The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Part 28

MY DEAR SIR,--The question which you have done me the honour to propose to me, through the medium of our common friend Mr. Grierson, I shall endeavour to answer with as much exactness as a limited observation and experience can warrant.

You ask--or rather, Mr. Grierson in his own interesting language asks for you--"Whether a person at the age of sixty-three, with no more proficiency than a tolerable knowledge of most of the characters of the English alphabet at first sight amounts to, by dint of persevering application, and good masters,--a docile and ingenuous disposition on the part of the pupil always pre-supposed--may hope to arrive, within a presumable number of years, at that degree of attainments, which shall ent.i.tle the possessor to the character, which you are on so many accounts justly desirous of acquiring, of a _learned man_."

This is fairly and candidly stated,--only I could wish that on one point you had been a little more explicit. In the mean time, I will take it for granted, that by a "knowledge of the alphabetic characters," you confine your meaning to the single powers only, as you are silent on the subject of the diphthongs, and harder combinations.

Why truly, Sir, when I consider the vast circle of sciences--it is not here worth while to trouble you with the distinction between learning and science--which a man must be understood to have made the tour of in these days, before the world will be willing to concede to him the t.i.tle which you aspire to, I am almost disposed to reply to your inquiry by a direct answer in the negative.

However, where all cannot be compa.s.sed, a great deal that is truly valuable may be accomplished. I am unwilling to throw out any remarks that should have a tendency to damp a hopeful genius; but I must not in fairness conceal from you, that you have much to do. The consciousness of difficulty is sometimes a spur to exertion. Rome--or rather, my dear Sir, to borrow an ill.u.s.tration from a place, as yet more familiar to you--Rumford--Rumford--was not built in a day.

Your mind as yet, give me leave to tell you, is in the state of a sheet of white paper. We must not blot or blur it over too hastily. Or, to use an opposite simile, it is like a piece of parchment all be-scrawled and be-scribbled over with characters of no sense or import, which we must carefully erase and remove, before we can make way for the authentic characters or impresses, which are to be subst.i.tuted in their stead by the corrective hand of science.

Your mind, my dear Sir, again resembles that same parchment, which we will suppose a little hardened by time and disuse. We may apply the characters, but are we sure that the ink will sink?

You are in the condition of a traveller, that has all his journey to begin. And again, you are worse off than the traveller which I have supposed--for you have already lost your way.

You have much to learn, which you have never been taught; and more, I fear, to unlearn, which you have been taught erroneously. You have hitherto, I dare say, imagined, that the sun moves round the earth. When you shall have mastered the true solar system, you will have quite a different theory upon that point, I a.s.sure you. I mention but this instance. Your own experience, as knowledge advances, will furnish you with many parallels.

I can scarcely approve of the intention, which Mr. Grierson informs me you had contemplated, of entering yourself at a common seminary, and working your way up from the lower to the higher forms with the children. I see more to admire in the modesty, than in the expediency, of such a resolution. I own I cannot reconcile myself to the spectacle of a gentleman at your time of life seated, as must be your case at first, below a Tyro of four or five--for at that early age the rudiments of education usually commence in this country. I doubt whether more might not be lost in the point of fitness, than would be gained in the advantages which you propose to yourself by this scheme.

You say, you stand in need of emulation; that this incitement is no where to be had but at a public school; that you should be more sensible of your progress by comparing it with the daily progress of those around you. But have you considered the nature of emulation; and how it is sustained at those tender years, which you would have to come in compet.i.tion with? I am afraid you are dreaming of academic prizes and distinctions. Alas! in the university, for which you are preparing, the highest medal would be a silver penny, and you must graduate in nuts and oranges.

I know that Peter, the Great Czar--or Emperor--of Muscovy, submitted himself to the discipline of a dock-yard at Deptford, that he might learn, and convey to his countrymen, the n.o.ble art of s.h.i.+pbuilding. You are old enough to remember him, or at least to talk about him. I call to mind also other great princes, who, to instruct themselves in the theory and practice of war, and set an example of subordination to their subjects, have condescended to enrol themselves as private soldiers; and, pa.s.sing through the successive ranks of corporal, quarter-master, and the rest, have served their way up to the station, at which most princes are willing enough to set out--of General and Commander-in-Chief over their own forces. But--besides that there is oftentimes great sham and pretence in their show of mock humility--the compet.i.tion which they stooped to was with their co-evals, however inferior to them in birth.

Between ages so very disparate, as those which you contemplate, I fear there can no salutary emulation subsist.

Again, in the other alternative, could you submit to the ordinary reproofs and discipline of a day-school? Could you bear to be corrected for your faults? Or how would it look to see you put to stand, as must be the case sometimes, in a corner?

I am afraid the idea of a public school in your circ.u.mstances must be given up.

But is it impossible, by dear Sir, to find some person of your own age--if of the other s.e.x, the more agreeable perhaps--whose information, like your own, has rather lagged behind their years, who should be willing to set out from the same point with yourself, to undergo the same tasks--thus at once inciting and sweetening each other's labours in a sort of friendly rivalry. Such a one, I think, it would not be difficult to find in some of the western parts of this island--about Dartmoor for instance.

Or what if, from your own estate--that estate which, unexpectedly acquired so late in life, has inspired into you this generous thirst after knowledge, you were to select some elderly peasant, that might best be spared from the land; to come and begin his education with you, that you might till, as it were, your minds together--one, whose heavier progress might invite, without a fear of discouraging, your emulation?

We might then see--starting from an equal post--the difference of the clownish and the gentle blood.

A private education then, or such a one as I have been describing, being determined on, we must in the next place look out for a preceptor:--for it will be some time before either of you, left to yourselves, will be able to a.s.sist the other to any great purpose in his studies.

And now, my dear Sir, if in describing such a tutor as I have imagined for you, I use a style a little above the familiar one in which I have hitherto chosen to address you, the nature of the subject must be my apology. _Difficile est de scientiis inscienter loqui_, which is as much as to say that "in treating of scientific matters it is difficult to avoid the use of scientific terms." But I shall endeavour to be as plain as possible. I am not going to present you with the _ideal_ of a pedagogue, as it may exist in my fancy, or has possibly been realized in the persons of Buchanan and Busby. Something less than perfection will serve our turn. The scheme which I propose in this first or introductory letter has reference to the first four or five years of your education only; and in enumerating the qualifications of him that should undertake the direction of your studies, I shall rather point out the _minimum_, or _least_, that I shall require of him, than trouble you in the search of attainments neither common nor necessary to our immediate purpose.

He should be a man of deep and extensive knowledge. So much at least is indispensable. Something older than yourself, I could wish him, because years add reverence.

To his age and great learning, he should be blest with a temper and a patience, willing to accommodate itself to the imperfections of the slowest and meanest capacities. Such a one in former days Mr. Hartlib appears to have been, and such in our days I take Mr. Grierson to be; but our friend, you know, unhappily has other engagements. I do not demand a consummate grammarian; but he must be a thorough master of vernacular orthography, with an insight into the accentualities and punctualities of modern Saxon, or English. He must be competently instructed (or how shall he instruct you?) in the tetralogy, or first four rules, upon which not only arithmetic, but geometry, and the pure mathematics themselves, are grounded. I do not require that he should have measured the globe with Cook, or Ortelius, but it is desirable that he should have a general knowledge (I do not mean a very nice or pedantic one) of the great division of the earth into four parts, so as to teach you readily to name the quarters. He must have a genius capable in some degree of soaring to the upper element, to deduce from thence the not much dissimilar computation of the cardinal points, or hinges, upon which those invisible phenomena, which naturalists agree to term _winds_, do perpetually s.h.i.+ft and turn. He must instruct you, in imitation of the old Orphic fragments (the mention of which has possibly escaped you), in numeric and harmonious responses, to deliver the number of solar revolutions, within which each of the twelve periods, into which the _Annus Vulgaris_, or common year, is divided, doth usually complete and terminate itself. The intercalaries, and other subtle problems, he will do well to omit, till riper years, and course of study, shall have rendered you more capable thereof. He must be capable of embracing all history, so as from the countless myriads of individual men, who have peopled this globe of earth--_for it is a globe_--by comparison of their respective births, lives, deaths, fortunes, conduct, prowess, &c. to p.r.o.nounce, and teach you to p.r.o.nounce, dogmatically and catechetically, who was the richest, who was the strongest, who was the wisest, who was the meekest man, that ever lived; to the facilitation of which solution, you will readily conceive, a smattering of biography would in no inconsiderable degree conduce. Leaving the dialects of men (in one of which I shall take leave to suppose you by this time at least superficially inst.i.tuted), you will learn to ascend with him to the contemplation of that unarticulated language, which was before the written tongue; and, with the aid of the elder Phrygian or aesopic key, to interpret the sounds by which the animal tribes communicate their minds--evolving moral instruction with delight from the dialogue of c.o.c.ks, dogs, and foxes. Or marrying theology with verse, from whose mixture a beautiful and healthy offspring may be expected, in your own native accents (but purified) you will keep time together to the profound harpings of the more modern or Wattsian hymnics.

Thus far I have ventured to conduct you to a "hill-side, whence you may discern the right path of a virtuous and n.o.ble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming."[42]

With my best respects to Mr. Grierson, when you see him,

I remain, dear Sir, your obedient servant,

ELIA.

_April 1, 1823._

[42] Milton's Tractate on Education, addressed to Mr. Hartlib.

RITSON _VERSUS_ JOHN SCOTT THE QUAKER

(1823)

Critics I read on other men, And Hypers upon them again.--_Prior._

I have in my possession Scott's "Critical Essays on some of the Poems of several English Poets,"--a handsome octavo, bought at the sale of Ritson's books; and enriched (or deformed, as some would think it) with MS. annotations in the handwriting of that redoubted Censor. I shall transcribe a few, which seem most characteristic of both the writers--Scott, feeble, but amiable--Ritson, coa.r.s.e, caustic, clever; and, I am to suppose, not amiable. But they have proved some amus.e.m.e.nt to me; and, I hope, will produce some to the reader, this rainy season, which really damps a gentleman's wings for any original flight, and obliges him to ransack his shelves, and miscellaneous reading, to furnish an occasional or make-s.h.i.+ft paper. If the sky clears up, and the sun dances this Easter (as they say he is wont to do), the town may be troubled with something more in his own way the ensuing month from its poor servant to command.

ELIA.

DYER'S RUINS OF ROME

----The pilgrim oft At dead of night 'mid his oraison hears Aghast the voice of time disparting towers, Tumbling all precipitate down-dashed, Rattling around, loud-thund'ring to the moon; While murmurs sooth each awful interval Of ever-falling waters.

_Scott_

There is a very bold transposition in this pa.s.sage. A superficial reader, not attending to the sense of the epithet _ever_, might be ready to suppose that the _intervals_ intended were those between the _falling of the waters_, instead of those between the _falling of the towers_.

_Ritson_

A beauty, as in Thomson's Winter--

----Cheerless towns, far distant, never blest, Save when its annual course the caravan Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay, With news of human kind.[43]

----Where the broad-bosom'd hills, Swept with perpetual clouds, of Scotland rise, Me fate compels to tarry.

A superficial person--Mr. Scott, for instance, would be apt to connect the last clause in this period with the line foregoing--"bends to the coast of Cathay with news," &c. But has a reader nothing to do but to sit pa.s.sive, while the connexion is to glide into his ears like oil?

[43] May I have leave to notice an instance of the same agreeable discontinuity in my friend Lloyd's admirable poem on Christmas?

DENHAM'S COOPER'S HILL

The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear, That, had the self-enamour'd youth gaz'd here, So fatally deceived he had not been, While he the bottom, not his face had seen.

_Scott_