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not consist. The reflection of happiness is delightful. Look at the reapers in the field bending over the golden crops, hear their songs floating on the undulating air, see how gladness dances in their eyes, and health invigorates their motions. The picture produces a feeling of satisfaction and rejoicing, greater perhaps than that which we attribute to the labouring groups, who, like actors on the stage, undergo much toil for these smiles that brighten their faces. But this is what may be called an emotion —we are moved to pity or indignation by passing sights-we are touched or wounded by a word--but the influence is brief, as the source is sudden and unexpected. Objects and sounds, and accidental circumstances operate upon us like electric shocks; but they do not enter into our plans of life-we do not build hope or permanent enjoyment upon them-they do not finally affect our temperament, unless we cultivate the sensibility to which they appeal, and so at last become more capable of appreciating happiness in ourselves by comprehending it better in others. They are occasional and transient, and do not rest long enough with us to give us a deep relish of the springs from which they flow. They suggest but do not supply aliment for the yearning heart. They are plea surable in the highest degree, but they do not constitute happiness, which, diffusive as it is in its results, must, let the philanthropists say what they may, originate within ourselves, and comprehend ourselves as its primary and indispensable element. Whoever thinks, or affects to think, that happiness is, like the property doctrine of the St. Simonians, a possession in common, greatly deceives himself, or tries to deceive others. Do we not garner up our affections with a miser's care-the best and least selfish amongst us? Do we not watch the object of these affections with absorbing anxiety? Is wealth, or ambition, or any of the mere worldly honours and pomps, half so valuable in our estimation as those interchanges of devotion, which are incommunicable to the world at large, and which would lose all their spirit and essence of deep love, were they not emphatically and wholly within ourselves? It is the paltry finesse of people who desire to make a reputation for being extravagantly amiable, to say that one's happiness consists in any thing else than in that which is one's own-infelt and inseparable.

Ninety-nine in every hundred of that class of persons who set up for the fine humanities will call this the doctrine of selfishness; but they belong to the meretricious order who hang garlands on tombs, and fancy that they are developing a pathetic sentiment-who embellish cold hearts with flaunting emblems-and who feign as a grace that which they do not feel as a passion. There is nothing so utterly unselfish as profound happiness. It begets happiness-it pervades the surrounding atmosphere-it casts its radiance upon every human creature within its reach. Kindness generates kindness, and happiness makes us kind, and temperate, and considerate, and forgiving. But let a Benthamite-if he be not afraid to step out of his creed-try the experiment for himself. Let him endeavour to get happy on his own account, without thinking whether the greater or the lesser number are happy, and we will answer for it that he will succeed, without intending it, in diffusing more happiness, or that pleasure which is nearest akin to it, than if he were to labour all his life through for the accomplishment of his gregarious theory of carrying happiness by the vote.

It is one of the inexplicable conditions of that mysterious series of linked thoughts called "association of ideas," that it frequently happens when we fall into a train of rumination on any particular subject, we are suddenly struck with a new fancy that carries us into a topic to all intents and purposes diametrically contrasted with it. We take it for granted that there must be in such cases an occult analogy of which we are totally ignorant, or that there is an invisible connection between antagonist states of being that realizes that bold figure of speech which tells us that extremes meet. Be that as it may, we had no sooner satisfied ourselves that our notions of happiness were thoroughly sybaritic than, by some strange mental transition, we fell upon a consideration of the disagreeable sensations that must accompany the process of being hanged. It is more than probable that this odd topic was suggested by a rumination upon the Benthamite philosophy, for as men are usually hanged for the benefit of their country, so we suppose that hanging must be esteemed to be one of the means of securing the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number. The hanged man is a unit-the

multitude, who are terror-struck by his example, and forcibly impressed with the necessity of obeying the laws, are countless. So far as the statistics of the question are concerned there can be no doubt that the happiness is not only at one side, but that it is beyond a doubt at the side of the greater number.

Yet, awful as the sight and the occasion are, it does not appear either that the delinquent is so seriously agitated by it as might be expected, or that crime is diminished by repeated exhibitions of the penalty. We know that the condemned felon generally breakfasts heartily on the morning of execution, that he shakes hands with his fellow-prisoners, leaves parting injunctions behind him, and, it may be said, puts his house in order before he submits himself to the death. And it is not less worthy of note, that the commission of a murder, and the consequent detection and publication of all the minute circumstances and personal details connected with it, instead of deterring others from pursuing the same course, are usually followed up by other savage deeds that appear almost as if they were enacted in a frenzy of imitation. We need not revert to the recent case of Greenacre, and the tragedies that have since taken place, in proof of a fact which the calendars have regularly testified ever since the press has brought to such perfection the art of writing by the line. The vicious excess to which the newspapers carry their reports of these occurrences-the vast quantity of small speculations which they contrive to gather up, and to extend over their columns day after day—the biographical fragments which they accumulate, with an industry worthy of Boswell himself—the variety of auxiliary matters which they draw in to the main body of mingled fact and fiction -and the elaborate style in which the whole is prepared, is to be attributed less to the taste of the public, which it excites rather than gratifies, than to the mode of payment adopted for intelligence of this description. If the reporters of such direful histories were paid by the veracity, and not by the quantity of their supply, we should have much shorter narratives of horror, and the moral agency of the journals would be greatly improved. An English lady, on one occasion upon landing on the Irish coast, employed some porters to unpack her luggage, and one of them,

finding a case thickly studded with nails, after repeated attempts to open it, exclaimed, “Faith, the boy that packed this case must have been paid by the day!" The superfluous industry bestowed upon the newspaper reports suggests a similar suspicion.

The operation of the greatest happiness principle upon the mind of the culprit must be allowed to be salutary and consoling, however it may affect other people. If it be a man's bounden duty to promote, under all circumstances, the greatest happiness of the greatest number; and if his own happiness ought to consist in the happiness of the majority, then the criminal who ascends the scaffold ought to be perfectly happy, since the expiation of his crime is a contribution to the happiness of the general stock, of which his own ought to form a part. He must no more consult his own misery, than other people their own pleasure: he has to think only of the greatest number, and to rejoice in that which confers satisfaction upon them. The individual nature is abolished in him. He has no right, under this wise ordonnance, to feel his own pains-it is his privilege to belong to the mass, and he ought to participate in their pleasure.

It would be a psychological curiosity to see a Benthamite hanged: to see with what true ardour he would carry out to the last extremity the doctrine of his philosophy, practically exemplifying, in a way that certainly would not admit of any further doubt, the self-subjugating influences of his belief. If a man would suffer to be hanged with pleasure to himself in the vindication of a theory of morals and legislation, the world would no longer have an excuse for questioning the fact that there are persons who really entertain principles against which Nature rebels. But until we have some such illustration of the sincerity of the sect we may be excused for being a little incredulous on the subject.

But taking it all for granted-admitting wholly that the happiness of the greatest number is the best kind of happiness for the world, and that all other sorts of happiness are counterfeits, delusions, and phantasms-let us see the ingredients of which it must necessarily be composed.

Who are the greatest number? Answer, ye brazen-throated multitudes that, swarming like Syria's locusts, blot out the fair

face of the sky? The mighty crowds that gather round the base of the ascent to knowledge and its powers-the million that keep the plains and the low valleys, murmuring at the scanty numbers that, scaling the hills, survey the whole scheme laid out before them, and discern in the mass its torpidity for good, its activity for evil. And here is the grand distinction, which the great principle keeps out of view. The Many are the uninstructed and the unwise-the Few are the tried and the gifted. If in any question of morals we shape our course by the former, we fall into crooked paths and labyrinths, and our way lies amongst obstructions: if by the latter, we step in light, and have the free prospect before us to choose our path. The things visible and invisible that bring pleasure to the multitude are to the educated minority repulsive, or at least disagreeable. Their perceptions are more acute and refined -they cannot rest satisfied with coarse plenty-they must have the repast regulated by tasteful distribution, and relieved by the improvements of art. The rough work of life, with its present and perishing rewards, is not enough for them-they look above and beyond it. That which is happiness to the Many, would be pain and fatigue to the Few: and if both were to be levelled to the rank of the numerical majority, away with poetry, away with all speculations upon man's attributes and hopes, with the ideal world, the exalting and ennobling pursuits that sometimes afford us glimpses, like the beams falling through the gates of Paradise on the Peri, of the races and systems beyond -away with the inspirations of art, the glorious legacies of Phydias and Praxiteles, of Titian, Michael Angelo, and Rembrandt -away with the miracles of Intellect, the wondrous and mystical mythologies, the solemn pageants of the antique faith, Sophocles and Euripides, the dramas, shadowy and full of profound analyses of human passion and suffering-they are " caviare to the general," they contribute nothing to the happiness of the greatest number, for of a truth the greatest number find their happiness in things identified only with the grosser nature, and not with the elevated, the purified, and the great.

Now we do not treat this matter politically:-if we deprecate any one heresy against good taste and good feeling more

strongly than another, it is the heresy that, for the sake of promoting the objects of a party, assists or assails opinion without regard for truth, making the end sanctify the means. The Utilitarian may protest against being charged with any such designs as we have indicated upon poetry, and sculpture, and music, and abstract enjoyments of any kind: he may tell us that his design does not comprehend any such desecration of the intellectual pleasures: and that, rightly understood, even the shapes of Beauty, the most exquisite, and the remotest springs of mental excitement, may be included within his definition of Utility. But it is impossible to discover any licence of that kind in his code-unless, perhaps, by a cross reading, or by reading backwards, neither of which experiments we have tried. We suggest, however, that the utility delineated by the Benthamite philosophy not only does not embrace these elements of human happiness, but that they could not by any ingenious method of insinuation be made to enter into the scheme. The purpose of the Utilitarian is to reduce society to that state of intercourse and adjustment which shall guarantee to the bulk of the people the certain means of acquiring that which constitutes their happiness. Now as the cultivation of refined delights creates the most visible, perhaps the most striking, and certainly the most effectual and progressive distinction between the existing classes of society-since the main ground of complaint on the part of the Many is that the Few enjoy immunities that are borbidden to them,-leisure, drawing in its wake, its "trim gardens," its "sweet contemplation," and "its peaches ripening in the sun,"-an abiding energy towards the attainment of supreme advantages—a sense of authority over the masses—a presence of majesty and controul-and a constant vindication of the ascendancy of mind over matter, of knowledge over numbers-it must be evident that the Utilitarian cannot achieve his desires, cannot bring down mankind to the level of the majority, until he has completely dislodged these distinguishing pursuits that create the separation which he desires to terminate. The only mode by which he could establish his plan of happiness without doing this, would be to educate the multitude up to the standard of the minority; and if he do this, he will secure, and deserve the gratitude

of the world; but until he has succeeded in doing it-which he will when he has discovered the way to extract sunbeams from cucumbers he ought not to agitate his theory of happiness, and claim credit at the same time for entertaining due and proper respect for the arts which, in the present state of the community, it would inevitably abolish.

People will differ to the end of time as to what it is that composes "happiness, our being's end and aim.” But it cannot be doubted that nearly the whole world have agreed upon one point-that an impossible condition of humanity, could it he secured the doubtful luxury of wealth and idleness-is the most desirable, and the most likely to put us at our ease. That this estimate of contentment is erroneous -that it proceeds upon a false view of the materials which are necessary even to our repose, not to speak of our ambition, our tastes, and our love of our species, all of which demand the exercise of activity in some form—and that, supposing we could all procure this luxury of living without effort, it could not subsist, because the natural tendency of men to go forward, the increasing necessities of circumstances, the inextinguishable passions, agitating the still community, and the irresistible impulses towards discoveries, invention, alteration, combination, and change throughout every conceivable ramification of life, would unavoidably dissolve the placid compact-are facts which we may assume without circumlocution, or any other proof than that which instinct supplies, and which lies deeper, and is more irresistible than the most elaborate statistical tables. Yet this impracticable scheme of lifethis living in invalid chairs—this being pillowed on the air, and sleeping in roseleaves-this imaginary tranquillity of sky and temper, with a climate of perfumes, singing-birds, and dancing girls, golden apples and silver fish, banquets and temples springing up like Eastern enchantments with a wave of the hand, and all the voluptuous extravagances which are ordinarily attributed to the pomp of lavish fortune-this scheme, or vision, or phantasmagoria is the very mode of being for which the Greatest Number yearn-the excluded, and humble, and ignorant, who, feeling their own lot to be hard, and turning away in grief and weariness from exigent labour, and the galling struggles

of a constrained existence, are fain to believe that the highest bliss of this breathing globe consists in having an abundance to live upon, and nothing to do for it. Once upon a time a poor woman, resting her jaded limbs against a hedgerow, gazed with mute wonder upon a spanking equipage that flew past her along the road, discovering the splendid dresses of the high-born ladies who sat within: and when it was gone, the wayfarer exclaimed with a deep sigh, "Heaven and that would be too much!" The value which the overworked place upon the state of idle luxury is, perhaps, natural, but it is unquestionably founded in error. Suppose they had their own way-suppose that the Greatest Number were allowed to attain the sort of happiness which appears to them to be the most agreeable-what a world we should have of it, what masses of drones and domestic usurpation, what filching of rights and privileges, what vulgar pretension and arrogant monopoly, what spleen, malice, and uncharitableness would take the place of the generous virtues, of liberality, forethought, and temperance. Of a truth if the multitude could be happy after their own fashion, the fields would run arid for want of culture, and the blessings of the bountiful soil would be wasted like dust in the whirlwind. Whatever your Utilitarian may say to the contrary, be assured that the present distribution of society is the wisest after all, and that since man was born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upwards, it is for a wise end that we cannot accomplish the aim of our wayward and short-sighted fancies.

Dean Swift says, that the happiness of life consists in being well deceived; and although we cannot entirely approve of the sarcastic shape into which he has thrown the axiom, we believe that it contains the kernel of much sound wisdom. If we can deceive ourselves into satisfaction with our lot, if we can persuade ourselves, by comparison or induction, that we have reason to be grateful for things as they are, so as to fortify ourselves with courage and energy and hope to improve them, then it is a deception-if deception it be-which it is well worth while to cultivate. But what need is there of any sophistry to make us happy. Have we not the verdant world for our domain-the blue skies-the music of the woods and the waters-the inexhaustible

beauties and glories of the boundless creation, wider than the mind can comprehend, or the imagination can traverse? Happiness does not consist in wealth, which is the meanest and most contemptible of its ingredients.

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny,
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;
You cannot bar the windows of the sky,

Through which Aurora shews her brightening face.

But the Benthamite philosophy excludes such considerations as these. It grovels in the shambles, instead of flying to the hills and plains for joy and consolation; it keeps to the cities and avoids the

country; it is a philosophy of bricks and mortar, of counting-houses and inkstands, and its disciples, instead of being permitted to breath the air of out-of-door liberty, ought to be confined to their narrow lanes and alleys, where with pallid faces, sleek hair, and pens behind their ears, they might work out in miserable security their own theory of human happiness. The greatest number forsooth!-it ought to be called the smallest amount of happiness for the smallest number-a mere fraction of thought and mortality struck off the surface of the globe, like an atom from the edge of a flint.

A FRAGMENT.

BY CHARLES LAMB.

If you ever run away, which is problematical, don't run to a country village, which has been a market-town, but is such no longer. Enfield, where we are, is seated most indifferently upon the borders of Middlesex, Essex, and Hertfordshire, partaking of the quiet dulness of the first, and the total want of interest pervading the two latter counties. You stray into the church-yard, hoping to find a cathedral. You think, "I will go and look at the print shops," and there is only one, where they sell valentines. The chief bookseller deals in prose versions of melodrames, with plates of ghosts and murders, and other subterranean passages. The tarts in the only pastry-cook-looking shop are baked stale. The macaroons are perennial-kept torpid in glass cases, expecting when Mrs. gives a card party. There are no jewellers, but there's a place, where trap knobs are sold. You cast your weary eyes about, up Baker-street, and it gets worse. There was something like a tape-and-thread shop at that end, but here —are two apples stuck between a farthing's worth of ginger-bread, and the children too poor to break stock.

The week days would be intolerable,

but for the superior invention which they show here in making Sundays worse. Clowns stand about what was the marketplace, and spit minutely to relieve ennui. Clowns, to whom Enfield tradespeople are gentle people. Inland clowns, clods, and things below cows. They assemble to infect the air with dulness from Waltham marshes. They clear off on the Monday mornings, like other fogs. It is ice-but nobody slides, nobody tumbles down, nobody dies, as I can see, or nobody cares if they do the doctors seem to have no patients,—there are no accidents nor offences; a good thief would be something in this well-governed hamlet.

We have for indoors amusement a library without books, and the middle-ofthe-week hopes of a Sunday newspaper to link us, by filmy associations, to a world we are dead to. Regent-street was, and it is by difficult induction we infer that Charing Cross still is. There may be plays: but nobody here seems to have heard of such contingencies.

You go out with a dog, and the dog comes home with you, and the difference is, he does not mind dirty stockings.

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