The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 12 (of 12)Hazlitt, William
General
The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 12 (of 12)
Hazlitt, William
English essays -- 19th century
Man, the Intellectual Man, the Moral Man, and the Spiritual Man; and has
sacrificed the three first at the shrine of the last. He gave certainly
a terrific picture of the death-bed of the Sensual Man—a scene where few
shine—but it is a good subject for oratory, and he made the most of it.
He described the Poet well, walking by the mountain side, in the eye of
nature—yet oppressed, panting rather than satisfied, with beauty and
sublimity. Neither Fame nor Genius, it is most true, are all-sufficient
to the mind of man! He made a fair hit at the Philosophers; first, at
the Political Economist, who draws a circle round man, gives him so many
feet of earth to stand upon, and there leaves him to starve in all his
nobler parts and faculties: next, at the great Jurisconsult, who carves
out a mosaic work of motives for him, cold, hard, and dry, and expects
him to move mechanically in right lines, squares, and parallelograms,
drills him into perfection, and screws him into utility. He then fell
foul of the Moralist and Sentimentalist, weighed him in the balance and
found him wanting—deficient in clearness of sight to discern good, in
strength of hand and purpose to seize upon it when discerned. But
Religion comes at last to the aid of the Spiritual Man, couches the
blind sight, and braces the paralytic limb; the Lord of Hosts is in the
field, and the battle is won, his countenance pours light into our
souls, and his hand stretched out imparts strength to us, by which we
tower to our native skies! In treating of this subject, Mr. Irving
introduced several powerful images and reflections, to show how feeble
moral and intellectual motives are to contend with the allurements of
sense and the example of the world. Reason alone, he said, was no more
able to stem the tide of prejudice and fashion, than the swimmer with
his single arm (here he used an appropriate and spirited gesture, which
reminded us of the description of the heroic action of the swimmer in
Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia) is able to oppose the raging torrent, as
the voice of conscience was only heard in the tumultuous scenes of life
like the faint cry of the sea-bird in the wide world of waters. He drew
an animated but mortifying sketch of the progress of the Patriot and
Politician, weaned by degrees from his attachment to young Liberty to
hug old Corruption; and showed (strikingly enough) that this change from
youthful ardour to a hoary, heartless old age of selfishness and
ridicule (there were several Members of the Honourable House present)
was not owing to increased wisdom or strength of sight, but to faltering
resolution and weakness of hand, that could no longer hold out against
the bribes, the snares, and gilded chains prepared for it. The romantic
Tyro was right and free, the callous Courtier was a slave and
self-conceited. All this was true; it was honest, downright, and well
put. There was no cant in it, as far as regards the unequal odds and the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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