INFLUENCE OF NAMES.
“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”—Shakspeare.
Shakspeare was mistaken. There is a great deal—there is almost every thing in names. Their influence is felt at all times, and under all circumstances. In war and peace—in morals, literature and religion—in the world of fashion—and above all, in politics, the despotism of names is all powerful, universal and irresistible. Nay, Shakspeare himself is authority against Shakspeare. Does he not make the gentle Juliet say to her lover, “'Tis but thy name that is my enemy”—that fatal name which separated two devoted hearts—which planted thick sorrows in their path, and finally shrouded them in one common sepulchre! Does he not put into the mouth of one of Antony's captains, “I'll humbly signify what in his name, that magical word of war, we have effected.” And again, speaking of the great Pompey, “his name strikes more than could his war resisted.” Names indeed govern the world; and it is not among the least ingenious of all human contrivances that the world should be so governed. I do not wish to speak of the moral guilt and future accountability of those who combine to delude the ignorant—who chain mens' minds to some false idol, or enlist them in some scheme of abomination, whose iniquities are artfully veiled under the names of virtue, patriotism, and the like. If the denunciations of the eloquent Hebrew prophet against those who call evil good, and good evil—who put darkness for light, and light for darkness—who call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter—are not sufficient to alarm such delinquents, it would avail nothing for uninspired tongues and pens to attempt their conviction and reform.
In literature, how remarkable and how injurious is the influence of names, apart from any actual or intrinsic merit. How common is it to estimate an opinion or sentiment, not by the wisdom of the one or the purity of the other, but by the authority of him who pronounces it. A false, immoral, or stupid passage in a book, which bears on its title-page the name of a popular writer, is often received with favor, when precisely the same offence in an unknown author would be almost certain to bring down upon him the lash of criticism. Take for example one of England's most renowned bards—one, not more known even in his own country than on this side of the Atlantic—whose “Melodies” are lisped by our amorous youths and sentimental maidens, and whose name has become a “household word”—a passport to every festival where music, love and wine are the sources of enjoyment. Among his “National Airs” so called, Mr. Moore has written the following lines, which have no doubt been admired by every pretty miss in the country, as the very perfection of poetry, sentiment, and even good sense.
Flow on, thou shining river,
But, ere thou reach the sea,
Seek Ella's bower, and give her
The wreaths I fling o'er thee.
And tell her thus, if she'll be mine,
The current of our lives shall be,
With joys along their course to shine,
Like those sweet flowers on thee.
But if, in wandering thither,
Thou find'st she mocks my prayer,
Then leave those wreaths to wither
Upon the cold bank there.
And tell her thus, when youth is o'er,
Her lone and loveless charms shall be
Thrown by upon life's weedy shore,
Like those sweet flowers from thee.
Now the plain English prose of all this, when divested of the magic of Mr. Moore's numbers, is something like the following. “Take, gentle river, these pretty flowers which I fling upon thy surface, and before thou reachest the great ocean, be pleased to flow into the bower of my fair Ella; and if it be not miracle enough, good river, for thee to rush into a lady's bower, without either drowning her or wetting her garments, be pleased to perform another wonderful feat and speak to her—tell her if she will only marry me, our joys whilst we are floating down life's current, shall resemble these wreaths which are borne upon thy bosom. But mark me, river!—if this insensible girl is resolved that she will not accept a good offer, why then roar like another cataract, toss these worthless wreaths on the shore to wither and rot, and tell this cruel Ella that she will live and die an ugly, neglected old maid.”
Now, whilst it is fully conceded that the figure of personification is perfectly legitimate, especially in poetry; yet there are certain degrees of it which should never be attempted, unless connected with subjects of great dignity, or which inspire powerful emotion—and it must not be forgotten that the excellence of poetry does not consist so much in the form or arrangement of its words as in the value and beauty of the thoughts and sentiments which it expresses. A gentle zephyr stealing into a lady's bower and lulling her into repose, or whispering in her ear the sighs of an absent lover, is natural and agreeable enough; but a river, or even rivulet, turning from its course and performing the same office, is a conception which would be very ridiculous in any other than a popular poet. It would be tedious to point out other examples of similar extravagance in Moore, and one only shall suffice—a song which has occasioned abundant fluttering in female hearts, and which for impious hyperbole was never excelled:
Why does azure deck the sky,
But to be like thine eyes of blue?
Why is red the rose's dye?
Because it is thy blush's hue, &c. &c.
In which said song the poet very calmly shows that all that is bright, and fair, and sweet in creation, was made purposely to resemble some young lady of his acquaintance. And yet all these trifles and absurdities, to say nothing of the frequent obscene allusions of the same author, have acquired an extensive popularity under the influence of a popular name.
It would be no difficult task to extend these remarks so as to embrace a long list of distinguished writers, both in prose and verse, who have perpetrated various offences against sound morals as well as good sense, but with whom the lustre of reputation, like the mantle of charity, has not only shielded them from censure, but imparted a kind of dignity and splendor to their failings. Enough perhaps has been said to illustrate the influence of names in the empire of literature.
How is it in the empire of the church? But here I tread upon sacred ground, and must use both brevity and caution. That truth exists in religious doctrine as well as in other things, will not be denied, except by unthinking scepticism or perverted reason. The difficulty has always been in finding her out—in distinguishing her sacred vestments and celestial carriage from the skilful imitations of imposture. The diamond may be known, by the tests of experiment, from the gems which mimic its lustre; but there is no moral chemistry which can separate truth from error, and resolve each into its proper elements. In fact, it seems to be one of the fallacies which have obtained currency among mankind, that truth and error are natural antagonists. So far from it, they are scarcely ever to be found in a state of disunion or repulsion. Error winds itself around the stately column of truth, as the creeper folds in its poisonous embrace the sturdy oak of the forest. Not that they are not in themselves essentially different—but so are the gasses which are found in combination in the water we drink, or in the atmosphere we breathe. What tremendous influence has been wielded by the simple word church, from the very first ages of christianity down to the present time! That name alone has covered a multitude of sins, and sanctified innumerable crimes. What torrents of blood have been shed under the crimson banner of orthodoxy, and how many meek and conscientious heretics have fled from the tender embraces of that holy and infallible mother, who has assumed the supreme government of the soul in this world, as well as the direction of its immortal destiny hereafter. But I only dwell upon this subject in order to show how much we are deceived by empty, unmeaning names. That there is such a treasure as “pure and undefiled religion,” none but the hardened infidel or remorseless libertine will deny. That it is always necessarily found under the priestly robe, or connected with the “sober brow,” neither candor nor charity itself will contend for—and yet, some how or other, the world has identified the sacred gift with a certain sanctimonious exterior, and with certain peculiar ceremonials, and there are few, perhaps, who reflect that it may be more frequently traced in the abodes of humility and wretchedness, in the sighs of a contrite heart, and in the tears of penitential guilt.
But how is it in the world of fashion? What is fashion? Many attempts have been made to define what in truth is undefinable. It is an empty name—a mere shadow, and yet is of substance sufficient to be felt and seen and understood almost every where. A popular English novelist, writing of his own country, says—“The middle classes interest themselves in grave matters: the aggregate of their sentiments is called OPINION. The great interest themselves in frivolities, and the aggregate of their sentiments is termed FASHION. The first is the moral representative of the popular mind—the last of the aristocratic.” But this definition is unsatisfactory. Fashion executes its decrees with as much energy and effect upon those who are excluded from its mystic circle, as upon them who reside within its pale; upon the popular mind as well as the aristocratic. Its frivolities bewilder and dazzle the multitude who abjure them, as well as the chosen few with whom they originate. Imagine this mysterious agent, or whatever it may be called, personified, and endowed with the majesty and power of a queen,—and what are her attributes? A fickle, inconstant, inscrutable and unscrupulous being—selecting her subjects from every rank and condition, and with every diversity in morals and intellect—yet investing them with an uniform and exclusive badge of distinction; exacting from her followers the most unbounded homage, and repaying them often with the sacrifice of peace, health, fortune, self-respect and virtue; instilling into those who throng around her throne the poison of impure and corrupting pleasures, and in those who are banished to the outer courts, awakening the worst passions of envy, discontent and hatred, added to a debasing sense of inferiority. Fortune is not more capricious in dispensing her favors than this empress of smiles and frowns. By her command, dullness is transformed into wit, and deformity into grace. The withered maiden of forty is arrayed in the matchless charms of blooming seventeen, and the notorious libertine becomes transmuted into the fascinating and agreeable companion. If a despot of bodily shape and form, were to cause his power and caprice to be felt in all the minute concerns and occupations of society; if he were to ordain laws regulating the dress—furniture—social intercourse and amusements of his subjects, and in so doing should levy an oppressive tax upon their fortunes, time and comforts—the spirit of freedom would circulate like the electric fluid from one end of the community to the other; the tyrant would be resisted with fearless and determined perseverance. And yet doth fashion issue her imperial decrees equally as despotic and calamitous in their effects, without other aid than the influence and magic of her name—whilst her subjects, so far from opposing resistance, render an implicit and delighted obedience to her mandates. And what is this inexorable arbitress at last but a name? What is this capricious and mysterious intermeddler in human affairs but a vain shadow? a creature of imagination only, and yet as powerful as Cæsar and Napoleon in all their glory! Shakspeare was wrong; there is much—there is every thing in names.
In that great concern of human society—the structure and action of the political machine, how does the matter stand? Are the governed portion of mankind—I mean a majority of them—influenced by things or names? The recorded experience of past ages, and our own particular observation, will answer the question. The master spirits who have ruled mankind with success, have studied the genius of the people with whom they lived. National glory was at one time, if it be not now, the passion of the French, and Napoleon well knew how to avail himself of a moral lever of such tremendous force. Administering to that all devouring and never satiated appetite, he found it an easy task to wade through tears and blood to the goal of his ambition. Preceding the period of his meteor-like and almost miraculous career, the French nation had been intoxicated by seraphic dreams of liberty and equality. Awakening from a long and gloomy night of slavery, they became suddenly bewitched by the doctrines of a new philosophy, (to them at least new,) which proclaimed the sovereignty of the people—and it was long before the horrors of Revolution could dispel the enchantment. The leaders in that dark and bloody episode of human history, retained their ascendancy so long as the names of liberty and equality could be skilfully employed for their purposes. An appeal to the people, or a compliment to their sovereign power, wisdom and virtue, was the daily prologue to those scenes of human butchery, which posterity will regard as incredible fictions. “Oh liberty!” said the beautiful Madame Roland, as she bowed her neck to the guillotine—“what crimes are committed in thy name!”
Are we free in our day from these disastrous influences? Have names no fatal magic with us—sufficiently fatal to unloose the bands of society—to subvert institutions, long cherished and venerated, and finally to dissolve the fairest fabric which ever realized the visions of hope, or the speculations of philosophy? Alas! have we not studied human nature enough to know, that all men are not honest and patriotic, and that some are sufficiently selfish, cunning, cruel and ambitious to work out their own designs, and accomplish their own evil desires, although calamity should overspread society, and millions go supperless to bed? Are there not hundreds of demagogues who are willing to flatter and wheedle and delude the people into final enslavement, if in the whirlwinds of their own creation they can ride into power and office? With what calm and shameless effrontery do such men constantly exert before our eyes a controlling power over the yet doubtful destinies of this infant republic! To fulfil the purposes of ambition, the vilest appeals are made to the lowest and basest passions of the multitude. The pride of democracy is a never failing chord to be skilfully touched, when some wicked design or atrocious mischief is meditated. The popular good—the welfare of the dear people—is the favorite string played upon by worn out political hacks and corrupt aspirants to office. Does a well tried and virtuous patriot stand in the way, and refuse his sanction to the bold assaults, or disguised and no less dangerous encroachments of power? He is instantly denounced as an odious and insidious aristocrat, and is forthwith delivered over to the tender mercies of the faithful—the great democratic republican family—the self-styled conservators of the only true and genuine principles of liberty—whose peculiar province it is to keep the republic pure, by a patriotic monopoly of all its offices and honors. It would indeed be perfectly amusing, if it were not at the same time a subject of sad contemplation, to hear the terms aristocratic and democratic, in the party contests of the day—familiarly applied to things and persons having no one quality—to justify such idle distinctions. The man for example who is “clothed in purple and fine linen, and fares sumptuously every day”—who drives his splendid equipage with liveried servants, who “lies down in luxury and rises in sloth”—that man is a member, or if you choose, the leader of the plain republican party—whilst the humble homespun pedestrian, who walks by the wheels of the other's chariot—whose bread is earned by the sweat of his brow, but who is sufficiently independent to think for himself—is denounced as an aristocrat, or what is worse, a Federalist of the genuine stamp—and is thought unworthy of all communion with the faithful, or at least of all participation in equal political benefits. Epithets are the powerful weapons with which bad and ambitions men have in all countries finally succeeded in overturning all that was valuable and good—all that was wise and beneficent; and unless the people of these States shall in time become sufficiently enlightened, to distinguish the qualities of things from their names, we shall assuredly ere long add another to that gloomy procession of republics, WHICH HAVE VANISHED FOREVER FROM THE EARTH.
H.