Those evils have begun to pervade the whole system. As the Athens is the grand seat of lawyers, there will always be students for the law classes, increasing with the increase that there is for lawyers; but in every thing else the poison of decay has been infused, and the decay itself has become visible. With the exception of Leslie, who has written some very flaming articles in the Edinburgh Review, and some books in which the path to geometry is made a little more thorny than ever; of Jamieson, who has been most learned on slate and granite; and Wilson, who has indited some pretty lake poetry, and some pitiful political prose, of which he is said to be now highly ashamed,—I did not hear that any of the Athenian professors have put in a single claim for immortality. Even in her anatomical school, that upon which she rested her fame the longest and the most securely, the recent falling off has been great; and of all those who now shine in the lists of her senatus there is none able to hold the book for Gregory, or the scalpel for old Monro, or light the furnace for Black. I understand that for the fragments of her medical school that remain, the Athens is almost wholly dependant upon private lecturers; that the students pay their fees and enter their names at the college, not with any view of attending the classes there, but because the fees and entries are necessary for the ceremony of graduation. But for the celebrity of her professors, the Athens possesses no advantages as the locality of a medical school. From the nature and pursuits of the Athenian society, there is neither that variety of patients, nor that variety of cases, which is found in cities even of equal population, where a large portion of the people are engaged in manufactures. That it is as good in this respect as Glasgow begins to be doubted, as a considerable number of medical students now attend the Glasgow college in preference; and that it is any way comparable to London, as a school of surgery, no one can suppose. If the medical glory of the Athenian college continue to decrease as it has done for some time, that college will soon become, like the Athens herself, a pensionary upon the law and the politics of Scotland.
But if there be those causes of mortality in the college, there is not much hope of life in any of the other philosophic institutions of the Athens. Royal societies are no where much better than coteries of old wives; and, judging from their recent pursuits, that of the Athens can form no exception to the general character. That a poet and novelist should be the president of such an institution, is proof that the number of Athenian philosophers cannot be great; and however successful and deserving of success such a person may be in his other and lighter capacity, he is not the most likely man to give soundness and solidity to the speculations of philosophers. The fact is, that with the exception of the teacher of a class, and the editor of an Encyclopedia, (who are of course but very heavy and humdrum persons,) and a wisdom-struck squire or two, who take to the amusement of the small philosophy of mosses and muscle-shells rather than the small carpentry of snuff-boxes and fiddles, and who would be quite eclipsed in any other place, there is nothing in the Athens which can be called an amateur philosopher, and of the professional ones I have already spoken.
In their philosophical opinions, the Athenians are an absolute pendulum; and when the history of their swingings this way and that way is looked at, they seem to be a pendulum which has no continued stimulus of motion, but of which the oscillations, though not fewer in number, gradually become more and more insignificant in range. While David Hume was lord of the ascendant, the Athenians doubted every thing but their own wisdom and importance; under Adam Smith, they considered “moral sentiments” as being valuable only in “theory,” and learned “economy” in their “politics,” by bringing all their disposable votes and vices to the best market. Under Robertson, they knew all history; and with Blair, every sentence was taken from the storehouse of the Belles Lettres, and measured by the gauge of Rhetoric. When Reid and Dugald Stewart turned the tables upon the sceptics, the Athenians were entirely composed of intellectual or of active powers, and they were drawn and held by the sweetest cords of association. With Playfair, they attempted to go quietly to the very depth of philosophic systems; and anon, they started to the moon with Dr. Brewster. While Leslie was new, they burned and sweated with him in all the ardour of radiant caloric; and now they lie upon mossy banks, prepared for them by Brewster, Jamieson, and Sir George, and listen to the tales of Sir Walter, or to the ghost stories of Dr. Hibbert. Thus have opinions changed, and importances have faded away; but the Athenians have in their nature remained the same. So change the phases of the moon, now beamy, anon blank; now pushing her horns eastward, now westward,—but still the same dark globe, without light save that which it has at second-hand from another.
CHAPTER VIII.
LITERATURE OF THE ATHENS.
Pol. What do you read, my lord?
Ham. Words, words, words!
Pol. What is the matter, my lord?
Ham. Between who?
Pol. I mean the matter that you read, my lord.
Ham. Slanders, Sir.
Shakspeare.