The Play-House and the Palace
“Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth.”.. “I said of laughter, It is mad.”... “I gave myself to wine, yet acquainting myself with wisdom.” ...” I made me great works.”... “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit.”
THIS passage describes a mental fever. The writer tells how, by quitting the wholesome climes of piety, his spirit caught a deadly chill, and how, in the morbid excitement which followed, he tossed to and fro, and tried every change, — burning in the breeze, and shivering in the sun, — distracted till he gained his wish, and disgusted to find that what he wished was not the thing he wanted. First mad after wisdom, then came a surfeit of learning — a glut of information, and he denounced much wisdom as much grief. He would try frivolity. He would take things easily, and, as far as might be, cheerily. “Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth: there fore, enjoy pleasure.” He would sip the surface of things, and snatch the joys which divert the mind, but which do not fatigue the brain: he would be a wit, a man of humour, a merry monarch. And he was. But his own mirth soon made him melancholy. Like phosphorus on a dead man’s face, he felt that it was a trick, a lie; and, like the laugh of a hysena among the tombs, he found that the worldling’s frolic can never reanimate the joys which guilt has slain and buried. “I said of laughter, It is mad; and of mirth, What doeth it?” So, after a moody interval, he bethought him how to blend the two. Philosophy by itself had failed, and folly by itself had also failed. But how would it do to combine them? — the sprightly with the grave, the material luxury and the mental vivacity, the wisdom and the wine? Yes; into his ivywreath he would twine the laurel, and the llat potions of philosophy he would enliven with social effervescence. “I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, (yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom,) and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life.” But this also proved a failure. “Wine, wisdom, wit,” became a mutually destructive mixture, and the experimenter abjured them, in order to try the pleasures of taste. Sculpture and painting were scarcely known to the Hebrews; but in gardening, music, and architecture, they were good proficients, and to these the sovereign now directed his sumptuous ingenuity. Like a petrified dream, the palace stood forth in all the freshness of virgin marble, and in all the pride of its airy pinnacles. In the wilderness waters brake forth, and spreading their molten coolness over the dust of yesterday, artificial lakes surrounded artificial isles; whilst from the fragrant thickets of the terraced gardens, the dulcet sounds of foreign minstrelsy descended where the royal barge lay floating, or through the lattice wafted into the banquet-hall their hints of superhuman glory, — till the vessels of gold and silver sparkled like a galaxy, and the repast was enchanted into a Divine refection; and in proud apotheosis the monarch smiled upon his guests from a godlike throne. “I builded me houses, I planted me vineyards, I made me pools of water to water the groves of trees. I gat me men singers and women singers, and musical instruments of every sort. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy. Then I looked on all the works that I had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do; and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun,”
Solomon tried mirth and abjured it. And, perhaps, the most melancholy life is that of the professed merrymaker. You remember the answer of the wo-begone stranger, when the physician advised him to go and hear the great comedian of the day — “You should go and hear Matthews.” “Alas! Sir, I am Matthews V3 Akin to which is the account of one who for many years manufactured mirth for the great metropolis, the writer of diverting stories, and the soul of every festive party which was able to secure his presence.* But even when keeping all the company in a blaze of hilarity, his own heart was broken; and at one of these boisterous scenes, glimpsing his own pale visage in the glass, he exclaimed, “Ah! I see how it is. I look just as I am — done up in mind, in body, and purse,” — and went home to sicken and die. And who can read this passage without recalling one who was sixty years ago the most dazzling speaker in our British Parliament, whose bow had as many strings as life has pleasures, — the wit, the orator, the dramatist, the statesman, the boon companion and the confidant of princes ?f But when “wine” had quenched the “wisdom;” when riot had bloated the countenance, and debt had dispersed the friends of the man of pleasure; when in splendid rows his books stood on the shelves of the brokers, and the very portrait of his wife had disappeared, — on a wretched pallet, trembling for fear of a prison, the gloomy, forsaken worldling closed his eyes on a scene which he was loth to quit, but which showed no wish to detain him — leaving “no profit under the sun,” and without any prospect beyond it.
Nor can we promise a satisfaction more solid to the godless virtuoso. Every other year the public is startled with some grand explosion. A great tower * Theodore Hook. f Kichard Brinsley Sheridan.
G 2 of Babel comes toppling down. There is a tinkle in the belfry, — a premonitory jangling of the crazy chimes, — a crackling of the timbers, a thunderous down-pouring of bricks and beams and tiles and plaster, and through the dust and smoke the groans of the crushed inmates are heard, stifled and soon stilled: and then come the excavators, — the collectors who carry off the curiosities to decorate other toy shops, and the builders who buy the bricks, in order to construct new Babels elsewhere.
Not long ago a wealthy compatriot erected such a palace for his pride, and reared it with such impatience that the workmen plied their labours night and day. When finished, “a wall, nearly twenty miles in circumference, surrounded it. Within this circle scarcely any visitors were allowed to pass. In sullen grandeur the owner dwelt alone, shunning converse with the world around. Majesty itself was desirous of visiting this wonderful domain, but was refused admittance. ... Its interior was fitted with all the splendour which art and wealth could create. Gold and silver cups and vases were so numerous that they dazzled the eye; and looking round at the cabinets and candelabra and ornaments which decorated the apartment, was like standing in the treasury of an Eastern prince.” * But a hundred thousand pounds a-year failed to support this magnificence, and the gates which “refused admittance to a monarch were thrust open by a Sheriff’s officer;” * “The Mirage of Life,” a publication of the Tract Society.
and whilst its architect pined in unpitied solitude, the gorgeous structure was pulled down by its new owner. More frequently, however, it is the structure which stands, and it is the architect who becomes the ruin. Many of you have visited Versailles. As you stood upon its terraces, or surveyed its pictures furlong after furlong, or wandered among its enchanted fountains, did it strike you, How fresh and splendid is Versailles; how insignificant is now its author! Or did you think of that gloomy day when in one of its chambers lay dying the monarch who has identified Versailles with his royal revelries, and near the silken couch a throng of courtiers lingered, not in tears, — not anxious to detain his spirit, — not sedulous to soothe the last moments of mortal anguish; but wearying till their old master would make an end of it and die, that they might rush away and congratulate his son and successor? * And did you think that thus it is with every one who layeth up treasure for himself, and who is not rich towards God? Did you think of him who said to his soul, when he had built his larger bams, “Soul, thou hast goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry;” and to whom God said, “Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee: then, whose shall these things be?”
What is it then? Shall we denounce learning, genius, wit? Shall we proscribe architecture and all
* See the death-scene of Louis XV. at the opening of Carlyle’s “French He volution.”
the arts? For this some have contended, and under pretence of piety they have sought to become barbarians. But,, 0 man, who hath required this at thy hands? It is the work of God’s Spirit to sanctify taste and consecrate talent; and that alone is excessive which is not given to God. In “walking about Zion,” we must ever admire the noble “bulwarks” reared by Lardner and Butler, and the other defenders of the common faith, as well as the “towers” of orthodoxy erected by the learned labours of Owen, and Haldane, and Magee, and other mighty engineers; nor less the “palaces” which at once adorn the city and commemorate the genius of Watts, and Howe, and Chalmers, and Vinet. Nor is there any reason why wit should always be “mad.” Religion may be sprightly, and dulness may be undevout. A Home or a Cowper may be permitted to answer a fool according to his folly; and when, with the tender precision of a Tell, the polished shafts of Wilberforce split in twain an opponent’s argument, but never “hurt his head,”* you could not wish fanaticism to destroy a weapon which religion guides so wisely. Though pride may be the busiest architect, let us not forget that piety and philanthropy have been great builders also. And though sensuality may abuse the arts, let us not forget how often to its youthful inmates music has helped to endear the earthly home, and
* Ps. cxli. 5. See the sketch of Wilberforce, in Sir James Stephen’s “Historical Essays,” and in Lord Brougham’s “Statesmen,” first series.
how much devotion is indebted to “the service of song in the house of the Lord.” Let us not forget that almighty Artist who, every spring paints new landscapes on the earth, and every evening new ones in the sky, — whose sculptures are the melting clouds and everlasting hills, — and whose harp of countless strings includes each note from a hare bell’s tinkle to the “organic swell” of ocean’s thunder.
What is it then? The “instrument of righteousness” when not “yielded to God,” becomes an idol; and every idol is at once a curse and a crime.
July 28, 1850.