Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2De Quincey, Thomas
History
Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays -- 19th century
system in our popular and Parliamentary counsels. This would move the
sorrow of the Seceders themselves: for they have protested against the
theory of all Voluntaries with a vehemence which that party even
complain of as excessive. Their leaders have many times avowed, that
any system which should leave to men in general the estimate of their
own religious wants as a pecuniary interest, would be fatal to the
Christian tone of our national morals. Checked and overawed by the
example of an establishment, the Voluntaries themselves are far more
fervent in their Christian exertions than they could be when liberated
from that contrast. The religious spirit of both England and Scotland
under such a change would droop for generations. And in that one evil,
let us hope, the remotest and least probable of the many evils
threatened by the late schism, these nations would have reason by
comparison almost to forget the rest.
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY.
EXHIBITED IN SIX SCENES.
[1828.]
[TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.]
Sir,--Some years ago you published a translation of Bottiger's 'Sabina,'
a learned account of the Roman toilette. I here send you a companion
to that work--not a direct translation, but a very minute abstract
from a similar dissertation by Hartmann, (weeded of the wordiness which
has made the original unreadable, and in consequence unread,) on the
toilette and the wardrobe of the ladies of ancient Palestine. Hartmann
was a respectable Oriental scholar, and he published his researches,
which occupy three thick octavos, making in all one thousand four
hundred and eighty-eight pages, under the title of _Die Hebraerin am
Putztische und als Braut_, _Amsterdam_, 1809. (_The Hebrew Woman at
her Toilette, and in her Bridal character_.) I understand that the
poor man is now gone to Hades, where let us hope that it is considered
no crime in a learned man to be exceedingly tedious, and to repeat the
same thing ten times over, or even, upon occasion, fifteen times,
provided that his own upright heart should incline him to think that
course the most advisable. Certainly Mr. Hartmann has the most excellent
gifts at verbal expansion, and at tautology, that ever came within my
knowledge; and I found no particular difficulty in compressing every
tittle of what relates to his subject, into a compass which, I imagine,
will fill about twelve of your pages, or fifty, at the utmost, of the
original work.
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