The Works of Walter Bagehot; With Memoirs by R. H. Hutton Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ...advantages. Beranger gives the acceptors of that creed a commoner type. Out of nothing but the most ordinary advantages--the garret, the almost empty purse, the not over-attired yrisette--he has given them a model of the sparkling and quick existence for which their fancy is longing. You cannot imagine commoner materials. In another respect Horace and Beranger are remarkably contrasted: Beranger, skeptical and indifferent as he is, has a faith in and zeal for liberty. It seems odd that he should care for that sort of thing; but he does care for it. Horace probably had a little personal shame attaching to such ideas. No regimental officer of our own time can have "joined" in a state of more crass ignorance than did the stout little student from Athens in all probability join the army of Brutus; the legionaries must have taken the measure of him, as the sergeants of our living friends. Anyhow, he was not partial to such reflections: zeal for political institutions is quite as foreign to him as any other zeal. A certain hope in the future is characteristic of Beranger: --"Qui dficouvrit un nouveau monde? Un fou qu'on rnillait en tout lieu." Modern faith colors even by standing skepticism. Though probably with no very accurate ideas of the nature of liberty, Beranger believes that it is a great good, and that France will have it. The point in which Beranger most resembles Horace is that which is the most essential in the characters of them both, --their geniality. This is the very essence of the poems of society: it springs in the verses of amusement, it harmonizes with acquiescing sympathy the poems of indifference. And yet few qualities in writing are so rare. A certain malevolence enters into literary ink: the point of the pen pricks. Pope is the...