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    NoansftfrBER 25, 1854.] THE LKADBR. M23 ...

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    Selections Grave And Gay. Mi?C$Tfonies* ...

    tbjsiegjdax'dramft , sketched for his own death—funeral—succession and administra-r tt © a tohi * : effects . But . another thing which seems to me still more funny about this affair is ,, that , if these Friezland hounds had been " game , " we should have n * Cartesian philosophy ; and haw v . e could have done -without thai , considering the w . orld of bo 0 k 9 . it has produced , I leave to any respectable tyunk-maker to declare . However , to go on : spite of his enormous funk , Des Cartes showed fight , and b j that means awed , these Anti-Cartesian rascals . . ... Possibly , gentlemen , you may fancy that , on the model of Cajsar' 3 address to his poor ferryman— * ' Ccesarem vehis etjbrtunas ejus "—M . Des Cartes needed only to have said , " ^ Dogs , you cannot cut my throat , for you carry Des Cartes and his philosophy , " and might safely have defied them to do their worst . A German emperor had the same notion , when , being cautioned to keep out of the way of a cannonading , he replied , " Tut ! man . Did you ever hear of a cannon-ball that killed an emperor ?" As to an emperoi . Ijcann . ot say , but a-, less tiling has- sufficed to snaash a philosopherand . the next : great philosopher of Europe undoubtedly was murdered . This was Sp & ttosak .

    I . kmovr very well the common opinion about him is , that ha died in his , bed . Peihapsjhe did , but he waa murdered for all thai ; and this I shall prove by a hook published at Brussels in the year 1731 , entitled " La Vie de Spinosa , par M . Jean Colerus , " with many additions , from ; a HSt life , by one of" his frieads . Spinosa die ! Ott the 21 st ; Eebruary , 1677 , being then little more than forty-four years old . This , ofritself , looks suspicious ; and fij . Jean admits , that a certain expression in- the MS . life , of Mm . would warrant the conclusion , ' « que sa morb n'a pas e ' te' tout-a-rfait naiurelle . " Living in a damp , country , and a : sailor ' s country , like Holland , he may b & thought to have , indulged a good deal in grog , especially in punch , which was then newly discovered . Undoubtedly he might have done so ; tut the fact is , that he did not ; M , Jean calls him " extremement sobre en son boixe et en sou manger , " And though some wild stories were afloat about his using ths juice of rnandraffOTa ( p . 14 ()') of

    ^ md opi um ( p . 144 ) , yet neither these articles is found in his . drug-gist ' s , bill . Living , therefore , with such sobriety , how was it possible that he should die a natural death at forty-four ? ' Hear his biographer ' s account : —" Sunday morning , the 21 st of ^ February , before it was ¦ ¦ church time , Spinosa came down stairs , and conversed with the master and mistress of the house . " At this time > therefore , perhaps ten o ' clock en Sunday morning , you see that Spinosa was alive , and pretty well . But it seems " lie had summoned from . Amsterdam a certain , physician , whom , " says the biographer , "I . shall not otherwise- point out to notice than by these two letters , L . M , " This Ik SJ . had directed the , people of the house to purchase *' an anei & nt cock , " and to iiayehim boiled , forthwith , in order that Spinosa might , take some broth about noon ; which in fact he did ; and ate some of the old cock with a good appetite after the landlord and ; hia wife had returned from church . ....

    After masticating that " ancient cock , " which I take to mean a cock of the precedingcentury , in what condition could the poor invalid find himself for a stand-up fight with L . M . ? But who was L . M . ? It surely never could be Lindley Murray , for I saw him at "York in 1825 ; and , besides , I do not think he •\ vould do such a thing—at least , not to a brother grammarian-: for you know , gentlemen , that Spinosa wrote a v « py respectable Hebrew grammar . Hobfees—but why , or on what principle , I never could understand— -was notmnr--dQTed * This was a capital oversight of the professional men in the seventeenth ceatury ; because in eyery light he-was a . fine subject far murder , except , indeed , that he wras lean and skinny ; foe I can prove that he had , money , and ( what is very funny ) liev had , no right to make the least resistance ; since , according to Inmself , irresistible power creates the very highest species of- right ,, so that it is rebellion of the blackest d ye to refuse to be murdered , when a competent force appears to murder you . However , gentlemen , though he was not murdered , I am happy to assure you that ( by his ¦ own . account ) he was three times very near being murdered , which is consolatory .

    The first time was in the spring of 1640 , when ho pretends to have circulated a little MS . on the king ' s behalf against the Parliament ; he never could produce this MS ., by-the-by ; but he says , that , " Had not His Majesty dissolved the Parliament" ( in May ) , " it had brought him into danger o £ his life . " Dissolving the Parliament , however ) was of no use j fop in November of the same year the Long Parliament assembled , and Hobbes , a aacond tim « fearing he should be murdered , ran away to France . This looks like the madness of John Deania , who thought that Louis XIV . would never niake peace with Queen Anne , unless he ( Dennis , to wit ) were given up to French , vengeance ; and actually ran away from the sea-coast under that belief . In France , Hobbes managed to take care of his throat pretty well for ten years ; but at the end of that time , by way of paying court to Cromwell , he published his " Leviathan . " The old coward began to " funk" horribly for the third time 5 he fancied the swords of the cavaliers were constantly at his throat , recollecting how they liad served the Parliament ambassadors at the Hague and Madrid . " Turn , " says he , in lus dog-Latin life of himself ,

    " 'lum venit in men torn iniln Dorislaus ot Aschara ; Tanquam prosoripto terror uui < juo aderat , " A » d accordingly he ran home to England . Now , certainly , it is very true that a man deserved a cudgelling for writing " Leviathan ; " and two or three cudgolliuga for writing a pentameter ending so viUanously as " terror ubiquo aderat ! " But no man ever thought him -worthy of anything beyond cudgelling . Anil , in fact , the whole story is a bounce of his own . For , in a most abusive letter which ho wrote ¦ " tp a learned person" ( meaning Wallia the mathematician ) , he gives quite another account of the mattor , and says ( p . 8 ) , be ran homo "because he would mot trust his safoty withtho French clorgy ; " insinuating that ho was likely to bo murdered for his religion , which would have boen a high joko indeed- ' -Tom ' o being- brought to the stake- for religion . Bounce or not bounce , however , cortaiut it is that Hobbqs , to the end of his life , feared , that somebody would murder him

    jyialebranohe , it will give you pleasure to hear , was murdered . T . I 10 man who murdorcd him ia well known : it was , Bishop Berkeley . The story is familiar , though hitherto not put in a proper light . Uarkoloy , when a young man , went to Paris , and . called . oq P 6 ro Malobranoho . Ho found him in his cell cooking . Cooks liavo over been a yorewa irritafrilu ; authors nti . ll more so : Mulobruncho waa both ; a dispute aroao , the old father , wavin already , became warmer ; culinary and motaphyitical irritations united to dorango his liver : ho took to ) u « be < l , and died . Such ia the common version of the story : " So the whole earof Denmark is abuHcd . " The fact in , tb . at the matter was hushed up , out of consideration for ttcrkcloy , - \ vho ( ab Popo justly obaevvoa ) hud " every virtuo under hunvou : " olso it was well known that JJopkoloy , fooling- lumaolf nettled by the waspishno .-tB ol tho old Frouchinau , aquurcd at hiiW , 5 a turn-iw -Wiw tlve conaoquonco : Mutobratushu wiw floored in the firBt round ; ilw oonooit wan w . holly tnkon out of him ; and lu » would perhaps have ( jlvun in ; but BarJcxsloy ' e bluod was now up , uuU . ho iiittiated 011 tho old FroHoluuuH ' w ralructing \\\ n doctrino of Occasional Oiiueoa . Tho vanity of tho man ivas too grout for this ; und ho full t \ aacriucQ . to tho impotuoHity of Irish youth , combined with hi , i own ubaurd obBtinncy .

    Loibiuts , being ovory way Huporior to Malubranulio , ono might , h fortiori , have counted on Ma being murUorod ; which , however , wuh not tho cuho . 1 boliovo ho waa uottlud at thia neglect , anil folt himoclf inaulted by tho security iu which ho passed

    his days . In ho other way can I . explain his conducts at the latter end of his life , whea ; he chose to grow very avaricious , and to hoard up large sums of gold , which he kept ; in . his own house . This was at Vienna , where he died ; and letters axe still in ex- » . isieace , describing ; the inun « asurable anxiety which he entertained for hie throat * Still Ms ambition ^ Sox being attempted at least , was so > great , that he-would not forego , the danger . A , late English pedagogue , of Birmingham manufacture—viz ., Dr . Parr —took a more selfish course under the same circumstance . He had amassed a con- * , siderable quantity of gold and silver plate , which was-for some time deposited inhis-, bedroom at his parsonage louse , Hatton . But growing every- day more afraid ofc being murdered , which he knew that he could not stand ( and to wMch , indeed , hev never bad the slightest pretensions ) , he transferred the whole to the Hatton blacksmith ; conceiving , no doubt , that the murder of a blacksmith -would fall mom lightly on the salus reipublicw , than that of a pedagogue . But I have heard this greatly disputed ; and it seems now generally agreed , that one good ., horse-shoe ia ' woufch about two aad a quarter Spjtal sermons .

    As Leibnitz , though not nwrdered , maybe said to have died , partly of the fear that he should be murdered , and partly of vexation that he was not , Ksaht , on the other : handr ^ who manifested no ajubition in that way—had a narrower eseape from ; a muiv " derer than any man we read of , except Des Cartes . So abasurdly doe & fortune throw about her favours ! The cage is told , I think , in an anonymous life of this very great man- For- health ' s sake , Kant imposed upon himself , at one time , a walk of sist miles every day along a Ingh-roaii . This fact beoorning known to a man who had hia > private reasons for conuniiting murder , at the third milestone from Konigsberg hft : waited foPrhis " intended , ' * vrbo came up to time as duly as a . mail coach . But for , apt accident , Kja » t was . a dead man . This accident lay in the scrupulous * ., or what Mra ,. Quickly would have called the peevish , morality of the murderer . ; Att : old professor , he fancied , might be laden -with sins . Not so a young child . On this * consideration , he turned aw / ay from Kant at the critical moment , aa < jl soon after murdered a child of five years old . Such is the German account of the ; matter ; but my opinion iijj that the murderer .-was an . amateur , who felt how little would be gained ta the cause-of good taste by murdering an old ^ arid , and adust metaphysician ; thewr was n . 0 rooin for display , as-the man could not possibly look more like a- mummy when dead , than he , had doswi alive .

    In tlie following he is descrLbidg an incident of the road in tBe Mail-coaclt era . He is the isolitary passenger ; it is about five in a misty morning ; - the coachman is asleep ; the guard ditto ; both beyond Eispower ofarousing in sufficient time to avert the danger he foresees ; the horses , are at a ten- ' mile-an-hour gallop ; and he has been taking laudanum . Thus he paints the picture in a laudauvuny distemper :- — Before us , lay ail avehixe , straight as an arrow , six hundred yards , perhaps , iu length ; and the umbrageous trees , which rose in a regular line from either side ,, meeting high overhead , gav : e to it the character of a cathedral aisle . These trees leuts a deeper solemnity to the early light ; but there was still light enough to perceive , ajfc , the further end . of this Gothic aisle , a frail reedy gig , in . which were , seated a-young man , and by his side a young lady . Ah , young sir ! what are you-about ? If it ia ; requisite that you should whisper your communications to this young lady—though at road

    really I see nobody ^ an hour ^ and on a so sohtary , likely to overhear ¦ your-ia It therefore requisite that you should carry your lips forward to hers ? The little car . " riage is creeping on-at one mile an hour ; and . the parties within , it being -thus tenderly engaged , are naturally bending down their heads . Between them and . eternity ,, to all human calculation , there is but a minute and a half . Oh heavens ! what ia . ifc that I shall do ? Speaking or acting , what help can I offer ? Strange it is , and to a ; mere auditor of the tale might seem laughable , that I should need a suggestion from * the Iliad" to prompt the sole resource that remained . Yet so it was . Suddenly I remembered the shout of Achilles , and its effect . But could I pretend to shout like the son of Peleus , aided by Pallas ? No : but then I needed not the shout that should alarm all Asia militant ; such a shout would suffice as might carry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people , and one gig-horse . I shouted—and the young man heard me n » t . A . second tune I shouted—and now he heard me , for now he raised his head .

    Here , then , all had been done that , by me , could be done : more on my part was not possible . Mine had been the first step ; the second was for the young man ; the third was for God . If , said I , thia stranger is a brave man , and if , indeed , he loves tho , young girl at his side—or , loving her not , if he feels the obligation , pressing upon , every man worthy to be called a man , ' of doing his utmost for a -woman confided to his protection—he will , at least , make some effort to save her . If Mat-fails , he will not perish the more , or by a death more cruel , for having made it ; and ho will die aat a bravo man should , with his face to the danger , and with his arm about the woman that he sought- in vain to save . But , if he makes no effort , shrinking , without a struggle , from his duty , h « himself will not the less certainly perish for this baseness of poltroonery . II « , -will die ivo , less : and why not ? "Wherefore should we grieva that there is one craven loss in the world ? No ; let him perish , without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him 5 and , in that case , all our grief -will bo reserved for the fato of tho helpless girl who now , upon the least shadow of failure in him , must , by the fiercest of translations—must , without timo for a pruyor—mugt , within seventy seconds , stand beforo tho judgment-seat of God ,

    But craven he was not : Budden had boon the call upon him , and sudden was his answer to the call . He saw , ho heard , he comprehended , tho ruin that was coming down : already its gloomy shadow darkened above him ; and already he was measuring his strength to doal ivith it . Ah ! what a vulgar thing doos courage seem , when wo see nations , buying it and Helling it for a shilling a day : ah 1 -what a < aublimo tiling does courage seem , when sonic fearful BununouB on tho great deopa of lifts carries a man , as if running beforo a hurricane , up to tho giddy crest of aonw tumultuous crisis , froin . wihicb , lie two > courses , and a voice sn . y » to him audibly , " Ono wuy lies hope ; trtko the other , 11 ml mourn for over ! " How grand a triumph , if , even then , amidst the raving of all around him , and tho frowsy of tho danger , the man is able to confront his situation—ia nblo to retire for a moment into solitude with God , and to Book his counsel from him !

    J < or seven soconus , it might bo , ol 1113 seventy , tho stranger settled his countonanco steadfastly upon us , as if to nearch , and value ovory clement in the conflict Iwforo him . For five seconds more of his seventy ho sat immovably , liko ono tliiit immeil on Homo groat purpose . " Sox live more , jxirhapM , ho sat with oyeH upraimsd , like ono that prayed in sorrow " , under some extremity of doubt , for litfht that should tfuido him to tho batter choice . Tlum suddenly ho roso ; Ntood upright ; and by a powerful strain \\\} Q \\ tho reuw , ruining hin horao ' ti foro-fect from tho ground , ho & lewcu him round on ? the pivot of his hind-legs , ho u » to plant tho little equipage iu a position lumrly at right angloti to ours . Tliun fur Ixis condition - \ yna not finpruvud ; oxcopt »» a iirnt Htop had been taken towurdw tho possibility of uhoooiuI . Jf no nioro ivoro dono , nothing ; whs dono ; for tho little carriage alill ocuupiod tlio very contro of our puth , though in an ultorod diruction . Yot ovon ' now it may not Iki too lato : fifteen of tho aovonty seconds may still bo uHoxhaiwttid 5 and ono HlmltflHy bound may avail to clour tho ground . Hurry , thon , luirryl for Iho / lying momenta—thay hurry I Oh , hurTy . hurry , my bravo young muni for tho < : mol hoof » of our Iioruun—tkvy also hurry t Fast ftro tho Hying moments , faster aro thu hoofa ot uur horao » . liut foar jpot for him *

    Noansftfrber 25, 1854.] The Lkadbr. M23 ...

    NoansftfrBER 25 , 1854 . ] THE LKADBR . M 23 < MllM ^ ' *" BMBBI 1 ^ ateia > * IIIIK *** : ] l ! ' a' ™* l 'r < iaM : ^ l "' l ™ TBntM ^ IT ^^ B ^ rm ^ ir ^^ w ¦ MTr ^^ i-rirwi ^ mrr »^^ Mii »"' ' ip' ' " ' ~' " L ' ' ' ' ——^ "

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 25, 1854, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25111854/page/19/