FORS CLAVIGERA.
LETTER XXXV.
Brantwood, 18th September, 1873.
Looking up from my paper, as I consider what I am to say in this letter, and in what order to say it, I see out of my window, on the other side of the lake, the ivied chimneys (thick and strong-built, like castle towers, and not at all disposed to drop themselves over people below,) of the farmhouse where, I told you the other day, I saw its mistress preparing the feast of berry-bread for her sheep-shearers. In that farmhouse, about two hundred and fifty years ago, warmed himself at the hearth, ten feet across, of its hall, the English squire who wrote the version of the Psalms from which I chose for you the fourteenth and fifteenth, last November. Of the said squire I wish you, this November, to know somewhat more; here, to begin, is his general character, given by a biographer who may be trusted:—
“He was a true model of worth; a man fit for conquest, plantation, reformation, or what action soever is greatest and hardest among men; withal such a lover of mankind and goodness, that whosoever had any real parts in him found comfort, participation, and protection to the uttermost of his power. The universities abroad and at home accounted him a general Mæcenas of learning, dedicated their books to him, and communicated every invention or improvement of knowledge with him. Soldiers honoured him, and were so honoured by him, as no man thought he marched under the true banner of Mars, that had not obtained his approbation. Men of affairs in most parts of Christendom entertained correspondency with him. But what speak I of these? His heart and capacity were so large, that there was not a cunning painter, a skilful engineer, an excellent musician, or any other artificer of extraordinary fame, that made not himself known to this famous spirit, and found him his true friend without hire, and the common rendezvous of worth, in his time.”
This being (and as I can assure you, by true report,) his character, and manner of life, you are to observe these things, farther, about his birth, fate, and death.
When he was born, his mother was in mourning for her father, brother, and sister-in-law, who all had died on the scaffold. Yet, very strangely, you will find that he takes no measures, in his political life, for the abolition of capital punishment.
Perhaps I had better at once explain to you the meaning of his inactivity in that cause, although for my own part I like best to put questions only, and leave you to work them out for yourselves as you are able. But you could not easily answer this one without help. This psalm-singing squire has nothing to urge against capital punishment, because his grandfather, uncle, and aunt-in-law all died innocent. It is only rogues who have a violent objection to being hanged, and only abettors of rogues who would desire anything else for them. Honest men don’t in the least mind being hanged occasionally by mistake, so only that the general principle of the gallows be justly maintained; and they have the pleasure of knowing that the world they leave is positively minded to cleanse itself of the human vermin with which they have been classed by mistake.
The contrary movement—so vigorously progressive in modern days—has its real root in a gradually increasing conviction on the part of the English nation that they are all vermin. (‘Worms’ is the orthodox Evangelical expression.) Which indeed is becoming a fact, very fast indeed;—but was by no means so in the time of this psalm-singing squire. In his days, there was still a quite sharp separation between honest men and rogues; and the honest men were perfectly clear about the duty of trying to find out which was which. The confusion of the two characters is a result of the peculiar forms of vice and ignorance, reacting on each other, which belong to the modern Evangelical sect, as distinguished from other bodies of Christian men; and date therefore, necessarily, from the Reformation.
They consist especially in three things. First, in declaring a bad translation of a group of books of various qualities, accidentally associated, to be the ‘Word of God.’ Secondly, reading, of this singular ‘Word of God,’ only the bits they like; and never taking any pains to understand even those.[1] Thirdly, resolutely refusing to practise even the very small bits they do understand, if such practice happen to go against their own worldly—especially money—interests. Of which three errors, the climax is in their always delightedly reading—without in the slightest degree understanding—the fourteenth Psalm; and never reading, nor apparently thinking it was ever intended they should read, the next one to it—the fifteenth. For which reason I gave you those two together, from the squire’s version, last November,—and, this November and December, will try to make you understand both. For among those books accidentally brought together, and recklessly called the ‘Word of God,’ the book of Psalms is a very precious one. It is certainly not the ‘Word of God’; but it is the collected words of very wise and good men, who knew a great many important things which you don’t know, and had better make haste to know,—and were ignorant of some quite unimportant things, which Professor Huxley knows, and thinks himself wiser on that account than any quantity of Psalmists, or Canticle-singers either. The distinction between the two, indeed, is artificial, and worse than that, non-natural. For it is just as proper and natural, sometimes, to write a psalm, or solemn song, to your mistress, and a canticle, or joyful song, to God, as to write grave songs only to God, and canticles to your mistress. And there is, observe, no proper distinction in the words at all. When Jean de Meung continues the love-poem of William de Loris, he says sorrowfully:—