LXXXV. The Author of Waverley observes—‘In truth, the Scottish peasantry are still infected with that rage for funeral ceremonial, which once distinguished the grandees of the kingdom so much, that a sumptuary law was made by the Parliament of Scotland for the purpose of restraining it; and I have known many in the lowest stations who have denied themselves not merely the comforts, but almost the necessaries of life, in order to save such a sum of money as might enable their surviving friends to bury them like Christians, as they termed it; nor could their faithful executors be prevailed upon, though equally necessitous, to turn to the use and maintenance of the living the money vainly wasted upon the interment of the dead.’—‘Antiquary,’ vol. IV. p. 48. If I were to attempt an explanation of the peculiar delight and pride which the Scotch are thus supposed to take in funeral ceremonies, I should say, that as inhabitants of wild and barren districts, they are more familiar with the face of nature than with the face of man; and easily turn to it as their place of rest and final home. There is little difference, in their imaginations, between treading the green mountain turf, and being laid beneath it. The world itself is but a living tomb to them. Their mode of subsistence is cold, hard, comfortless, bare of luxuries and of enjoyments, torpid, inured to privations and self-denial; and death seems to be its consummation and triumph, rather than its unwelcome end. Their life was a sort of struggle for a dreary existence; so that it relapses into the grave with joy and a feeling of exultation. The grey rock out of which their tomb is cut is a citadel against all assaults of the flesh and the spirit; the kindred earth that wraps the weather-beaten, worn-out body, is a soft and warm resting-place from the hardships it has had to encounter. It is no wonder, therefore, that the Scotch prepare for the due celebration of this event with the foresight characteristic of them, and that their friends consign them to the earth with becoming fortitude and costly ceremony. ‘Man,’ says Sir Thomas Brown, though in quite a different spirit, ‘man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave; solemnising nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery, even in the INFAMY of his nature.—See his URN BURIAL.
LXXXVI. In the Heart of Midlothian vol. IV. p. 13, we meet with the following reflections: ‘Perhaps one ought to be actually a Scotchman to conceive how ardently, under all distinctions of rank and situation, they feel their mutual connection with each other as natives of the same country. There are, I believe, more associations common to the inhabitants of a rude and wild than of a well-cultivated and fertile country: their ancestors have more seldom changed their place of residence; their mutual recollection of remarkable objects is more accurate; the high and the low are more interested in each other’s welfare; the feelings of kindred and relationship are more widely extended; and, in a word, the bonds of patriotic affection, always honourable, even when a little too exclusively strained, have more influence on men’s feelings and actions.’ Thus far our author, but without making much progress in the question he has started. ‘Via Goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while’—I might say, but I do not choose, to say so, to the Great Unknown. There is an enumeration of particulars, slightly and collaterally connected with the subject, but, as ‘Douce David Deans’ would say, ‘they do not touch the root of the matter.’ In fact, then, the mind more easily forms a strong and abstracted attachment to the soil (in which it was bred) in remote and barren regions, where few artificial objects or pursuits fritter away attention, or divert it from its devotion to the naked charms of nature—(perhaps the privations, dangers, and loneliness incident to such situations also enhance the value and deepen the interest we take in them)—and again, in a rude and scattered population, where there is a dearth and craving after general society, we naturally become more closely and permanently attached to those few persons with whom neighbourhood, or kindred, or a common cause, or similar habits or language, bring us into contact. Two Englishmen meeting in the wilds of Arabia would instantly become friends, though they had never seen one another before, from the want of all other society and sympathy. So it is in the ruder and earlier stages of civilisation. This is what attaches the Highlander to his hill and to his clan. This is what attaches Scotchmen to their country and to one another. A Londoner, in his fondness for London, is distracted between the play-houses, the opera, the shops, the coffee-houses, the crowded streets, &c. An inhabitant of Edinburgh has none of these diversities to reconcile: he has but one idea in his head or in his mouth,—that of the Calton Hill; an idea which is easily embraced, and which he never quits his hold of, till something more substantial offers,—a situation as porter in a warehouse, or as pimp to a great man.
NOTES
FUGITIVE WRITINGS
ON ABSTRACT IDEAS
This essay was first published along with the second edition (1836) of An Essay on the Principles of Human Action. See Bibliographical Note, vol. VII. p. 384. The source of the essay does not appear to be known, but it very likely formed the substance of one of the Lectures which Hazlitt delivered at the Russell Institution. See ante, pp. 25, et seq. and notes. The title of one of these Lectures (III.) was ‘On Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge, and on the Nature of Abstraction.’ It has not been thought necessary to give references to all the numerous passages quoted from Locke and other philosophers discussed by Hazlitt. In many cases he himself gives a sufficient reference in the text.
PAGE [1]. It is by Mr. Locke ... denied, etc. See An Essay concerning Human Understanding, II. xi. 10. ‘From the root,’ etc. Paradise Lost, V. 479–481. [6]. The Bishop of Worcester. Edward Stillingfleet (1635–1699), who published three pamphlets in reply to Locke’s Essay. For an account of the controversy see Locke’s Works (Bohn), II. 339 et seq. [7]. ‘General ideas,’ etc. Condillac, La Logique, chap. V. [8]. ‘To speak,’ etc. Ibid. [9]. ‘It is agreed on all hands,’ etc. All the passages quoted from Berkeley are from the Introduction to A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710). [12]. ‘Abstract ideas,’ etc. Locke’s Essay, IV. vii. 9.
ON THE WRITINGS OF HOBBES
This and the four succeeding papers were first published in Literary Remains, where the author’s son says of them (vol. I. p. 115): ‘The following Essays form part of a series of Lectures delivered with very great effect by my father at the Russell Institution, in 1813. I found them with other papers in an old hamper which many years ago he stuffed confusedly full of MSS. and odd volumes of books, and left in the care of some lodging-house people, by whom it was thrown into a cellar, so damp that even the covers of some of the books were fast mouldering when I first looked over the collection. The injury to the MSS. may be imagined. Some of the Lectures, indeed, to my deep regret, are altogether missing, burnt, probably, by the ignorant people of the house; and I have had the greatest difficulty in preparing those which remain for the press. They are, however, most valuable.’ The course, consisting of ten Lectures, was delivered in 1812, not 1813. The syllabus will be found in Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Memoirs of William Hazlitt, 1. 192 et seq. The first lecture was ‘On the Writings of Hobbes, showing that he was the father of the modern system of philosophy.’
[27]. ‘They were made fierce,’ etc. Advancement of Learning, I. iv. 6. [28]. ‘Four champions fierce,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, II. 898. [29]. It has been generally supposed, etc. Cf. the essay ‘Mr. Locke a Great Plagiarist,’ post, p. 284. [32]. ‘Discourse of Human Nature.’ This work, though circulated in MS. as early as 1640, was not published till 1650, the year before the publication of Leviathan. [45]. ‘This difference of quickness,’ etc. Leviathan, part I. chap. VIII. Harris, the author of Hermes, etc. Cf. vol. VIII. (The English Comic Writers) p. 19, where the same passages are quoted from Locke, Hobbes, and Harris. [46]. ‘Though the effect of folly,’ etc. Leviathan, part I. chap. VIII. ‘The foolish daughters of Pelias’ [Peleus], etc. Ibid. part II. chap. XXX. The same allusion in Burke. Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 113). [48]. ‘Soft collar of social esteem.’ Ibid. II. 90. ‘Order of thoughts,’ etc. Leviathan, part I. chap. III. ‘Stood all astonied,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, VII. VI. 28. [50]. Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), the American theologian and metaphysician, published his work On the Freedom of the Will in 1754.