A MASTER OF SENTENCES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1617, 7 December 1912, Page 9

A MASTER OF SENTENCES.

After long neglect (writes the "Times" reviewer of Sir Walter Raleigh's edition of the complete works of George Savile, first Marquess of Halifax), . we, must thank so graceful, arid, careful an introducer as Sir- Walter Raleigh for. ve--acquainting us, with the wit and wisdom, the doubts, caprices, and compromises, the temporising decision and penetrating insight of this Master of Sentences. . For such Halifax essentially'is. Nobody-can be more epigrammatic or less stiff in his aphorisms. ' Nobody/ paoks more with greater ease into so small a space. He is at once classical and colloquial. He-takes rank in that casual succession which de-. iscends from Montaigne, whom he'praisedand followed, to the "Spectator." He observes much, and his observatory is.riot, on-the mountain but in .the. market place. He is really an' unconscious essayist, a methodical rambler walking and talking with us on our daily rounds and taking us into his confidence. He strikes" the new keynote of intimacy, so that we catch not only his words but his voice ond gestures. Nor is he ever a bore. For he excels in the arch-art of being serious without ..being earnest/ of being significantly 'social—the art surely, of letters if not of life. He was ari esprit. Though a . philosopher of the obvious,'' he is never a_ philosopher of the commonplace. On' the contrary, the obvious serves , him as a. text.for the;subtle-play and the' light weight of his dialectic. If his 'temperament- lacks warnth, or'at any : rato ab- ■ hors extremes, if his heart is constantly on guard, he always, displays that charof the mind, a sympathetic head. When we trace him outside the scope of this volume, in his public career, orin his beloved country retreat (he was urbs in 'rore)i./or in' relation to- his charming inorovable. of a brother, or in the letters/of Waller's his eyer-young a'nd : adoring mother-in-law, we can gather how kirid His wisdom could be. The temperature, eo to speak, of his mind was too equable for passion and too even for enthusiasms. It varied, but it varied only, by way of gentle protest against the oscillations" of' his ago or circumstances.- ,In the thick of'affairs he was rarely a man of action ; in retirement at Rufford he was-..-not" wholly reflective. :• "ThevGovoriunent ofthe world,"- he.''observed, "is', a' great ■ thing/but it. is : a vcry.'coarse one tod compared with 'the; Fineness' of Speculative.' Knowledge'.".-' His attitude 'towards the world'; may ..'perhaps best "be -expressed -by • Shakespeare sv"The ; 'web of our life is'of. a mingled .yarn, ,'good arid ill together;: our virtues '-would .be' proud,' .if " our" thoughts' whippM them- riot; and', our crimes would despair, J jf. they were not cherished by our Virtues',"' -Hiked,'• this passage recalls the' whole) style'- and ; ; tone . of ■ one.: who '{wrote thrit" "our/-vices yand- virtues. couple with one : ;'another, arid,-get,--children, that." re-. eemble'.'bp'.th their parents";'-who main-' tairiedfthat in moriarchy '.was' no freedom,and ;in. a,, cpmmpriwealth -.no quiet, who' wanted ; gentlemen • to obey rather -than Miii'mdn'folks'.to"command,\ whd scathed with- eq\ial'irony ; -both.. Church, and Con-. Tenticle,; arid who, a firmed that ."Common Fame ;.is': the only Lyar that deserveth, to have, some, Respect still reserv'd to :it/'Sueh .are some, of the lights and .shadows' thatimake'/Halifax' so- attractive at a time when -'brilliance was. fading , into smartness '; and cynicism degenerating''- in to ■ cruelty. "'Yet' the -cynic is- riot necessarily inhuman or'spiteful or contemptuous; nor 'is ho always a pessimist. - He looks' at things as they are,-/and .riot as -others, wish them to be. and. the'best cynicism is. the cheeriest. Ho is only .'anironist perceiving more than two sides to any question and heightening their contrasts. Sir Walter Raleigh denies that the "Trimmer" was a cynic. Cynicism is the.antithesis of Don Quixote, and nothing quixotio adheres to Halifax. ! "Men," he

wrote, "mnst be saved in this World by their Want of Faith.". But,why should such cynicism be reproached? Even Chesterfield's has been over-blamed;.and Chesterfield was Halifax's grandson. Halifax's characteristic turn of mind appears to resolve itself into an intensß lovo of. perspective.. Indeed, so pleased was he by the perspective that both in action and in authorship he sometimes missed the picture. Ho piqued himself on consistency, and'mentally consistent he was; but his consistency was one of method more than 'of outlook, and it admitted of incompatible judgments, ialco, for example, his fondness (almost fanatical) for the golden liiean whether in thought' or in conduct—which indeed he turned almost into a diversion, so that cherchez 10. milieu might have been lids motto. To find "the nice mean" was a game; and "It is a nice mean," he said, "between letting the Thought languish for want of Exercise and tiring it by giving it too much." He laid it down that "Extremity is always ill, that which is good cannot live a moment with'it.": Nothing can be more positive. Yet he' trims.evdn: about trimming; for not long, before .this passage and in the same "Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections" occurs this other:—"The generality of the World.falleth into an insufficient Mean, that ex.. poseth them more than ,an Extreme' on. either side." Ho is like a. Chinese puzzle,' always box within box. or tall within ball; and so he draws us on. ' '

' The fact is. that' he wavers between theory and fact,: the abstract and the actual, aud in this twilight he sees everything relatively 1 , however absolutely he may speak. Hentfe it happens that as he turns tilings over and-analyses .them he is always balancing the defects of. their qualities or the qualities" ot' their 'defefits. That such was his -inner L mind is shown by the fact that his writings (most of them circulated among friends) were the fruits of ripe experience. and formed, as.it were, his private'confessional. Halifax was fastidious in all' his appraisements, but the process : caused , him _ to over-persuade even himself. Ho fancied, for instance, that he was as unprejudiced as he was undoubtedly unpassionate; his only prejudice,'" he ; may have '.thought, lay in his penchant ; 'for letting prejudices' alone. Yet his noble devotion to liberty (and to our .Constitution):'inspired. him with two, as pervasive as they were deeprooted. The rno was an antipathy to France—that is to say, to LouisXlV and his policy ; the'other a detestation-of assertive Roman Catholicism. . No Puritan could have felt more' in theso respects than this Cavalier-Republican; and his casuistries of common sense—for direct he was always—sopietimes forced him into .strange arguments. tThose famous speeches against the BpeecHesAthaCitiirlied dictated by-'.no •leaning - towards' -either the future Jam'es' ir (wliom then,' however, be: courted) or his'religion. The choice.'of evils decided Halifax: In that masterly "Character of - King - Charles. II"-- which niakes us regret- the" destruction--of Halifax's "Secret History,"..he-sets; out in 'the'-latter portion- to : counteract .the depreciations in the. first. ■ Yet-:in :that very quest, the blamo seoi'ns ! only thc/'-more. excused. If the King dissembled;; dissimulation, he-urges; ."'is "a .'jewel.' of tho ;Grown"j 1 if-he -trusted': his -enemies or 'sotoetimes- negleckd :his- friends,:-'let ; these errors. I pass-.'as ••'-'princely .-frailties." Yet j'Halifax bears: ho-malice. the sovereign -who misliked ' but' .ennobled him, ./eveh. n-hcn 'hovbelittles <his.' charming wit :and . shows that his God. \vas: his ease. 'Ho only' dissects: his anatomy, and with what pregnant and vivid force! Did .Tacitus, ever: disclose the -kernel of . character.' more, tersely ' than, 'in "He chose -rather, to ; be,. eclipsed, than fb bo-.troubl-in •sat.:dowh..;'oht ; :"of/.'form' ; ovitfc the ;(juceh-but -hfl .suppedibelqw stairs" ? Or iin 'the: dfecriptiqnv'ofwhat-■ that: "below ■stairs".' ex-' 'planatioiv;' of' his- fastywalk/.tO:■ his. avoidance 'of-ihiiio.rtuners? Or in-the statement' that tho' King'could "see : chinks. as..well as any. man" ? there is. that sad ssntence ,'on -Lis • familiarity, ."Fprni'ality. : is, sufliciehtly. • reytnged upon for _:being'-,so. jlaughedi.;.'atr,. l ife : .-is ! ',', destroyed;'', 'Itiis -true, of. And 1 '.that:'-' profound .'"one ,'^oii^:liis : lack:-of fibre, >ains»r : epi Jain useV' PrTn6e^nifglit"' ; liior« .pro-l^wlr-be^d^-^ye^j^^iin^iKtaes.'' mind' remains, and'it explains ltiuiili, that I'Macaulay witlu his love of pointed eifects I regards as contrasts.. That ,he interceded for Lord Stafford, the victim of the Whigs, and-for Lord William Ilussell, the victim of the Tories,-, is duo not merely to Halifax's humane":nature but also to bis uniform detestation of Everywhere he exalts reason above feeling, and in .many, respects !.he.! was-a premature type of' the ..best'cighteehth-dentury Whig. Of .'the: seventeenth ' century there attached him, wholly. ,plaiu and _unaifected as he was, many, u dainty, piece" of"verbal broiCado; fan echo, 'too) of' Elizabethan similes' and a-ring of the Itestorationists. But by affinity he belongs to ; 'tho rationalist and half-pagan revival which lasted until "tho logic of Voltaire and .the sentimentality of Rousseau erected'their own altars to the goddess of Reason, wjio was really a goddess of Impulse and dispersed the rationalist congregation.