what was in his days known by no European scholar, that in the Institutes of Menu, his notion is distinctly declared as a revealed truth; there it is said, "In whatever occupation the Supreme Lord first employed any vital soul, to that occupation the same soul attaches itself spontaneously, when it receives a new body again and again. Whatever quality, noxious or innocent, harsh or mild, unjust or just, false or true, he conferred on any being at its creation, the same quality enters it of course on its future births."

Still more would it have gratified him if he had known (as has before been cursorily observed) how entirely his own theory coincided with the Druidical philosophy, a philosophy which he would rather have traced to the Patriarchs, than to the Canaanites. Their doctrine, as explained by the Welsh translator of the Paradise Lost, in the sketch of Bardism which he has prefixed to the poems of Llywarc the Aged, was that "the whole animated creation originated in the lowest point of existence, and arrived by a regular train of gradations at the probationary state of humanity, the intermediate stages being all necessarily evil, but more or less so as they were removed from the beginning, which was evil in the extreme. In the state of humanity, good and evil were equally balanced, consequently it was a state of liberty, in which, if the conduct of the free agent preponderated towards evil, death gave but an awful passage whereby he returned to animal life, in a condition below humanity equal to the degree of turpitude to which he had debased himself, when free to choose between good and evil: and if his life were desperately wicked, it was possible for him to fall to his original vileness, in the lowest point of existence, there to recommence his painful progression through the ascending series of brute being. But if he had acted well in this his stage of probation, death was then to the soul thus tried and approved, what the word by which in the language of the Druids it is denoted,

SIR W. JONES.

literally means, enlargement. The soul was removed from the sphere wherein evil hath any place, into a state necessarily good; not to continue there in one eternal condition of blessedness, eternity being what no inferior existence could endure, but to pass from one gradation to another, gaining at every ascent increase of knowledge, and retaining the consciousness of its whole preceding progress through all. For the good of the human race, such a soul might again be sent on earth, but the human being of which it then formed the life, was incapable of falling." In this fancy the Bardic system approached that of the Bramins, this Celtic avatar of a happy soul, corresponding to the twice-born man of the Hindus. And the Doctor would have extracted some confirmation for the ground of the theory from that verse of the Psalm which speaks of us as curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth."

66

Young, he used to say, expressed unconsciously this system of progressive life, when he spoke of man as a creature

From different natures marvellously mix'd;
Connection exquisite of distant worlds;
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain,
Midway from nothing to the Deity.

It was more distinctly enounced by Akenside.

The same paternal hand
From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore
To men, to angels, to celestial minds
Will ever lead the generations on
Through higher scenes of being: while, supplied
From day to day with his enlivening breath,
Inferior orders in succession rise

To fill the void below. As flame ascends,
As vapours to the earth in showers return,
As the pois'd ocean toward the attracting moon
Swells, and the ever listening planets charmed
By the Sun's call their onward pace incline,
So all things which have life aspire to God,
Exhaustless fount of intellectual day!
Centre of souls ! nor doth the mastering voice
Of nature cease within to prompt aright
Their steps; nor is the care of heaven withheld
From sending to the toil external aid,
That in their stations all may persevere
To climb the ascent of being, and approach
For ever nearer to the Life Divine.

The Bardic system bears in itself intrinsic evidence of its antiquity; for no such philosophy could have been devised among any Celtic people in later ages; nor could the

Britons have derived any part of it from any nation with whom they had any opportunity of intercourse, at any time within reach of history. The Druids, or rather the Bards, (for these, according to those by whom their traditionary wisdom has been preserved, were the superior order,) deduced as corollaries from the theory of Progressive Existence, these beautiful Triads.*

"There are three Circles of Existence; the Circle of Infinity, where there is nothing but God, of living or dead, and none but God can traverse it; the Circle of Inchoation, where all things are by nature derived from Death, this Circle hath been traversed by man; and the Circle of happiness, where all things spring from life, this man shall traverse in heaven. "Animated beings having three states of Existence; that of Inchoation in the Great Deep, or lowest point of Existence; that of Liberty in the State of Humanity; and that of Love, which is the Happiness of Heaven.

"All animated Beings are subject to three Necessities; beginning in the Great Deep; Progression in the Circle of Inchoation; and Plenitude in the Circle of Happiness. With out these things nothing can possibly exist but God.

"Three things are necessary in the Circle of Inchoation; the least of all, Animation,

Thre, Lord, he sung,

O Father! Thee, whose wisdom, Thee, whose power,
Whose love,- all love, all power, all wisdom, Thou!
Tongue cannot utter, nor can heart conceive.
He in the lowest depth of Being framed
The imperishable mind; in every change
Through the great circle of progressive lif`,
He guides and guards, till evil shall be known,
And being known as evil cease to be;
And the pure soul emancipate by death,
The Enlarger, shall attain its end predoom'd,
The eternal newness of eternal joy.

and thence beginning; the materials of all things, and thence Increase, which cannot take place in any other state; the formation of all things out of the dead mass, and thence Discriminate Individuality.

"Three things cannot but exist towards all animated Beings from the nature of Divine Justice: Co-sufferance in the Circle of Inchoation, because without that none could attain to the perfect knowledge of anything; Co-participation in the Divine Love; and Co-ultimity from the nature of God's Power, and its attributes of Justice and Mercy.

"There are three necessary occasions of Inchoation: to collect the materials and properties of every nature; to collect the knowledge of everything; and to collect power towards subduing the Adverse and the Devastative, and for the divestation of Evil. Without this traversing every mode of animated existence, no state of animation, or of anything in nature, can attain to plenitude."

"By the knowledge of three things will all Evil and Death be diminished and subdued; their nature, their cause, and their operation. This knowledge will be obtained in the Circle of Happiness."

"The three Plenitudes of Happiness: Participation of every nature, with a plenitude of One predominant; conformity to every cast of genius and character, possessing superior excellence in one: the love of all Beings and Existences, but chiefly concentred in one object, which is God; and in the predominant One of each of these, will the Plenitude of Happiness consist.”

Triads, it may be observed, are found in the Proverbs of Solomon: so that to the evidence of antiquity which these Bardic remains present in their doctrines, a presumption is to be added from the peculiar form in which they are conveyed.

Whether Sir Philip Sydney had any such theory in his mind or not, there is an approach to it in that fable which he says old Lanquet taught him of the Beasts desiring from Jupiter, a King, Jupiter consented, but on condition that they should contribute the

creature.

Full glad they were, and took the naked sprite,
Which straight the Earth yclothed in her clay;
The Lion heart, the Ounce gave active might;
The Horse, good shape; the Sparrow lust to play;
Nightingale, voice enticing songs to say;

Elephant gave a perfect memory,

And Parrot, ready tongue that to apply.

The Fox gave craft; the Dog gave flattery;

Ass, patience; the Mole, a working thought;

Eagle, high look; Wolf, secret cruelty;

or only threw out a seminal idea from which it might be evolved, the Doctor, who dearly loved the writings of this most meditative author, would not say. But that Sir Thomas had opened the same vein of thought appears in what Dr. Johnson censured in " very fanciful and indefensible section" of his Christian Morals; for there, and not

a

The Ermine, whitest skin, spotted with nought.
The Sheep, mild-seeming face; climbing the Bear,
The Stag did give his harm-eschewing fear.
The Hare, her slights; the Cat, her melancholy;
Ant, industry; and Coney, skill to build ;
Cranes, order; Storks, to be appearing holy;
Cameleons, ease to change; Duck, ease to yield;
Crocodile, tears which might be falsely spill'd;
Ape, great thing gave, tho' he did mowing stand,
The instrument of instruments, the hand.

Thus Man was made, thus Man their Lord became.

At such a system he thought Milton glanced when his Satan speaks of the influences of the heavenly bodies, as

Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life

Of growth, sense, reason, all summ'd up in man:

for that the lines, though capable of another interpretation, ought to be interpreted as referring to a scheme of progressive life, appears by this fuller developement in the speech of Rafaël ;

O Adam, one Almighty is, from whom
All things proceed, and up to him return,
If not deprav'd from good, created all
Such to perfection, one first matter all,
Indued with various forms, various degrees
Of substance, and in things that live, of life;
But more refin'd, more spiritous, and pure,
As nearer to him plac'd, or nearer tending
Each in their several active spheres assign'd,
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
Proportion'd to each kind. So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves
More aery, last the bright consummate flower
Spirits odorous breathes: flow'rs and their fruit,
Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed,
To vital spirits aspire, to animal,

To intellectual; give both life and sense
Fancy and understanding; whence the soul
Reason received, and reason is her being
Discursive, or intuitive; discourse

Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,
Differing but in degree, of kind the same."

Whether that true philosopher, in the exact import of the word, Sir Thomas

Spenser in his "Hymne of Heavenly Beautie" falls Into a similar train of thought, as is observed by Thyer :

to say, Vulgar Errors, the passage is found. Our Doctor would not only have deemed it defensible, but would have proved it to be so by defending it. "Since the brow," says the Philosopher of Norwich, "speaks often truth, since eyes and noses have tongues, and the countenance proclaims the heart and inclinations; let observation so far instruct thee in physiognomical lines, as to be some rule for thy distinction, and guide for thy affection unto such as look most like men. Mankind, methinks, is comprehended in a few faces, if we exclude all visages which any way participate of symmetries and schemes of look common unto other animals. For as though man were the extract of the world, in whom all were in coagulato, which in their forms were in soluto, and at extension, we often observe

that men do most act those creatures whose constitution, parts and complexion, do most predominate in their mixtures. This is a corner-stone in physiognomy, and holds some truth, not only in particular persons, but also in whole nations." †

But Dr. Johnson must cordially have assented to Sir Thomas Browne's inferential admonition. "Live," says that Religious Physician and Christian Moralist, — "live unto the dignity of thy nature, and leave it not disputable at last whether thou hast

By view whereof it plainly may appeare
That still as every thing doth upward tend,
And further is from earth, so still more cleare
And faire it grows, till to his perfect end
Of purest beautie it at last ascend;

Ayre more than water, fire much more than ayre, And heaven than fire, appeares more pure and fayre.

But these are somewhat of Pythagorean speculations — caught up by Lucretius and Virgil.

† Part ii. Section 9.

been a man, or since thou art a composition of man and beast, how thou hast predominantly passed thy days, to state the deno

CHAPTER CCX.

by a bestial transformation, nor realize old fables. Expose not thyself by fourfooted manners unto monstrous draughts and caricature representations. Think not after the old Pythagorean concert what beast thou mayest be after death. Be not under any brutal metempsychosis while thou livest and walkest about erectly under that scheme of man. In thine own circumference, as in that of the earth, let the rational horizon be larger than the sensible, and the circle of reason than of sense: let the divine part be upward, and the region of beast below: otherwise it is but to live invertedly, and with thy head unto the heels of thy antipodes. Desert not thy title to a divine particle and union with invisibles. Let true knowledge and virtue tell the lower world thou art a part of the higher. Let thy thoughts be of things which have not entered into the hearts of beasts; think of things long past, and long to come; acquaint thyself with the choragium of the stars, and consider the vast expansion beyond them. Let intellectual tubes give thee a glance of things which visive organs reach not. Have a glimpse of incomprehensible, and thoughts of things, which thoughts but tenderly touch. Lodge immaterials in thy head, ascend unto invisibles; fill thy spirit with spirituals, with the mysteries of faith, the magnalities of religion, and thy life with the honour of God; without which, though giants in wealth and dignity, we are but dwarfs and pygmies in humanity, and may hold a pitiful rank in that triple division of mankind into heroes, men and beasts. For though human souls are said to be equal, yet is there no small inequality in their operations; some maintain the allowable station of men, many are far below it; and some have been so divine as to approach the apogeum of their natures, and to be in the confinium of spirits."

HERE I shall inform the small critic, what it is, "a thousand pounds to one penny," as the nursery song says, or as the newspaper reporters of the Ring have it, Lombard Street to a China Orange, -no small critic already knows, whether he be diurnal, hebdomadal, monthly or trimestral, — that a notion of progressive Life is mentioned in Bishop Berkeley's Minute Philosopher, not as derived from any old system of philosophy or religion, but as the original speculation of one who belonged to a club of Freethinkers. Another member of that worshipful society explains the system of his acquaintance, thus:

"He made a threefold partition of the human species into Birds, Beasts and Fishes, being of opinion that the Road of Life lies upwards in a perpetual ascent, through the scale of Being: in such sort, that the souls of insects after death make their second appearance in the shape of perfect animals, Birds, Beasts or Fishes; which upon their death are preferred into human bodies, and in the next stage into Beings of a higher and more perfect kind. This man we considered at first as a sort of heretic, because his scheme seemed not to consist with our fundamental tenet, the Mortality of the Soul: but he justified the notion to be innocent, inasmuch as it included nothing of reward or punishment, and was not proved by any argument which supposed or implied either incorporeal spirit, or Providence, being only inferred, by way of analogy, from what he had observed in human affairs, the Court, the Church, and the Army, wherein the tendency is always upwards, from lower posts to higher. According to this system, the Fishes are those men who swim in pleasure, such as petits maitres, bons vivans, and

honest fellows. The Beasts are dry, drudging, covetous, rapacious folk, and all those addicted to care and business like oxen, and other dry land animals, which spend their lives in labour and fatigue. The Birds are airy, notional men, Enthusiasts, Projectors, Philosophers, and such like; in each species every individual retaining a tincture of his former state, which constitutes what is called genius."

The quiet reader who sometimes lifts his eyes from the page (and closes them perhaps) to meditate upon what he has been reading, will perhaps ask himself wherefore I consider it to be as certain that no small critic should have read the Minute Philosopher, as that children cannot be drowned while "sliding on dry ground?" - My reason for so thinking is, that small critics never read anything so good. Like town ducks they dabble in the gutter, but never purify themselves in clear streams, nor take to the deep waters.

S'il y a des lecteurs qui se soucient peu de cela, on les prie de se souvenir qu'un auteur n'est pas obligé à ne rien dire que ce qui est de leur goût. BAYLE.

HAD my ever-by-me-to-be-lamented friend, and from this time forth, I trust, ever-by-thepublic-to-be-honoured philosopher, been a Welshman; or had he lived to become acquainted with the treasures of Welsh lore which Edward Williams, William Owen, and Edward Davies, the Curate of Olveston, have brought to light; he would have believed in the Bardic system as heartily as the Glamorganshire and Merionethshire Bards themselves, and have fitted it, without any apprehension of heresy, to his own religious creed. And although he would have perceived with the Curate of Olveston (worthy of the best Welsh Bishoprick for his labours; O George the Third, why did no one tell

thee that he was so, when he dedicated to thee his Celtic Researches ?), — although (I say) he would have perceived that certain of the Druidical rites were derived from an accursed origin, -a fact authenticated by their abominations, and rendered certain by the historical proof that the Celtic language affords in both those dialects wherein any genuine remains have been preserved,— that knowledge would still have left him at liberty to adopt such other parts of the system as harmonised with his own speculations, and were not incompatible with the Christian faith. How he would have reconciled them shall be explained when I have taken this opportunity of relating something of the late Right Reverend Father in God, Richard Watson, Lord Bishop of Llandaff, which is more to his honour than anything that he has related of himself. He gave the Curate of Olveston, upon George Hardinge's recommendation, a Welsh Rectory, which, though no splendid preferment, placed that patient, and learned, and able and meritorious poor man, in a respectable station, and conferred upon him (as he gratefully acknowledged) the comfort of independence.

My friend had been led by Cudworth to this reasonable conclusion that there was a theology of divine tradition, or revelation, or a divine cabala, amongst the Hebrews first, and from them afterward communicated to the Egyptians and other nations. He had learned also from that greater theologian Jackson of Corpus (whom the Laureate Southey (himself to be commended for so doing) loses no opportunity of commending) that divine communion was not confined to the Israelites before their distinction from other nations, and that "idolatry and superstition could not have increased so much in the old world, unless there had been evident documents of a divine power in ages precedent;" for "strange fables and lying

*

* Since Southey's death, Jackson's Works, to the much satisfaction of all sound theologians, have been reprinted at the Clarendon Press. I once heard Mr. Parker the Bookseller - the uncle of the present Mr. Parker — say, that he recollected the sheets of the Folio Edition being used as wrappers in the shops! Alexander's dust as a bung to a beer-barrel, quotha !