deeply injured by the publication of his pri- | hand in the business all along. He wrote vate letters? The advocates of the King his book, it is true, forty-five years after the charge this publication on them, as an act of events: but this circumstance, which so gross indelicacy, and at the same time ascribe deeply affects the testimony of men who to them, in the restoration of the Icôn, a speak of words spoken in conversation, and singular instance of somewhat wanton gene-reaching them through three or four hands, rosity.

rather explains the inaccuracies, than lessens It may be a question whether lawyers are the substantial weight, of one who speaks justified in altogether rejecting hearsay evi- of his own acts, on the most, and perhaps dence; but it never can be supposed, in its only, remarkable occasion of his life. There best state, to be other than secondary. When are two facts in Walker's account which it passes through many hands, when it is seem to be decisive;-namely, that Gauden given after a long time,-when it is to be told him, about the time of the fabrication, found almost solely in one party,-when it that the MS. was sent by the Duke of Sorelates to a subject which deeply interests merset to the King, and that two chapters of their feelings, we may confidently place it it were added by Bishop Duppa. To both at the very bottom of the scale; and without these witnesses Gauden appealed at the Rebeing able either to disprove many particular storation, and Mrs. Gauden after his death. stories, or to ascertain the proportion in which These communications were somewhat ineach of them is influenced by unconscious discreet; but, if false, what temptation had exaggeration, inflamed zeal, intentional false- Gauden at that time to invent them, and to hood, inaccurate observation, confused re- communicate them to his curate? They collection, or eager credulity, we may safely were new means of detecting his imposture. treat the far greater part as the natural pro- But the declaration of Gauden, that the book duce of these grand causes of human delu- and figure was wholly and solely my "insion. Among the evidence first collected by vention, making, and design," is quoted with Wagstaffe, one story fortunately refers to premature triumph, as if it were incompatiauthorities still in our possession. Hearne, ble with the composition of two chapters by a servant of Sir Philip Warwick, declared Duppa ;*-as if the contribution of a few that he had heard his master and one Oudart pages to a volume could affect the authorship often say that they had transcribed the Icon of the man who had planned the whole, and from a copy in Charles' handwriting.* Sir executed all the rest. That he mentioned Philip Warwick (who is thus said to have the particular contribution of Duppa at the copied the Icon from the King's MS.) has time to Walker, and only appealed in general himself positively told us, "I cannot say I to the same prelate in his applications to know that he wrote the Icon which goes under Clarendon and the King, is a variation, but his name ;t and Oudart was secretary to Sir no inconsistency. Edward Nicholas, whose letter to Gauden, virtually acknowledging his claim, has been already quoted!

Two persons appear to have been privy to the composition of the Icon by Gauden, his wife, and Walker his curate. Mrs. Gauden, immediately after her husband's death, applied to Lord Bristol for favour, on the ground of her knowledge of the secret; adding, that the bishop was prevented only by death from writing to him,-surely to the same effect. Nine years afterwards she sent to one of her sons the papers on this subject, to be used "if there be a good occasion to make it manifest," among which was an epitome "drawn out by the hand of him that did hope to have made a fortune by it." This is followed by her narrative of the whole transactions, on which two short remarks will suffice. It coincides with Gauden's letters, in the most material particulars, in appeals to the same eminent persons said to be privy to the secret, who might and must have been consulted after such appeal: it proves also her firm persuasion that her husband had been ungratefully requited, and that her family had still pretensions founded on his services, which these papers might one day enable them to assert with more effect.

Walker, the curate, tells us that he had a

Walker early represented the coincidence of some peculiar phrases in the devotions of the Icon with Gauden's phraseology, as an important fact in the case. That argument has recently been presented with much more force by Mr. Todd, whose catalogues of coincidences between the Icon and the avowed writings of Gauden is certainly entitled to serious consideration. They are not all of equal importance, but some of the phrases are certainly very peculiar. It seems very unlikely that Charles should have copied peculiar phrases from the not very conspicuous writings of Gauden's early life; and it is almost equally improbable that Gauden, in his later writings, when he is said to have been eager to reap the fruits of his imposture, should not have carefully shunned those modes of expression which were peculiar to the Icôn. To the list of Mr. Todd, a very curious addition has been made by Mr. Benjamin Bright, a discerning and liberal collector, from a manuscript volume of prayers by Gauden, which is of more value than the other coincidences, inasmuch as it corroborates the testimony of Walker, who said that he "met with expressions in the devotional parts of the Icôn very frequently used

*Who wrote, &c. p. 156.

+ Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, pp. + Ibid. Appendix, No. 1.

* Who wrote, &c. p. 138. ↑ Memoirs, p. 68. 51-76. Doc. Sup. pp. 42, 48.

by Dr. Gauden in his prayers!" Without laying great stress on these resemblances, they are certainly of more weight than the general arguments founded either on the inferiority of Gauden's talents, (which Dr. Wordsworth candidly abandons,) or on the impure and unostentatious character of his style, which have little weight, unless we suppose him to have had no power of varying his manner when speaking in the person of another man.

which it is impossible to try the genuineness by any palpable test. The absence of every allusion to those secrets of which it would be very hard for the King himself wholly to conceal his knowledge, seems, indeed, to indicate the hand of a writer who was afraid of venturing on ground where his ignorance might expose him to irretrievable blunders. Perhaps also the want of all the smaller strokes of character betrays a timid and faltering forger, who, though he ventured to commit a pious fraud, shrunk from an irreve rent imitation of the Royal feelings, and was willing, after the great purpose was served, so to soften the imposture, as to leave his retreat open, and to retain the means, in case of positive detection, of representing the book to have been published as what might be put into the King's mouth, rather than as what was actually spoken by him.

Conclusions from internal evidence have so often been contradicted by experience, that prudent inquirers seldom rely on them when there are any other means of forming a judgment. But in such cases as the present, internal evidence does not so much depend on the discussion of words, or the dissection of sentences, as on the impression made by the whole composition, on minds long accustomed to estimate and compare The section which relates to the civil war the writings of different men in various cir- in Ireland not only exemplifies the above recumstances. A single individual can do marks, but closely connects the question little more than describe that impression; respecting the Icon with the character of and he must leave it to be determined by Charles for sincerity. It certainly was not experience, how far it agrees with the im- more unlawful for him to seek the aid of the pressions made on the minds of the majority Irish Catholics, than it was for his opponents of other men of similar qualifications. To to call in the succour of the Scotch Presbyus it seems, as it did to Archbishop Herring, terians. The Parliament procured the asthat the Icon is greatly more like the work sistance of the Scotch army, by the imposiof a priest than a king. It has more of dis- tion of the Covenant in England; and the sertation than effusion. It has more regular King might, on the like principle, purchase division and systematic order than agree the help of the Irish, by promising to tolewith the habits of the King. The choice rate, and even establish, the Catholic religion and arrangement of words show a degree of in Ireland. Warburton justly observes, that care and neatness which are seldom attained the King was free from blame in his negotiabut by a practised writer. The views of tions with the Irish, "as a politician, and men and affairs, too, are rather those of a king, and governor of his people; but the bystander than an actor. They are chiefly necessity of his affairs obliging him at the reflections, sometimes in themselves obvious, same time to play the Protestant saint and but often ingeniously turned, such as the confessor, there was found much disagreesurface of events would suggest to a specta- ment between his professions and declaratator not too deeply interested. It betrays tions, and actions in this matter."* As long none of those strong feelings which the most as the disagreement was confined to official vigilant regard to gravity and dignity could declarations and to acts of state, it must be not have uniformly banished from the com-owned that it is extenuated by the practice position of an actor and a sufferer. It has no allusion to facts not accessible to any moderately informed man; though the King must have (sometimes rightly) thought that his superior knowledge of affairs would enable him to correct vulgar mistakes. If it be really the private effusion of a man's thoughts on himself and his own affairs, it would be the only writing of that sort in the world in which it is impossible to select a trace of peculiarities and weaknesses,-of partialities and dislikes,-of secret opinions, of favourite idioms, and habitual familiarities of expression: every thing is impersonal. The book consists entirely of generalities; while real writings of this sort never fail to be characterised by those minute and circumstantial touches, which parties deeply interested cannot, if they would, avoid. It is also very observable, that the Icon dwells little on facts, where a mistake might so easily betray its not being the King's, and expatiates in reasoning and reflection, of

of politicians, and by the consideration, that the concealment of negotiations, which is a lawful end, can very often be obtained by no other means than a disavowal of them. The rigid moralist may regret this excuse, though it be founded on that high public convenience to which Warburton gives the name of "necessity." But all mankind will allow, that the express or implied denial of real negotiations in a private work,-a picture of the writer's mind, professing to come from the Man and not from the King, mixed with solemn appeals and fervid prayers to the Deity, is a far blacker and more aggravated instance of insincerity. It is not, therefore, an act of judicious regard to the memory of Charles to ascribe to him the composition of the twelfth section of the Icon. The impression manifestly aimed at in that section is, that the imputation of a private connexion with the Irish revolters

* Clarendon, vol. vii. p. 591.

was a mere calumny; and in the only para- | ject, if written by Gauden, would be neither graph which approaches to particulars, it more wonderful nor more blamable than expressly confines his intercourse with them that of Clarendon, who, though he was of to the negotiation for a time through Or- necessity acquainted with the negotiations. monde, and declares that his only object of Glamorgan, does not suffer an allusion to was to save "the poor Protestants of Ireland the true state of them to escape him, either from their desperate enemies." In the sec- in the History, or in that apology for Ortion which relates to the publication of his monde's administration, which he calls "A letters, when the Parliament had explicitly Short View of the State of Ireland." Let it charged him with clandestine negotiations, not be said, either by Charles' mistaken nothing is added on the subject. The gene- friends, or by his undistinguishing enemies, ral protestations of innocence, not very spe- that he incurs the same blame for suffering cifically applied even to the first instigation an omission calculated to deceive to remain of the revolt, are left in that indefinite state in the Icon of Gauden, as if he had himself in which the careless reader may be led to written the book. If the manuscript were apply them to all subsequent transactions, sent to him by Gauden in September 1648, which are skilfully,-not to say artfully, he may have intended to direct an explanapassed over in silence. Now it is certain tion of the Irish negotiations to be inserted that the Earl of Glamorgan, a Catholic him- in it ;—he may not have finally determined self, was authorised by Charles to negotiate on the immediate publication. At all events, with the Catholics in 1645, independently it would be cruel to require that he should of Ormonde, and with powers, into the na-have critically examined, and deliberately ture of which the Lord Lieutenant thought weighed, every part of a manuscript, which himself bound not curiously to pry. It is, he could only occasionally snatch a moment also, certain that, in the spring of that year, to read in secret during the last four months Glamorgan concluded a secret treaty with of his life. In this troubled and dark period, the Catholic assembly at Kilkenny, by which, divided between great negotiations, violent -besides the repeal of penalties or disabili- removals, and preparations for asserting his ties, all the churches and Church property dignity, if he could not preserve his life,— in Ireland occupied by the Catholics since justice, as much as generosity requires that the revolt, were continued and secured to we should not hold him responsible for a them; while they, on their parts, engaged negative offence, however important, in a to send ten thousand troops to the King's as- manuscript which he had then only read. sistance in England. Some correspondence But if he was the author, none of these exon this subject was captured at sea, and tenuations have any place: he must then some was seized in Ireland: both portions have composed the work several years bewere immediately published by the Parlia- fore his death; he was likely to have frement, which compelled the King to imprison quently examined it; he doubtless read it and disavow Glamorgan. It is clear that with fresh attention, after it was restored to these were measures of policy, merely in- him at Hampton Court; and he afterwards tended to conceal the truth:‡ and the King, added several chapters to it. On that supif he was the writer of the Icon, must have position, the fraudulent omission must have deliberately left on the minds of the readers been a contrivance "aforethought" carried of that book an opinion, of his connexion on for years, persisted in at the approach of with the Irish Catholics, which he knew to death, and left, as the dying declaration of be false. On the other hand it is to be ob- a pious monarch, in a state calculated to imserved, that Gauden could not have known pose a falsehood upon posterity.* the secret of the Irish negotiations, and that he would naturally avoid a subject of which *After sketching the above, we have been conhe was ignorant, and confine himself to a this subject (History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 565), vinced, by a reperusal of the note of Mr. Laing on general disavowal of the instigation of the that if he had employed his great abilities as much revolt. The silence of the Icon on this sub-in unfolding facts as in ascertaining them, nothing

*Birch, Inquiry. p. 68. The King's warrant, on 12th March, 1645, gives Glamorgan power "to treat with the Roman Catholics upon necessity, wherein our Lieutenant cannot so well be seen "-p. 20.

+ Harleian Miscellany, vol. iv. p. 494.

See a curious letter published by Leland (History of Ireland. book v. chap. 7), which clearly proves that the blindness of Ormonde was voluntary, and that he was either trusted with the secret, or discovered it; and that the imprisonment of Glamorgan was, what the Parliament called it, "a colourable commitment." Leland is one of those writers who deserve more reputation than they enjoy: he is not only an elegant writer, but, considering his time and country, singularly candid, unprejudiced, and independent.

could have been written for the Icôn, or ought to have been written against it, since that decisive note. His merit, as a critical inquirer into history, an enlightened collector of materials, and a sagacious judge of evidence, has never been surpassed. If any man believes the innocence of Queen Mary, after an impartial and dispassionate perusal of Mr. Laing's examination of her case, the state of such a man's mind would be a subject worthy of much consideration by a philosophical observer of hu man nature. In spite of his ardent love of liberty, no man has yet presumed to charge him with the slightest sacrifice of historical integrity to his zeal. That he never perfectly attained the art of full, clear, and easy narrative was owing to the peculiar style of those writers who were popular in his youth, and may be mentioned as a remarkable instance of the disproportion of particular talents to a general vigour of mind.

DISSERTATION

ON THE PROGRESS OF

ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY,

CHIEFLY DURING THE

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.

[ORIGINALLY PREFIXED TO THE Seventh Edition OF THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA.]

INTRODUCTION.

unavoidably more frequent recurrence of the terms in their vague, than in their definite acceptation. The mind, to which such definition is faintly, and but occasionally, present, naturally suffers, in the ordinary state of attention, the scientific meanihg to disappear from remembrance, and insensibly ascribes to the word a great part, if not the whole, of that popular sense which is so very much more familiar even to the most veteran speculator. The obstacles which stood in the way of Lucretius and Cicero, when they began to translate the subtile philosophy of Greece into their narrow and barren tongue, are always felt by the philosopher when he struggles to express, with the necessary discrimination, his abstruse reasonings in words which, though those of his own language, he must take from the mouths of those to whom his distinctions would be without meaning.

THE inadequacy of the words of ordinary of his words by definition;-a necessary, language for the purposes of Philosophy, is but very inadequate expedient, and one in an ancient and frequent complaint; of which a great measure defeated in practice by the the justness will be felt by all who consider the state to which some of the most important arts would be reduced, if the coarse tools of the common labourer were the only instruments to be employed in the most delicate operations of manual expertness. The watchmaker, the optician, and the surgeon, are provided with instruments which are fitted, by careful ingenuity, to second their skill; the philosopher alone is doomed to use the rudest tools for the most refined purposes. He must reason in words of which the looseness and vagueness are suitable, and even agreeable, in the usual intercourse of life, but which are almost as remote from the extreme exactness and precision required, not only in the conveyance, but in the search of truth, as the hammer and the axe would be unfit for the finest exertions of skilful handiwork for it is not to be forgotten, that he must himself think in these gross words as unavoidably as he uses them in speaking to others. He is in this respect in a worse condition than an astronomer who looked at the heavens only with the naked eye, whose limited and partial observation, however it might lead to error, might not directly, and would not necessarily, deceive. He might be more justly compared to an arithmetician compelled to employ numerals not only cum-ters on which all men are disposed to form a brous, but used so irregularly to denote different quantities, that they not only often deceive others, but himself.

The moral philosopher is in this respect subject to peculiar difficulties. His statements and reasonings often call for nicer discriminations of language than those which are necessary in describing or discussing the purely intellectual part of human nature; but his freedom in the choice of words is more circumscribed. As he treats of mat

judgment, he can as rarely hazard glaring innovations in diction,—at least in an adult and mature language like ours,— -as the oraThe natural philosopher and mathemati- tor or the poet. If he deviates from comcian have in some degree the privilege of mon use, he must atone for his deviation by framing their own terms of art; though that hiding it, and can only give a new sense to liberty is daily narrowed by the happy dif- an old word by so skilful a position of it as fusion of these great branches of knowledge, to render the new meaning so quickly unwhich daily mixes their language with the derstood that its novelty is scarcely per general vocabulary of educated men. The ceived. Add to this, that in those most cultivator of mental and moral philosophy difficult inquiries for which the utmost coolcan seldom do more than mend the faults | ness is not more than sufficient, he is often

forced to use terms commonly connected with warm feeling, with high praise, with severe reproach;-which excite the passions of his readers when he most needs their calm attention and the undisturbed exercise of their impartial judgment. There is scarcely a neutral term left in Ethics; so quickly are such expressions enlisted on the side of Praise or Blame, by the address of contending passions. A true philosopher must not even desire that men should less love Virtue, or hate Vice, in order to fit them for a more unprejudiced judgment on his speculations.

and the one which it most justly boasts of having discovered and enforced.

It is easy to conceive an exhaustive analysis of human knowledge, and a consequent division of it into parts corresponding to all the classes of objects to which it relates:--a representation of that vast edifice, containing a picture of what is finished, a sketch of what is building, and even a conjectural outline of what, though required by completeness and convenience, as well as symmetry, is yet altogether untouched. A system of names might also be imagined derived from a few roots, indicating the objects of each There are, perhaps, not many occasions part, and showing the relation of the parts to where the penury and laxity of language are each other. An order and a language somemore felt than in entering on the history of what resembling those by which the objects sciences where the first measure must be to of the sciences of Botany and Chemistry mark out the boundary of the whole subject have, in the eighteenth century, been arwith some distinctness. But no exactness ranged and denoted, are doubtless capable of in these important operations can be ap- application to the sciences generally, when proached without a new division of human considered as parts of the system of knowknowledge, adapted to the present stage of ledge. The attempts, however, which have its progress, and a reformation of all those hitherto been made to accomplish that anabarbarous, pedantic, unmeaning, and (what lytical division of knowledge which must is worse) wrong-meaning names which con- necessarily precede a new nomenclature of tinue to be applied to the greater part of its the sciences, have required so prodigious a branches. Instances are needless where superiority of genius in the single instance nearly all the appellations are faulty. The of approach to success by Bacon, as to disterm "Metaphysics" affords a specimen of courage rivalship nearly as much as the freall the faults which the name of a science quent examples of failure in subsequent can combine. To those who know only times could do. The nomenclature itself is their own language, it must, at their entrance attended with great difficulties, not indeed on the study, convey no meaning: it points in its conception, but in its adoption and usetheir attention to nothing. If they examine fulness. In the Continental languages to the the language in which its parts are signifi- south of the Rhine, the practice of deriving cant, they will be misled into the pernicious the names of science from the Greek must error of believing that it seeks something be continued; which would render the new more than the interpretation of nature. It is names for a while unintelligible to the maonly by examining the history of ancient jority of men. Even if successful in Gerphilosophy that the probable origin of this many, where a flexible and fertile language name will be found, in its application, as the affords unbounded liberty of derivation and running title of several essays of Aristotle, composition from native roots or elements, placed in a collection of the manuscripts of and where the newly derived and comthat great philosopher, after his treatise on pounded words would thus be as clear to the Physics. It has the greater fault of an un-mind, and almost as little startling to the ear steady and fluctuating signification;-deno- of every man, as the oldest terms in the ting one class of objects in the seventeenth century, and another in the eighteenth; even in the nineteenth not quite of the same import in the mouth of a German, as in that of a French or English philosopher; to say nothing of the farther objection that it continues to be a badge of undue pretension among some of the followers of the science, while it has become a name of reproach and derision among those who altogether decry it. The modern name of the very modern science called "Political Economy," though deliberately bestowed on it by its most eminent teachers, is perhaps a still more notable sample of the like faults. It might lead the ignorant to confine it to retrenchment in national expenditure; and a consideration of its etymology alone would lead us into the more mischievous error of believing it to teach, that national wealth is best promoted by the contrivance and interference of lawgivers, in opposition to its surest doctrine,

language, yet the whole nomenclature would be unintelligible to other nations. But, the intercommunity of the technical terms of science in Europe having been so far broken down by the Germans, the influence of their literature and philosophy is so rapidly increasing in the greater part of the Continent, that though a revolution in scientific nomenclature be probably yet far distant, the foundation of it may be considered as already prepared.

Although so great an undertaking must be reserved for a second Bacon and a future generation, it is necessary for the historian of any branch of knowledge to introduce his work by some account of the limits and contents of the sciences of which he is about to trace the progress; and though it will be found impossible to trace throughout this treatise a distinct line of demarcation, yet a general and imperfect sketch of the boundaries of the whole, and of the parts, of our