The hum of a little tune, to which in our infancy we have often listened; the course of a brook which in our childhood we have frequently traced; the ruins of an ancient building which we remember almost entire; these remembrances sweep over the mind with an enchanting power of tenderness and melancholy, at whose bidding the pleasures, the business, the ambition of the present moment fade and disappear. Our finer feelings are generally not more grateful to the fancy than moral to the mind. Of this tender power which remembrance has over us, several uses might be made; this divinity of memory, did we worship it aright, might lend its aid to our happiness as well as to our virtue. An amiable and ingenious philosopher has remarked, that in castle-building no man is a villain*. In like manner it may perhaps be pronounced that every man is virtuous in recollection; he rests with peculiar satisfaction on the remembrance of such actions as are most congenial to the better parts of his nature, on such pleasures as were innocent, on such designs as were laudable. It were well, if, amidst the ardour of pursuit, or the hopes of gratification, we sometimes considered that the present will be future, as well as that the future will be present, that we anticipated reflection as well as enjoyment. Not only in those greater and more important concerns, which are what Shakspeare calls, stuff o' the conscience,' but in the lesser and more trivial offices of life, we should be more apt to conduct ourselves aright, did we think that we were one day to read the drama in which we now perform, and that of ourselves, and the other personages of the scene, we were to judge with a critical severity. * Dr. Reid, in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man.' lence, I am not apt to conjure up phantoms of the future; 'tis with a milder sort of melancholy that I sometimes indulge in recalling the shades of the past. To this perhaps the Lounger's manner and habits of life naturally incline him. To him leisure gives frequent occasion to review his time, and to compare his thoughts. By the Lounger a few ideas, natural and congenial to his mind, are traced through all their connexions; while the man of professional industry and active pursuit has many that press upon him in succession, and are quickly dismissed. He who lives in a crowd gains an extensive acquaintance but little intimacy; the man who possesses but a few friends, enjoys them much, and thinks of them often. Time mellows ideas as it mellows wine. Things in themselves indifferent acquire a certain tenderness in recollection; and the scenes of our youth, though remarkable neither for elegance nor feeling, rise up to our memory dignified at the same time and endeared. As countrymen in a distant land acknowledge one another as friends, so objects, to which, when present, we gave but little attention, are nourished in distant remembrance with a cordial regard. If in their own nature of a tender kind, the ties which they had on the heart are drawn still closer, and we recal them with an enthusiasm of feeling which the same objects of the immediate time are unable to excite. The ghosts of our departed affections are seen through that softening medium, which, though it dims their brightness, does not impair their attraction; like the shade of Dido appearing to Æneas, -Agnovitque per umbram D D ZEN. vi. 452. not without some importunity on my part, the hardships and the dangers he had encountered; the number of his campaigns, the obstinacy of his engagements, the length of his sieges; yet I failed in getting Chelsea,' said he, because I was rendered incapable of the service in consequence of a rheumatism contracted in a winter-encampment; and, more than all that, because my wife, somehow or other, had disobliged my commanding officer. But I forget and forgive, as the saying is; and, thanks to such as your Honour, I can make shift to live. It is true, I have seen others get halberts, ay, and commissions too, that were not better men than myself; but that don't signify. It will be all the same a hundred years hence.' Without all the happy Stoicism of the soldier, we may often sooth the pangs of envy, and the pinings of discontent, by the consideration of that period, when they shall cease to disquiet, when time shall have unplumed the pageantry of grandeur, narrowed the domains of wealth, and withered the arm of power. Nor will this philosophy of time convey a less important lesson to the successful than to the unfortunate. It will moderate the luxurious indulgence of the rich, and restrain the wanton or useless exertions of the powerful. Every one who can look back on a moderately long life, will remember a succession of envied possessors of wealth and influence, whose luxury a thousand flatterers were wishing to share, whose favour a crowd of dependants were striving to obtain. Let those who now occupy their place attend to the effects of that wealth enjoyed, of those favours bestowed. Let them cast up the sum of pleasure which was produced by the one, of gratitude or self-satisfaction procured by the other. If there are any whom elevation has made giddy, or power rendered insolent, let them think how long This indulgence of memory, this review of time, would blunt the angry and discordant passions that often prey on our own quiet as well as on the peace of others. Scarce any man is so hard of heart as to feel himself an enemy over the grave of his foe; and the remembrance of contests, however just, with those who are now no more, comes across an ingenuous mind with a sort of self-accusation. The progress of time, though it may not have swept our adversaries from the earth, will probably have placed both them and us in circumstances such as to allay, if not to extinguish, our resentment. Prosperity to us, or misfortunes to them, may have soothed our anger into quiet, or softened it to pity. The lessons of Time may have taught us, what Wisdom or Prudence once preached to us in vain, that the object of our contention was not worth the struggle of the contest, that we mistook the value of the prize, or did injustice to the motives of our competitors; or perhaps we have altered those sentiments in which we were formerly so warm, and forsaken those tenets we were once so positive to maintain. The hand of Time, imperceptible in its touch, steals the colour from our opinions; and like those who look on faded pictures, we wonder at having formerly been struck with their force. Though it is wisely ordered by Providence, that we should not pause in the pursuits of life to think of its shortness, or undervalue every attainment from the uncertainty of its duration when attained; yet such a consideration may fairly enough mitigate a blameable eagerness in the chase, or a blameable depression from its disappointment. I was very well pleased with the philosophy of an old soldier, whom I once met with in the environs of London, leaning on a crutch, and rather accepting than soliciting the aid of the charitable. He told me, duce a continuation of the remarks I formerly made on the moral effects of the drama. The first and original method in which Ridicule exercised itself in dramatic representation appears to have consisted, not so much in giving a view of the character of the person to be exhibited on the stage, as in representing a particular individual in a ludicrous situation. To point out the feelings of the character to represent the turn of mind-to display the humour or internal features of the man, was not so much the object, as to bring the person himself on the stage, and to raise ridicule in the audience, by making him commit some action absurd, droll, out of place, or inconsistent. A man respected for dignity, and in a reputable situation, is brought upon the stage, not to exhibit his dignity as false and affected, not to represent the real or internal feelings of his mind, or to point out those features by which his assumed character may be exposed, but merely with a view to make him commit some absurd or mean action, inconsistent with the gravity and respectable tenor of his usual conduct. Such is the exhibition of Aristophanes's Socrates. No history of human character is given, no display of the character of Socrates in particular; nor is any principle or feature of his mind represented. The author confines himself singly to making Socrates do things upon the stage unworthy of himself, or of his character; and the audience is entertained with the contrast, is amused with this performance of mean or little actions by a man of a grave and serious deportment. The ridicule in this case does not give a view of the character, but is confined to the joke arising from the action performed, compared with that of the man who performs it. Socrates is not made ridiculous by doing what is like, but what is unlike, himself. |