MEMORIALS OF A MAX OF LETTERS. 



23 



which senses he is our chief contemporary wonder, j 

 and in some sort the epitome of his age. This, 

 however, was a task of far more difficulty than 

 Byron, and perhaps not so promising at present." 



And, if there is any difficulty in recogniziug 

 the same hand on the next proposal, it arises only 

 from the circumstance that it is this writer above 

 all others who has made Benthamism a term of 

 reproach on the lips of men less wise than him- 

 self: 



" A far finer essay were a faithful, loving, and 

 yet critical, and in part condemnatory, delineation 

 of Jeremy Bentham, and his place and working in 

 this section of the world's history. Bentham will 

 not be put down by logic, and should not be put 

 down, for we need him greatly as a backwoodsman : 

 neither can reconciliation be effected till the one 

 party understands and is just to the other. Ben- 

 tham is a denier ; he denies with a loud and uni- 

 versally convincing voice ; his fault is that he can 

 affirm nothing, except that money is pleasant in 

 the purse, and food in the stomach, and that by 

 this simplest of all beliefs he can reorganize so- 

 ciety. He can shatter it in pieces — no thanks to 

 him, for its old fastenings are quite rotten — but he 

 cannot reorganize it ; this is work for quite others 

 than he. Such an essay on Bentham, however, 

 were a great task for any one ; for me a very great 

 one, and perhaps rather out of my road." 



Perhaps Mr. Carlyle would agree that Mr. 

 Mill's famous pair of essays on Bentham and 

 Coleridge have served the purpose which he had 

 in his mind, though we may well regret the loss 

 of such a picture of Benthatn's philosophic per- 

 sonality as he would surely have given us. It is 

 touching to think of him whom we all know as 

 the most honored name among living veterans of 

 letters, passing through the vexed ordeal of the 

 young recruit, and battling for his own against 

 the waywardness of critics and the blindness 

 of publishers. In 1831 he writes to Mr. Napier: 

 " All manner of perplexities have occurred in the 

 publishing of my poor book, which perplexities I 

 could only cut asunder, not unloose ; so the MS. 

 like an unhappy ghost still lingers on the wrong- 

 side of Styx ; the Charon of Street durst 



not risk it in his sut'dis ci/mba, so it leaped ashore 

 again." And three months later, " I have given 

 up the notion of hawking my little Manuscript 

 Book about any further; for a long time it has 

 lain quiet in its drawer, waiting for a better day." 

 And yet this little book was nothing less than the 

 "History of the French Revolution." 



It might be a lesson to small men to see the 

 reasonableness, sense, and patience, of these great- 

 er men. Macaulay's letters show him to have 



been a pattern of good sense and considerateness. 

 Mr. Carlyle seems indeed to have found Jeffrey's 

 editorial vigor more than could be endured : 



"My respected friend your predecessor had 

 some difficulty with me in adjusting the respective 

 prerogatives of author and editor, for though not, 

 as I hope, insensible to fair reason, I used some- 

 times to rebel against what I reckoned mere au- 

 thority, and this partly perhaps as a matter of lit- 

 erary conscience ; being wont to write nothing 

 without studying it if possible to the bottom, and 

 writing always with an almost painful feeling of 

 scrupulosity that light editorial hacking and hew- 

 ing to right and left was in general nowise to my 

 mind." 



But we feel that the fault must have lain with 

 Jeffrey ; the qualifications that Lord Cockburn 

 admired so much were not likely to be to the 

 taste of a man of Mr. Carlyle's grit. That did not 

 prevent the most original of Mr. Napier's con- 

 tributors from being one of the most just and 

 reasonable : 



"I have, barely within my time, finished that 

 paper ('Characteristics'), to which you are now 

 heartily welcome, if you have room for it. The 

 doctrines here set forth have mostly long been fa- 

 miliar convictions with me ; yet it is perhaps only 

 within the last twelvemonth that the public utter- 

 ance of some of them could have seemed a duty. 

 I have striven to express myself with what guard- 

 edness was possible ; and, as there will now be no 

 time for correcting proofs, I must leave it wholly 

 in your editorial hands. Nay, should it on due 

 consideration appear to you in your place (for I see 

 that matter dimly, and nothing is clear but my 

 own mind and the general condition of the world), 

 unadvisable to print the paper at all, then pray 

 understand, my dear sir, now and always, that I 

 am no unreasonable man ; but if dogmatic enough 

 (as Jeffrey used to call it) in my own beliefs, also 

 truly desirous to be just toward those of others. I 

 shall, in all sincerity, beg of you to do, without 

 fear of offense (for in no point of view will there 

 be any), what you yourself see good. A mighty 

 work lies before the writers of this time." 



It is always interesting, to the man of letters 

 at any rate if not to his neighbors, to find what 

 was first thought by men of admitted competence 

 of the beginnings of writers who are now seen to 

 have made a mark on the world. " When the 

 reputation of authors is made," said Sainte-Beuve, 

 "it is easy to speak of them conv enablement : we 

 have only to guide ourselves by the common opin- 

 ion. But at their debuts, at the moment when m 

 they are trying their first flight and are in part 

 ignorant of themselves, then to judge them with 

 tact, with precision, not to exaggerate their scope, 



