It shall build up military strength and political dominion-a fabric reaching to heaven, and overshadowing the earth. But it is built up, not in wisdom, but in folly; its principle of destruction is within itself, and when its hour is come, lo! it crumbles into dust.

Tickler. Good, North; at least tolerable—not much amiss. Shepherd. A hantle better nor onything ye'll say the nicht.

Tickler. Napoleon and Alfred!-The one is already deadthe other will live for ever. Alfred the mighty Warrior, who quelled and drove afar from him the terrible enemy that had baffled the prowess of all his predecessors-the Father of his people, who listened to all complaints, and redressed all wrongs the Philosopher, who raised up a barbarous age towards the height of his own mind, and founded the civilisation of England—the Legislator, whose laws, after a thousand years, make part of the liberties of his country!

Shepherd. Better than I expected. Tak breath, and at it again, tooth and nail, lip and nostril.

Tickler. Our imagination cannot dream of a greater man than this, or of one happier in his greatness. Yet, we do not, I opine, Mr De Quincey, think of Alfred as strongly possessed by a Love of Fame. We think of him as conscious of his own high thoughts, and living in the elevation of his nature. But he seems to us too profoundly affected by his great designs, to care for the applauses of the race for whose benefit his mighty mind was in constant meditation. He seems to us rather absorbed in the philosophic dream of the wide change which his wisdom was to produce on the character of his country; and all that he did for man, to have desired the reflection, not of his own glory, but of their happi