'Why,no;but what though it were!-the Bible is a respectable book,but I should hardly call it one whose philosophy is of the soundest.I have said that it is a respectable book;I mean respectable from its antiquity,and from containing,as Herder says,"the earliest records of the human race,"though those records are far from being dispassionately written,on which account they are of less value than they otherwise might have been.
There is too much passion in the Bible,too much violence;now,to come to all truth,especially historic truth,requires cool dispassionate investigation,for which the Jews do not appear to have ever been famous.We are ourselves not famous for it,for we are a passionate people;the Germans are not-they are not a passionate people-a people celebrated for their oaths;we are.
The Germans have many excellent historic writers,we ...'tis true we have Gibbon ...You have been reading Gibbon-what do you think of him?'
'I think him a very wonderful writer.'
'He is a wonderful writer-one SUI GENERIS-uniting the perspicuity of the English-for we are perspicuous-with the cool dispassionate reasoning of the Germans.Gibbon sought after the truth,found it,and made it clear.'
'Then you think Gibbon a truthful writer?'
'Why,yes;who shall convict Gibbon of falsehood?Many people have endeavoured to convict Gibbon of falsehood;they have followed him in his researches,and have never found him once tripping.Oh,he is a wonderful writer!his power of condensation is admirable;the lore of the whole world is to be found in his pages.Sometimes in a single note he has given us the result of the study of years;or,to speak metaphorically,"he has ransacked a thousand Gulistans,and has condensed all his fragrant booty into a single drop of otto."'
'But was not Gibbon an enemy to the Christian faith?'
'Why,no;he was rather an enemy to priestcraft,so am I;and when I say the philosophy of the Bible is in many respects unsound,I always wish to make an exception in favour of that part of it which contains the life and sayings of Jesus of Bethlehem,to which I must always concede my unqualified admiration-of Jesus,mind you;for with his followers and their dogmas I have nothing to do.Of all historic characters Jesus is the most beautiful and the most heroic.I have always been a friend to hero-worship,it is the only rational one,and has always been in use amongst civilised people-the worship of spirits is synonymous with barbarism-it is mere fetish;the savages of West Africa are all spirit-worshippers.But there is something philosophic in the worship of the heroes of the human race,and the true hero is the benefactor.
Brahma,Jupiter,Bacchus,were all benefactors,and,therefore,entitled to the worship of their respective peoples.The Celts worshipped Hesus,who taught them to plough,a highly useful art.
We,who have attained a much higher state of civilisation than the Celts ever did,worship Jesus,the first who endeavoured to teach men to behave decently and decorously under all circumstances;who was the foe of vengeance,in which there is something highly indecorous;who had first the courage to lift his voice against that violent dogma,"an eye for an eye";who shouted conquer,but conquer with kindness;who said put up the sword,a violent unphilosophic weapon;and who finally died calmly and decorously in defence of his philosophy.He must be a savage who denies worship to the hero of Golgotha.'
'But he was something more than a hero;he was the Son of God,wasn't he?'
The elderly individual made no immediate answer;but,after a few more whiffs from his pipe,exclaimed,'Come,fill your glass!How do you advance with your translation of TELL'?
'It is nearly finished;but I do not think I shall proceed with it;I begin to think the original somewhat dull.'
'There you are wrong;it is the masterpiece of Schiller,the first of German poets.'
'It may be so,'said the youth.'But,pray excuse me,I do not think very highly of German poetry.I have lately been reading Shakespeare;and,when I turn from him to the Germans-even the best of them-they appear mere pigmies.You will pardon the liberty I perhaps take in saying so.'
'I like that every one should have an opinion of his own,'said the elderly individual;'and,what is more,declare it.Nothing displeases me more than to see people assenting to everything that they hear said;I at once come to the conclusion that they are either hypocrites,or there is nothing in them.But,with respect to Shakespeare,whom I have not read for thirty years,is he not rather given to bombast,"crackling bombast,"as I think I have said in one of my essays?'
'I daresay he is,'said the youth;'but I can't help thinking him the greatest of all poets,not even excepting Homer.I would sooner have written that series of plays,founded on the fortunes of the House of Lancaster,than the ILIAD itself.The events described are as lofty as those sung by Homer in his great work,and the characters brought upon the stage still more interesting.
I think Hotspur as much of a hero as Hector,and young Henry more of a man than Achilles;and then there is the fat knight,the quintessence of fun,wit,and rascality.Falstaff is a creation beyond the genius even of Homer.'
'You almost tempt me to read Shakespeare again-but the Germans?'