The morality of the Country Wife and the Old Bachelor is the morality, not, as Mr.Charles Lamb maintains, of an unreal world, but of a world which is a great deal too real.It is the morality, not of a chaotic people, but of low town-rakes, and of those ladies whom the newspapers call "dashing Cyprians."And the question is simply this, whether a man of genius who constantly and systematically endeavours to make this sort of character attractive, by uniting it with beauty, grace, dignity, spirit, a high social position, popularity, literature, wit, taste, knowledge of the world, brilliant success in every undertaking, does or does not make an ill use of his powers.We own that we are unable to understand how this question can be answered in any way but one.
It must, indeed, be acknowledged, in justice to the writers of whom we have spoken thus severely, that they were to a great extent the creatures of their age, And if it be asked why that age encouraged immorality which no other age would have tolerated, we have no hesitation in answering that this, great depravation of the national taste was the effect of the prevalence of Puritanism under the Commonwealth.
To punish public outrages on morals and religion is unquestionably within the competence of rulers.But when a government, not content with requiring decency, requires sanctity, it oversteps the bounds which mark its proper functions.And it may be laid down as a universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.Alawgiver who, in order to protect distressed borrowers, limits the rate of interest, either makes it impossible for the objects of his care to borrow at all, or places them at the mercy of the worst class of usurers.A lawgiver who, from tenderness for labouring men, fixes the hours of their work and the amount of their wages, is certain to make them far more wretched than he found them.And so a government which, not content with repressing scandalous excesses, demands from its subjects fervent and austere piety, will soon discover that, while attempting to render an impossible service to the cause of virtue, it has in truth only promoted vice.
For what are the means by which a government can effect its ends?
Two only, reward and punishment; powerful means, indeed, for influencing the exterior act, but altogether impotent for the purpose of touching the heart.A public functionary who is told that he will be promoted if he is a devout Catholic, and turned out of his place if he is not, will probably go to mass every morning, exclude meat from his table on Fridays, shrive himself regularly, and perhaps let his superiors know that he wears a hair shirt next his skin.Under a Puritan government, a person who is apprised that piety is essential to thriving in the world will be strict in the observance of the Sunday, or, as he will call it, Sabbath, and will avoid a theatre as if it were plague-stricken.Such a show of religion as this the hope of gain and the fear of loss will produce, at a week's notice, in any abundance which a government may require.But under this show, sensuality, ambition, avarice, and hatred retain unimpaired power, and the seeming convert has only added to the vices of a man of the world all the still darker vices which are engendered by the constant practice of dissimulation.The truth cannot be long concealed.The public discovers that the grave persons who are proposed to it as patterns are more utterly destitute of moral principle and of moral sensibility than avowed libertines.
It sees that these Pharisees are farther removed from real goodness than publicans and harlots.And, as usual, it rushes to the extreme opposite to that which it quits.It considers a high religious profession as a sure mark of meanness and depravity.On the very first day on which the restraint of fear is taken away, and on which men can venture to say what they think, a frightful peal of blasphemy and ribaldry proclaims that the short-sighted policy which aimed at making a nation of saints has made a nation of scoffers.
It was thus in France about the beginning of the eighteenth century.Lewis the Fourteenth in his old age became religious: he determined that his subjects should be religious too: he shrugged his shoulders and knitted his brows if he observed at his levee or near his dinner-table any gentleman who neglected the duties enjoined by the Church, and rewarded piety with blue ribands, invitations to Marli, governments, pensions, and regiments.
Forthwith Versailles became, in everything but dress, a convent.
The pulpits and confessionals were surrounded by swords and embroidery.The Marshals of France were much in prayer; and there was hardly one among the Dukes and Peers who did not carry good little books in his pocket, fast during Lent, and communicate at Easter.Madame de Maintenon, who had a great share in the blessed work, boasted that devotion had become quite the fashion.Afashion indeed it was; and like a fashion it passed away.No sooner had the old king been carried to St.Denis than the whole Court unmasked.Every man hastened to indemnify himself, by the excess of licentiousness and impudence, for years of mortification.The same persons who, a few months before, with meek voices and demure looks, had consulted divines about the state of their souls, now surrounded the midnight table where, amidst the bounding of champagne corks, a drunken prince, enthroned between Dubois and Madame de Parabere, hiccoughed out atheistical arguments and obscene jests.The early part of the reign of Lewis the Fourteenth had been a time of licence; but the most dissolute men of that generation would have blushed at the orgies of the Regency.
