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ON THE USEFULNESS OF INUTILITIES.

Il n'est subject si vain, qui ne mérite un rang en cette rapsodie.

MONTAGNE.

One of the greatest reasons why so few people understand themselves, is that most writers are always teaching men what they should be, and hardly ever trouble their heads with telling them what they really are.-FABLE OF THE BEES.

But

Of the many passions incidental to our impressionable nature, if the instinct of self-preservation is of most immediate value in the maintenance of life, vanity is assuredly of scarcely secondary utility in making that life tolerably comfortable. If, then, the well-known dictum of Solomon "that all is vanity" be founde din truth (as no sound believer will dispute), that truth must be sought in a more recondite application, than is suggested by its ordinary use in the mouths of the blasés and of the ungrateful. As understood by these worthies, it implies the flattest and most barren of truisms. It is an obvious physiological fact, that the enjoyments which occupy and agitate the prime of existence, derive their influence from the perfection of the organs on which they act; the inevitable consequence being, that when those organs fail, the enjoyments and delights lose their charm, and so are turned to "vanity." Disgust and disappointment are indeed the natural termination of passionate excitement, as death is the " necessary end" of life. the moral we derive from this physical fact is very different from that retrospective wisdom, which hugs itself at sixty on not having the vices of sixteen. Instead of disgraciously evil speaking of the respectable nothings which have helped us through so many a dreary hour of this "workaday life," we are disposed to be profoundly thankful for the manifold distractions they have afforded, and for the agreeable illusions in which they have maintained us. We like not that silly endeavour to add a cubit to our stature, by affecting to look down upon our proper nature. It is a mere mounting on the stilts of pride; and pride, whether it takes offence at others, or at ourselves, is a most uncomfortable mistake. If whatever interests and occupies man be in this sense of the word vanity, what is man himself but a vanity? and the consequence, pushed to its extent, would be as impious and despairing, as we believe it to be false.

After all, these little things will be great to little men," and there is no use in calling names. When, therefore, we assent to the maxim that "all is vanity," we would be understood as meaning, not that all is beneath the regard of a wise man, but that our vanities are all in all to us; and that the happiness or misery of our poor threescore years and ten, depends upon the more or less of skill with which we turn

them to account.

When the matter is viewed a little closely, the contrary notion will turn out to be, not a mere exaggeration, but an absolute abuse of terms. For whatever may be thought of life, there are some things more respectable and important than others; and the greatest stoic or ascetic that ever existed, will admit that eating, drinking, and sleeping, are not absolutely without their uses, or wholly beneath the regard of a sage. all things were really vain, to what end invent the word, and oppose it

If

to substantial? Let us, therefore, speak like plain and sensible people, so as to be understood, and leave pretence to the hypocritical and the prudish.

Vanity, then, dear reader, is a comparative term: the word is a Latin word, which our ancestors in their wisdom substituted for the English emptiness." Now, we call a phial empty when filled with air, because as compared with a phial containing water or wine, it relatively is so. Thus, having filled a bottle with bullets, we can put in an additional quantity of shot; and we can repeat the process with other shot of smaller dimensions, and again with sand; while, after all these fillings, we can yet find room for a quantity of water. Now of this series, the first term is emptiness with respect to the last. In like manner is it with vanity; and it is rather too bad to make a man discontented with his havings, by calling what to his apprehension is fulness-vanity. Yet such is the end (we do not say purpose) of all those imputed moralists, more fastidious than discreet, who would place us above ourselves, by disparaging the little occupations and amusements, with which we contrive to get rid of our time, and to escape from man's deadliest foe, the demon of

ennui.

Per contrà, it is equally clear that while fulnesses vary for the same capacity, all men are not of equal capacity. Men whose intellects are of small caliber, are more easily filled than those of vast dimensions; and since it is as physically impossible to force more sense or acquirement into a man's head than it can contain, as it is to cram him corporeally into a pint pot, it is eminently illogical to insist on applying the same terms to their respective contents. Accordingly, a lord in the senatehouse, or an alderman in his court, may be as gravely, that is as fully occupied, as a Newton in estimating the law of gravitation; and as far as concerns the first instance, we believe that this accusation of vanity, if not scandalum magnatum, would be liable to an action of libel. How purely conventional such notions of vanity really are, is demonstrable by the fact that each age, sex, and station has its respective licence. The dose of vanity which is ridiculous in an elderly lady, (we would not say old woman for the world-it's an unparliamentary phrase), would be graceful and agreeable in a beauty of fifteen. So, too, that trifling which in a professed beau would scarcely excite a passing smile, would qualify a judge or a physician for a lunatics' asylum. That the cares and the jealousies of a lover are vain, and his joys and his desires unsubstantial and dreamy, divines and moralists will alike agree,—especially when they have turned the corner of sixty; yet there is not the less a conventional reality about these affections, when viewed in the persons of a youthful couple, which is uniformly denied to a Lord Ogilvie, merely because they are ill-assorted with what the world expects from men of his standing. Rideat et pulsat lasciva decentius ætas, contains the whole philosophy of the subject.

Such being the facts, surely vanity is one of those cases of conscience, which every man should be permitted to decide for himself; and the measuring other men's corn in that particular, by our own bushel, (no allusion to landlords and consumers) is an important interference with the liberty of private judginent; that is, with a right which is of the very essence of the Protestant religion.

Here, then, we have the ground cleared for the erection of an intel

ligible structure. If it be not true that all is vanity, it is an equal exaggeration to say that there is no such thing. Not only are there vanities and substantial things, but there are vanities and vanities; while the same thing is, or is not, vain, not only as it applies to different persons and circumstances, but even to different epochs and ages. For many things which were of the gravest a century ago, have become the merest vanities in this letterpress age of ours; while some things which were then termed vain, are deemed of the last importance by the wiseacres of eighteen hundred and forty-two.

Taking our stand upon this ground, we boldly affirm that the human race is deeply indebted to vanities for its enjoyments, its amusements, nay almost for the circulation of its blood; and that if there be any one particular in which civilized existence is more excellent than savage life, it is in the greater number and better condition of the vanities which it contains.

Mandeville overlooked this truth, when he referred all the blessings of social life to the vices of the civilized man,-unless, indeed, he considered vice itself as no better than a vanity, which would have been to pay vice a compliment it would have most unwillingly accepted. Had he taken vanity for the basis of his system, he would have conciliated many, who are now shocked at the cynicism of his doctrine; and he would probably have arrived at pretty nearly the same result. At all events, it is impossible to take a walk down Regent-street, or through the warehouses of Mincing-lane, without being satisfied that for the larger part, the success of trade depends on vanities. It will not do, then, to define solid things to be the business of life, and vanities its amusements; for besides that amusement is the great business of genteel life, and business the great amusement of the money-spinner, the vanities administer not less to the graver occupations, than they do to the idlest dalliance. If we should subtract from the business of the tailor, for example, all that it derives from fashion (the vainest of all vanities), and should leave it nothing beyond what decency and convenience require in the cut of a garment, it would fare with these ninth-parts of a man no better, than if the world should return to the use of fig-leaves. It was, indeed, but a silly boast of John Bull, that he had invented the shirt, as an appendix to the Frenchman's laced ruffles; for exclusive of the untenable anachronism which thus puts the cart before the horse, the ruffle worked the best for trade: and on the other hand, whatever may be thought of the comforts of clean linen, the possession of a shirt never gave the tithe of that happiness, which vanity has extracted from the superfluous addition of a few inches of Mechlin lace. Think of the gravity of the French courtier, whose equanimity was destroyed by the appearance of point-lace ruffles at court in the month of May, when everybody knows that a network of slighter" intercussations and decussations" (we forget the Johnsonian definition) alone befited that advanced season of the year. Think how the majesty of the throne must have been endangered by such a practical anachronism; and then say, if you dare, that such things are beneath the study of a philosopher.

After all, the great difficulty of making out our case lies more in the fluctuating value which is assigned to the word, than in any real obscurity hanging over the nature and attributes of the thing. The greater part of the gravest and most substantial employments of life

which are set down as vanities and vexations of spirit by half-witted ergotists, are the sources of the bitterest privations and sufferings; and if called upon to justify our proposition as regards these, we should be terribly puzzled to perform our task. Love, war, money-making, parliamenteering, dowager-hunting, &c. &c., are anything but vanities vexations of spirit, indeed, they may be; "heavy blows and great discouragements" to the lovers of tranquillity, and of the poco curante; but not vanities-no, anything but that: even Grundyism, which every one affects to despise, but of which everybody lives in bodily fear, is very wrongfully placed in the category of vain things— as any one will acknowledge, who has inhabited a cathedral close, or lived under the inspection of some village piece of antiquated and prudish virginity.

It is not alone that men's judgments are unsettled on this point, and that the term vanity is an abstraction bearing the greatest differences of value in the fancies of different individuals; but the fact that mankind change the character and influence of the same thing, by the way in which they treat it, is a source of still greater confusion. It is not in any case the thing itself, so much as the true or false estimate which men make of its value, that influences human happiness. The veriest trifle that ever amused the idleness of the emptiest and most fatuous of our species, if taken to heart, and made a serious business, ipso facto becomes one; and is as capable of being turned to mischief, as a spark in a magazine of gunpowder, or a bull in a china-shop. Did not the factions of the Circus shake the imperial state of the Cæsars worse than a corn bill, or a repeal of Jewish inabilities? Nay, did not a single iota serve the purpose of dividing the Christian world, and filling it with persecutions and slaughter, quite as efficiently as if it had been a question of the existence of a deity, or of the authenticity of revelation itself? Who amongst us has not heard of the famous O.P. riot? What a coil that made in the town, even at a time when Bonaparte was lord of the ascendant, and threatened in his "wrathful displeasure to swallow us up quick," as we were then told in all churches and chapels ! So, too, when the French revolution was suspended by the last thread over the devoted heads of the princes and nobles of France, did not the Gluck and Piccini question agitate men's minds more deeply than the assembly of the notables or the double vote. Among the many more serious causes of dispute which led Peter Ramus such an uncomfortable life, and cost him his life itself in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, must be enumerated his contest for the pure pronunciation of the Latin letter Q. In the year 1550, Q was not, for once in its life, in a corner; for such was the importance then attached to that vanity, that a certain student in theology would have been deprived of his benefice by the Sorbonne for not howling with the wolves in the orthodox wrong tone, if Peter had not stepped forth in his behalf, and "shamed the rogues" from their prey. This act of constancy was not forgotten. Any stick, they say, will serve to beat a dog; and there is nothing too vain and futile to serve for an auto da fe, if society can only be persuaded to look it gravely in the face.

Be it therefore thoroughly understood, that we do not make our selves responsible for such abuses of a good thing; and that in upholding the advantages, comforts, benefits, emoluments, and easements

of vanity, we intend and mean thereby not only things vain in their own nature, but vain things properly so estimated and treated: and we by no means desire to be suspected of approving or relishing the gridiron of St. Lawrence, the arrows of St. Sebastian, no not even a crushing article in my "grandmother's review," merely because they should happen to be put upon active service on a trifling occasion.

Under such restrictions and with such understandings, it becomes obvious to common sense, that vanity is in reality better to a man than the best waterproof great-coat, wrap-rascal, or pea-jacket ever invented. Observe, reader, we say nothing of women: not because as some may suspect, cela va sans dire, or because women are naturally more vain than men, and find vain things consequently more congenial to their nature; but because in this instance, if in any, homo is a common name for all mankind: for if women are in truth more frequently given to that affection than their male partners in iniquity, and less commonly chary of showing up in its indulgence (which may be rationally doubted), it is beyond all denial that a man, when he does give himself up to vanities, beats the sex by chalks in his extravagance, and sticks at nothing that can probably tend to their thorough enjoyment.

It is scarcely possible to mention a single thing really good and desirable per se, which is not set off and enhanced by a spice of vanity. What would the most succulent dinner be thought of, if cut short of those vanities of vanities, a second course and a dessert? What would Madame Carson have said to the handsomest cap, the best fitting, the warmest, the most appropriate to the peculiar style and countenance of the wearer, if curtailed of its fair proportion of vanities, the ribbons and laces?

It is indeed a question meriting special consideration, whether that august ceremony, a court drawing-room, would not be stripped of all effect, by a downfall of lappets and feathers. Well and wisely did the French lord in waiting exclaim, "Tout est perdu!" when the chief of the Girondists appeared at court with ribbons instead of buckles in his shoes. It would scarcely be deemed a fanciful speculation to trace the triumphs of the Montagne, and the reign of anarchy and blood (for some part at least) to this act of lèse-vanité, of the republican minister. If majesty itself be but a ceremony (we put the matter hypothetically, because the notion is not ours)-if we say majesty be but a ceremony, its lightest bauble must have its mission; and we doubt whether the other majesty of the people in parliament assembled, could long make itself respected, without the adjunct of the speaker's mace and wig. Nay, our holy religion-but we leave that cause to the Puseyites a worthy theme for their professor of poetry "to try his 'prentice hand on.”

But, to come to things of still greater moment, the legitimate drama. itself is far more dependent on vanity than most men will think. The toll of a bell, à propos, has often told better in the fifth act, than the finest tirade; and we seriously recommend it to Mr. Sheridan Knowles to pay more attention to blue and crimson lights in his last scene, than he hitherto has bestowed on such vanities. Let him reflect how much Shakspeare himself is indebted for toleration to the mis en scène of a conscientious manager; and let him remember that a tyrant en habit bourgeois, is twice a tyrant in black and scarlet cut velvet. Nor is

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