The Columbiad: A Poem Part 34

Book X. Line 261.

A most useful book might be written on this subject. It should be a Review of Poets and Historians, as to the moral and political tendency of their works. It should likewise treat of the importance of the task a.s.signed to these two cla.s.ses of writers. It might attempt to point out the true object they ought to have in view; perhaps do this with such clearness and energy as to gain the attention of writers as well as readers, and thus serve in some measure as a guide to future historians and poets. At least it would prove a guide to readers; and by teaching them how to judge, and what to praise or blame in the accounts of human actions, whether real or fict.i.tious, the public taste would be reformed by degrees. In this case the recorders of heroic actions, as well as the authors of them, would find it necessary to follow this reform, or they must necessarily fail of obtaining the celebrity to which they all aspire.

I think every person who will give himself the trouble to form an opinion on the manner in which actions, called heroic, have been recorded, must find it faulty; and must lament, as one of the misfortunes of society, that writers of these two cla.s.ses almost universally, from Homer down to Gibbon, have led astray the moral sense of man. In this view we may say in general of poets and historians, as we do of their heroes, that they have injured the cause of humanity almost in proportion to the fame they have acquired.

I would not be understood by this observation to mean that such writers have done no good. Even the works of Homer, which have caused more mischief to mankind than those of any other, have likewise been a fruitful source of a certain species of benefits. They elevate the mind of every reader; they have called forth great exertions of genius in poets, artists, philosophers and heroes, thro a long succession of ages. But it remains to be considered what a fruitful source they have likewise been of those false notions of honor and erroneous systems of policy which have governed the actions of men from his day to ours.

If, instead of the Iliad, he had given us a work of equal splendor founded on an opposite principle; whose object should have been to celebrate the useful arts of agriculture and navigation; to build the immortal fame of his heroes, and occupy his whole hierarchy of G.o.ds, on actions that contribute to the real advancement of society, instead of striking away every foundation on which society ought to be established or can be greatly advanced; mankind, enriched with such a work at that early period, would have given a useful turn to their ambition thro all succeeding ages.

It is not easy to conceive how different the state of nations would have been at this day from what we now find it, had such a bent been given to the pursuits of genius, and such glory cast upon actions truly worthy of imitation. I have treated this subject more at large in the third chapter of _Advise to the Privileged Orders_.

But it will be asked how this kind of censure can attach to the writers of history, whose business is to invent nothing, to confine themselves to the simple narration of facts, and relate the actions of men, not as they should be, but as they are. This is indeed a part of the duty of the historian; but it is not his whole duty. His narrative should be clear and simple; but he should likewise develop the political and moral tendency of the transactions he details.

In reviewing actions or doctrines which favor despotism, injustice, false morals or political errors, he should not suffer them to pa.s.s without an open and well supported censure. He should show how the authors of such actions might have conducted themselves and succeeded in gaining the celebrity which they sought, by doing good instead of harm to the age and country where they acquired their fame.

The history of human actions, in a political view, has generally been the history of human errors. The writers who have given it to us do not appear to have been sensible of this. How then are young readers to be sensible of it? Their minds are still to be formed; and those who are destined for public life must in a great measure take their bias from the study of history. But history in general, to answer the purpose of sound instruction to the future guides of nations, must be rewritten. For example: among the hundred historians who have treated of what is called the Roman Republic I know not one who has told us this important fact, that Rome never had a republic. The same may be said of Athens, and of several other turbulent a.s.sociations of men in former ages. And it is for want of this attention or this knowledge in the writers of their histories, that the republican principle of government is so generally a.s.sociated, even at this day, with the idea of insurrection, anarchy and the desire of conquest. Whereas it is in fact the _want_ of the republican principle, not the _practice_ of it, which has occasioned all the insurrections, anarchy and desire of conquest, that have disturbed the order of society both in ancient and modern times.

Again: in relating the destruction of Carthage, a measure which the zealous patriots, both before and after, considered so essential to the glory of the Roman state, and which has immortalized so many heroes as the authors and projectors of that destruction, I believe no historian has told us that the disease, decay and downfall of Rome itself were occasioned by that measure, and must be dated from that epoch; and that the actions of Regulus and Scipio, the themes of universal applause, were really more injurious to their country than those of Marias and Sylla, the objects (and justly so) of universal detestation.

If these principles had been understood by Polybius and his successors in the brilliant heritage of history, and had been properly impressed on the minds of their readers, we should not have heard old Cato's vociferation _delenda est Carthago_ applied to the American states by an orator of the British parliament, as we did during the war; because every member of that parliament must have understood that the prosperity of these states would be highly advantageous to Britain, from the extensive commercial intercourse that the relative situation of the two countries required.

Neither should we see at this day the French English nations seeking to impoverish and extirpate each other; each of them entertaining the erroneous and absurd opinion that its own prosperity is to be increased by the adversity of its neighbor. We should have learned long ago from the plain dictates of reason, instead of having it beat into us some ages hence by costly experience, that the true dignity of a state is in the happiness of its members; and that their happiness is best promoted by the pursuit of industry at home and the free exchange of their productions abroad.

We should have perceived the real and constant interest that every nation has in the prosperity of its neighbors, instead of their destruction.

France would have perceived that the wealth of the English would be beneficial to her, by enabling them to receive and pay for more of her produce. England would have seen the same thing with regard to the French; and such would have been the sentiments of other nations reciprocally and universally.

I know I must be called an extravagant theorist if I insinuate that all these good things would have resulted from having history well written and poetry well conceived. No man will doubt however that such would have been the tendency; nor can we deny that the contrary has resulted, at least in some degree, from the manner in which such writings have been composed. And why should we write at all, if not to benefit mankind? The public mind, as well as the individual mind, receives its propensities; it is equally the creature of habit. Nations are educated, like a single child. They only require a longer time and a greater number of teachers.

No. 50.

_For that fine apologue, in mystic strain, Gave like the rest a golden age to man,_

Book X. Line 393.

Absurdities in speculative opinion are commonly considered as innocent things; and we are told every day that they are not worth refuting. So far as opinions are sure to rest merely in speculation, and cannot in any degree become practical, this is doubtless the proper way of treating them.

But there are few opinions of this dormant and indifferent kind, especially among those that become general and cla.s.sical among the nations.

The activity of such, tho imperceptible, is extensive. They get wrought into our intellectual existence, and govern our modes of acting as well as thinking. The interest of society therefore requires that they should be scrutinized, and that such as are erroneous should be exposed, in order to be rejected; when their place may be supplied by truth and reason, which nourish the mind and accelerate the progress of improvement.

Among the absurd notions which early turned the heads of the teachers of mankind, and which are so ridiculous as generally to escape our censure, is that of a Golden Age; or the idea that men were more perfect, more moral and more happy in some early stage of their intercourse, before they cultivated the earth and formed great societies.

The author of Don Quixote has played his artillery upon this doctrine to very good effect; he has summoned against it all the force of our contempt by making it the text of one of the gravest discourses of his hero. But my sensibility is such on moral and political errors, as rarely to be satisfied with the weapon of ridicule; tho I know it to be one of the most mortal of intellectual weapons.

The notion that the social state of men cannot ameliorate, that they have formerly been better than they now are, and that they are continually growing worse, is pregnant with infinite mischief. I know no doctrine in the whole labyrinth of imposture that has a more immoral tendency. It discourages the efforts of all political virtue; it is a constant and practical apology for oppression, tyranny, despotism, in every shape, in every corner of society, as well as from the throne, the pulpit, the tribunal and the camp. It inculcates the belief that ignorance is better than knowledge; that war and violence are more natural than industry and peace; that deserts and tombs are more glorious than joyful cities and cultivated fields.

One of the most operative means of bringing forward our improvements and of making mankind wiser and better than they are, is to convince them that they are capable of becoming so. Without this conviction they may indeed improve slowly, unsteadily and almost imperceptibly, as they have done within the period in which our histories are able to trace them. But this conviction, impressed on the minds of the chiefs and teachers of nations, and inculcated in their schools, would greatly expedite our advancement in public happiness and virtue. Perhaps it would in a great measure insure the world against any future shocks and retrograde steps, such as heretofore it has often, experienced.

Postscript.

I am well aware that some readers will be dissatisfied in certain instances with my orthography. Their judgments are respectable; and as it is not a wanton deviation from ancient usage on my part, the subject may justify a moment's retrospect from this place. Since we have arrived at the end of a work that has given me more pleasure in the composition than it probably will in its reception by the public, they must pardon me if I thus linger awhile in taking leave. It is a favorite object of amus.e.m.e.nt as well as labor, which I cannot hope to replace.

Our language is constantly and rapidly improving. The unexampled progress of the sciences and arts for the last thirty years has enriched it with a great number of new words, which are now become as necessary to the writer as his ancient mother tongue. The same progress which leads to farther extensions of ideas will still extend the vocabulary; and our neology must and will keep pace with the advancement of our knowledge. Hence will follow a closer definition and more accurate use of words, with a stricter attention to their orthography.

Such innovations ought undoubtedly to be admitted with caution; and they will of course be severely scrutinized by men of letters. A language is public property, in the most extensive sense of the word; and readers as well as writers arc its guardians. But they ought to have no objection to improving the estate as it pa.s.ses thro their hands, by making a liberal tho rigid estimate of what may be offered as ameliorations. Some respectable philologists have proposed a total and immediate reform of our orthography and even of our alphabet; but the great body of proprietors in this heritage are of opinion that the attempt would be less advantageous than the slow and certain improvements which are going forward, and which will necessarily continue to attend the active state of our literature.

We have long since laid aside the Latin diphthongs ae and oe in common English words, and in some proper names tho not in all. Uniformity in this respect is desirable and will prevail. Names of that description which occur in this work I have therefore written with the simple vowel, as _Cesar_, _Phenicia_, _Etna_, _Medea_.

Another cla.s.s of our words are in a gradual state of reform. They are those Latin nouns ending in _or_, which having past thro France on their way from Rome, changed their _o_ into _eu_. The Norman English writers restored the Latin _o_, but retained the French _u;_ and tho the latter has been since rejected in most of these words, yet in others it is still retained by many writers. It is quite useless in p.r.o.nunciation; and propriety as well as a.n.a.logy requires that the reform should be carried thro. No writer at this day retains the _u_ in _actor_, _author_, _emperor_ and the far greater part, perhaps nine tenths, of this cla.s.s of nouns; why then should it be continued in the few that remain, such as _labor_, _honor?_ The most accurate authors reject it in all these, and I have followed the example.

I have also respectable authorities in prose as well as poetry for expunging the three last letters in _though_ and _through;_ they being totally disregarded in p.r.o.nunciation and awkward in appearance. The long sound of _o_ in many words, as _go, fro_, puts it out of doubt with respect to _tho;_ and its sound of _oo_, which, frequently occurs, as in _prove, move_, is an equal justification of _thro_.

All the British poets, from Pope downwards, and several eminent prose writers, including Shaftsbury and Staunton, have by their practice supported this orthography.

Some verbs in the past tense, where the usual ending in _ed_ is harsh and uncouth, hare long ago changed it for _t_, as _fixt_, _capt_, _meant_, _past_, _blest_. Poetry has extended this innovation to many other verbs which are necessarily uttered with the sound of _t_, tho in prose they may still retain for a while their ancient _ed_.

I consider this reform as a valuable improvement in the language, because it brings a numerous cla.s.s of words to be written as they are spoken; and the proportion of the reformed ones is already so considerable that a.n.a.logy, or regularity of conjugation, requires us to complete the list.

I have not carried this reform much farther than other poets have done before me. Examples might perhaps be found for nearly all the instances in which I have indulged it, such as _perisht_, _astonisht_, tho I have not been solicitous to seek them. The correction might well be extended to several remaining verbs of the same cla.s.s; but it is difficult in this particular case to fix the proper limit.

With regard to the apostrophe, as employed to mark the elision in the past tense of verbs, I have followed the example of the most accurate poets; who use it where the verb in the present tense does not end in _e_, as _furl'd_, because the _ed_ would add a syllable and destroy the measure. But where the present tense ends in _e_, it is retained in the past with the _d_, as _robed_, because it does not add a syllable.

The letter _k_ we borrowed from the Greek, and the _c_ from the Latin. The power of each of these letters at the end of a word is precisely the same; and the power of one is the same as that of both. Yet our early writers placed them both at the end of certain words, with the _c_ before the _k_, as _musick_, _publick_, why they did not put the _k_ first, as being the most ancient character, does not appear. Modern authors have rejected the _k_ sit the end of this cla.s.s of words; and no correct writer will think of replacing such an inconvenient appendage.

The idea of putting a stop to innovation in a living language is absurd, unless we put a stop to thinking. When a language becomes fixt it becomes a dead language. Men must leave it for a living one, in which they can express their ideas with all their changes, extensions and corrections. The duty of the critic in this case is only to keep a steady watch over the innovations that are offered, and require a rigid conformity to the general principles of the idiom. Noah Webster, to whose philological labors our language will be much indebted for its purity and regularity, has pointed out the advantages of a steady course of improvement, and how it ought to be conducted. The Preface to his new Dictionary is an able performance. He might advantageously give it more development, with some correction, and publish it as a Prospectus to the great work he now has in hand.

The uniform tendency of our language is towards simplicity as well as regularity. With this view the final e, in words where it is quite silent and useless, is dropping off, and will soon disappear. Having long since resigned the place it held in the greater part of these words, as _joye_, _ruine_, and more recently in some others, it must finally quit the remainder where it is still found a superfluous letter, as _active_, _decisive_, _determine_.

We may even hazard a prediction that our whole cla.s.s of adjectives ending in _ous_ will be reformed and brought nearer to their p.r.o.nunciation by rejecting the _o_. A similar change may be expected in words ending in _ss_. These words have already undergone one reform; they were formerly written with a final _e_, as _wildernesse_. They have lost the _e_ because it was useless; and as the final _s_ has now become equally useless, it might be dismissed with as little violence to the language. But these two projected innovations have not yet been ventured upon in any degree; and it is not desirable to be the first in so daring an enterprise, when it is not immediately important.