Mary Shelley, Mathilda

First published in 1959 because its content was unacceptable in Shelley's time, this was in fact Shelley's second novel. Her father, William Godwin, refused to return the ms she had sent him because he was disgusted by the incest subject.

Here are a couple of supplemental materials:

http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_mary/mathilda/14/

The Fields of Fancy

THE FIELDS OF FANCY[88]

It was in Rome--the Queen of the World that I suffered a misfortune

that reduced me to misery & despair[89]--The bright sun & deep azure

sky were oppressive but nought was so hateful as the voice of Man--I

loved to walk by the shores of the Tiber which were solitary & if the

sirocco blew to see the swift clouds pass over St. Peters and the many

domes of Rome or if the sun shone I turned my eyes from the sky whose

light was too dazzling & gay to be reflected in my tearful eyes I

turned them to the river whose swift course was as the speedy

departure of happiness and whose turbid colour was gloomy as grief--

Whether I slept I know not or whether it was in one of those many

hours which I spent seated on the ground my mind a chaos of despair &

my eyes for ever wet by tears but I was here visited by a lovely

spirit whom I have ever worshiped & who tried to repay my adoration by

diverting my mind from the hideous memories that racked it. At first

indeed this wanton spirit played a false part & appearing with sable

wings & gloomy countenance seemed to take a pleasure in exagerating

all my miseries--and as small hopes arose to snatch them from me &

give me in their place gigantic fears which under her fairy hand

appeared close, impending & unavoidable--sometimes she would cruelly

leave me while I was thus on the verge of madness and without

consoling me leave me nought but heavy leaden sleep--but at other

times she would wilily link less unpleasing thoughts to these most

dreadful ones & before I was aware place hopes before me--futile but

consoling[90]--

One day this lovely spirit--whose name as she told me was Fantasia

came to me in one of her consolotary moods--her wings which seemed

coloured by her tone of mind were not gay but beautiful like that of

the partridge & her lovely eyes although they ever burned with an

unquenshable fire were shaded & softened by her heavy lids & the black

long fringe of her eye lashes--She thus addressed me--You mourn for

the loss of those you love. They are gone for ever & great as my power

is I cannot recall them to you--if indeed I wave my wand over you you

will fancy that you feel their gentle spirits in the soft air that

steals over your cheeks & the distant sound of winds & waters may

image to you their voices which will bid you rejoice for that they

live--This will not take away your grief but you will shed sweeter

tears than those which full of anguish & hopelessness now start from

your eyes--This I can do & also can I take you to see many of my

provinces my fairy lands which you have not yet visited and whose

beauty will while away the heavy time--I have many lovely spots under

my command which poets of old have visited and have seen those sights

the relation of which has been as a revelation to the world--many

spots I have still in keeping of lovely fields or horrid rocks peopled

by the beautiful or the tremendous which I keep in reserve for my

future worshippers--to one of those whose grim terrors frightened

sleep from the eye I formerly led you[91] but you now need more

pleasing images & although I will not promise you to shew you any new

scenes yet if I lead you to one often visited by my followers you will

at least see new combinations that will sooth if they do not delight

you--Follow me--

Alas! I replied--when have you found me slow to obey your voice--some

times indeed I have called you & you have not come--but when before

have I not followed your slightest sign and have left what was either

of joy or sorrow in our world to dwell with you in yours till you have

dismissed me ever unwilling to depart--But now the weight of grief

that oppresses me takes from me that lightness which is necessary to

follow your quick & winged motions alas in the midst of my course one

thought would make me droop to the ground while you would outspeed me

to your Kingdom of Glory & leave me here darkling

Ungrateful! replied the Spirit Do I not tell you that I will sustain &

console you My wings shall aid your heavy steps & I will command my

winds to disperse the mist that over casts you--I will lead you to a

place where you will not hear laughter that disturbs you or see the

sun that dazzles you--We will choose some of the most sombre walks of

the Elysian fields--

The Elysian fields--I exclaimed with a quick scream--shall I then see?

I gasped & could not ask that which I longed to know--the friendly

spirit replied more gravely--I have told you that you will not see

those whom you mourn--But I must away--follow me or I must leave you

weeping deserted by the spirit that now checks your tears--

Go--I replied I cannot follow--I can only sit here & grieve--& long to

see those who are gone for ever for to nought but what has relation to

them can I listen--

The spirit left me to groan & weep to wish the sun quenched in eternal

darkness--to accuse the air the waters all--all the universe of my

utter & irremediable misery--Fantasia came again and ever when she

came tempted me to follow her but as to follow her was to leave for a

while the thought of those loved ones whose memories were my all

although they were my torment I dared not go--Stay with me I cried &

help me to clothe my bitter thoughts in lovelier colours give me hope

although fallacious & images of what has been although it never will

be again--diversion I cannot take cruel fairy do you leave me alas all

my joy fades at thy departure but I may not follow thee--

One day after one of these combats when the spirit had left me I

wandered on along the banks of the river to try to disperse the

excessive misery that I felt untill overcome by fatigue--my eyes

weighed down by tears--I lay down under the shade of trees & fell

asleep--I slept long and when I awoke I knew not where I was--I did

not see the river or the distant city--but I lay beside a lovely

fountain shadowed over by willows & surrounded by blooming myrtles--at

a short distance the air seemed pierced by the spiry pines & cypresses

and the ground was covered by short moss & sweet smelling heath--the

sky was blue but not dazzling like that of Rome and on every side I

saw long allies--clusters of trees with intervening lawns & gently

stealing rivers--Where am I? [I] exclaimed--& looking around me I

beheld Fantasia--She smiled & as she smiled all the enchanting scene

appeared lovelier--rainbows played in the fountain & the heath flowers

at our feet appeared as if just refreshed by dew--I have seized you,

said she--as you slept and will for some little time retain you as my

prisoner--I will introduce you to some of the inhabitants of these

peaceful Gardens--It shall not be to any whose exuberant happiness

will form an u[n]pleasing contrast with your heavy grief but it shall

be to those whose chief care here is to acquired knowledged [_sic_] &

virtue--or to those who having just escaped from care & pain have not

yet recovered full sense of enjoyment--This part of these Elysian

Gardens is devoted to those who as before in your world wished to

become wise & virtuous by study & action here endeavour after the

same ends by contemplation--They are still unknowing of their final

destination but they have a clear knowledge of what on earth is only

supposed by some which is that their happiness now & hereafter depends

upon their intellectual improvement--Nor do they only study the forms

of this universe but search deeply in their own minds and love to meet

& converse on all those high subjects of which the philosophers of

Athens loved to treat--With deep feelings but with no outward

circumstances to excite their passions you will perhaps imagine that

their life is uniform & dull--but these sages are of that disposition

fitted to find wisdom in every thing & in every lovely colour or form

ideas that excite their love--Besides many years are consumed before

they arrive here--When a soul longing for knowledge & pining at its

narrow conceptions escapes from your earth many spirits wait to

receive it and to open its eyes to the mysteries of the universe--many

centuries are often consumed in these travels and they at last retire

here to digest their knowledge & to become still wiser by thought and

imagination working upon memory [92]--When the fitting period is

accomplished they leave this garden to inhabit another world fitted

for the reception of beings almost infinitely wise--but what this

world is neither can you conceive or I teach you--some of the spirits

whom you will see here are yet unknowing in the secrets of

nature--They are those whom care & sorrow have consumed on earth &

whose hearts although active in virtue have been shut through

suffering from knowledge--These spend sometime here to recover their

equanimity & to get a thirst of knowledge from converse with their

wiser companions--They now securely hope to see again those whom they

love & know that it is ignorance alone that detains them from them. As

for those who in your world knew not the loveliness of benevolence &

justice they are placed apart some claimed by the evil spirit & in

vain sought for by the good but She whose delight is to reform the

wicked takes all she can & delivers them to her ministers not to be

punished but to be exercised & instructed untill acquiring a love of

virtue they are fitted for these gardens where they will acquire a

love of knowledge

As Fantasia talked I saw various groupes of figures as they walked

among the allies of the gardens or were seated on the grassy plots

either in contemplation or conversation several advanced together

towards the fountain where I sat--As they approached I observed the

principal figure to be that of a woman about 40 years of age her eyes

burned with a deep fire and every line of her face expressed

enthusiasm & wisdom--Poetry seemed seated on her lips which were

beautifully formed & every motion of her limbs although not youthful

was inexpressibly graceful--her black hair was bound in tresses round

her head and her brows were encompassed by a fillet--her dress was

that of a simple tunic bound at the waist by a broad girdle and a

mantle which fell over her left arm she was encompassed by several

youths of both sexes who appeared to hang on her words & to catch the

inspiration as it flowed from her with looks either of eager wonder or

stedfast attention with eyes all bent towards her eloquent countenance

which beamed with the mind within--I am going said Fantasia but I

leave my spirit with you without which this scene wd fade away--I

leave you in good company--that female whose eyes like the loveliest

planet in the heavens draw all to gaze on her is the Prophetess

Diotima the instructress of Socrates[93]--The company about her are

those just escaped from the world there they were unthinking or

misconducted in the pursuit of knowledge. She leads them to truth &

wisdom untill the time comes when they shall be fitted for the journey

through the universe which all must one day undertake--farewell--

And now, gentlest reader--I must beg your indulgence--I am a being too

weak to record the words of Diotima her matchless wisdom & heavenly

eloquence[.] What I shall repeat will be as the faint shadow of a tree

by moonlight--some what of the form will be preserved but there will

be no life in it--Plato alone of Mortals could record the thoughts of

Diotima hopeless therefore I shall not dwell so much on her words as

on those of her pupils which being more earthly can better than hers

be related by living lips[.]

Diotima approached the fountain & seated herself on a mossy mound near

it and her disciples placed themselves on the grass near her--Without

noticing me who sat close under her she continued her discourse

addressing as it happened one or other of her listeners--but before I

attempt to repeat her words I will describe the chief of these whom

she appeared to wish principally to impress--One was a woman of about

23 years of age in the full enjoyment of the most exquisite beauty her

golden hair floated in ringlets on her shoulders--her hazle eyes were

shaded by heavy lids and her mouth the lips apart seemed to breathe

sensibility[94]--But she appeared thoughtful & unhappy--her cheek was

pale she seemed as if accustomed to suffer and as if the lessons she

now heard were the only words of wisdom to which she had ever

listened--The youth beside her had a far different aspect--his form

was emaciated nearly to a shadow--his features were handsome but thin

& worn--& his eyes glistened as if animating the visage of decay--his

forehead was expansive but there was a doubt & perplexity in his looks

that seemed to say that although he had sought wisdom he had got

entangled in some mysterious mazes from which he in vain endeavoured

to extricate himself--As Diotima spoke his colour went & came with

quick changes & the flexible muscles of his countenance shewed every

impression that his mind received--he seemed one who in life had

studied hard but whose feeble frame sunk beneath the weight of the

mere exertion of life--the spark of intelligence burned with uncommon

strength within him but that of life seemed ever on the eve of

fading[95]--At present I shall not describe any other of this groupe

but with deep attention try to recall in my memory some of the words

of Diotima--they were words of fire but their path is faintly marked

on my recollection--[96]

It requires a just hand, said she continuing her discourse, to weigh &

divide the good from evil--On the earth they are inextricably

entangled and if you would cast away what there appears an evil a

multitude of beneficial causes or effects cling to it & mock your

labour--When I was on earth and have walked in a solitary country

during the silence of night & have beheld the multitude of stars, the

soft radiance of the moon reflected on the sea, which was studded by

lovely islands--When I have felt the soft breeze steal across my cheek

& as the words of love it has soothed & cherished me--then my mind

seemed almost to quit the body that confined it to the earth & with a

quick mental sense to mingle with the scene that I hardly saw--I

felt--Then I have exclaimed, oh world how beautiful thou art!--Oh

brightest universe behold thy worshiper!--spirit of beauty & of

sympathy which pervades all things, & now lifts my soul as with wings,

how have you animated the light & the breezes!--Deep & inexplicable

spirit give me words to express my adoration; my mind is hurried away

but with language I cannot tell how I feel thy loveliness! Silence or

the song of the nightingale the momentary apparition of some bird that

flies quietly past--all seems animated with thee & more than all the

deep sky studded with worlds!"--If the winds roared & tore the sea and

the dreadful lightnings seemed falling around me--still love was

mingled with the sacred terror I felt; the majesty of loveliness was

deeply impressed on me--So also I have felt when I have seen a lovely

countenance--or heard solemn music or the eloquence of divine wisdom

flowing from the lips of one of its worshippers--a lovely animal or

even the graceful undulations of trees & inanimate objects have

excited in me the same deep feeling of love & beauty; a feeling which

while it made me alive & eager to seek the cause & animator of the

scene, yet satisfied me by its very depth as if I had already found

the solution to my enquires [_sic_] & as if in feeling myself a part

of the great whole I had found the truth & secret of the universe--But

when retired in my cell I have studied & contemplated the various

motions and actions in the world the weight of evil has confounded

me--If I thought of the creation I saw an eternal chain of evil linked

one to the other--from the great whale who in the sea swallows &

destroys multitudes & the smaller fish that live on him also & torment

him to madness--to the cat whose pleasure it is to torment her prey I

saw the whole creation filled with pain--each creature seems to exist

through the misery of another & death & havoc is the watchword of the

animated world--And Man also--even in Athens the most civilized spot

on the earth what a multitude of mean passions--envy, malice--a

restless desire to depreciate all that was great and good did I

see--And in the dominions of the great being I saw man [reduced?][97]

far below the animals of the field preying on one anothers [_sic_]

hearts; happy in the downfall of others--themselves holding on with

bent necks and cruel eyes to a wretch more a slave if possible than

they to his miserable passions--And if I said these are the

consequences of civilization & turned to the savage world I saw only

ignorance unrepaid by any noble feeling--a mere animal, love of life

joined to a low love of power & a fiendish love of destruction--I saw

a creature drawn on by his senses & his selfish passions but untouched

by aught noble or even Human--

And then when I sought for consolation in the various faculties man is

possessed of & which I felt burning within me--I found that spirit of

union with love & beauty which formed my happiness & pride degraded

into superstition & turned from its natural growth which could bring

forth only good fruit:--cruelty--& intolerance & hard tyranny was

grafted on its trunk & from it sprung fruit suitable to such

grafts--If I mingled with my fellow creatures was the voice I heard

that of love & virtue or that of selfishness & vice, still misery was

ever joined to it & the tears of mankind formed a vast sea ever blown

on by its sighs & seldom illuminated by its smiles--Such taking only

one side of the picture & shutting wisdom from the view is a just

portraiture of the creation as seen on earth

But when I compared the good & evil of the world & wished to divide

them into two seperate principles I found them inextricably intwined

together & I was again cast into perplexity & doubt--I might have

considered the earth as an imperfect formation where having bad

materials to work on the Creator could only palliate the evil effects

of his combinations but I saw a wanton malignity in many parts &

particularly in the mind of man that baffled me a delight in mischief

a love of evil for evils sake--a siding of the multitude--a dastardly

applause which in their hearts the crowd gave to triumphant

wick[ed]ness over lowly virtue that filled me with painful sensations.

Meditation, painful & continual thought only encreased my doubts--I

dared not commit the blasphemy of ascribing the slightest evil to a

beneficent God--To whom then should I ascribe the creation? To two

principles? Which was the upermost? They were certainly independant

for neither could the good spirit allow the existence of evil or the

evil one the existence of good--Tired of these doubts to which I could

form no probable solution--Sick of forming theories which I destroyed

as quickly as I built them I was one evening on the top of Hymettus

beholding the lovely prospect as the sun set in the glowing sea--I

looked towards Athens & in my heart I exclaimed--oh busy hive of men!

What heroism & what meaness exists within thy walls! And alas! both to

the good & to the wicked what incalculable misery--Freemen ye call

yourselves yet every free man has ten slaves to build up his

freedom--and these slaves are men as they are yet d[e]graded by their

station to all that is mean & loathsome--Yet in how many hearts now

beating in that city do high thoughts live & magnanimity that should

methinks redeem the whole human race--What though the good man is

unhappy has he not that in his heart to satisfy him? And will a

contented conscience compensate for fallen hopes--a slandered name

torn affections & all the miseries of civilized life?--

Oh Sun how beautiful thou art! And how glorious is the golden ocean

that receives thee! My heart is at peace--I feel no sorrow--a holy

love stills my senses--I feel as if my mind also partook of the

inexpressible loveliness of surrounding nature--What shall I do? Shall

I disturb this calm by mingling in the world?--shall I with an aching

heart seek the spectacle of misery to discover its cause or shall I

hopless leave the search of knowledge & devote myself to the pleasures

they say this world affords?--Oh! no--I will become wise! I will study

my own heart--and there discovering as I may the spring of the virtues

I possess I will teach others how to look for them in their own

souls--I will find whence arrises this unquenshable love of beauty I

possess that seems the ruling star of my life--I will learn how I may

direct it aright and by what loving I may become more like that beauty

which I adore And when I have traced the steps of the godlike feeling

which ennobles me & makes me that which I esteem myself to be then I

will teach others & if I gain but one proselyte--if I can teach but

one other mind what is the beauty which they ought to love--and what

is the sympathy to which they ought to aspire what is the true end of

their being--which must be the true end of that of all men then shall

I be satisfied & think I have done enough--

Farewell doubts--painful meditation of evil--& the great, ever

inexplicable cause of all that we see--I am content to be ignorant of

all this happy that not resting my mind on any unstable theories I

have come to the conclusion that of the great secret of the universe I

_can know nothing_--There is a veil before it--my eyes are not

piercing enough to see through it my arms not long enough to reach it

to withdraw it--I will study the end of my being--oh thou universal

love inspire me--oh thou beauty which I see glowing around me lift me

to a fit understanding of thee! Such was the conclusion of my long

wanderings I sought the end of my being & I found it to be knowledge

of itself--Nor think this a confined study--Not only did it lead me to

search the mazes of the human soul--but I found that there existed

nought on earth which contained not a part of that universal beauty

with which it [was] my aim & object to become acquainted--the motions

of the stars of heaven the study of all that philosophers have

unfolded of wondrous in nature became as it where [_sic_] the steps by

which my soul rose to the full contemplation & enjoyment of the

beautiful--Oh ye who have just escaped from the world ye know not

what fountains of love will be opened in your hearts or what exquisite

delight your minds will receive when the secrets of the world will be

unfolded to you and ye shall become acquainted with the beauty of the

universe--Your souls now growing eager for the acquirement of

knowledge will then rest in its possession disengaged from every

particle of evil and knowing all things ye will as it were be mingled

in the universe & ye will become a part of that celestial beauty that

you admire--[98]

Diotima ceased and a profound silence ensued--the youth with his

cheeks flushed and his eyes burning with the fire communicated from

hers still fixed them on her face which was lifted to heaven as in

inspiration--The lovely female bent hers to the ground & after a deep

sigh was the first to break the silence--

Oh divinest prophetess, said she--how new & to me how strange are your

lessons--If such be the end of our being how wayward a course did I

pursue on earth--Diotima you know not how torn affections & misery

incalculable misery--withers up the soul. How petty do the actions of

our earthly life appear when the whole universe is opened to our

gaze--yet there our passions are deep & irrisisbable [_sic_] and as we

are floating hopless yet clinging to hope down the impetuous stream

can we perceive the beauty of its banks which alas my soul was too

turbid to reflect--If knowledge is the end of our being why are

passions & feelings implanted in us that hurries [_sic_] us from

wisdom to selfconcentrated misery & narrow selfish feeling? Is it as a

trial? On earth I thought that I had well fulfilled my trial & my last

moments became peaceful with the reflection that I deserved no

blame--but you take from me that feeling--My passions were there my

all to me and the hopeless misery that possessed me shut all love &

all images of beauty from my soul--Nature was to me as the blackest

night & if rays of loveliness ever strayed into my darkness it was

only to draw bitter tears of hopeless anguish from my eyes--Oh on

earth what consolation is there to misery?

Your heart I fear, replied Diotima, was broken by your sufferings--but

if you had struggled--if when you found all hope of earthly happiness

wither within you while desire of it scorched your soul--if you had

near you a friend to have raised you to the contemplation of beauty &

the search of knowledge you would have found perhaps not new hopes

spring within you but a new life distinct from that of passion by

which you had before existed[99]--relate to me what this misery was

that thus engroses you--tell me what were the vicissitudes of feeling

that you endured on earth--after death our actions & worldly interest

fade as nothing before us but the traces of our feelings exist & the

memories of those are what furnish us here with eternal subject of

meditation.

A blush spread over the cheek of the lovely girl--Alas, replied she

what a tale must I relate what dark & phre[n]zied passions must I

unfold--When you Diotima lived on earth your soul seemed to mingle in

love only with its own essence & to be unknowing of the various

tortures which that heart endures who if it has not sympathized with

has been witness of the dreadful struggles of a soul enchained by dark

deep passions which were its hell & yet from which it could not

escape--Are there in the peaceful language used by the inhabitants of

these regions--words burning enough to paint the tortures of the human

heart--Can you understand them? or can you in any way sympathize with

them--alas though dead I do and my tears flow as when I lived when my

memory recalls the dreadful images of the past--

--As the lovely girl spoke my own eyes filled with bitter drops--the

spirit of Fantasia seemed to fade from within me and when after

placing my hand before my swimming eyes I withdrew it again I found

myself under the trees on the banks of the Tiber--The sun was just

setting & tinging with crimson the clouds that floated over St.

Peters--all was still no human voice was heard--the very air was quiet

I rose--& bewildered with the grief that I felt within me the

recollection of what I had heard--I hastened to the city that I might

see human beings not that I might forget my wandering recollections

but that I might impress on my mind what was reality & what was either

dream--or at least not of this earth--The Corso of Rome was filled

with carriages and as I walked up the Trinita dei' Montes I became

disgusted with the crowd that I saw about me & the vacancy & want of

beauty not to say deformity of the many beings who meaninglessly

buzzed about me--I hastened to my room which overlooked the whole city

which as night came on became tranquil--Silent lovely Rome I now gaze

on thee--thy domes are illuminated by the moon--and the ghosts of

lovely memories float with the night breeze among thy ruins--

contemplating thy loveliness which half soothes my miserable heart I

record what I have seen--Tomorrow I will again woo Fantasia to lead me

to the same walks & invite her to visit me with her visions which I

before neglected--Oh let me learn this lesson while yet it may be

useful to me that to a mind hopeless & unhappy as mine--a moment of

forgetfullness a moment [in] which it can pass out of itself is worth

a life of painful recollection.

CHAP. 2

The next morning while sitting on the steps of the temple of

Aesculapius in the Borghese gardens Fantasia again visited me &

smilingly beckoned to me to follow her--My flight was at first heavy

but the breezes commanded by the spirit to convoy me grew stronger as

I advanced--a pleasing languour seized my senses & when I recovered I

found my self by the Elysian fountain near Diotima--The beautiful

female who[m] I had left on the point of narrating her earthly history

seemed to have waited for my return and as soon as I appeared she

spoke thus--[100]

NOTES TO _THE FIELDS OF FANCY_

[88] Here is printed the opening of _F of F--A_, which contains the

fanciful framework abandoned in _Mathilda_. It has some intrinsic

interest, as it shows that Mary as well as Shelley had been reading

Plato, and especially as it reveals the close connection of the

writing of _Mathilda_ with Mary's own grief and depression. The first

chapter is a fairly good rough draft. Punctuation, to be sure,

consists largely of dashes or is non-existent, and there are some

corrections. But there are not as many changes as there are in the

remainder of this MS or in _F of F--B_.

[89] It was in Rome that Mary's oldest child, William, died on June 7,

1819.

[90] Cf. two entries in Mary Shelley's journal. An unpublished entry

for October 27, 1822, reads: "Before when I wrote Mathilda, miserable

as I was, the inspiration was sufficient to quell my wretchedness

temporarily." Another entry, that for December 2, 1834, is quoted in

abbreviated and somewhat garbled form by R. Glynn Grylls in _Mary

Shelley_ (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 194, and

reprinted by Professor Jones (_Journal_, p. 203). The full passage

follows: "Little harm has my imagination done to me & how much

good!--My poor heart pierced through & through has found balm from

it--it has been the aegis to my sensibility--Sometimes there have been

periods when Misery has pushed it aside--& those indeed were periods I

shudder to remember--but the fairy only stept aside, she watched her

time--& at the first opportunity her ... beaming face peeped in, & the

weight of deadly woe was lightened."

[91] An obvious reference to _Frankenstein_.

[92] With the words of Fantasia (and those of Diotima), cf. the

association of wisdom and virtue in Plato's _Phaedo_, the myth of Er

in the _Republic_, and the doctrine of love and beauty in the

_Symposium_.

[93] See Plato's _Symposium_. According to Mary's note in her edition

of Shelley's _Essays, Letters from Abroad, etc_. (1840), Shelley

planned to use the name for the instructress of the Stranger in his

unfinished prose tale, _The Coliseum_, which was written before

_Mathilda_, in the winter of 1818-1819. Probably at this same time

Mary was writing an unfinished (and unpublished) tale about Valerius,

an ancient Roman brought back to life in modern Rome. Valerius, like

Shelley's Stranger, was instructed by a woman whom he met in the

Coliseum. Mary's story is indebted to Shelley's in other ways as well.

[94] Mathilda.

[95] I cannot find a prototype for this young man, though in some ways

he resembles Shelley.

[96] Following this paragraph is an incomplete one which is scored out

in the MS. The comment on the intricacy of modern life is interesting.

Mary wrote: "The world you have just quitted she said is one of doubt

& perplexity often of pain & misery--The modes of suffering seem to

me to be much multiplied there since I made one of the throng &

modern feelings seem to have acquired an intracacy then unknown but

now the veil is torn aside--the events that you felt deeply on earth

have passed away & you see them in their nakedness all but your

knowledge & affections have passed away as a dream you now wonder at

the effect trifles had on you and that the events of so passing a

scene should have interested you so deeply--You complain, my friends

of the"

[97] The word is blotted and virtually illegible.

[98] With Diotima's conclusion here cf. her words in the _Symposium_:

"When any one ascending from a correct system of Love, begins to

contemplate this supreme beauty, he already touches the consummation

of his labour. For such as discipline themselves upon this system, or

are conducted by another beginning to ascend through these transitory

objects which are beautiful, towards that which is beauty itself,

proceeding as on steps from the love of one form to that of two, and

from that of two, to that of all forms which are beautiful; and from

beautiful forms to beautiful habits and institutions, and from

institutions to beautiful doctrines; until, from the meditation of

many doctrines, they arrive at that which is nothing else than the

doctrine of the supreme beauty itself, in the knowledge and

contemplation of which at length they repose." (Shelley's translation)

Love, beauty, and self-knowledge are keywords not only in Plato but in

Shelley's thought and poetry, and he was much concerned with the

problem of the presence of good and evil. Some of these themes are

discussed by Woodville in _Mathilda_. The repetition may have been one

reason why Mary discarded the framework.

[99] Mathilda did have such a friend, but, as she admits, she profited

little from his teachings.

[100] In _F of F--B_ there is another, longer version (three and a

half pages) of this incident, scored out, recounting the author's

return to the Elysian gardens, Diotima's consolation of Mathilda, and

her request for Mathilda's story. After wandering through the alleys

and woods adjacent to the gardens, the author came upon Diotima seated

beside Mathilda. "It is true indeed she said our affections outlive

our earthly forms and I can well sympathize in your disappointment

that you do not find what you loved in the life now ended to welcome

you here[.] But one day you will all meet how soon entirely depends

upon yourself--It is by the acquirement of wisdom and the loss of the

selfishness that is now attached to the sole feeling that possesses

you that you will at last mingle in that universal world of which we

all now make a divided part." Diotima urges Mathilda to tell her

story, and she, hoping that by doing so she will break the bonds that

weigh heavily upon her, proceeds to "tell this history of strange

woe."

Literature Network » Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley » Mathilda » The Fields of Fancy

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/godwin.history.html

WILLIAM GODWIN
"OF HISTORY AND ROMANCE"

Note: Godwin wrote this piece, according to a note in the manuscript, "while the Enquirer [1797] was in the press, under the impression that the favour of the public might have demanded another volume."
The study of history may well be ranked among those pursuits which are most worthy to be chosen by a rational being.
The study of history divides itself into two principal branches; the study of mankind in a mass, of the progress the fluctuations, the interests and the vices of society; and the study of the individual.
The history of a nation might be written in the first of these senses, entirely in terms of abstraction, and without descending so much as to name one of those individuals to which the nation is composed.
It is curious, and it is important, to trace the progress of mankind from the savage to the civilised state; to observe the points of similitude between the savages of America and the savages of ancient Italy or Greece; to investigate the rise of property moveable to immoveable; and thus to ascertain the causes that operate universally upon masses of men under given circumstances, without being turned aside in their operation by the varying character of individuals.
The fundamental article in this branch of historical investigation, is the progress and varieties of civilisation. But there are many subordinate channels into which it has formed itself. We may study the history of eloquence or the history of philosophy. We may apply ourselves to the consideration and the arts of life, and the arts of refinement and pleasure. There lie before us the history of wealth and the history of commerce. We may study the progress of revenue and the arts of taxation. We may follow the varieties of climates, and trace their effects on the human body and the human mind. Nay, we may descend still lower; we may have our attention engrossed by the succession of archons [1] and the adjustment of olympiads [2]; or may apply ourselves entirely to the examination of medals and coins.
There are those who conceive that history, in one or all the kinds here enumerated, is the only species of history deserving a serious attention. They disdain the records of individuals. To interest our passions, or employ our thoughts about personal events, be they of patriots, of authors, of heroes or kinds, they regard as a symptom of effeminacy. Their mighty minds cannot descend to be busied about anything less than the condition of nations, and the collation and comparison of successive ages. Whatever would disturb by exciting our feelings the torpid tranquility of the soul, they have in unspeakable abhorrence.
It is to be feared that one of the causes that have dictated the panegyric which has so often been pronounced upon this series of history, is its dry and repulsive nature. Men who by persevering exertions have conquered this subject in defiance of innumerable obstacles, will almost always be able to ascribe to it a disproportionate value. Men who have not done this, often imagine they shall acquire at a cheap rate among the ignorant the reputation of profound, by praising, in the style of an adept, that which few men venture so much as to approach. Difficulty has a tendency to magnify to almost all eyes the excellence of that which only through difficulty can be attained.
The mind of man does not love abstractions. Its genuine and native taste, as it discovers itself in children and uneducated persons, rests entirely in individualities. It is only by perseverance and custom that we are brought to have a relish for philosophy, mathematical, natural or moral. There was a time when the man, now most eagerly attached to them, shrunk with terror from their thorny path.
But the abstractions of philosophy, when we are grown familiar with them, often present to our minds a simplicity and precision, that may well supply the place of entire individuality. The abstractions of history are more cumbrous and unwieldy. In their own nature perhaps they are capable of simplicity. But this species is yet in its infancy. He who would study the history of nations abstracted from individuals whose passions and peculiarities are interesting to our minds, will find it a dry and frigid science. It will supply him with no clear ideas. The mass, as fast as he endeavours to cement and unite it, crumbles from his grasp, like a lump of sand. Those who study revenue or almost any other of the complex subjects above enumerated are ordinarily found, with immense pains to have compiled a species of knowledge which is no sooner accumulated than it perishes, and rather to have confounded themselves with a labyrinth of particulars, than to have risen to the dignity of principles.
Let us proceed to the consideration of the second great branch of the study of society. In doing so we shall be insensibly led to assign to the first branch its proper rank.
The study of individual men can never fail to be an object of the highest importance. It is only by comparison that we come to know any thing of mind or ourselves. We go forth into the world; we see what man is; we enquire what he was; and when we return home to engage in the solemn act of self-investigation, our most useful employment is to produce the materials we have collected abroad, and, by a sort of magnetism, cause those particulars to start our to view in ourselves, which might otherwise have laid for ever undetected.
But the study of individual history has a higher use than merely as it conduces to the elucidation of science. It is the most fruitful source of activity and motive. If a man were condemned to perfect solitude, he would probably sink into the deepest and most invariable lethargy of soul. If he only associate, as most individuals are destined to do, with ordinary men, he will be in danger of becoming such as they are.  It is the contemplation of illustrious men, such as we find scattered through the long succession of ages, that kindles into flame the hidden fire within us. The excellence indeed of sages, of patriots and poets, as we find it exhibited at the end of their maturity, is too apt to overwhelm and discourage us with its lustre. But history takes away the cause of our depression. It enables us to view minutely and in detail what to the uninstructed eye was too powerful to be gazed at; and, by tracing the progress of the virtuous and the wise from its first dawn to its meridian lustre, shows us that they were composed of materials merely human. It was the sight of the trophies of Mithrades [3], that recurred to break the infant slumbers of his more illustrious successor. While we admire the poet and the hero, and sympathize with his generous ambition or his ardent expressions, we insensibly imbibe the same spirit, and burn with kindred fires.
But let us suppose that the genuine purpose of history, was to enable us to understand the machine of society, and to direct it to its best purposes. Even here individual history will perhaps be found in point of importance to take the lead of general. General history will furnish us with precedents in abundance, will show us how that which happened in one country has been repeated in another, and may perhaps even instruct us how that which has occurred in the annals of mankind, may under similar circumstances be produced again. But, if the energy of our minds should lead us to aspire to something more animated and noble than dull repetition, if we love the happiness of mankind enough to feel ourselves impelled to explore new and untrodden paths, we must then not rest contented with considering society in a mass, but must analyze the materials from which it is composed. It will be necessary for us to scrutinize the nature of man, before we can pronounce what it is of which social man is capable. Laying aside the generalities of historical abstraction, we must mark the operation of human passions; must observe the empire of motives whether grovelling or elevated; and must note the influence that one human being exercises over another, and the ascendancy of the daring and the wise over the vulgar multitude. It is thus, and thus only, that we shall be enabled to add, to the knowledge of the past, a sagacity that can penetrate into the depths of futurity. We shall not only understand those events as they arise which are no better than old incidents under new names, but shall judge truly of such conjunctures and combinations, their sources and effects, as, thought they have never yet occurred, are within the capacities of our nature. He that would prove the liberal and spirited benefactor of his species, must connect the two branches of history together, and regard the knowledge of the individual, as that which can alone give energy and utility to the records of our social existence.
From these considerations one inference may be deduced, which constitutes perhaps the most important rule that can be laid down respecting the study of history. This is, the wisdom of studying the detail, and not in abridgement. The prolixity of dullness is indeed contemptible. To read a history which, expanding itself through several volumes, treats only of a short period, is true economy. To read historical abridgements, in which each point of the subject is touched upon only, and immediately dismissed, is a wanton prodigality of time worthy only of folly or of madness.
The figures which present themselves in such a history, are like the groups that we sometimes see placed in the distance of a landscape, that are just sufficiently marked to distinguish the man from the brute, or the male from the female, but are totally unsusceptible of discrimination of form or expression of sentiment. The men I would study upon the canvas of history, are men worth the becoming intimately acquainted with.
It is in history, as it is in life. Superficial acquaintance is nothing. A scene incessantly floating, cannot instruct us; it can scarcely become a source of amusement to a cultivated mind. I would stop the flying figures, that I may mark them more clearly. There must be an exchange of real sentiments, or an investigation of subtle peculiarities, before improvement can be the result. There is a magnetical virtue in man, but there must be friction and heat, before the virtue will operate.
Pretenders indeed to universal science, who examine nothing, but imagine they understand everything, are ready from the slightest glance to decipher the whole character. Not so the genuine scholar. His curiosity is never satiated. He is ever upon the watch for further and still further particulars. Trembling for his own fallibility and frailty, he employs every precaution to guard himself against them.
There are characters in history that may almost be said to be worth an eternal study. They are epitomes of the [?] of its best and most exalted features, purified from their grossness. I am not contented to observe such a man upon the public stage, I would follow him into his closet.[4] I would see the friend and the father of a family, as well as the patriot. I would read his works and his letters, if any remain to us. I would observe the turn of his thoughts and the character of his phraseology. I would study his public orations. I would collate his behaviour in prosperity with his behaviour in adversity. I should be glad to know the course of his studies, and the arrangement of his time. I should rejoice to have, or to be enabled to make, if that were possible, a journal of his ordinary and minutest actions. I believe I should be better employed in studying one man, than in perusing the abridgement of Universal History in sixty volumes. I would rather be acquainted with a few trivial particulars of the actions and disposition of Virgil and Horace, than with the lives of many men, and the history of many nations.
This leads us to a second rule respecting the study of history. Those historians alone are worthy of attention and persevering study that treat the development of great genius, or the exhibition of bold and masculine virtues. Modern history indeed we ought to peruse, because all they we wish must be connected with all that we are, and because it is incumbent upon us to explore the means by which the latter may be made, as it were, to slide into the former. But modern history, for the most part, is not to be perused for its own sake.
The ancients were giants, but we, their degenerate successors, are pygmies. There was something in the nature of the Greek and Roman republics that expanded and fired the soul. He that sees not this, if he have had an adequate opportunity to see it, must be destitute of some of the first principles of discrimination. He that feels not the comparative magnitude of their views, must be himself the partaker of a slow-working and unelevated soul.
To convince us of this, we need do no more than look into the biographical collection of Plutarch.[5] Plutarch is neither lucid in his arrangement, eloquent in his manner, nor powerful in his conceptions. The effect he produces upon us, is the effect of his subject, and is scarcely in any respect aided by the skill of the writer.
From Plutarch let us turn to the collections in English, French and Italian, relative to the persons who in modern times have reflected most honour upon any of these nations. We sometimes no doubt admire, occasionally we sympathise. But the greatest personages there upon record, appear in the comparison encumbered with their rank. Their march is slow, weighed down as they are on every side with prejudices and precedents. They are disciplines to dull monotony. They are cast together in one characteristic mould. There is something in the nature of modern governments and institutions that seems to blight in the bud every grander and more ample development of the soul. When we attempt to display the agility or the grace, the capacity for which inheres in our nature, we resemble a vaulter or figurante that should undertake to dance in fetters.
The ancients on the other hand are men of a free and undaunted spirit. There is a conscious dignity in their mien that impresses us with awe. Whatever they undertake they undertake with a full and undivided soul. They proceed to their object with an unerring aim, and do not lose themselves in dark, inexplicable windings. He that shall study their history with an unbiassed spirit, will almost imagine that he is reading of a different species. He will not be blind to their mistakes, their abuses and their crimes, but he will confess that their minds are of a more decisive character, and their virtues more attractive and sublime.
We are sometimes told that the remoteness of the object in this case misleads us, and that we admire the ancients for this reason merely, because they are ancients. But this solution will not account for the phenomenon. Read on the one hand Thucydides and Livy,[6] and on the other Hume and Voltaire and Robertson.[7] When we admire the personages of the former, we simply enter into the feelings with which these authors recorded them. The latter neither experience such emotions nor excite them. The ancients were not ancients to their contemporaries,

Les anciens etaient contemporains de leurs historiens, et nous ont pourtant appris a les admires. Assurement si la posterite jamais admire les notres, elle ne l'ausa pas appris de nous.

Rousseau: Nouvelle Heloise, Lettre XII[The ancients were contemporary with their historians, but they have taught us to admire them. Assuredly, if posterity should admire our own men, it will do so not because of us]

No: the difference is intrinsic, and the emotions will be generated as long as history endures.
What sort of an object is the history of England? Till the extinction of the wars of York and Lancaster, it is one scene of barbarism and cruelty. Superstition rides triumphant upon the subject neck of princes and of people, intestine war of noble with noble, or of one pretender to the crown against another, is almost incessant. The gallant champion is no sooner ousted, than he is led without form to the scaffold, or massacred in cold blood upon the field. In all these mighty struggles, scarcely a trace is to be found of a sense of the rights of men. They are combinations among the oppressors against him that would usurp their tyranny, or they are the result of an infatuated predilection for one despotic monster in preference to another. The period of the Tudors is a period of base and universal slavery. The reign of Elizabeth is splendid, but its far-famed worthies are in reality supple and servile courtiers, treacherous, undermining and unprincipled. The period of the Stuarts is the only portion of our history interesting to the heart of man. Yet its noblest virtues are obscured by the vile jargon of fanaticism and hypocrisy. From the moment that the grant contest excited under the Stuarts was quieted by the Revolution,[8] our history assumes its most insipid and insufferable form. It is the history of negotiations and tricks, it is the history of revenues and debts, it is the history of corruption and political profligacy, but it is not the history of genuine independent man.
Some persons, endowed with too much discernment and taste not to perceive the extreme disparity that subsists between the character of ancient and modern times, have observed that ancient history carries no other impression to their minds than that of exaggeration and fable.
It is not necessary here to enter into a detail of the evidence upon which our belief of ancient history is founded. Let us take it for granted that it is a fable. Are all fables unworthy of regard? Ancient history, says Rousseau, is a tissue of such fables, as have a moral perfectly adapted to the human heart. I ask not, as a principal point, whether it be true or false? My first enquiry is, "Can I derive instruction from it? Is it a genuine praxis upon the nature of man? Is it pregnant with the most generous motives and examples? If so, I had rather be profoundly versed in this fable, than in all the genuine histories that ever existed."
It must be admitted indeed that all history bears too near a resemblance to fable. Nothing is more uncertain, more contradictory, more unsatisfactory than the evidence of facts. If this be the case in courts of justice, where truth is sometimes sifted with tenacious perseverance, how much more will it hold true of the historian? He can administer no oath, he cannot issue his precept, and summon his witnesses from distant provinces, he cannot arraign his personages and compel them to put in their answer. He must take what they choose to tell, the broken fragments, and the scattered ruins of evidence.
That history which comes nearest to truth, is the mere chronicle of facts, places and dates. But this is in reality no history. He that knows only what day the Bastille was taken and on what spot Louis XVI perished, knows nothing. He professes the mere skeleton of history. The muscles, the articulations, every thing in which the life emphatically resides, is absent.
Read Sallust.[9] To every action he assigns a motive. Rarely an uncertainty diversifies his page. He describes his characters with preciseness and decision. He seems to enter into the hearts of his personages, and unfolds their secret thought. Considered as fable, nothing can be more perfect. But neither is this history.
There is but one further mode of writing history, and this is the mode principally prevalent in modern times. In this mode, the narrative is sunk in the critic. The main body of the composition consists of a logical deduction and calculation of probabilities. This species of writing may be of use as a whetstone upon which to sharpen our faculty of discrimination, but it answers none of the legitimate purposes of history.
From these considerations it follows that the noblest and most excellent species of history, may be decided to be a composition in which, with a scanty substratum of facts and dates, the writer interweaves a number of happy, ingenious and instructive inventions, blending them into one continuous and indiscernible mass. It sufficiently corresponds with the denomination, under which Abbe Prevost [10] acquired considerable applause, of historical romance. Abbe Prevost differs from Sallust, inasmuch as he made freer use of what may be styled, the licentia historica.
If then history be little better than romance under a graver name, it may not be foreign to the subject here treated, to enquire into the credit due to that species of literature, which bears the express stamp of invention, and calls itself romance or novel.
This sort of writing has been exposed to more obloquy and censure than any other.
The principal cause of this obloquy is sufficiently humorous and singular.
Novels, as an object of trade among booksellers, are of a peculiar cast. There are few by which immense sums of money can be expected to be gained. There is scarcely one by which some money is not gained. A class of readers, consisting of women and boys, and which is considerably numerous, requires a continual supply of books of this sort. The circulating libraries therefore must be furnished; while, in consequence of the discredit which has fallen upon romance, such works are rarely found to obtain a place in the collection of the gentleman or the scholar. An ingenious bookseller of the metropolis, speculating upon this circumstance, was accustomed to paste an advertisement in his window, to attract the eye of the curious passenger, and to fire his ambition, by informing him of a "want of novels for the ensuing season".
The critic and the moralist, in their estimate of romances, have borrowed the principle that regulates the speculations of trade. They have weighed novels by the great and taken into their view the whole scum and surcharge of the press. But surely this is not the way in which literature would teach us to consider the subject.
When we speak of poetry, we do not fear to commend this species of composition, regardless of the miserable trash that from month to month finds its way from the press under the appellation of poetry. The like may be said of history, or of books of philosophy, natural and intellectual. There is no species of literature that would stand this ordeal.
If I would estimate truly any head of composition, nothing can be more unreasonable, than for me to take into account every pretender to literature that has started in it. In poetry I do not consider those persons who merely know how to count their syllables and tag a rhyme; still less those who print their effusion in the form of verse without being adequate to either of these. I recollect those authors only who are endowed with some of the essentials of poetry, with its imagery, its enthusiasm, or its empire over the soul of man. Just so in the cause before us, I should consider only those persons who had really written romance, not those who had vainly attempted it.
Romance, then, strictly considered, may be pronounced to be one of the species of history. The difference between romance and what ordinarily bears the denomination history, is this. The historian is confined to individual incident and individual man, and must hang upon that his invention or conjecture as he can. The writer collects his materials from all sources, experience, report, and the records of human affairs; then generalises them; and finally selects, from their elements and the various combinations they afford, those instances which he is best qualified to portray, and which he judges most calculated to impress the hear and improve the faculties of his reader. In this point of view we should be apt to pronounce that romance was a bolder species of composition than history.
It has been affirmed by the critics that the species of composition which Abbe Prevost and others have attempted, and according to which, upon a slight substratum of fact, all the license of romantic invention is to be engrafted, is contrary to the principles of a just taste. History is by this means debauched and corrupted. Real characters are wantonly misrepresented. The reader, who has been interested by a romance of this sort, scarcely knows how to dismiss it from his mind when he comes to consider the genuine annals of the period of which it relates. The reality and the fiction, like two substances of disagreeing natures, will never adequately blend with each other. The invention of the writer is much too wanton not to discolour and confound the facts with which he is concerned; while on the other hand, his imagination is fettered and checked at every turn by facts that will not wholly accommodate themselves to the colour of his piece, or the moral he would adduce from it."
These observations, which have been directed against the production of historical romance, will be found not wholly inapplicable to those which assume the graver and more authentic name of history. The reader will be miserably deluded if, while he reads history, he suffers himself to imagine that he is reading facts. Profound scholars are so well aware of this, that, when they would study the history of any country, they pass over the historians that have adorned and decorated the facts, and proceed at once to the naked and scattered materials, out of which the historian constructed his work. This they do, that they may investigate the story for themselves; or, more accurately speaking, that each man, instead of resting in the inventions of another, may invest his history for himself, and possess his creed as he possesses his property, single and incommunicable.
Philosophers, we are told, have been accustomed by old prescription to blunder in the dark; but there is perhaps no darkness, if we consider the case maturely, so complete as that of the historian. It is a trite observation, to say that the true history of a public transaction is never known till many years after the event. The places, the dates, those things which immediately meet the eye of the spectator, are indeed as well known as they are ever likely to be. But the comments of the actors come out afterwards; to what are we the wiser? Whitlock and Clarendon,[11] who lived upon the spot, differ as much in their view of the transactions, as Hume and the whig historians have since done. Yet all are probably honest. If you be a superficial thinker, you will take up with one or another of their representations, as best suits your prejudices. But, if you are a profound one, you will see so many incongruities and absurdities in all, as deeply to impress you with the scepticism of history.
The man of taste and discrimination, who has properly weighed these causes, will be apt to exclaim, "Dismiss me from the falsehood and impossibility of history, and deliver me over to the reality of romance."
The conjectures of the historian must be built upon a knowledge of the characters of his personages. But we never know any man's character. My most intimate and sagacious friend continually misapprehends my motives. He is in most cases a little worse judge of them than myself and I am perpetually mistaken. The materials are abundant for the history of Alexander, Caesar, Cicero and Queen Elizabeth. Yet how widely do the best informed persons differ respecting them? Perhaps by all their character is misrepresented. The conjectures therefore respecting their motives in each particular transaction must be eternally fallacious. The writer of romance stands in this respect upon higher ground. He must be permitted, we should naturally suppose, to understand the character which is the creature of his own fancy.
The writer of romance is to be considered as the writer of real history; while he who was formerly called the historian, must be contented to step down into the place of his rival, with this disadvantage, that he is a romance writer, without the arduous, the enthusiastic and the sublime licence of imagination, that belong to that species of composition. True history consists in a delineation of consistent, human character, in a display of the manner in which such a character acts under successive circumstances, in showing how character increases and assimilates new substances to its own, and how it decays, together with the catastrophe into which by its own gravity it naturally declines.
There is however, after all, a deduction to be made from this eulogium of the romance writer. To write romance is a task too great for the powers of man, and under which he must be expected to totter. No man can hold the rod so even, but that it will tremble and vary from its course. To sketch a few bold outlines of character is no desperate undertaking; but to tell precisely how such a person would act in a given situation, requires a sagacity scarcely less than divine. We never conceive a situation, or those minute shades in a character that would modify its conduct. Naturalists tell us that a single grain of sand more or less on the surface of the earth, would have altered its motion, and, in the process of ages, have diversified its events. We have no reason to suppose in this respect, that what is true in matter, it false in morals.
Here then the historian in some degree, though imperfectly, seems to recover his advantage upon the writer of romance. He indeed does not understand the character he exhibits, but the events are taken out of his hands and determined by the system of the universe, and therefore, as far as his information extends, must be true. The romance writer, on the other hand, is continually straining at a foresight to which his faculties are incompetent, and continually fails. This is ludicrously illustrated in those few romances which attempt to exhibit the fictitious history of nations. That principle only which holds the planets in their course, is competent to produce that majestic series of events which characterises flux, and successive multitudes.
The result of the whole, is that the sciences and the arts of man are alike imperfect, and almost infantine. He that will not examine the collections and the efforts of man, till absurdity and folly are extirpated among them, must be contented to remain in ignorance, and wait for the state, where he expects that faith will give place to sight, and conjecture be swallowed up in knowledge.

---

NOTES

[1] Archon: The Gnostic religion held that the cosmos were created by a hierarchy of archons, or angelic powers subordinate to the Deity. The archons were also the nine chief magistrates of ancient Athens. [Back to text]
[2] Olympiad: The period of four years measured between one Olympic Games and the next, by which the ancient Greeks computed time, taking 776 BC as the first year of the first olympiad. (OED) [Back to text]
[3] Mithrades V, murdered in 123 BC and succeeded by his eleven-year-old son Mithrades VI, later known as Mithrades "the Great" for his military conquests. [Back to text]
[4] Joanna Baillie makes a very similar statement in the "Introductory Discourse" of her Series of Plays...on the Passions (1798): ""Let us understand, from observation or report, that any person harbours in his breast, concealed from the world's eye, some powerful rankling passion of what kind soever it may be, we will observe every word, every motion, every look, even the distant gait of such a man, with a constancy and attention bestowed upon no other. Nay, should we meet him unexpectedly on our way, a feeling will pass across our minds as though we found ourselves in the neighborhood of some secret and fearful thing. If invisible, would we not follow him into his lonely haunts, into his closet, into the midnight silence of his chamber?" (11) [Back to text]
[5] Plutarch (46-120 AD): Biographer and philosopher, most famously author of Parallel Lives. [Back to text]
[6] Thucydides (460-395 BC): Greek historian, most famously author of History of the Peloponnesian War. Livy (59 BC - AD 17): Roman historian noted for his history of Rome. [Back to text]
[7] David Hume (1711-76): Scottish philosopher and historian, noted for A Treatise on Human Nature and his History of England, as well as other books and essays. Voltaire (1694-1778): French philosopher of the Enlightenment, author of Lettres Philosophiques and Candide. William Robertson: Scottish historian, friend of Hume, Adam Smith, and prominent member of Edinburgh group of thinkers usually gathered under the term "the Scottish Enlightenment." [Back to text]
[8] The so-called "Glorious" or "Bloodless" Revolution of 1688, which set up a balance of power between the Crown and Parliament, effectively setting up an oligarchy. [Back to text]
[9] Sallust (86-34 BC): Roman historian and statesman, author of histories of the Catiline conspiracy and the Jugurtha War. [Back to text]
[10] Abbe Prevost (1697-1763): French novelist most famous for writing historical romances. [Back to text]
[11] Bulstrode Whitelocke (1605-75): author of Memorials of the English Affairs from the Beginning of the Reign of Charles I to the Happy Restoration of Charles II (1682). Clarendon (Edward Hyde, 1609-74): 1st Earl of Clarendon, chief advisor to Charles II and author of True Historical Narrative of the Rebellion and Civil Wars of England (1702-4). [Back to text]