so great an escort as some would hear of to follow the dark banner of those who forsake goodness. We may add, parenthetically, that, in recognizing this fact, they at the Lover's Seat have most charity; for they respect, admire, and love those who never come near them or repair to any of their seats, which is more than can be said of those who view human nature and human life from a different and antagonistic standing ground. But this chapter, our true 'passage perilleuse,' must, at last, be concluded. It has sufficed to show us, without, I hope, leading any one to make a perverse use of its contents, that virtue may rightly be classed among common things; that virtue is found even among sinners; that what appears a fault, may be often conducive to virtue; that our common hope involves a belief in virtue to be communicated; and that for holding these opinions, which are themselves common ones, there is not wanting the testimony of reason, and of an authority that ought to be sufficient for little Puss, of course only for you and me, that we may not offend by including any one else. CHAPTER XIII. OUR friends in the bower have been listening to what might be termed a pleading for the human race in general, the immediate object being to show that virtue was one of the common and often unobserved things of daily life. We must now proceed to what will strike them as remarkable in favour of that portion of it which forms the mass of mankind; and this turn in the subject will bring before them more directly what is common in persons with regard to virtue. Hitherto it has been rather common things viewed in this relation that we have been regarding. In this present chapter, therefore, it is common persons that we shall have to consider; and for this purpose we shall have occasion to practise what is avowed in the Greek motto prefixed to our book: "What the common multitude thinks and does, that I will speak of," τὸ πλῆθος ὅτι τὸ φαυλότερον ἐνόμισε χρῆταί τε, τόδε τοι λέγοιμ' ἄν*. * Bacch. 430. But who are common persons? How shall we distinguish them? Shall we define these as the working classes? That answer will not be sufficiently explicit; for we are told now that all classes are working in some way or other. Perhaps, since people at the Lover's Seat, instead of affecting the language of philosophers, have in general a homely and childish way of speaking, we may define them as persons that have a different dress on a Sunday from what they wear on a week day. I think that hits it exactly. That's what it is-if you will change it, let them be what you please, though it will be always correct to call them by the popular title of the common people, understanding by that term all those who are not distinguished from the majority by a certain social position of eminence, whose several occupations, such as they are, I would go on to name if I did not fear that what would be meant for a compliment might by a few of them,-finding themselves so classed, in their modest and commendable desire of being thought respectable, which they assuredly are,—be mistaken for an injury. So then, although we have already had frequent occasion incidentally to notice the excellence of common persons as well as things in relation to virtue, we must here give our thoughts expressly this direction; and after observing, as we shall do, without seeking to draw any invidious comparison with the upper ranks, the goodness and sufferings of these classes, which form, as we have said, with literal exactness, the common people, for they constitute the great staple of mankind, as the life of bodily labour is the common lot of the human race, we shall be still more confirmed in the propriety of our classification in the last chapter, where virtue itself was reckoned among common things. That to be common, in every sense of the word, should be a note compatible with excellence in persons and characters will not seem strange to those who have heard what we listened to so lately at this seat respecting manhood, womanhood, and youth; but it is a proposition that cannot be expected, to please those who are exclusive admirers of what is rare, exceptional, and illustrious. With such objectors I confess that we in the bower here have no sympathy. "Shame on the dull! who think the soul looks less Because the body wants a glitt'ring dress; As few the vices of the wealthy see, So virtues are conceal'd by poverty. If thou hast nought to please the curious eye, Thou wilt small praise, but much ill-nature find, How meanly bitter will cold censure be ! Sure it's the greatest fault to be severe." Sir Walter Scott on one occasion hearing his daughter Ann say of something that she could not abide it, as being vulgar, addressed her in these words: "My love, you speak like a very young lady; do you know, after all, the meaning of this word vulgar? 'Tis only common; nothing that is common can deserve to be spoken of in a tone of contempt; and when you have lived to my years, you will be disposed to agree with me in thanking God that nothing really worth having or caring about in this world is uncommon." They who require such admonitions, though as strangers to this place we are not much concerned with their thoughts, must not however interpret the object of the present chapter as being intended to convey, even where it is not expressed, in accordance with the right of every one to blame what is blameable, indirectly a censure upon those who hold a distinguished rank. Who knows perhaps but that part at least of the little audience in the bower here has lived in their society? None of them at all events have any grudge to feed fat against the great; but the strangers who oppose us must be willing to hear the praise of others without supposing that it is meant to be an attack upon themselves. They must not think that the upper classes are disparaged because others are shown to be virtuous; for otherwise, if it were not permitted any one even to praise the lower ranks freely and truly with words, and to ascribe to them the merit which is incontestably their due, one might conclude that in reality the common people here in England were not alone neglected and misunderstood, but oppressed and subdued. Still there is an objection often elsewhere stated to the tendency of such thoughts-though certainly it does not concern the use we have to make of them-which we should answer perhaps before proceeding farther. What is the use, some persons demand, of all this fine feeling and talk about the virtues of the common people, if it lead to nothing else? This is a common suggestion not only of hard practical men of business, but even at some moments of the humanist himself. I repeat it, the objection, let it be advanced by whom it may, does not concern us. We are not to preach up any sentiment; we have only to show that common persons as well as things are good; and if any fine gentleman or philanthropist should refuse to draw or to appreciate the practical conclusion as to his own conduct, he is free to do so for any thing that our subject demands of him; but by way of being generous we may depart for a moment from our province, and remark that the suggestion is groundless for how can the love of men, even though hidden in the heart's deepest recesses, be a mere waste of sensibility or useless indulgence? Besides taking it at the lowest results, even where no particular friendships are formed with a few, and no means exist of rendering great service to many, it does lead to something else. You exchange kind looks in passing, tokens of recognition as pass-words to a secret brotherhood, and you do something for the common people; you speak to them affectionately in a plain, hearty way, and you do something for them; you let them walk in your pleasure grounds, slide on your pond, look at your pictures, and you do something for them; you invite them to sit down in your hall, and not keep standing as they will, though tired, and you do something for them; you give sixpence when "Thank you" was all that was expected, and you do something for them. Of course with common means only at your disposal, you leave them generally pretty much as you found them; but what can you do more? How could you change their position, even if it were well for them that you did so? You are under quite a mistake then if you suppose that your love for them was useless. While it led you to have such a secret feeling and them to receive such looks, such permission, such gratuities, such encouragement, trivial as some may think it, at your hands, it did a great deal both for you and for them; and whatever conduced to your possessing it, even though it were only such observations as we shall now proceed to make, was of no small practical importance. But the stranger will say he does not understand or in the least relish all this talk about low people. Well let him have his own tastes. But he must permit us to observe that besides the particular obligation in this discussion to hold such talk, it has always been the part of good men to wish to win the favour of the common people; nor perhaps in any age was the order of nobility so harsh as to be unwilling to obtain their good opinion by liberality. It is not to be interdicted to its descendants that they should study the lower orders, that they should love them, that they should receive them into the number of their friends and companions, not as dependents contributing to their grandeur, but as men and women that belong to the common family; for these things are full of duty, full of just observance, full of antiquity, and perhaps still more, full of the spirit of that good time coming which so many of us invoke, for those who are to come after us, with aspirations and vows. Let no one therefore disparage such liberality, or confound graciousness with wrong, or impose the penalty of shame on what the genius of this place demands especially of us here, while simple humanity requires it generally of all men. For persons with exclusive loves, tenderly susceptible of what can be construed by an effort of imagination into an attack upon their own rank, and so devoted to the desire of singularity and distinction, that whatever is common must be abandoned to vituperation or silence, the facts of nature are sufficiently offensive without their being brought into more prominent relief by any rhetoric; and perhaps we cannot begin better than by observing their condition in this respect, which from our point of view appears so unphilosophical and at variance with all its results. For them our common beginning and our common first nourishment by mother's milk must seem to place all mankind beneath those who had something prodigious in the experience of their infancy, like the king Habis, who was suckled by a deer; Cyrus, who had for nurse a bitch; Semiramis, who had doves; Midas, who had ants; Hiero and Plato, who had bees; Pelias, who had a mare; Atalanta, who had a bear; Esculapius, who had a goat; Romulus and Remus, who had a wolf to be their nurses. Names, even when common and daily on the tongues of the people, like Harry or Alice, can have no charm for them. They would relish being called Thesaurochrysonicochrysides, like the philosopher, or Bombomachides |