LITERATURE AND GOVERNMENT.

OR turning now to the Government of men. Witenagemote, old Parliament, was a great thing. The affairs of the nation were there deliberated and decided; what we were to do as a nation. But does not, though the name Parliament subsists, the parliamentary debate go on now, everywhere and at all times, in a far more comprehensive way, out of Parliament altogether? Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact,—very momentous to us in these times. Literature is our Parliament too. Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. Writing brings Printing; brings universal every-day extempore Printing, as we see at present. Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in lawmaking, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures: the requisite thing is, that he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is requisite. The nation is governed by all that has tongue in the nation: Democracy is virtually there. Add only, that whatsoever power exists will have itself, by and by, organised; working secretly under bandages, obscurations, obstructions it will never rest till it get to work free, unincumbered, visible to all. Democracy virtually extant will insist on becoming palpably extant. -H. V.

PHASES OF LITERATURE.

LITERATURE, ever since its appearance in our European world, especially since it emerged out of Cloisters into the open Market-place, and endeavoured to make itself room, and gain a subsistence there, has offered the

strangest phases, and consciously or unconsciously done the strangest work. Wonderful Ark of the Deluge, where so much that is precious, nay priceless to mankind, floats carelessly onwards through the chaos of distracted Times,—if so be it may one day find an Ararat to rest on, and see the waters abate! The History of Literature, especially for the last two centuries, is our proper Church History; the other Church, during that time, having more and more decayed from its old functions and influence, and ceased to have a history. And now to look only at the outside of the matter, think of the Tassos and older or later Racines, struggling to raise their office from its pristine abasement of courtjester; and teach and elevate the World, in conjunction with that other heteroclite task of solacing and glorifying some Pullus Jovis, in plush cloak and other gilt or golden king-tackle, that they in the interim might live thereby! Consider the Shakspeares and Molières, plying a like trade, but on a double material; glad of any royal or notable patronage, but eliciting, as their surer stay, some fractional contribution from the thick-skinned, manypocketed million. Saumaises, now bully-fighting for a hundred gold Jacobuses,' now closeted with Queen Christinas, who blow the fire with their own queenly mouth, to make a pedant's breakfast; anon cast forth (being scouted and confuted), and dying of heartbreak, coupled with hen-peck. Then the Laws of Copyright, the Quarrels of Authors, the Calamities of Authors; the Heynes dining on boiled peasecods, the Jean Pauls on water; the Johnsons bedded and boarded on four-pence-half-penny a-day. Lastly, the unutterable confusion worse confounded of our present Periodical existence; when, among other phenomena, a young Fourth Estate (whom all the three elder may try if they can hold) is seen sprawling and staggering tumultuously through the world; as yet but a huge, rawlean calf; fast growing, however, to be a Pha

boned,

raoh's lean cow, of whom let the fat kine beware! All this of the mere exterior, or dwelling-place of Literature, not yet glancing at the internal, at the Doctrines emitted or striven after, will the future Eusebius and Mosheim have to record; and (in some small degree) explain to us what it means. Unfathomable is its meaning: Life, mankind's Life, ever from its unfathomable fountains, rolls wondrous on, another though the same; in Literature too, the seeing eye will distinguish Apostles of the Gentiles, Proto- and Deutero-martyrs; still less will the Simon Magus, or Apollonius with the golden thigh be wanting. But all now is on an infinitely wider scale; the elements of it all swim far-scattered, and still only striving towards union; -whereby, indeed, it happens that to the most, under this new figure, they are unrecognisable.

SOLDIERS OF LITERATURE.

-M. Diderot.

THE strangest regiment in her Majesty's service, this of the Soldiers of Literature:-would your Lordship much like to march through Coventry with them? The immortal gods are there (quite irrecognisable under these disguises), and also the lowest broken valets;—an extremly miscellaneous regiment. In fact the regiment, superficially viewed, looks like an immeasurable motley flood of discharged playactors, funambulists, false prophets, drunken ballad-singers; and marches not as a regiment, but as a boundless canaille,-without drill, uniform, captaincy or billet; with huge over-proportion of drummers; you would say, a regiment gone wholly to the drum, with hardly a good musket to be seen in it, -more a canaille than a regiment. Canaille of all the loud-sounding levities, and general winnowings of Chaos, marching through the world in a most ominous manner; proclaiming, audibly if you have ears: "Twelfth hour of the Night; ancient graves yawning; pale clammy Puseyisms screeching in their

winding-sheets; owls busy in the City regions; many goblins abroad! Awake, ye living; dream no more; arise to judgment! Chaos and Gehenna are broken loose; the Devil with his Bedlams must be flung in chains again, and the Last of the Days is about to dawn!" Such is Literature to the reflective soul at this moment. -L. D. P. V.

ORGANISATION.

ALL this, of the importance and supreme importance of the man of Letters in modern Society, and how the Press is to such a degree superseding the Pulpit, the Senate, the Senatus Academicus and much else, has been admitted for a good while; and recognised often enough in late times, with a sort of sentimental triumph. and wonderment. It seems to me, the Sentimental by and by will have to give place to the Practical. If Men of Letters are so incalculably influential, actually performing such work for us from age to age, and even from day to day, then I think we may conclude that Men of Letters will not always wander like unrecognised, unregulated Ishmaelites among us! Whatsoever thing, as I said above, has virtually unnoticed power will cast off its wrappages, bandages and step-forth one day with palpably articulated, universally visible power. That one man wear the clothes, and take the wages, of a function which is done by quite another: there can be no profit in this; this is not right, it is wrong. And yet, alas, the making of it right-what a business, for long times to come! Sure enough, this that we call Organisation of the Literary Guild is still a a great way off, incumbered by all manner of complexities. If you asked me what were the best possible organisation for the Men of Letters in modern society; the arrangement of furtherance and regulation, grounded the most accurately on the actual facts of their position and of the world's position,-I should beg to say that

the problem far exceeded my faculty! It is not one man's faculty; it is that of many successive men turned earnestly upon it, that will bring-out even an approximate solution. What the best arrangement were none of us could say. But if you ask, Which is the worst ? I answer: This which we now have, that Chaos should sit umpire in it; this is the worst. any good one there is yet a long way.

To the best, or

-H. V.

THE POVERTY OF LITERARY MEN.

ONE remark I must not omit, That royal or parliamentary grants of money are by no means the chief thing wanted! To give our Men of Letters stipends, endowments and all furtherance of cash, will do little toward the business. On the whole, one is weary of hearing about the omnipotence of money. I will say rather that, for a genuine man, it is no evil to be poor; that there ought to be Literary Men poor,-to show whether they are genuine or not! Mendicant Orders, bodies of good men doomed to beg, were instituted in the Christian Church; a most natural and even necessary development of the spirit of Christianity. It was itself founded on Poverty, on Sorrow, Contradiction, Crucifixion, every species of worldly Distress and Degradation. We may say that he who has not known these things, and learned from them the priceless lessons they have to teach, has missed a good opportunity of schooling. To beg, and go barefoot, in coarse woolen cloak with a rope round your loins, and be despised of all the world, was no beautiful business ;-nor an honourable one in any eye, till the nobleness of those who did so made it honoured of some! Begging is not in our course at the present time: but for the rest of it, who will say that a Johnson is not perhaps the better for being poor? It is needful for him, at all rates, to know that outward profit, that success of any kind is not the goal he has to aim at. Pride, vanity, ill-conditioned