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have much of the philosopher in him; not, indeed, thrusting itself forward at the surface-this would only make a monster of his work, like the Siamese twins, neither one thing nor two-but latent within: the spindle should be out of sight, but the web should be spun by the Fates. A philosopher, on the other hand, should have much of the poet in him. A historian cannot be great without combining the elements of the two minds. A statesman ought to unite those of all the three. A great religious teacher, such as Socrates, Bernard, Luther, Schleiermacher, needs the statesman's practical power of dealing with men and things, as well as the historian's insight into their growth and purpose. He needs the philosopher's ideas, impregnated and impersonated by the imagination of the poet. In like manner our graver faculties and thoughts are much chastened and bettered by a blending and interfusion of the lighter, so that "the sable cloud" may "turn her silver lining on the night;" while our lighter thoughts require the graver to substantiate them and keep them from evaporating. Thus Socrates is said, in Plato's Banquet, to have maintained that a great tragic poet ought likewise to be a great comic poet-an observation the more remarkable, because the tendency of the Greek mind, as at once manifested in their Polytheism, and fostered by it, was to insulate all their ideas; and, as it were, to split up the intellectual world into a cluster of Cyclades, leading to confusion, is the characteristic of modern times. The combination, however, was realised in himself, and in his great pupil; and may, perhaps, have been so to a certain extent in Eschylus, if we may judge from the fame of his satyric dramas. At all events the assertion, as has been remarked more than once,-for instance by Coleridge (Remains, ii., 12),-is a wonderful prophetical intuition, which has received its fulfilment in Shakspere. No heart would have been strong enough to hold the woe of Lear and Othello, except that which had the unquenchable elasticity of Falstaff and the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' He, too, is an example that the perception of the ridiculous does not necessarily imply bitterness and scorn. Along with his intense humour, and his equally intense piercing insight into the darkest most fearful depths of human nature, there is still a spirit of universal kindness, as well as universal justice, pervading his works; and Ben Jonson has left us a precious memorial of him, where he calls him "My gentle Shakspere." This one epithet sheds a beautiful light on his character: its truth is attested by his

wisdom, which could never have been so perfect unless it had been harmonised by the gentleness of the dove. A similar union of the graver and lighter powers is found in several of Shakspere's contemporaries, and in many others among the greatest poets of the modern world; in Boccaccio, in Cervantes, in Chaucer, in Göthe, in Tieck; so was it in Walter Scott.

215.-LUXURY.

SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE.

[SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, who filled the distinguished post of King's Advocate in Scotland, was born at Dundee in 1636, and died in 1691. He has the reputation of being amongst the first Scotsmen who wrote the English language with purity. The following extract is from a treatise published after his death, and dedicated by him to the University of Oxford, entitled, The Moral History of Frugality.']

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One might reasonably have thought that as the world grew older luxury would have been more shunned; for the more men multiplied, and the greater their dangers grew, they should have been the more easily induced to shun all expense, that they might the more successfully provide against those inconveniences. But yet it proved otherwise, and luxury was the last of all vices that prevailed over mankind; for after riches had been hoarded up, they rotted, as it were, into luxury; and after that tyranny and ambition had robbed many poor innocents, luxury, more cruel than they, was made use of by Providence to revenge their quarrel, and so triumphed over the conquerors. Thus, when Rome had by wit and courage subdued the world, it was drowned in that inundation of riches which these brought upon it.

This vice has its own masks and disguises too; for it transforms itself into virtue, whilst, like that, it runs faster from avarice, and laughs more loudly at it than liberality itself does, and to that height that it seems to be angry at liberality, as being only a kind of niggardliness. It pretends to keep open table to those who starve, and to have an open purse always for men of merit. Beauty and learning are

its pensioners, and all manner of divertisements are still in his retinue. It obliges the peaceable to favour it, as an enemy to every thing that is uneasy; and it engages men of parts to speak for it, because, whilst it lavishes the treasures others have hoarded up, it feeds the hope and expectations of such as were provided by Nature of nothing but a stock of wit. And there being seldom other matches betwixt liberality and prodigality but such as are to be measured by exact reflections upon the estates of the spenders, it sometimes praises that as liberality which ought to be condemned as luxury; and even where the transgression may be discerned, the bribed and interested multitude will not acknowledge that liberality, by exceeding its bounds, has lost its name. Some, also, from the same principle, authorise this vice by the pretext of law, crying out that every man should have liberty to dispose of his own as he pleases, and by the good of commerce, saying, with a serious face, that frugality would ruin all trade, and if no man spent beyond his measure riches would not circulate; nor should virtuous, laborious, or witty men find in this circulation occasions to excite or reward their industry. And from this, probably, flows the law of England's not interdicting prodigals, denying him the administration of his own' estate, as the laws of all other nations do.

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The great arguments that weigh with me against luxury are, first," that luxury disorders, confounds, and is inconsistent with that just and equal economy, whereby God governs the world as his own family, in which all men are but children or servants; for as the avaricious hoards up for one that which should be distributed among many; so, in luxury, one vicious man spends upon himself what should maintain many hundreds; and he surfeits to make them starve. This is not to be a steward, but master. Nor can we think that the wise and just Judge of all things will suffer, in his beautiful world, what the most negligent and imprudent amongst us could not suffer in his private family.

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The second argument is, that nature should be man's chief rule in things relating to this world; and reason his great director, under God, in making use of that rule, and the eyes (as it were) by which we are to see how to follow it. By this nature teaches us how to proportion the means to the end, and not to employ all the instruments whereby such an end may be procured, but only such as are necessary and suitable for the procuring of it, which proportion luxury neither understands nor follows; and therefore we must conclude it unnatural and unrea

sonable, and that frugality is the true mathematics of moral philosophy: and by this we may condemn, not only such as Senecio was in the Roman History, who delighted to have his clothes and his shoes twice as large as were fit for his body and feet, which the luxurious laughed at with others; but even such as keep twice as great tables, build twice as great houses, pay twice as many servants as are fit for them, are as mad as he. For though that disproportion be not so very perceptible as the other, because the bulk of a man's estate is not so easily measured and known as that of his person, and because there are twice as many fools of this kind as there are of the other, so that reason is out voted though it cannot be answered, yet the folly is the same every where; and in this it is more dangerous, that Senecio wronged only himself, whilst they oft-times wrong and ruin both their posterity and neighbours. Thus I have seen a man, otherwise judicious enough, much surprised when it was represented that his building (though it seemed to him and many others to carry no great disproportion to his estate) yet would, in forty-four years (which is but a short time), equal his estate, allowing the interest of his money to equal the capital sum in the space of eleven years and a half, which it did by law; for 1007., forborne for forty-eight years, at six per cent. compound interest, amounts to 17347. 4s. 2d. And how many may forbear 100l.? and this sum, in ten years, which is but a very short time, will amount to 27741. 12s by simple multiplication, without compound interest. We should be, proportionable in our expense, for that which widens a man's fancy in any one thing makes it extravagant in all things, as they who use their stomachs to too much of any one meat will make it craving as to all others. Whereas, on the other hand, that which should enamour men of frugality is, that it accustoms us to reasoning and proportion, observing exactly the least perceptible proportions, and the smallest consequences, which makes me call to mind the remarkable story of the Holland merchant, who having married his daughter to a luxurious, rich citizen, to the great dissatisfaction of his wife, she came the next day to the bride and bridegroom, and offered them the egg of a turkey hen, and desired her daughter to use herself, in exactly looking to the product of that egg, to consider the great things which frugality can do in other matters. But, her husband and she having laughed at the lesson, the mother improved so far the egg, that within twenty years the advantage of it and the luxury of that married couple grew so fast,

that they needed the meanest assistance, and the product of the egg afforded a comfortable one; for with the considerable sum that was gathered by it they stocked themselves anew, and by the help of the (formerly slighted) lesson, of not despising the meanest things, raised themselves again to a very considerable estate. And if any man will but consider yearly what he superfluously spends, and how much that would multiply in process of time, he will easily perceive that what he spends in the consequence is vastly greater than appears to him in the first calculation; as, for instance, if a man who may spend 500l. per annum does spend 6007., this small error of 1007. a year will amount, in forty-four years, at six per cent., to the sum of 13737. 6s. and odd pence. And though a man thinks it scarce worth his pains to manage so as to preserve 100l., he must be very luxurious who thinks it not worth his pains to gain the sum of 1373l. And it is a great defect in our reason, that those ills which follow by necessary consequence are despised as mean, because the consequences themselves are remote. And as that is the best eye, so that is likewise the best reason, which sees clearly at a great distance. Another great error that luxury tempts us to, by not reasoning exactly, is, that it makes us calculate our estates without deducting what is payable out of them to the poor, to the king, and to creditors, before we proportion our expense; whereas we should spend only what is truly our own; and the law, to prevent luxury, tells us that id tantum nostrum est quod, deductis debitis, apud nos remanet: That is only ours which remains with us, after our debts are deducted. Nor will a proportional part of our estates answer the equivalent of our debts. For, if I owe 1007. a year, no part of my estate that pays me 100%. a year will pay it; for many accidents may hinder me to get my own rent, but no accident will procure an abatement of my debt. And this leads me to consider that frugality numbers always the accidents that may intervene amongst other creditors; and the wise Hollander observes, that a man should divide his estate in three parts; upon one third he should live, another third he should lay up for his children, and the last he should lay by for accidents. There are few men who do not in their experience find, that their whole life being balanced together, they have lost a third part always of their revenue by accidents. And most families are destroyed by having the children's provision left as a debt upon them. So that a man should at least endeavour to live upon the one half; and leave the other half for his children.

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