The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 64, No. 395, September, 1848
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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 64, No. 395, September, 1848
Author: Various
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 64, NO. 395, SEPTEMBER, 1848 ***
BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCXCV. SEPTEMBER, 1848. VOL. LXIV.
CONTENTS.
A REVIEW OF THE LAST SESSION, 261
TO A CAGED SKYLARK. BY B. SIMMONS, 290
SONNET.—TO DENMARK, 292
LIFE IN THE “FAR WEST.” PART IV., 293
THE CAXTONS. PART VI., 315
LIFE AND TIMES OF GEORGE II., 327
THE GREAT TRAGEDIAN, 345
THE MOSCOW RETREAT, 359
WHAT WOULD REVOLUTIONISING GERMANY BE AT? 373
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET; AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW,
LONDON.
_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCXCV. SEPTEMBER, 1848. VOL. LXIV.
A REVIEW OF THE LAST SESSION.
There is perhaps no body of men confederated in her Majesty’s dominions
who are less properly the subjects of envy than the members of the
present Cabinet. A session, begun under circumstances of unexampled
commercial pressure, continued amidst insurrection abroad and turbulence
at home, and ending with an Irish rebellion, ought surely to have
exhibited some specimens of extraordinary and judicious legislation.
Slovenliness in high places, at no time decorous, is most undecent,
dangerous, and unendurable, at a period when the whole world is drunk
with the revolutionary elixir. France, that old irreclaimable bacchante,
is staggering to and fro, madly bellicose, and threatening incendiarism
in her cups. Germany, once thought too stolid to be roused, is hiccuping
for national unity, and on the fair way of contributing largely to the
overthrow of the equilibrium of power in Europe. The Irish symptoms have
by no means surprised us. The insurrection there is the inevitable fruit
of the measures and policy against which, for the last twenty years, we
have entered our strong and unflinching protest. The shameful truckling
of the Whigs to O’Connell and his scandalous followers; the
unconstitutional fostering of the Roman Catholic Church; and the
conciliation system, which, while it did gross injustice to the people
of England and Scotland, contributed to confirm the spirit of
improvidence and pauperism among the Irish, without in any way securing
their gratitude,—have resulted in a rebellion, imbecile, indeed, and
almost ludicrous in its issue, but not, on that account, less afflicting
to the supporters of order and the crown.
More than once, too, we have been threatened at home by manifestations
of the insurrectionary spirit. In so densely populated a country as
this, it is impossible that commercial distress and slackness can
exist for any length of time, without trying sorely the patience and
the fortitude of the working classes. Such distress undoubtedly did
prevail, towards the close of last year, in a most alarming degree;
and throughout the whole spring there was a vast want of employment in
the manufacturing districts. The completion of some of the great lines
of railway, and in others the partial abandonment or suspension of the
works, caused by the extreme tightness of the money market, also threw
a great deal of unemployed labour on the public; and this evil was
increased by the heterogeneous character of the masses. Irish
immigration has increased to such an extent, that not only in all the
towns of Britain, but almost in every village, especially on the
western coast, there exists a Hibernian colony; unreclaimed by
civilisation—uneducated as the brutes that perish—knowing nothing of
religion, save as an idolatrous form, and professing rebellion as a
principle. This class have always formed a nucleus for disaffection,
and, but for the extreme reluctance of the native labourers to
fraternise with those children of Esau, the results might ere now have
been more serious than we altogether care to contemplate. As it was,
the British demagogue was always sure of finding a ready partisan,
confederate, and coadjutor in the western Celt; and we need hardly say
that the Chartist leaders availed themselves to the full of that
sympathy. We shall presently see how far this state of matters
received the attention of the men in power.
In this critical position we were entitled to expect that the government
would have shown itself fully adequate to the crisis—that the causes of
distress, which lie at the root of turbulence and disaffection, would be
probed with a firm and prudent hand—that every possible relief and
assistance would be given to the home market—and that, above all,
nothing should be done which might tend, in the remotest degree, to
endanger the integrity of the empire. The welfare of Great Britain is a
terrible trust in times like these, and the responsibility of those who
have professed themselves ready to govern, and who, in fact, have rather
claimed the government than received it, is proportionally great.
Let us then take a candid and impartial review of the proceedings which
have characterised this session of Parliament, extending over a period
more fertile in insurrection than any which the world has known. Let us
examine how Lord John Russell and his colleagues have acquitted
themselves in the discharge of their important functions. We shall be
sparing neither of praise nor blame: glad, indeed, if we can find an
opportunity of being lavish of the former, or, in case of neglect, of
stumbling upon an honest excuse.
Our readers cannot have forgotten the circumstances under which this
last session of Parliament commenced. The commercial world has not, for
very many years, felt any thing like a corresponding crisis; and the
change is most remarkable, when we reflect that the depression followed
immediately upon a period of almost unexampled prosperity. Our opinion
is still unchanged, as to the causes which led to this. We pointed out,
in former articles, long before the pressure began, what must be the
inevitable result of a wholesale departure from our older system, of the
adoption of the free-trading economical views, and of the arbitrary
contraction of the currency, as devised by Sir Robert Peel. Every word
we then said has been verified to the letter; and, as we expected, the
very contingencies which we suggested as likely to operate in producing
this unfavourable state of matters, and which actually did subsequently
occur, have been paraded, by the free-traders and extreme bullionists,
as the causes of the whole disaster. It is of great importance that the
public should understand this subject clearly; and, therefore, without
repeating what we have elaborately attempted to demonstrate before, let
us merely remark that the tendency of free trade, and of fettered
currency combined, was to prostrate the whole commercial world, on the
first occurrence of a bad season and a scarcity of food, by stimulating
the exportation of gold, and at the same time by withdrawing its
representative. In fact, Sir Robert Peel constructed his machinery so,
that the result, in the event which we have instanced, could be
calculated on with mathematical certainty. The realised wealth of
Britain was rendered of no avail in this emergency, for the counters
which represented it were amissing, and nothing else would be received
in exchange. Hence arose that total prostration of credit, and
consequent lack of employment, which was so lamentably felt towards the
close of the year 1847.
So intolerable was the pressure that, after much delay and repeated
refusals to interfere, the Whig ministers were compelled to bestir
themselves, and to suspend the operation of the Banking Act, in order to
save the country from actual convulsion. Parliament was summoned about
the middle of November, more, perhaps, for the sake of obtaining a bill
of indemnity for the suspension—a measure which, after all, did not lead
to any infringement of the Act—than with the view of boldly facing the
increasing difficulties of the country. Notwithstanding annual
disappointment, every one waited for the speech from the throne with the
most intense anxiety, trusting that at such a time some comforting
glimpses for the future, some earnest ministerial schemes would be
announced, likely to retrieve the commercial world from its
embarrassment. These expectations were destined to receive an immediate
check. The financial prose of the author of “Don Carlos” was as vague
and unsatisfactory as his halting tragic verse. There was, of course, a
decent show of regret for public calamity, but no vestige of an
intention to interpose any remedial measure. In point of finance, the
only intelligible topic contained in the speech was ominous of the
repeal of the Navigation Laws. Sanitary improvements, the great Whig
hobby, which they are constantly thrusting forward beneath the public
nose, were also recommended. Ireland, then testifying the humane and
Christian disposition of its inhabitants, by a series of the most
cold-blooded and revolting murders, was recommended to the benevolence
of the state. A treaty with the Republic of the Equator, touching the
suppression of the slave-trade, was announced; and the Whigs looked
forward “with confidence to the maintenance of the general peace of
Europe.” A more paltry programme was never yet submitted to the public
eye.
The ministerial move in November, and the suspension of the Banking Act,
for however short a period, was in truth a remarkable circumstance. If
the suspension was right, it must necessarily imply that Sir Robert Peel
was utterly wrong in framing the measure as he did. We know that the Act
is useless for control in times of prosperity, and that it pinches us by
becoming operative under adverse seasons; and it was precisely when the
pinch was felt that the Whigs were forced to suspend it. True—a great
deal of the mischief had by that time been accomplished. Men, every whit
as respectable as the late Premier, had been driven into the Gazette for
the sheer want of temporary accommodation, and property sank in value as
rapidly as the mercury before a storm. But the true nature of the Act
had been felt and condemned by the public; and in no one instance do we
ever recollect to have witnessed a greater unanimity of opinion, hostile
to its endurance and principle, than prevailed, at least beyond the
walls of the House of Commons. If the public were wrong in this
impression, then it followed as a matter of course that the ministry
were highly blameable for the suspension; that Peel’s machine, being a
sound and salutary one, should have been left to do its work, and to
crush down as many victims as it could possibly entangle in its wheels.
But in truth, very few could be found to support such a proposition. If
credit is to be altogether annihilated in this country, whether by
Banking Acts like this, framed and forced upon us contrary to the
experience and in face of the remonstrance of the mercantile classes, or
by anarchy and mob rule, as has been the case in France, we must prepare
to bid an everlasting farewell to our greatness. Credit, it is in vain
to deny, has made the British nation. Credit may, like every thing else,
be pushed too far; but even over-trading is a far less calamity than a
restrictive system, which in a day can destroy the accumulated profits
of years, for the first carries with it its own antidote and cure.
Peel’s banking legislation, we do not hesitate to say, has been
productive of more harm to this country in three years, than has ever
occurred from any known cause within the same period of time; and the
obstinacy with which he has clung to his delusion, the sophistry which
he has invariably employed to shift the responsibility from his
shoulders, and the manœuvring style of his defence, may be consistent
with the character of the man, but are not worthy of the dignity of a
British statesman.
In suspending the operation of the Banking Act, the Whigs tacitly
admitted that, in their opinion, whether lately adopted or not, there
was something fundamentally injurious and wrong with the measure. The
subject was a very serious one. You may bungle sanitary bills, pass
coercive laws, or tamper with the jurisprudence of the country, without
doing more than a limited amount of evil. But the subject of the
currency is so intimately and vitally connected with our whole
commercial greatness, that it must be handled with the utmost
precaution. A leak in a ship is not more dangerous than a flaw in a
monetary statute; and, when once discovered, not a moment should be lost
in repairing it.
Not one member of the present Cabinet was in any way competent for the
task. It is most extraordinary, that the Whigs, after all their official
experience, should exhibit such a singular incapacity in every matter
which has the slightest connexion with finance. They do not seem to
comprehend the subject at all; and if their private affairs were
conducted in the same slovenly fashion as are those of the public when
unfortunately committed to their guidance, we should very soon see the
Gazette adorned with some elegant extracts from the Court Guide. The
only respectable Chancellor of the Exchequer whom they ever produced was
Mr Baring; and he, it is rumoured, was considered too scrupulous to be
admitted to that post again. Besides this, his views upon the currency
were known to be diametrically opposite to those entertained by Sir
Robert Peel. Sir Charles Wood, the worst financier that ever disgraced
the memory of Cocker, had committed himself before the suspension of the
Act, in an especially ridiculous manner. At one time, this gentleman was
quite jocund and hopeful, a firm believer in the existence of a
plethora, and smiled at the idea of a crisis with a happy air of mingled
indifference and satisfaction. Shortly afterwards, however, he took the
alarm, attempted to eat in his own words—an operation which he performed
with most indifferent grace,—and possibly became dimly conscious that a
Chancellor of the Exchequer has more duties to perform than to sign the
receipt for his salary. Sir Charles evidently was not the man to grapple
with the difficulty; and besides this, he could not afford to offend Sir
Robert Peel, or give a triumph to his political opponents, who had all
along denounced the Banking Act as an experiment of a perilous nature.
In this position, the Whigs adopted the safest course for themselves, if
not for the country. They asked for a committee, both in the Lords and
Commons, to consider the question of the currency, taking care, of
course, to nominate members whose opinions were already known. We
thoroughly agree with Mr Herries, that the inquiry was a work of
supererogation. The subject has been already investigated in every
possible way. Blue books have been issued from time to time, containing
an enormous mass of deliberate evidence; and that evidence has been
repeatedly analysed and dissected by writers of great ability and
statistical knowledge on either side. The public mind was perfectly ripe
for decision—indeed, for months the currency had formed almost the sole
topic discussed by the press; and it was peculiarly desirable that we
should no longer be left in a state of uncertainty, or exposed to the
operation of another panic. But such an arrangement did not suit the
Whigs. They were not prepared to come forward with an intelligible plan
for remedying the evil which they had already admitted to exist.—Not
secretly displeased, perhaps, at the general impression that the
Tamworth Baronet had committed a gross and unpardonable blunder, they
were unable to dispense with his support, and extremely unwilling to
give him umbrage—and therefore they took refuge in the convenient scheme
of committees. In vain did Mr Herries, in an able and statesmanlike
speech, point out the danger of delay, and exhibit the true causes of
the distress which had lately prevailed, and which was still weighing
upon the country. In vain did he implore ministers to face the question
manfully. His proposal that the House should proceed at once to the
consideration of the Banking Act, with the view of suspending
permanently its limitations, subject to a wholesome control, was lost by
a majority of forty-one. After a most lengthened examination, the
committees have issued their reports; and the result is another
difference of opinion, which leaves the whole matter open to renewed
discussion. The session has rolled away, and the Banking Act is left
untouched.
We presume that the most confirmed free-trader within the four seas of
Britain will at all events admit this fact, that not one of the glorious
promises held out to us by the political economists and gentlemen of the
Manchester school has as yet been realised. We can hardly expect that
they will be candid enough to confess the fallacy of the views which
they then so enthusiastically maintained; and we doubt not that, in any
discussion, we should still hear some very ingenious explanations to
account for the non-advent of the anticipated blessings. But the boldest
of them will not deny that, in the mean time, all the fiscal changes
have been followed by a decline in our prosperity, a falling-off in
trade, and a consequent defalcation of the revenue. We have certainly
not gained in employment, we have lost money; and the best proof of it
is, the low ebb of the national revenue. Such being the case, it is no
wonder if the budget or financial statement of the minister was expected
with the most intense anxiety, and if, for the time, every other topic
was merged in the consideration of this. Political history does not
contain many episodes equal to that famous discussion—many instances of
utter helplessness like that exhibited by the Premier.
We have already analysed the budget fully in another article,[1] and it
is not worth while now to recur to it for the purposes of exposure. The
deficit was estimated at no less than three millions for the year; and
this large sum was to be made up by the imposition of an augmented
income-tax. Considering what had taken place on the occasion when Sir
Robert Peel first proposed that discreditable and decidedly odious
impost, the assurances that it was to be merely temporary in its
endurance, and the specious pleas of necessity with which it was then
fortified,—it is no matter of surprise that the ministerial plan should
have been received with symptoms of marked disgust, even by those who
usually accord their support to the measures of the present government.
Mr Hume opined that the ministry were mad. Mr Osborne declared his
belief that, had there been a regularly organised Opposition, such a
financial statement would have been the death-warrant of any
administration. Even the Manchester section of the free-traders held
aloof from ministers, just as cowards might do from the support of a
drowning man. For however vexatious the admission might be, they were
bound in common gratitude to have recollected that the change from
indirect to direct taxation was effected mainly at their instance, and
to gratify their everlasting clamour. That change had resulted in a huge
deficit of the revenue; and, it being admitted on all sides that a
revenue must be raised—for we have not yet got the length of talking
openly of the sponge—they, at all events, might have been expected to
say something in favour of their friends, at a crisis of their own
producing. But there is no creature on earth so utterly selfish and
devoid of compunction, as your thorough-paced economical free-trader.
Point merely in the direction of his pocket, and he instantly howls with
terror. Five per cent income-tax was as obnoxious in the eyes of Cobden
and Bright as in those of other men who acted upon sounder principles;
and it is not uninstructive to remark the course which on this occasion
the ex-members of the League thought fit to pursue. It had been long
apparent to them, as it was to every man in the country, that the
revenue of the year must prove insufficient to meet the expenditure.
They knew that the unpalatable fact, when announced in Parliament, would
inevitably lead to a discussion regarding the policy of past measures,
and the wisdom of persisting in a course which hitherto had met with no
reciprocity from foreign countries, but, on the contrary, had been used
to increase the burden of our embarrassments. Such discussion was to be
deprecated and avoided by every possible means; and the readiest way of
effecting this seemed to be the suggestion of a plan whereby the
expenditure might be lessened and brought down to the level of the
revenue. This very desirable result was not so easy of accomplishment;
but nevertheless Mr Cobden undertook the task. The product was worthy of
the author. The wise, politic, and sagacious principle of the
calico-printer was to effect a saving by the material reduction of our
military and naval establishments, and the weakening of the national
arm. We hope our readers have not forgotten, were it merely from the
disgust they must have excited, the silly and egotistic remarks of this
complacent personage touching his travels, his observations, and his
mission as a peaceful regenerator. Free trade, which ought long ago to
have made Great Britain rich, had, according to his experiences, already
pacified the world. There was to be no more war—the French were the most
affectionate and domesticated men upon the face of the earth—and he,
Cobden, and his friend Cremieux, were interchanging congratulatory
letters on the advent of the new millennium. In our March Number for the
present year, we had the satisfaction of bestowing a slight castigation
upon Cobden, to which we beg now to refer those gentlemen who were so
wroth with us for presuming to question the _dicta_ of the oracle of the
West Riding. Within a few days after that article was penned, Europe was
wrapped in insurrection, and Cobden’s correspondent a member of a
revolutionary government! The French free-trader, Cremieux, was a
consenting party to the decree which drove forth the British labourers
from France, without warning and without compensation! The barricades of
June have demonstrated the affectionate and domesticated character of
the race whom Cobden delighteth to honour. If to cut, in cold blood, the
throats of prisoners, to shoot down the messengers of peace in spite of
their sacred calling, to mangle the bodies of the wounded, and these
brothers and countrymen, under circumstances unheard-of, save perhaps in
the tales of African atrocity—if these things constitute domestication,
then by all means let us fall back upon a more erratic and natural state
of society. How would we have stood at this moment, with regard to
Ireland, save for the fact of our being able to overawe rebellion by the
presence of an overwhelming military force? Did ever a man, professing
to be an apostle and a prophet, find himself landed in such a ridiculous
and ignominious posture?
It is strange that the reception which he met with in the House of
Commons, upon the occasion of his first attack upon the army, did not
induce Cobden to pause before committing himself to a second absurdity.
But there are some men whose conceit is of such extravagant a
development, that no experience, no failure, no argument, will induce
them to part with one iota of a preconceived opinion. Such a person is
Cobden. Unabashed by the result of his previous exhibitions, callous to
shame, and impenetrable to ridicule, he again addressed the House on the
subject of the navy estimates, for the purpose of demonstrating the
propriety of an immediate reduction of the fleet. This was too much even
for Lord John Russell, who for once took heart of grace, and
administered a fair allowance of punishment to the arrogant and ignorant
free-trader. But the truth is, Mr Cobden’s career is ended. The _Times_,
once a warm admirer of this confident gentleman, has ceased to vouchsafe
him its protection, as will be seen from the following extract of 11th
August last:—
“What has he done? What have been his tactics? What is the sum and
substance of the statesmanship to which all the world looked forward
so anxiously? Simply this—a depreciation of our military and naval
establishments, and an emulation of America. The first constitutes the
whole gist and pith of the honourable member’s speeches; the latter,
of his policy. England is to disband her fleets and armies, to give up
her colonies, and to enter boldly on a course of Yankee statesmanship.
We would not wrong the hon. gentleman. We refer to his speeches on
Tuesday and Wednesday nights, as well as those delivered at the close
of the last year. What do they amount to? ‘Retrench your expenditure;
give up your ships; abolish the ordnance; send round embassies to
every country and court of Europe; tell them you have disarmed; ask
them to do the same; and then set to work, and tinker up your
constitution on the model of the United States. Do away with open
voting. Destroy the _privilege_ of the suffrage; abolish the virtue of
patriotic courage; give every man a vote, and _make_ every man vote in
secret. Then you will be rich and prosperous; your expenditure will at
once be curtailed, and your commerce will be diffused by the amity of
nations.’ This is the policy which is to save us from ruin, to pay our
debt and confirm our strength. All that we can say is, that one part
of it is well matched to the other; that both equally demonstrate the
ability of the counsellor to advise, as his vaticinations last winter
proved his ability to prophesy.”
And yet this is the person whom the Whigs lauded, and whom Sir Robert
Peel elaborately eulogised for his sagacity!
By a somewhat curious coincidence, the budget was brought forward on the
very week when the French revolution broke out. Mr Cobden’s proposal,
therefore, met with no support; and it must have become evident, even to
the free-traders, that under such a threatening aspect as the Continent
presented, no sane man would agree to a reduction in our military force.
Still that party continued inflexibly opposed to the ministerial measure
for raising an adequate revenue, and, by doing so, we maintain that they
were guilty of an act of political ingratitude. In this situation,
ministers were fain to withdraw their proposal, and to continue the
income-tax as formerly, for a period of three years, without any
definite scheme of making up for the deficiency in the revenue.
In fact, the session has passed away without a budget at all. That which
Lord John Russell tabled, has crumbled away like a thing of gossamer;
and, so far as financial matters are concerned, we are left in the
pleasant impression that we are getting into further debt, and have no
distinct means of paying it. To exhibit the recklessness with which the
Whigs regard all matters connected with revenue, it is sufficient to
remark, that with three millions of deficit admitted, our rulers think
this an advantageous and a proper time to sacrifice about fifty thousand
pounds annually, the produce of duties upon imported copper ore.
Mr Osborne was right. No ministry, had there been a decent Opposition,
could have stood such an exposure. We even go further; for we believe
that—but for the French revolution, and the universal turbulence abroad,
which rendered it absolutely necessary that this country should maintain
a firm front, and exhibit no symptoms of internal weakness or
discord—the present ministry could not have existed for another
fortnight. As it is, we are in some respects glad that they have
continued in office; because, though late, they have been called upon to
act under circumstances which, in future, may give a new and improved
tone to Whig political opinions.
Before quitting the budget, let us say a word or two regarding future
financial prospects. It is no doubt possible that trade may
revive—though, from the present aspect of European affairs, we are not
inclined to be at all sanguine in our expectations. We cannot, it is
quite clear, reduce our effective establishments; for no one can say
what emergency may arise to make us, not mere spectators, but active
partisans in a contest which we shall deeply and long deplore. Economy
we may practise at home, and for once we are of Joseph’s mind. There are
items in our civil and pension list clearly superfluous and
undefensible, and we wish to see these removed, though with a just
regard to vested interests and claims. We are no admirers of such
antiquated offices as that of Hereditary Grand Falconer; and we think
that Mr MacGregor’s inquiry, as to the heirs of the Duke of Schomberg,
who for a century and a half have been billeted upon the country to the
tune of three thousand a-year, deserved at least a courteous reply from
so very determined an economist as the Premier formerly proclaimed
himself. A doorkeeper may surely be maintained at a less annual expense
than the income of a country gentleman; and in many departments even of
government, we have certainly been over lavish of remuneration. But
these retrenchments, though they may give satisfaction to the nation,
can never free it from its embarrassments. The revenue has clearly sunk
to a point when it must be augmented by some decided and effective
measure; and it will well become us all to consider, even without
reference to past disputes, from what quarter the supply is to come. If
the decision, or at all events the expressed feeling, of the House of
Commons can be taken as an index of the popular wish, the nation will
not submit to an augmentation of the income-tax. No increased duties
upon excise can be levied,—indeed the cry is general for the removal of
those which exist. The window-tax—though it might be materially improved
by a more equitable arrangement, and by rating great houses without any
graduated scale—is decidedly unpopular. In fact, all direct taxation is
of an obnoxious character—it is the fertile source of murmur and of
discontent, and it never can be adjusted so as to render it palatable to
the payer.
From what quarter, then, is it possible for us to recruit our revenue?
How are we to provide for casualties, and for a possibly increased
expenditure? That question must be solved in one way or the other, and
that without lack of time. It will not do to go on from year to year
with a continually increasing deficit, the arrears of which shall be
passed to the capital of our national debt—we must raise money, and the
only question is, how to do it.
Within the last six years, says Sir Charles Wood, the nation has
remitted _seven and a half_ millions of annual taxation: since the
peace, says Lord John Russell, more than _thirty-nine millions_ of
annual taxes have been removed. Highly satisfactory this, no doubt—but
what does it prove? Simply that we have pushed the abolition of indirect
taxation too far. We have gone on, year after year, lowering tariffs,
for the purpose of stimulating foreign trade. We have thereby
unquestionably increased our imports, but we have failed in giving any
thing like a corresponding buoyancy to our exports. _Why_ we did this is
not very difficult of comprehension, if we look attentively to the state
of party which has subsisted for the last few years in this country.
Free-trade, in so far as it lessens the cost of production, is clearly
the interest of the master-manufacturer who exports for the foreign
market; but, we repeat, it is the interest of no one else in the
community. Free-trade in certain articles,—that is, in raw material
introduced to this country for the purpose of being manufactured, sold
at home, or exported—is just and commendable. Free-trade in what are
called the necessaries of life, such as corn and cattle, does not tend
to the wealth of the country; but, for the present, we shall leave that
subject in abeyance. Free-trade in luxuries and in manufactured goods,
whenever these latter displace the home labourer in the home market, we
hold to be utterly injurious, and we shall presently state our reasons.
The Manchester school have adopted, preached, and insisted upon free
trade in _all_ these branches. It was their interest to push the cotton
trade to its utmost possible limits, and to undersell all competitors in
every accessible market. Hence their favourite doctrine of cheapness,
which in appearance is so plausible, but which actually is so
fallacious, and the pertinacity with which they have continued to preach
it up. Hence the League, in the formation of which they displayed such
undoubted energy, and the immense sums which they lavished for the
popular promulgation of their creed. To conciliate these men, swollen to
a formidable number, and maintaining their opinions with extreme
plausibility, and no ordinary share of talent, became an important
object to the leaders who were then at the head of the two great parties
of the state. It is in vain to deny that a large body of the middle
classes were concerned in this movement, and, to gain their votes and
support, the unholy race for power began.
Hence our legislation, whether under Peel or Russell, has been directed
for the last six or seven years invariably to one point. The man who
could boast of having removed the greatest amount of taxation was sure
to be the popular favourite; and we all know in what manner, and by what
means, Sir Robert Peel accomplished his share of the work. He first, on
the assurance that it was to be merely temporary, obtained an
income-tax, amply sufficient to redeem the financial deficit which was
the legacy of his predecessors. He next proceeded to make that
income-tax permanent, by paring at, and reducing the tariffs; and
finally, in order that his rival might not have the start of him in
popularity, he threw his party overboard, and consented to the abolition
of the corn-laws.
But there is a point beyond which taxation cannot possibly be remitted;
and that point Sir Robert Peel had reached before he retired from
office. True, the effect of his measures had not yet become apparent,
but they were foreseen by many, and perhaps not unsuspected by himself
towards the close of his tenure of office. Further than as being
consenting parties to those reckless sacrifices of revenue, it would be
unfair to charge the Whigs with having brought us into our present
perplexity. Sir Robert Peel is the real author of this, and he cannot
escape the responsibility.
Now upon two points—viz., the introduction of raw material for
manufacture, and of articles of food—we shall for the present forbear
joining issue with the free-traders. But the third one, that of the
admission of foreign manufactured goods at nearly nominal rates of duty,
is far too important to be passed over, even at the risk of repetition.
The industry of this country is not confined to a few, but flows through
a thousand channels. There are, however, about four great trades in
which Britain can at present, owing to her mineral wealth, machinery,
and capital, compete with decided advantage against any other country in
the world. These are the cotton, the linen, the woollen, and the iron
trade, the exports of which articles amount to rather more than
TWO-THIRDS of the whole exports of the United Kingdom, or in round
numbers from thirty-three to thirty-five millions annually. It is to the
unceasing agitation of men connected with _these_ trades that we owe the
erection of the League, and the progress of free trade which has brought
us to so low a condition.
It is no matter of surprise that the corn-laws were obnoxious to such
persons. With the agricultural interest they had no natural sympathy;
and being always able to command the monopoly of the home market, their
invariable effort has been to stimulate trade abroad to the very utmost
of their power. High wages interfered with their profits; and in order
to command the labour market, they formed their famous scheme for
reducing the price of food, by dealing a blow to agriculture at home,
and opening the ports to the admission of foreign corn. This cry was to
a certain degree popular, especially amongst those who were not
connected with their works; for the more intelligent of the operatives,
to their credit be it said, very early detected the selfishness of the
whole manœuvre, and saw, that with the price of food wages also would
inevitably decline. Foreign corn, however, was not enough for the
appetite of those grasping monopolists. They looked with envy on the
smaller non-exporting trades, who constituted a great portion of the
population, and who were defended in the home market, their only field,
by a reasonable scale of duties. It presently occurred to them, that if,
by any means this scale could be broken down, and the market inundated
with foreign manufactures, they might be enabled to export a larger
quantity of their own fabrics, reduce the price of articles which they
were personally inclined to consume, and finally reap another benefit by
cheapening labour—that is, by forcing a new class, through want of
employment, to compete with their former operatives. These we know to
have been the secret views of the League, and to these ends, for several
years past, they have bent the whole of their energies. How they have
succeeded, let the present state of the labour market tell. The tariffs
of 1846 were expressly framed in their favour. They have done half of
the anticipated work; for by the admission of foreign manufactures into
this country at a reduced rate of duty, they have thrown many thousands
of industrious handicraftsmen into the streets. The small shopkeeper has
been reduced from an employer into a mere retailer, and disaffection has
been engendered through the pressure of absolute misery.
This may seem a highly-coloured picture; but if any man of intelligence
will take the trouble to make himself acquainted with the feelings, and
to listen to the individual histories of persons of the working-class,
he will find it to be strictly true. Four-fifths of the men who were in
attendance at the late Chartist meetings belonged in 1845 to the
non-exporting trades, were then in full employment, and probably as
loyal as any subjects in the kingdom. So, indeed, we believe they are
still, in so far as loyalty to the crown is concerned; for, thank God!
Republicanism has not taken any root in the empire. But they are utterly
discontented with the government, and furious at the apathy with which,
they think, their sufferings are regarded. They find that the repeal of
the corn-laws has done absolutely nothing in their favour. They find
that the lowered tariffs have opened a sluice-gate through which
articles of foreign manufacture have rushed in to swamp them; and they
gloomily, and even savagely, assert, that this state of things is the
result of a combination of the rich against the poor. So it is: but from
that combination the aristocracy and gentlemen of England stand apart.
The headquarters of the grinding-society are at Manchester, Liverpool,
and Sheffield; the machinery it uses are the arms of the League; the
master-spirits of the confederacy are Cobden, Wilson, and Bright.
A very pregnant instance of the sympathy which is felt by the
free-traders and political economists for the suffering of the lower
orders, occurred during a debate towards the beginning of May last. We
specially notice the fact, because it proves that, however two
successive ministers may have forgot their duty to the people, there
exists, in a higher quarter still, the deepest commiseration for their
distress, and an earnest desire to alleviate it in every possible
manner. It appears from official documents that, during the first three
months of the present year, there were entered for home consumption, at
the port of London alone, foreign silk goods worth £400,000, equal to
the employment of 31,000 weavers; lace and needlework worth £40,000, or
sufficient to displace the produce of 4000 workwomen and sempstresses;
and 7000 dozen of boot and shoe fronts, enough to keep 1200 cordwainers
in full employment. So near as we can calculate, the duty payable upon
those articles, under the tariff of 1845, would have amounted to
£88,150: at present it is not more than £65,575, thus entailing a
primary loss of £22,575 to the revenue. Such an influx of goods, at a
peculiarly unprofitable season, was tantamount to displacing the labour
of 36,200 persons, who were to be thrown upon the public charity,
without any other resource. A short time after these facts became known,
an order was issued from the Lord Chamberlain’s office, containing her
Majesty’s commands to the ladies of England, that in attending court
they should appear attired in dresses exclusively the production of
native industry. Yes! our gracious Queen, whose heart is unchilled by
the cold dogmas of political economy, felt like a woman and a sovereign,
and resolved, on her part at least, to rescue from famine and misery so
many thousands of her poorer subjects. It is most gratifying to know
that this exercise of the royal care and benevolence has met with its
best reward, for in the midst of all the distress which has
unfortunately prevailed, the class for whose benefit those timely orders
were issued have been kept in employment and food: the example set from
the throne has been widely and generously followed. But will it be
believed, that this act of mercy gave huge umbrage to the free-traders,
and was fiercely commented on in their journals as a gross infringement
of the principles of enlightened government? Therefore, in the eyes of
the Leaguers, it seems a crime to interfere for the support of the
British workman,—and unjustifiable interference with Providence to give
work to the labouring poor!
But this is not all. Lord John Russell, on being asked in the House of
Commons whether he had any share in suggesting this philanthropic
action, or whether the sole credit of it appertained to his royal
mistress, was not slow in uttering his disclaimer. “_He_ had not advised
the crown in the matter,—he could only say that the order had issued
from the Chamberlain’s office.” After a vain attempt to show that no
extra quantity of goods had been imported, but that the apparent
increase arose solely from the cessation of smuggling, he proceeded to
remark:—“But if more goods _are_ now entered, and thereby a particular
class do suffer inconvenience or distress, _yet these entries must
stimulate the production and exportation of the classes of goods for
which the imports are exchanged_.” There spoke the convert to the
League—the truckler to Cobden and Co.! There, from the lips of a British
minister, fell the most un-British, the most unpatriotic doctrine that
ever yet was enunciated! Said we not truly that the whole object of free
trade is to put down and exterminate the non-exporting trades, for the
exclusive benefit of the few monster monopolies? The Premier concluded
an ungracious, halting, and discreditable speech with the somewhat
unnecessary announcement that, under all circumstances, he thought he
should be the last person to advise her Majesty to make an alteration in
the commercial policy which of late years had been pursued.
We need hardly remark that, in the present instance, the importation of
these foreign goods could in no way “stimulate the production or
exportation” of any kind of British manufacture whatever. The articles
in question were sent from France, at a time when every thing was
unsaleable, and were sold in London for hard cash, at a heavy discount.
Even Cobden need not have grudged this little encouragement to
Spitalfields and Bethnal Green. He did not sell a yard of calico the
less. Gold, and not shirting, was what the French wanted, what they
bargained for, and what they received. But let us see a little more of
the sympathy of the Leaguers for the poor, and respect for the
sovereign, who surely might be left, in matters of this kind, to
exercise some discretion of her own.
Colonel Thompson, representing _an exporting constituency_, was furious
at the alleged interference. “He would ask whether there was any
charity, any humanity, any justice, any policy, any common-sense in
representing hostility to one portion of the manufacturing classes of
the country, to come from a quarter of which he was sure no one in that
House wished to speak otherwise than with feelings of the utmost
affection and reverence?” We are not sure that we quite understand this
outburst of the gallant Colonel, which we copy verbatim from the columns
of the _Spectator_, but, as he talks about charity and humanity with
reference to his waistcoat and pantaloon exporting constituency of
Bradford, we take him to mean that that favoured place should flourish,
and Spitalfields utterly disappear. This is pure Leaguer’s doctrine,
distinctly redolent of the Bastile!
Mr John Bright was also true to his order. The partisan of peace opined
that “there was no difference between driving out workmen, and keeping
out their work: though no order had been issued to exclude foreign work,
yet the effect of the order really given is, that French silks, which
would have been consumed, will not be used, _and English taken instead_.
It should be known, that from the late convulsions, the contingent
depression of trade, and the low price of French silks in France, very
large quantities of them have been purchased and brought to this
country. The announcement in question might therefore entail _great loss
on large capitalists_, and ruin on many of smaller means. The kindness
to the Spitalfields weavers would then be done only at a cost of loss
and injury to other classes.” Quite right, Friend Bright! the first
persons to be guarded are _your_ speculators and _your_ capitalists. The
poor operative, who is not in your line, may starve for any thing you
care. There is a protective spirit about this, which absolutely charms
us. We wonder that Mr Bright did not on a former occasion foresee that
the repeal of the corn-laws might entail great loss on large
proprietors, and ruin on many of smaller means!
Sir William Molesworth considered that “it was _a silly and foolish_
order; and he was informed, on the best authority, that there was not
the slightest chance of its being obeyed.” We leave this remark of
Molesworth without any comment, merely asking his authority for holding
that, to assist in feeding the hungry, and maintaining our poorer
countrymen by the exercise of their own industry, is a silly and a
foolish act; and requesting him to consider how far his chivalrous title
is consistent with such language, when applied to an order emanating
directly from his sovereign.
This little episode is very instructive, as elucidating the views of the
free-traders. The great exporting trades have combined to crush and
annihilate the small handicrafts, and this they are rapidly doing
through the operation of these lowered tariffs. If direct taxation were
to be introduced, and the custom-house virtually abolished, in so far as
regards articles of foreign manufacture, the thing would be done at
once—for no one would wear clumsy English boots when he could get French
ones at a lower price; or British instead of Parisian gloves; or silk
from Spitalfields rather than the less costly fabric of Lyons. The more
honest of the free-traders make no scruple of announcing their views.
They admit that the realisation of their maxim, to sell in the dearest
and buy in the cheapest market, implies the ruin of every non-exporting
trade, and they seem absolutely resolved to push their theory to the
utmost. At present Sir Robert Peel has managed it so, that, without
being absolutely annihilated, the poorer classes are ground down to the
lowest point. We ask the shopkeepers, artisans, and smaller
manufacturers, who have no connexion with the foreign market, whether
this is not truly the case,—and if so, whether they are inclined to
allow this cruel, selfish, and inhuman system to be carried any
further—nay, whether they will not at once resolve to make determined
head against it? But for the obstinate blindness of the political
economists, we would appeal to that dearest of all considerations, their
own safety. Do they really think it possible, even were it politic, to
drive the whole operative industry of Britain into the compass of a few
exporting trades. Can they make millions of men change their habits of a
sudden, and walk from the country towns and villages,—wherein, before
Sir Robert Peel introduced the foreigner to swamp them, they had
supported themselves by the exercise of their craft,—to the factory or
the mine, or the furnace, or the printing work, there to spend the
remainder of their existence in twisting, digging, smelting, and
stamping, for the benefit of Cobden and his confederates? The idea is
absolute madness. Already we see the effects of false and unpatriotic
legislation, in Chartist meetings and processions, in agitations for
universal suffrage, in crime three-fold increased, and in augmented
poor-rates. What are considerations of sanatory reform or of public
instruction compared to these? Will men thank you for soap and tracts,
even should these articles be gratuitous, if you take their labour away
from them, and legislate for one class alone, as has been the case of
late years? Can you expect to make them loyal and peaceable, whilst you
deny them the means of obtaining a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s
labour—whilst you not only encourage, but convert into an actual fact
the idea that a large portion of the poor are oppressed, and drive them
to seek a remedy in attempts to procure a more popular representation?
Free trade has been the great incentive to Chartism, and, unless men
return speedily to their senses, it may chance to be the terrible
promoter of revolution.
But what is to be the real amount of the deficit? No man living can
tell. Lord John Russell estimated it at about three millions, and
subsequently Sir Charles Wood announced that, by sundry savings and
sales of old stores—which latter source of revenue very much resembles
the case of a gentleman parting with his body clothes to make up for his
annual expenditure—it might be reduced to a million and a half. Since
then we have received the official accounts of the trade of the kingdom
for the six months ending 5th July 1848; and we very much fear, from a
perusal of these, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has understated
his difficulties. Our exports, for the sake of which every other
interest has been sacrificed, have fallen off to an alarming extent.
During the corresponding six months of last year the declared value of
our exports was £25,395,243: the whole amount for this period is
£21,571,939, or very nearly FOUR MILLIONS less on the half year! Here is
another staggering instance of the utter futility of free trade. The
decrease of export for the year 1846, as compared with 1845, was about
two millions—and now it is going on at the rate of four millions for
half the time! Was there ever a more pregnant proof of the impossibility
of forcing markets?
Looking to the imports, we find some very curious results. Lord John
Russell took great credit for the increased consumption of sugar
consequent on his West Indian experiments, which we shall presently have
occasion to notice more minutely; and predicted a still further
consumption and increase to the revenue. Let us see how that matter
stands. The following is the total of sugar imported to this country for
the first six months of the last three years respectively.
1846. 1847. 1848.
Sugar unrefined, cwts., 2,956,986 3,967,686 2,960,430
Sugar Refined, 54,249 39,344 50,863
Sugar Candy, 1 1,025 507
Sugar Molasses, 202,264 411,263 191,531
————————— ————————— —————————
3,213,500 4,419,318 3,203,331
————————— ————————— —————————
So that we are absolutely importing _less sugar_ in 1848 than we did in
1846, before Lord John Russell and his sapient colleagues chose to give
the _coup de grace_ to the colonists! So much for increased revenue from
that source.
In the articles of raw material for manufacture there is a considerable
increase; and, should money be obtainable at easy rates throughout the
coming winter, this may be a source of real congratulation. But from
recent symptoms, and the insanity of ministers in refusing to face the
difficulties of the Bank Restriction Acts, we very much dread another
recurrence of tightness, in which case industry must inevitably be
paralysed as before. It is, however, comforting to know that we have a
stock of raw material in hand, and that our condition in that respect
has improved since last year, when the warehouses were nearly drained.
The aggregate amount of cotton, wool, flax, hemp, and silk which have
been imported for the last six months is in the ratio of 28,811,825, to
27,372,502 for the same period in 1847.
But the influx of foreign manufactures is the most singular feature of
all; and we do entreat the most serious consideration of our readers to
this very pressing point. What we have already said regarding the
annihilation of the small trades in this country, by the total
withdrawal of protection, receives the amplest confirmation from these
official tables; and, if we are wise, something must be done, with the
least possible delay, to remedy the evils which have been entailed upon
us, through our blind submission to the pernicious doctrines of the
free-traders. Do honourable members really believe, that by agitating
the ballot, or bringing forward schemes for extended suffrage, they will
give work to the unemployed, or put bread in the mouths of the starving?
If, instead of attempting to gain a little transient popularity by
advocating organic changes, they would seriously address themselves to
the task of revising the tariffs, and so encouraging the home market,
they would be of real use to the country at this momentous time. For
momentous it is most certainly. The discovery of a deliberate plan for
general incendiarism in Liverpool, the mobs in Glasgow, and the
disturbances at Bradford, are all symptoms of disaffection, and all
proceed from one cause—from the sacrifice of native industry at the
shrine of the Moloch of free trade. Even now, while we are writing,
intelligence has arrived of the arrest of armed Chartists in London and
in Manchester; assassination has begun at Ashton, and every post brings
in tidings of some new commotion. Is this a time for Parliament to
separate without any remedial measure? Is this a time to allow our
markets to be inundated with foreign produce; each fresh cargo
displacing our own industry, and further adding to our embarrassment, by
hastening on another monetary crisis by the exportation of bullion in
exchange? This is the work commenced by Peel, and consummated by the
incapable Whigs. God knows how it will end, if wiser, more unselfish,
and more patriotic men are not speedily summoned to take the lead in her
Majesty’s councils.
No account is given, as in former years, of the amount of foreign linen
and woollen manufactures imported, or of several other important
branches of trade upon which Sir Robert Peel abolished the duty. Why
this omission has taken place we do not know, unless it be for the worst
of all reasons, that the results were too startling for disclosure. But
we shall take the statistics of the silk manufactured trade alone, from
which it will be seen that, in two years after the relaxation of the
duties, we have _doubled our imports_, thereby throwing immense numbers
of our own operatives out of employment.
FOREIGN SILK MANUFACTURES, ENTERED UNDER TARIFF OF 1846.
1846. 1847. 1848.
Silk or satin broad stuffs, 64,269 lbs. 85,589 lbs. 141,179 lbs.
Silk ribbons, 79,541 95,906 95,881
Gauze or crape broad stuffs, 4,383 4,053 5,127
Gauze ribbons, 11,268 26,166 26,312
Gauze, mixed, 18 8 39
Mixed ribbons, 687 1,650 1,244
Velvet broad stuffs, 2,935 4,822 6,558
Velvet embossed ribbons, 4,183 3,141 10,530
——————— ——————— ———————
167,284 lbs. 221,335 lbs. 286,870 lbs.
Now if, as it is fair to suppose, the same increase, or even half of it,
has taken place in the importation of other articles upon which the
duties were removed, but which have been quietly withdrawn from the
official tables; these statistics are enough to condemn free trade
before any tribunal in the world. Mark how the matter stands. Here is a
_doubled importation_ of foreign manufactured goods. One half at least
of these goods have come in to displace your home manufacture. The other
half would have come in as formerly to supply the rich, who would have
had to pay a high duty for the gratification of their fancy. That duty,
where reduced, is now lost to the revenue. Who is the gainer, then? No
one, save the rich consumer; whilst, on the other hand, the revenue has
suffered, and home industry has received a prostrating blow. But—say men
of the Cobden school—though the silk weaver, and embroiderer, and
milliner, and plaiter, and shoemaker, and tailor, may have suffered, the
country is no loser, because WE export goods in return for the articles
of import. Do you, gentlemen? Let us turn to the export tables, and see
how your account stands. Recollect, you have undertaken to show us a
corresponding export of your goods to meet the influx of foreign
manufactures. Unless you can do this, your case is utterly worthless,
and you stand as detected impostors.
EXPORT OF PRINCIPAL MANUFACTURES FROM THE UNITED
KINGDOM.
1846. 1847. 1848.
Cotton manufactures, £8,899,272 £9,248,835 £8,023,825
Ditto yarn, 3,523,793 2,628,616 2,214,431
Linen manufactures, 1,389,520 1,502,770 1,413,819
Ditto yarn, 410,277 315,196 236,076
Silk manufactures, 421,910 494,806 263,798
Woollen yarn, 377,160 444,797 291,985
Ditto manufactures, 3,143,550 3,564,754 2,578,470
——————————— ——————————— ———————————
£18,165,482 £18,199,774 £15,022,404
The result is a loss on these articles alone of THREE MILLIONS in six
months, and we are to set that against doubled imports, free of duty,
and displacing British employment! Here are the glorious effects of Sir
Robert’s commercial legislation!
What, then, _has_ gone out to meet the import which is rapidly promoting
Chartism among us, by impoverishing the poorer classes? Just what we
predicted long ago—GOLD; the idol without which men must starve, but
which free trade periodically sweeps from out our grasp. The lowered
tariffs have operated peculiarly unfavourably at the present crisis—not
perhaps so much in the branch of silk manufactures as in others; for it
is remarkable that the increase of import in 1847, over that of 1846, is
quite as large as the increase of the present over the former year; and
had Lord John Russell been alive to the duties of his situation, or
capable of comprehending the effects which a glut of foreign goods must
produce on the home market, he ought instantly to have brought in a bill
augmenting the customs duties, and hurried it through Parliament without
a moment’s unnecessary delay. The madness of encouraging increased
imports, whilst exports are falling, is utterly inconceivable to any who
have not eaten and drunk with Cobden; and it is quite possible that some
who have been admitted to that precious privilege, may agree with us if
they will take the trouble to consider the foregoing tables. We are not
the only sufferers. America is beginning to understand that increased
imports are by no means decisive symptoms of a healthy commercial state;
and the following extract from Transatlantic correspondence, which we
copy from the money article in the _Sun_ newspaper of 16th August last,
is pregnant with meaning in the present posture of affairs.
“The whole of Europe is in a terrible condition, and our only hope is,
that Great Britain may escape the blast which has swept from one end
of the Continent to the other with such devastating effect. If England
escape, we shall continue to find extensive markets for our products,
and our prosperity will be partially preserved. Our markets on the
Continent have almost become extinct, so that the worst in that
particular has already been realised; but, every week or month,
consumption in that section of the world is restricted or limited—so
much the more injurious must be the revolution causing such a state of
things. With the exception of Great Britain, our European export trade
has been literally annihilated; but _unfortunately, our import trade
with these countries_ has not met with a similar fate, but on the
contrary, has rather increased than otherwise. Importers and
speculators in this country have taken advantage of the financial
embarrassments growing out of the Revolution, which the manufacturers
of France and Europe generally have laboured under, and have purchased
of them for cash, goods at one half their cost, and have filled our
markets. _A portion of the specie which has been shipped from this
port within the last four months went abroad for this purpose_; and
while our exports had become reduced to the lowest limit, and exchange
drawn upon previous shipments of produce was coming back protested,
millions of dollars of gold and silver were going forward to purchase
goods which could not be obtained on the usual credit. In this way,
our whole foreign trade has become deranged, and we have thus far
borne the brunt of the commercial revulsions and political revolutions
in Europe.”
What is to be said of a system which swamps our home market, whilst at
the same time it promotes a drain of gold? What is to be said of the
system which makes a drain of gold almost tantamount to national
bankruptcy?
Having hitherto dealt with the subjects of the currency and finance, let
us now glance for a moment at the new legislation for our colonies. We
need not repeat the tale of the disasters into which the West Indies
have been plunged, or the ruin which has befallen many of our own most
respectable citizens, who, to their misfortune, had embarked their
capital and fortunes in sugar-growing estates, trusting to British faith
and protection for at least an adequate return. The veriest zealot could
not have wished to have seen the crime of slavery more bitterly avenged;
but in what a manner! Great Britain, after having made a sacrifice of
twenty millions to emancipate the slave population in her own
colonies,—a sacrifice to her, though not an adequate compensation to the
planters,—after having declared to the whole world her determination no
longer to participate in the profits of forced labour,—after having made
treaties, and equipped armaments for the suppression of the
slave-trade,—suddenly changed her policy, admitted slave-grown sugar
from foreign states, first, at a high, and, latterly, at so low a duty,
that her own colonies, already impoverished, could no longer afford to
defray the cost of production. Here, again, the principle of free trade
has been triumphant and ruinous; here, again, the exporting trades have
carried their point, not only against the interests of the colonists,
but against those of benevolence and Christianity. The cause of the
Blacks has been abandoned for the tempting bribe of cheap sugars, of an
augmented demand for cottons and blankets to supply the gangs of Cuba,
and of machinery for Brazil, to enable the planter more utterly to
prostrate Jamaica.
In February last we reviewed with great care all the evidence which we
could collect regarding the West Indian interest. The conclusion to
which we arrived was contained in the following paragraph:—“And what is
it that our colonists ask? What is the extravagant proposal which we are
prepared to reject at the cost of the loss of our most fertile
possessions, and of nearly two hundred millions of British capital?
Simply this, that in the meantime such a distinctive duty should be
enforced as will allow them to compete on terms of equality with the
slave-growing states. Let this alone be granted, and they have no wish
to interfere with any other fiscal regulation. And what would be the
amount of differential duty required? _Not more, as we apprehend, than
ten shillings the hundredweight._” Having hazarded this statement so
early, it was certainly gratifying to find that an impartial committee
of the House of Commons, reporting four months later, had, after a full
investigation of the whole case,—and of course with official documents
before them, the correctness of which could not admit of a
doubt,—arrived at precisely the same result. The proposition for a
differential duty of ten shillings, which was finally agreed to by the
committee, was actually made by a member whose general opinions are
understood to lean towards the side of free trade,—we mean Sir Thomas B.
Birch, one of the representatives for Liverpool.
This resolution of course implied a direct condemnation of the Whig Act
of 1846, which the West Indians bitterly complained of as a flagrant
breach of faith, and as having put the coping-stone on their
misfortunes. It was the resolution of an independent and intelligent
parliamentary committee, founded upon a mass of evidence derived from
every quarter; and in a matter of this sort, wherein so vast an interest
as that of our most valuable colonies was concerned, it might have been
expected that the report would be treated with deference, even though it
might in some degree impugn the sagacity of a prime minister, by
exposing the results of his former reckless legislation. Such was not
the case. Had the seven wise men of Greece sate upon that committee,
their report would have been utterly indifferent to Lord John, who
immediately came forward with a counter-scheme, which had not even the
merit of consistency to give it colour. He proposed a new sliding-scale
of duties, the result of which will be, that next year the colonists
will have a protection against the slave-owners of seven shillings in
the article of clayed, and five-and-sixpence in that of muscovado
sugar,—the boon to taper away annually, until, in 1854, the protective
duty will be reduced to three shillings on the one article, and two
shillings upon the other. This is the doom of the West Indies,—and we
expect nothing less than an immediate stoppage of the supplies for the
maintenance of the colonial governments. Robbed as they have been,
ruined as they are, and all through a course of most reckless and
unprovoked legislation, it is in vain to hope that any further capital
will be embarked in the cultivation of these islands. For the benefit of
economists at home, and the clamourers for cheap sugar, it may be as
well to record that this new sliding-scale is to be accompanied with a
_loan_ of £500,000, in addition to £160,000 already guaranteed this
session, for the purposes of promoting immigration, and that at a period
when the annual deficit was originally calculated at _three_ millions!
The amendment of Sir John Pakington, founded upon the resolutions of the
committee, was negatived in a full house by the small majority of
fifteen.
This has been by far the most important debate of the session; and at
one time it was confidently expected that ministers would have been
defeated. Sir Robert Peel, however, came to their rescue at the last
stage. Oleaginous and plausible as ever, the wily baronet began his
speech by deploring the misfortunes of the West Indians, repudiating
mere pecuniary considerations, and calling to mind old struggles, in
which these colonies had stood by the side of the mother country. This
sympathetic introduction boded little mercy for the parties it seemed to
favour. Sir Robert had acquiesced in the Act of 1846, and it was now
rather difficult to back out from that position. But soothing measures
might be adopted, the salaries of governors defrayed by the mother
country, and _perhaps_, if, after due consideration, it should be found
expedient to remove the blockading squadron from the coast of Africa,
part of the sums so saved might be devoted to colonial purposes. Then
came a discourse upon the merits of irrigation, which would have done
credit to a lecturer in an agricultural society. Finally, Sir Robert
rested his future hopes for the Indies upon other, and what appear to us
peculiarly objectionable considerations. He has no confidence in the
tranquillity of Cuba and Brazil, and he hints at an insurrection of the
slaves being probable, if emancipation is not granted. We shall not
comment more than lightly upon the decency of such a hint. Desirable as
emancipation may be, it is, to say the least, questionable whether it
would be cheaply bought by so terrible a catastrophe as a general rising
of the black barbarian population against the whites; and in the event
of such a misfortune occurring either in the above slave colonies or in
the United States, it is extremely problematical whether our own dearly
bought emancipation would effectually prevent the contagion from
spreading to the free colonies. But we will tell Sir Robert a fact of
which he ought to be fully cognisant. The greatest enemies and obstacles
to emancipation, in the Spanish and South American States, have been
himself and his free-trading allies. It is well known to many here, and
notorious in the West Indies, that at the very time when the ill-advised
Act permitting slave-grown sugar to be introduced into this country was
produced, negotiations were actually pending in Cuba for the immediate
emancipation of the slaves. The results of that Act were the instant
abandonment of such an idea, the withdrawal of the slaves from the
coffee plantations to the sugar-fields, double work rigorously enforced,
and an enormously increased importation of human beings from the coast
of Africa. With such a bonus held out to the Cuban planter, such a huge
increase of consumption in this country as Lord John Russell gloatingly
contemplates, it would be utter insanity to expect that emancipation can
take place through any other means than blood, rapine, plunder, and
incendiarism. Sir Robert and the free-traders have effectually precluded
any milder method. Had they been true to the principles professed by
this country at the time of our own emancipation, there is every human
reason to believe that by this time Cuba would have been a free colony.
Had that event taken place, slavery, and of course the slave-trade,
would have received its death-blow. But now when we have given, and
continue to give, a direct premium to the abhorred system, when we have
shown that we love its produce so much, as to hold the welfare of our
own colonies as nothing in comparison, it is mere Jesuitry to cant about
the probability of voluntary freedom. This is the worst and most
indefensible argument, if, indeed, it can be brought within the category
of arguments, which has yet been advanced from any quarter in support of
the false legislation and determined opposition of ministers to the just
claims of the colonists.
In the course of the debate a singular discussion arose, which tends to
throw some light upon the management of the Colonial Office. A most
important despatch upon the state of Jamaica had been received from
Governor Grey, and this was withheld from the select committee then
sitting, although Mr Hawes, the Under-secretary for the Colonies, was
directly questioned as to its existence. We do not wish to enter into
the details of this matter, or to cast any imputation upon the probity
of Mr Hawes, who, in explanation, was fain to take shelter under the
plea of a mistake. But the circumstance certainly did look awkward, and
the doubts, not only of the House but of the country, were far from
being removed by the extreme acrimony displayed by the Premier, in his
injudicious defence of his subordinate. Never in our recollection has a
Prime Minister shown so remarkable a want of temper and of courtesy to a
political opponent, as was exhibited by Lord John Russell in his reply
to Lord George Bentinck. We should be glad, for the sake of the utterer,
that the speech could be erased from the pages of Hansard, even were we
to lose, at the same time, the brilliant and withering reply which it
elicited from Mr D’Israeli. A suppression certainly had occurred,
whether through mistake or otherwise; and the matter was thought so
serious that Earl Grey volunteered an explanation in the Upper House. He
had better have let it alone. New charges of suppression were preferred;
and finally Earl Grey admitted that, on one occasion at least, he had
quoted passages from a Jamaica memorial in support of his argument,
totally and purposely omitting to read other sentences, which gave a
different construction to the meaning intended to be conveyed! This is
popularly said to be the method adopted by a certain personage, who
shall be nameless, whenever he has occasion to quote Scripture, and yet
it is practised and defended by a high official functionary! We copy the
remarks of our contemporary the _Spectator_, as very apposite on this
occasion.
“The personal dispute about the conduct of Lord Grey and Mr Hawes, and
the strictures of Lord George Bentinck, which began on Friday last,
have usurped a large share of the week’s debates; not altogether to so
little purpose as most personal squabbles, since it throws
considerable light on the administration of colonial affairs. The
general impression, when all sides have had their say, is, that Mr
Hawes and Lord Grey did not intend to cheat Lord George Bentinck’s
committee by the deliberate suppression of evidence; but the very
statements made by ministers, in defence, unveil reprehensible
practices. It seems that the routine of the Colonial Office is such as
to preclude any security against ‘mistakes’ so grave as the
withholding of most important despatches. And Lord Grey claims, as an
admitted official privilege, to pick out bits of evidence in his
exclusive possession, that make for a particular view, although those
bits may be torn from a context that should perfectly refute that
particular view! In effect, he upholds the doctrine that a government
is not bound to lay before parliament all the information that reaches
the departments, even though that information be not of a secret kind,
but may select such parts as go to bolster up the preconceived
crotchets of the minister for the time being. In this case, Lord Grey
had preconceived crotchets hostile to the West Indian colonies, whom
he treated as if he were the Attorney-General prosecuting a state
criminal. He has carried beyond its usual bounds the spirit of the
_Anti_-Colonial Office, in Downing Street. With this spirit of
animosity the Secretary for the Colonies coupled the most singular
exhibition of personal trifling, and self-worship. He appealed to the
name of his father, as a reason for not accusing himself! and pointed
to the ‘awful warning across the Channel,’ as a reason for not
preferring charges calculated to weaken English statesmen. ‘Don’t talk
of inefficiency or dishonesty,’ cries he—‘it is dangerous; for such
talk has upset governments abroad.’ Yes, shaky and dishonest
governments; but what is Lord Grey afraid of?”
As for the sugar duties, we do not by any means believe that this is a
final settlement of the question. If free trade, indeed, should continue
to progress, there is not much hope for the colonists; but, to the
observant eye, there are unmistakeable symptoms of reaction apparent in
this country, and a very general sympathy for the case of the West
Indians. Our greatest fear is, that irretrievable mischief will be
wrought before there is an opportunity of applying a remedy. It seems
cruel mockery, after all that has happened, to exhort the planters to
persevere, and to prevent those valuable islands from lapsing into a
state of wilderness: and yet there seems no alternative between such
perseverance and abandonment. This only we can say, that should the
commercial principles, which we have advocated throughout, be again
recognised and adopted—should true and not hollow Conservatism once more
triumph over Whig effrontery and weakness, this mighty grievance will
assuredly be the earliest redressed.
Referring again to the speech from the throne as the text for the
parliamentary campaign, we find the Navigation Laws specially marked out
either for modification or repeal. This subject having been fully dealt
with in our July Number, we offer no further remarks upon the policy
which dictated such a plan; indeed, no remarks are necessary, for since
then the measure has been postponed. This is a sorry result for
ministers; for although they plead, in justification, that other
important business had prevented them from forcing on the consideration
of this very serious question, their protestations do not seem to
satisfy the gentlemen who are most clamorous against the shipping
interest of Britain. It has been more than hinted in certain quarters,
that this postponement is a small stroke of Whig policy or prudence, for
the purpose of keeping alive as long as possible a theme of dissension
among the Conservatives. We offer no opinion as to this conjecture,
which may be substantially true or not. Certain it is that the proposal
for the repeal of those laws has been encountered, outside of the House
of Commons, with a storm of disapprobation; and that, if the feeling of
the public, as opposed to the interests of the exporters, has any weight
with the legislature, the ministerial bill will be strangled before it
can receive the royal assent. So great was the anxiety displayed, that
on the day after it became known in Glasgow that the bill was not to be
pushed forward this session, every vessel in the Clyde was decorated
with flags, in token of thankfulness for the respite. We hope that every
advantage will be taken in the interval to force upon the attention of
parliament the resolution of the well-affected people of this country,
to maintain intact that law which has been the source of our naval
supremacy, and which was declared, by no less an authority than Adam
Smith, to be as wise as if it had been dictated by the most deliberate
wisdom.
A considerable number of minor bills have been quietly allowed to drop.
This is not matter of lamentation, for, as far as we could comprehend
the principle of most of them, they were utterly worthless and uncalled
for. The Bill for the Removal of the Jewish Disabilities was, we rejoice
to say, thrown out in the House of Lords, the peers being of opinion
that the British Legislature should continue a Christian assembly. Lord
John, in the plenitude of his zeal for the Sanhedrim, gave notice of a
motion for altering the form of the oaths required to be taken by each
member of Parliament at his admission, and so introducing the Jew by a
convenient little postern. But somehow or other, as the session
progressed, the ardour of the Premier cooled, and Baron Rothschild is at
present left with as little chance of adorning the benches of St
Stephens as ever. Mr Joseph Hume and his party have got up a radical
alliance, for the extension of the suffrage and various other organic
schemes, and it was understood that Sir Joshua Walmsley was to have the
honour of leading the movement. Unfortunately, however, before the day
of debate had arrived, Sir Joshua had been unseated in consequence of
certain acts of bribery which had taken place in connexion with the
borough of Leicester, so that the purists had to march to battle under
the chieftainship of the veteran of Montrose. They were beaten hollow:
but at a later period of the session, the carelessness of ministers gave
a temporary triumph to the same parties, resolutions in favour of the
ballot having been passed by a small majority. This vote is of no
importance whatever, save in so far as it demonstrates the utter
helplessness of the Whigs when left to their own resources.
Whilst upon the subject of shelving, let us remark that the Scottish
Registration and Marriage Bills have shared a similar fate. Of this we
are devoutly glad. Not a single petition has been presented in their
favour; and though no doubt the registration of births, and a stricter
law of marriage, may be desirable, we think it might be quite possible
to accomplish both objects, without creating a new and expensive staff
of functionaries, or holding forth a prospect of entire immunity to
seduction. Possibly at a later period we may take an opportunity of
examining these postponed measures in detail.
Two more questions remain, and then the history of the session is ended.
They are of vast importance—Ireland, and our foreign policy.
The opening of the session found Ireland in a state of agrarian outrage.
Agitation was doing its work, and murder was rife on every hand.
Foremost in stirring up the people, most determined in hounding them on,
were the Roman Catholic priesthood; and we trust that this fact will not
be forgotten by those who are now meditating to buy their silence.
Individuals were openly denounced from the altar, and next day shot down
by the assassin. The most seditious language was used by these cassocked
traitors towards the British government; and even the higher dignitaries
of their church sought to stimulate the passions of the populace by the
most barefaced and impudent misrepresentation. Hear Archdeacon Laffan at
Cashel, upon a Sunday, surrounded by some fifteen thousand of the
peasantry, and backed by that notable worthy, Mr John O’Connell, and
three other members of Parliament—“The Saxon scoundrel, with his
bellyful of Irish meat, could very well afford to call his poor, honest,
starving fellow-countrymen savages and assassins; but if in the
victualling department John Bull suffered one-fifth of the privations to
which the Tipperary men were subject, if he had courage enough, he would
stand upon one side, _and shoot the first man he could meet with a
decent coat on his back_—(Cheers.) But the Saxon had not courage to do
any thing like a man; he growls out like a hungry tiger!” At the time
when this expositor of the Christian doctrine was raving to his
miserable flock, the following was the condition of the Established
clergy. One of them, writing from King’s County, described his
position—“For nearly twenty years I have been a minister of the
Established Church; and during that time I have had nothing whatever to
do with tithes, for my benefice is a chapelry of £90 a-year, and is paid
partly out of land set apart for the purpose, and partly by the
ecclesiastical commissioners of Ireland, from a fund bequeathed to small
livings by Primate Boulter.” He had devoted much attention to the
employment of the poor; had never shown favour or partiality to any one
sect; had lived simply, and attended to his duties; had never brought an
ejectment, or taken any other law proceedings, against a tenant. “What,
then,” continued he, “was my surprise and horror to find an assassin
lying in wait for me for three successive days; and—for this is still
more horrifying—that most of the people of the neighbourhood where I
live have been so far from expressing joy at the escape I have made,
that they show evident disappointment at my not being shot!”
We have often marvelled what must be the impression of foreigners after
reading such speeches as are usually delivered at an Irish assembly, by
men who cannot plead utter ignorance in extenuation of the language they
employ. They must, we presume, imagine that “the Saxon” has taken
forcible possession of the whole of Ireland; that the natives are no
better than serfs—unprotected by any laws, and liable to be beaten,
plundered, and massacred at the pleasure of the invaders; that, on the
approach of each harvest, hordes of the Saxons repair to the fertile
fields of the Celt, reap them with a sickle in the one hand and a musket
in the other, and then carry off the produce, without leaving a single
doit in reparation. He would imagine that the women are forced, the men
defrauded, and the houses pillaged at pleasure; that the Roman Catholics
are hunted down like wild beasts, by armies of bloodthirsty Protestants;
that the exercise of their faith is denied them; and that they are
allowed no voice whatever in the national representation. Some such
conception as this he must form from the harangues which have
constituted the staple of Conciliation Hall for more years than we care
to reckon. But what would be his amazement were he told that Ireland is
governed by precisely the same laws as the sister country; that property
is equally protected, and life endangered only by the brutality of the
Celtic assassin; that Ireland is specially exempted from several of the
taxes which press most heavily upon the industrious classes of Great
Britain; that on the last occasion of famine, upwards of nine millions
of public, and a vast amount of private money, was given for the support
of her poor; that Roman Catholic colleges have been munificently
endowed; that Ireland has her full share of representation in the
imperial Parliament, and that upwards of one half of the time of the
House of Commons is occupied with measures tending to the amelioration
of the Irish people! If he were told all this—and it is no more than the
naked truth—what would be his astonishment? And yet so it is. Ireland
has persisted, and is persisting, in her course of sedition without a
grievance, of murder without provocation, of black and brutal
ingratitude without even the shadow of an excuse!
It is impossible to find language too strong to characterise the guilt
of the individuals, lay or clerical, who have spent the better part of
their mean and mischievous existence in misleading their rude and
ignorant fellow-countrymen. They are the moral nuisances who have always
stood in the way of Ireland’s progression and happiness. But for them,
there would have been no absenteeism, no heart-burning between the
landlord and the tenant. The people would gradually have learned habits
of industry and providence, and instead of whooping through the country
like maniacs, shouting and yelling for repeal, which if granted, would
make an utter hell of Ireland, they would be tilling the ground, or
usefully employed in the development of that capital which no one dare
hazard at present in their mad and turbulent districts. For all these
things we do not blame, but execrate O’Connell and his tribe. The
grasping selfishness of that family has for the last few years been the
greatest curse to Ireland; and the crimes of other and inferior
agitators shrink into insignificance, compared with the moral turpitude
of the men who have deliberately fattened upon their country’s ruin.
Mr John O’Connell, having previously declared his intention of dying on
the floor of the House of Commons rather than permit the passing of a
Coercion Bill to restrain his countrymen from murder, did in effect make
his appearance in St Stephens, but by no means with a suicidal
intention. One of his earliest speeches is worth preserving, as it
exhibits, in a most extraordinary degree, the hereditary power of
mendicancy. “If they had a reverence for human life, let them extend it
to the people of Ireland. Give money. He asked for money. He heard the
laughter of honourable gentlemen; but he could tell them that they ought
to give money, and that it was their duty to do so. Charge them for the
money if they liked, but at all events let them save the lives of the
people. He did not expect to be met otherwise than with laughter; and he
was bound to say that he never saw in that House one single real thought
for the interest of Ireland. (_Great laughter._) He begged to say, that
he had made that remark hastily and hotly, but now he repeated it
deliberately and coolly. Whenever the interests of Ireland came into
competition with those of England, they were invariably sacrificed. And
if he did ask money, had he not a right to do so? In a few nights a
motion would come on, and then he would prove that they owed it!” No man
certainly ever did more credit to his profession. Brought up under the
most able instructor of his age in the art of begging, John O’Connell
exhibited on this occasion talents of the highest order, which would
have made his fortune on the highway, unless some stray traveller should
have mistaken the intentions of the suppliant, and been over ready with
his pistol to prevent an anticipated robbery. The vile ingratitude of
this man is almost equal to his audacity. Great Britain, without the
slightest hope of any return, had impoverished herself for the support
of the Irish, and yet here was the whole acknowledgment! Even on the
score of policy it would have been wiser for Mr O’Connell to have
mitigated his tone.
The Irish Crime and Outrage Bill was introduced by ministers at an early
stage of the session, with the general concurrence of all parties. No
one could doubt that it was especially needed, but few were sanguine
that it would suffice to cure the spirit of disaffection which was
abroad. In fact, Irish agitation has been allowed to proceed to such a
point, that the evil is utterly incurable. What chance is there of
putting a stop to physical force demonstrations, or, in other words, to
open rebellion, whilst another gang of demagogues is permitted to preach
sedition under the guise of moral force, and to fill the minds of their
deluded victims with every species of misrepresentation and wild
hostility to Great Britain? Our system of government towards Ireland has
been timid and weak, and we are now paying the penalty. Our charities
have been given with far too liberal a hand. Ireland has but had to ask,
in order to be relieved by the public money: and this process has been
so often repeated, that what at first was an extraordinary boon, is now
considered in the light of an indefeasible claim. The Irish peasant will
not work, will do nothing to better his own position, because he
believes that, in his hour of need, he will be supported by British
alms. We wish we could believe that this scandalous and sordid spirit
was confined to the peasantry alone. It is not so. A general scramble
takes place on each fresh issue of bounty, and rich and poor, high and
low, among the repealers, press clamorously forward for their share.
Never was money more absurdly, more mischievously misapplied, than the
great government grants on occasion of the famine. Had the proposals of
Lord George Bentinck been agreed to, and the money given by way of loan
for construction of the Irish railroads, not only would the government
have held some security for repayment, or, at all events, a vested
interest in the works, but a useful improvement would have been effected
in the heart of the country, and a new element of civilisation
introduced. But the scheme was rejected, for no other reason, we
believe, than because it was suggested by a political opponent, and the
millions granted by Britain have been squandered in making good roads
bad, in trenching mosses, draining waste lands, and what not. The
expenditure has been lost to this country, and has not had the effect of
awakening the slightest spark of gratitude or respect for the quarter
whence it came. Ireland must be disabused on one point. These grants are
not annual, and cannot be continued. The time has come when Ireland must
be put upon precisely the same footing of taxation with the sister
kingdoms—she must be forced to forego pauperism, and in future to rely
on her industry, and on her own resources. Ireland is at least four
times as fertile in soil as Scotland, and there can be no reason
whatever why she should be exempt from burdens which apply to the
latter, and moreover, like a sturdy beggar, be for ever vociferous for
relief.
The Crime and Outrage Bill in some degree fulfilled its purpose; for
open murder and assassination, if not extinguished, were somewhat
diminished throughout the winter. Still the work of sedition progressed.
Old and Young Ireland, ruffians both, were at loggerheads—the older
section finding a profit in the shape of the weekly rent, the younger
and more conscientious one thirsting for the hour when the dogs of
rebellion might be let loose. The French revolution found Ireland in
this state, and no doubt aided to precipitate the crisis. The visions of
mere repeal gradually faded before the more brilliant and daring
aspiration of an Irish republic! France would probably sympathise with
Erin; and a deputation was sent over to wait upon Lamartine, then in the
zenith of his popularity, for the double purpose of ascertaining the
chances of assistance, and of taking a flying lesson in the art of
constructing barricades. But the members of the French Provisional
Government showed no alacrity in recognising the Irish patriots, and
distinctly refused to interfere. Then it became apparent, that if the
Irish party were determined to rebel, they must do so without foreign
aid and intervention; and on their own ground, and with their own
weapons, be prepared to cope with the Saxon.
It is but fair, in justice to the unfortunate men who, since that time,
have suffered for their almost incredible folly, to state that others,
too crafty or pusillanimous to approach within grasp of the law, were at
least equally guilty in promoting agitation after revolution had been
triumphant in France. John O’Connell thus wrote from Paris a few days
after Louis Philippe had been driven from his throne:—“Speak out, people
of Ireland! Speak from every city—every valley—every hill—every plain!
THE TIME IS COME! The hour has arrived when it is our instant right!
when it is England’s directest and most imperative interest that we
should manage our own affairs in our own Parliament at home!” It matters
not, in a moral point of view, though it might be convenient for
sheltering purposes, that this note of sedition was accompanied with
advice to abstain from crime and bloodshed. Such advice goes for nothing
with the million, as O’Connell well knows; and, furthermore, he knows
this, that of all the phantoms ever conjured up by designing rogues and
mountebanks, this one of Irish repeal is the most unlikely of
realisation. What, then, did the man mean by these words, “_The time is
come!_” save to stir up the people to some demonstration, the issue of
which must have been massacre and bloodshed?
We need hardly allude to the effect of those appeals upon the more
hot-headed and determined of the confederates. They no longer preserved
even the semblance of loyalty, but, with a daring wholly unexampled,
gloried in the name of traitors. At public meetings they recommended the
immediate arming of the people—descanted, in terms of gloating fondness,
upon that “queen of weapons” the pike—and the only point of hesitation
was the precise period of the rising—whether it ought to take place
immediately, or be postponed “until French steamers were letting off
their steam in Falmouth and Portsmouth.” John Mitchell, in the _United
Irishman_, and his coadjutors in the _Nation_, seconded these views in a
series of the most inflammatory and villanous articles. They propounded
deliberate plans for barricading the streets of Dublin; displayed the
most hellish ingenuity in devising implements to be used against the
troops; attempted to persuade their dupes, that, in the event of a
rising, the army would be found on their side; and, in short, set every
law, human and divine, at defiance. At this crisis, ministers failed to
act with that decision which was clearly their duty. They should at once
have suspended the _Habeas Corpus_ Act, and arrested the whole of the
leading agitators. Such a course would have struck terror into the
insurgents, before, emboldened by impunity, and relying upon the want of
unanimity almost sure to prevail among Irish juries, they had dragged
other misled individuals into a participation of their guilt.
March, and a portion of April, passed away before ministers took courage
to introduce the Crown and Government Security Bill, under which
Mitchell was ultimately convicted. In the discussions which took place,
Lord John Russell was evidently sorely hampered by the opinions which he
had expressed when in opposition, and the manifest discrepancy of his
measures with the principles of the Whiggish creed. He showed a
disposition to truckle, when he came to that portion of the bill which
declared that open and advised speaking, of treasonable nature, should
henceforward be treated as felony, and took it merely as a temporary
provision. A bolder front, at such a time, would better have become a
British statesman.
Smith O’Brien and Meagher, two of the most daring leaders of the
faction, were tried at Dublin in the month of May, and escaped, the jury
being in neither case unanimous. These trials may be memorable in the
history of the jurisprudence of Ireland, for they distinctly prove that
the present system of trial is utterly unsuited for that country.
Nothing could be clearer than the evidence against both parties. O’Brien
had recommended the formation of an Irish brigade in the United States.
Meagher’s recommendation was “up with the barricades, and invoke the god
of battles.” Yet in the face of this, the jury could not agree upon
their verdict. Mitchell was the first person convicted under the new
Act. On the 27th of May, he was found guilty, and sentenced to fourteen
years’ transportation.
No effort whatever was made, on the part of the populace, to rescue this
misguided man. He had proclaimed himself a felon, and he was sent forth
to undergo the punishment of his crime. But this example, stringent as
it was, had no effect whatever in repressing the spirit of treason. The
arming went on rapidly as before, or rather in an augmented ratio.
Cargoes of muskets, and other fire-arms, were openly shipped for Dublin,
and exposed for sale; their destination and use were openly admitted,
and yet ministers did not seem to consider it their duty to interfere!
The newspaper war continued. Fresh journals sprang up to replace the
_United Irishman_, and the favourite doctrines of Mitchell were enforced
with a ferocity and earnestness almost equal to his own. Clubs, after
the fashion of those in Paris, were organised throughout the country:
drilling began, and at length rebellion assumed a tangible shape, the
confederate forces having been reviewed by Smith O’Brien at Cork. On the
21st of July, Dublin was proclaimed by the Lord Lieutenant; and
immediately thereafter, and not a moment too soon, ministry were
compelled to suspend the _Habeas Corpus_ Act in Ireland.
As we are not writing a history of this most abortive rebellion, we need
not follow its leaders throughout their ignominious, and even cowardly
career. That a bubble, deemed so gigantic, should have burst with so
miraculously small an explosion, may hereafter be a source of wonder to
the chronicler; at present our only feeling should be gratitude to the
Almighty that this affair has as yet been accompanied with so little
loss of human life. So far, it is well; but it would be absolute madness
to suppose that the spirit of rebellion has been extinguished. The Irish
people have been guilty of a great crime. A large portion of them are,
without any doubt, rebels in their hearts; and they must submit to be
treated as such, until we are satisfied that their stubborn disposition
is removed. Great credit, it seems, is now given in certain quarters to
the Roman Catholic clergy, for the part they took in suppressing the
late disturbances; and we anticipate an immediate burst of laudation,
and perhaps a promise of reward, in return for their disinterested
exertions. If to foster rebellion in every possible manner, whilst there
is the least chance of its success, and to preach it down from the very
moment when the cause appears obviously desperate, be an acceptable
course, we freely admit the claims of the priesthood to the heartfelt
gratitude of Britain: upon no other ground whatever can we see a reason
for their recognition. Let any man consider seriously and impartially
the history and proceedings in Ireland for the last six months, and he
cannot fail, we think, to arrive at the conclusion, that clerical
connivance is visible in every scene of the drama. Smith O’Brien and
Mitchell, being both of them Protestants, may have raised the banner too
early, and may have been sacrificed with little scruple; but we repeat,
that we have no faith in that interference which comes so very late, and
which, without any hyperbole, may be said to have been forced at the
point of the bayonet.
As regards ministers, we think their later measures have been taken with
a fair regard for the interests of the imperial crown. Much they might
have done earlier; but, on the whole, we are not inclined to quarrel
with their conduct. Lord John Russell, in the course of late events, has
received a more wholesome lesson in the practical science of legislation
than was ever vouchsafed him before. His Lordship’s eyes are now, we
hope, opened to the fallacy of some of the cherished Whig propositions.
He has learned that there are times when a government must have recourse
to extraordinary measures, if it is sincere in its wish to maintain the
integrity of the crown and the constitution: and that although the
liberty of the subject, and the freedom of the press, are undoubtedly
most excellent things, and capital toasts at Whig propaganda banquets,
neither of them can be allowed to go so far as to achieve a violent
revolution. If some slight tinge should be apparent on the cheek of the
Premier as he reviews his past career, and reflects on the inconsistency
of his former speeches with his present more energetic conduct, we are
willing to attribute the blush to the most amiable, and certainly the
most honourable of possible motives—the acknowledgment of a cherished
error.
But while we accord with satisfaction this meed of praise to ministers,
it is impossible to forget that the Whig party, by playing into the
hands of O’Connell and his followers, have given a pernicious incentive
to the agitation which has ended in the late revolt. There has been far
too much coquetting and trafficking with the repealers,—far too little
consideration shown for the really loyal and peaceable portion of the
Irish people. Is it possible to expect that any credence will be given
to the idea that the Whigs are sincere and determined in their
opposition to the repeal doctrines, when a high official functionary
like Sir William Somerville, Chief Secretary of State for Ireland, is
found subscribing to the fund raised for defending the return of Mr
Reynolds, the member for Dublin? Is it, we say, decent that a man in the
position of the honourable baronet should be allowed to identify not
only himself, but the government to which he belongs, with a party so
diametrically opposed to the best interests of the British empire? If
the Whigs are determined to put down agitation in Ireland—and put down
it must be, at whatever cost—let them show their sincerity by dropping
all connexion with the agitators. These are not times for
truckling—least of all for party purposes and pretension.
If there is an immediate return to the old system of conciliation—if
that unhappy country is to be left under the impression that Britain is
bound to support her, we may look for another projected rebellion at no
very distant period. Ireland must be taught to depend thoroughly upon
herself. The wages of idleness must no longer be given her under any
circumstances whatever. We are satisfied that the social misery of
Ireland proceeds mainly from the injudicious system of eleemosynary
support, to which she has been so long accustomed; for nowhere else in
the known world is there a land so rich in resources, with a population
so utterly improvident. An end also must be put, by the strong arm of
power, to agitation of every kind. Jury trial requires remodelment; and
we hope that the very first Irish measure which is introduced, will be
one for assimilating the system of jury trial in criminal cases there
with that which has worked so well and satisfactorily in Scotland. Let
fifteen men be impanelled, and let the opinion of the majority be the
verdict. This would effectually prevent those allegations about packing,
which do certainly detract from the moral weight of such convictions as
that of Mitchell: it would strengthen the hands of justice, and be
especially useful as a further preventive of crime. The weal or the
continued misery of Ireland will depend very much upon the character and
complexion of the measures which may be introduced during the next
session of Parliament.
The progress of the revolutions abroad has been any thing but peaceful.
On the Continent, the treaty of Vienna has become a dead letter—a mere
antiquated sheet of parchment, hardly to be appealed to by any of the
conflicting powers. War has broken out in more than one point; and
though, during the last month, there has been some prospect of
compromise, it is in vain to hope that Europe will immediately subside
into its former tranquillity. Hitherto, whatever may be said regarding
the internal economy of France, that country has manifested no
aggressive spirit. Paris, the centre-point of the volcanic eruption, has
kept, and may keep for some time, the soldiery in full employment; and
we are sincerely of opinion that General Cavaignac, now at the head of
affairs in France, has no personal disposition to undertake a war of
conquest. But the position of Germany is very peculiar, and her affairs
so complicated, that we may justly feel alarm as to the issue.
We shall say little of the experiment, so rashly undertaken by a number
of untried constitution craftsmen, for welding together into one
indissoluble mass the political existence of the different Teutonic
tribes. It is a project which, at first sight, may appear sufficiently
imposing; but when we examine it more closely, it seems fraught with
insuperable difficulties. To constitute a Regent for all Germany, in
whose hands is to be lodged the sovereign administration of affairs, is
in fact to dethrone and mediatise the whole of the reigning potentates.
It may be freely conceded that a number of the smaller states might be
absorbed, and their names removed from the map of Europe, without
causing any disturbance of the balance of power; but, with regard to the
larger ones, the case is very different. Will Austria, Prussia, Bavaria,
and Saxony, submit to surrender their independence? Will the kings allow
themselves to be stripped of their authority—of the power to make laws,
to proclaim war and peace, and to levy and command their own armies? We
do not believe it. Austria may not object at this peculiar juncture,
both because she is deeply engaged in war for the recovery of Lombardy,
and because the present Regent is a prince of her imperial family.
Prussia can hardly be the first to dissent, because her monarch had the
credit of originating the idea of German unity, under the illusion that
he would be nominated as the head. But unity is not popular in Prussia,
any more than it is in Bavaria, and the moment is fast approaching when
this bubble also must explode. We might look upon the whole experiment
with feelings of pure curiosity, were it not that incipient unity has
been signalised by an act of the most flagrant aggression. We allude to
the occupation of Schleswig-Holstein by the Germans.
Denmark is one of those small states in which the nationality is of the
most invincible kind. Circumscribed in territorial space, the Danish
people are possessed of a courage and energy which for centuries has
continued undiminished; and the more powerful northern states are bound,
if not by treaty, at least by the strongest ties of policy and
relationship, to assist their gallant neighbours in maintaining their
original position. Russia and Sweden have already declared themselves
open allies of Denmark, and resolute to maintain her against the forces
of Germany. The disposition of England, and, we are glad to say, of
France also, tends towards the same point; and such being the case, we
have great hopes that the Germans will not be mad enough to persevere in
their unjustifiable course. A war in the north of Europe, in which so
many great nations would be engaged, must be a hideous calamity; and
Germany, if wise, should be the last country to provoke it. But, as if
to complicate matters, the parliament at Frankfort have manifested an
intention of embroiling themselves with Holland for one of the ceded
duchies.
It is no purpose of ours to speculate upon events, and therefore we
leave the Danish question without further comment. It will be extremely
gratifying if, after all the demonstration which has been made, and the
actual collision between the Danes and the Germans, peace can be
re-established without having recourse to the armed interference of a
northern confederation; and it would be still more gratifying if this
desirable result should be the effect of British mediation. But, looking
to the south of Europe, we cannot approve of the policy which Great
Britain has since pursued, or the attitude which Lord Palmerston has
chosen to assume towards a friendly foreign power.
Our readers will not have forgotten the surprise and suspicion which was
excited, about a year ago, by the absence of a cabinet minister, who was
understood to be perambulating Italy with a sort of roving commission.
The intention may have been friendly, but the fact was both unusual and
degrading, and gave rise at the time to a multitude of unpleasant
suspicions. Whether Lord Minto travelled in the capacity of
constitution-maker for Italy we know not; but if so, as has more than
once been broadly alleged, his attempts have been utter failures. We
hope it was not by his advice that Charles Albert has done his best to
light up the flames of general war by that ungenerous attack upon
Austria, which has ended so disastrously for himself. Baffled on every
hand—after having sacrificed his army, and squandered his treasure—the
King of Sardinia has been driven back into his own country, amidst the
execrations of those whom he professedly came to emancipate, and without
a hope left of gaining the diadem for which he had perilled so much. The
papal constitution at Rome has by no means fulfilled the hopes of the
liberal advocates. Pius, lately so popular, is trembling in the Vatican,
and the inhabitants of the Eternal City are in as much terror as if
Attila were again at its gates. We repeat that we do not know how much
share British councils may have had in promoting these untoward events;
but this we know, that it would have been far better if Lord Minto had
remained at home. For, in the matter of Naples at least, we have chosen
to take a direct part, which throws suspicion upon the tendency of our
whole negotiations with the Peninsula.
Sicily has chosen to cast off its allegiance to the crown of Naples, and
to elect a sovereign of its own. This is strictly a domestic contest,
and one in which we had no title whatever to interfere. But mark what
has taken place. No sooner was Naples—a country which has also felt the
revolutionary shock—quieted by the granting of a constitution, than King
Ferdinand, desirous of quelling rebellion in Sicily, is intimidated from
sending his squadron for that purpose, by the appearance of a British
fleet off his own territory. Against this unjustifiable demonstration
the King of Naples has protested, declaring that he will hold any armed
interference between himself and his subjects as tantamount to a
declaration of war on the part of the British government. Lord
Stanley—whose conduct throughout the session, on all questions connected
with foreign or colonial affairs, has been pre-eminently distinguished
for temperance, rectitude, and ability, and who has exhibited, in a
remarkable degree, every qualification requisite for the leader of a
great and national party—brought the whole subject before the
consideration of the House of Lords: but the explanations given by Lord
Lansdowne are not calculated to improve our character for good faith,
whilst they may afford a ready apology to other states for any act of
aggression whatever. Also, at a later period of the session, Mr
D’Israeli, in one of those brilliant speeches for which he is
unrivalled, again demanded explanation from the Foreign Secretary, and
took occasion to comment, with sarcastic felicity, on the Minto
pilgrimage to Rome. We shall presently allude to the reply which Lord
Palmerston thought proper to make.
The facts of the case, as admitted by Lord Lansdowne, are shortly
these:—Britain was never asked to mediate formally between the
conflicting parties. The Sicilians stood in the position of rebels,
victorious perhaps on their own soil, but not, on that account, released
from an allegiance which had been formally recognised by Europe. They
proceeded, as all insurgents do, to debate upon some form of government;
and at this point, it seems, the Foreign Office thought fit to use its
influence. Lord Palmerston became a party to the discussions of the
revolted Sicilians, to the extent at least of advising them to select a
monarchical instead of a republican form of government; with an
assurance that, in that event, Britain would recognise the prince who
might be elected by the people.
This is neither more nor less than a recognition of the right of revolt;
and we should like to know upon what principle of the law of nations it
can be defended. It is one thing to acknowledge the right of a nation to
change the character of its institutions,—as for example, in the case of
France, which from a monarchy has become a republic. Were we to undergo
the same organic change, France, doubtless, would recognise us, and
continue the same relations with us under the altered form of
government. But what if France had chosen to espouse the cause of the
Irish confederates? What if—supposing our troops had been defeated by a
general rising, and Smith O’Brien had been proclaimed not only King of
Munster, but of Ireland—General Cavaignac should have assured the
rebels, that he would recognise the descendant of Brian Boru as the
prince elected by the people? Would not that negotiation, that
assurance, be treated by England as an open declaration of hostility,—an
interference which no circumstances could palliate, and for which no
explanation could suffice? We apprehend there can be no difficulty in
answering the question, and yet our position with regard to Naples was
precisely similar.
No official recognition of the independence of Sicily has as yet taken
place. Her Britannic Majesty has accredited no ambassador to that court,
nor does she know any thing more of the King of Sicily than her royal
predecessor did of Theodore King of Corsica. In all Sicilian matters, as
yet, this country nominally recognises the supremacy of King Ferdinand,
who has in no way incurred a forfeiture. Yet at the very moment when
that potentate has completed his preparations for coercing his rebel
subjects, a British fleet appears off his shores, and no explanation has
been vouchsafed of the reasons which have brought it there.
In answer to Lord Malmesbury, who reiterated the question originally put
by Lord Stanley, “Is the fleet of Admiral Parker to interfere with any
expedition which his Neapolitan Majesty may send against his subjects in
Sicily?” Lord Lansdowne distinctly refused explanation. So did Lord
Palmerston in answer to Mr D’Israeli; and he further added, “that it is
not the practice of the government of this country to announce to
parliament what the intentions of the government are.” All that we shall
say upon that point is, that, even during the present session of
parliament, ministers have more than once been particularly eager to
parade their intentions, without even the formality of a question. Such
answers are very apt to make distrustful people recollect that Naples is
but a small state, and not so formidable as some others which have led
the van of revolution. But even supposing that the Whig government are
not prepared to go the length of violating treaties, and breaking
alliances by a direct and forcible interference, this concealment is
peculiarly unwise at a moment when neutrality is of the last importance.
Apart from this question of Sicilian interference, no one wants to know
why Admiral Parker’s fleet is there. It is not alone Lord Stanley or Mr
D’Israeli whose curiosity requires to be gratified. The King of Naples
believes this armament is sent with intentions hostile to him, and he
has a right to know whether Britain proposes to throw an impediment
betwixt him and his revolted dominions. Are ministers aware of the
effect which such ambiguous answers may have upon the future policy of
France? General Oudinot, we know, is at the head of a large army on the
southern frontier of France, and Charles Albert has notoriously
solicited assistance from that quarter. What if the French, drawing
their own deduction from the fact of the fleet being there, and all
explanation refused, should choose to assume that we have exceeded the
bounds of neutrality, and are now coercing the King of Naples?—what if
they should march an army to the support of the Piedmontese, again make
Lombardy a field of battle, and throw all Europe into irretrievable
confusion, by engaging in hostilities with Austria? Is that contingency
so remote that we can afford to indulge in mysteries, and peril the fair
fame of England’s open dealing for a paltry Palmerston intrigue?
If we contemplate seriously the whole course of our foreign policy, in
so far as regards Italy, we cannot fail to be impressed with the idea
that the Whigs have given undue countenance to the late insurrectionary
movements. Great Britain might have come forward honourably at the
commencement of the Lombardy campaign to stop the effusion of blood and
the horrors of war, by the offer of a timely mediation; but no such step
was taken. On the contrary, our Cabinet remained quiescent and looked on
approvingly, so long as success appeared to favour the Sardinian arms:
it is only after the invader has been beaten back, and driven within the
frontiers of his own kingdom—after Austria has redeemed by force all her
Lombard territory, that Lord Palmerston, and his new ally Cavaignac,
have thought fit to tender their good offices. We may safely ask—what
good purpose can be achieved by this very late intervention? Who are the
parties whose quarrel is to be taken up? Mr D’Israeli put the matter
well when he asked,—First, what was to be the principle of this
mediation; secondly, what was to be the motive of the mediation; and
thirdly, what was the end proposed to be attained by the mediation? The
motive, we are assured, is the preservation of peace, and we fully
subscribe to its importance; but on all other matters we are left as
thoroughly in the dark as ever. Really this mystery is, to say the least
of it, tantalising; and we would fain know whether Austria is the party
who has taken the initiative, in securing the advice of two peace-makers
like Palmerston and Cavaignac. Austria has recovered the possessions
guaranteed her by the faith of the leading states of Europe, has put
down insurrection, and driven back in rout and terror the invading
Sardinian over his own frontier. There remains no body of her revolted
subjects in a position to ask for mediation. As for Charles Albert, he
is not, we presume, either King of Italy or Lord of Lombardy, neither
have we heard of any other claim, save that of sympathy, which could
entitle him to enter into the contest. Personally he had no wrong to
avenge; but having chosen to espouse the cause of the rebels, and to
encounter the risks of war, he is surely not entitled, especially after
defeat, to insist upon any conditions. If Austria shall choose, of her
own free will and accord, to cede possession of Lombardy, it will be a
mere act of grace, which cannot be demanded from her by any state in
Europe. But she is clearly entitled to dictate, and not to receive
conditions; and any interference with her guaranteed and fully recovered
rights, either on the part of England or of France, would be tantamount
to a declaration of war.
From first to last, therefore, we condemn the course which has been
pursued by the British foreign minister with reference to the affairs of
Italy, as undignified, unconstitutional, and mischievous. It has
naturally lowered the estimate of our character in the eyes of the
Italian people, whose own fondness for intrigue does not prevent them
from despising that system, when pursued on the part of a strong and
powerful nation. Minto jobbing has proved an utter failure. It may not
indeed have been unproductive in results, for it has materially
stimulated sedition, but certainly it has not tended to the preservation
of peace, or the consolidation of government in Italy.
Lord Palmerston has not been happy for the present year in his foreign
relations. Some gratuitous advice to Spain, which he no doubt tendered
with the best possible intentions, was ignominiously returned upon his
hand; and this affront was followed up by another still more serious,
for our ambassador at Madrid was dismissed. Such are the results of
constant meddling with the institutions of foreign states, or prying
into their domestic arrangements, and of everlastingly tendering
unsolicited and unpalatable advice. We do Lord Palmerston the justice to
believe, that he is the last man in the world who would brook such
conduct at the hands of others. Why then will he persist in acting the
part of Mentor to all the states of Europe, at the risk of attracting
insult to himself, and of materially endangering the character and
position of his country?
Whether we regard the conduct of the present ministry at home or abroad,
in domestic or in foreign relations, we find little to praise, and much
which we must conscientiously condemn. Late events do not seem to have
conveyed to them any important lesson. Diminished exports, want of
reciprocity, and the disorganisation of affairs on the Continent, have
effected as yet no change in their commercial policy. They are still
determined to persevere in the course which they have unfortunately
adopted, and to neglect the home and colonial markets for the desperate
chance of pushing exportation further. By delaying to make any provision
for the relaxation of the odious Bank Restriction Acts—by placing upon
the committee of the House of Commons men whose financial reputation
depended upon the maintenance of these measures—they have again exposed
the country to a recurrence of that crisis which, in November last, was
so near a fatal termination. Who shall answer for it that a fresh drain
of bullion will not take place this autumn? If the harvest shall prove
deficient, such undoubtedly may be the case, and the mercantile world
will be left without the means of accommodation at the moment of its
utmost need.
When we look at the long period of tranquillity which this country has
enjoyed since the peace—when we reflect upon the extension of trade, the
increase of our colonies, the apparent accumulation of wealth at home,
the development of industry, and the enormous social improvements which
have resulted from the progress of science—it seems almost miraculous
that any combination of circumstances should so rapidly have involved us
in financial embarrassments. Those embarrassments are marked by the
price of money and its fluctuations, by the difficulty of accommodation,
by the unprecedented decline in the value of every kind of property, by
the amount of unemployed labour in the market, and by the long list of
bankruptcies. We ask for an explanation of these phenomena, and we are
referred to a failure of the potato crop! The political economists will
not acknowledge the share they have had in the production of such
lamentable results—but, fortunately, they cannot alter dates; and one
thing at least is incontestible, that the commencement of the period of
decline corresponds exactly with that of Sir Robert Peel’s fiscal and
currency measures. It may have been that we were previously in danger
from the want of these, but the country neither knew nor felt it. The
change was made, and since then our prospects have been dark and gloomy.
Parliament has utterly failed, during last session, to suggest any
remedy for the general distress. It must fail so to do, until it is
called together under the auspices of a Cabinet imbued with patriotic
principles, aware of the responsibility of their situation, and
thoroughly resolved to release themselves from the trammels of a system
which has fraud and selfishness for its foundation, and which seeks to
aggrandise a few at the sacrifice of the industrious many. May Heaven
grant that such men may speedily be called to the supreme councils of
the nation, and that this may be the last session, the futilities of
which it is our duty to record, under the imbecile and slovenly
administration of the Whigs!
TO A CAGED SKYLARK, REGENT’S CIRCUS, PICCADILLY.
BY B. SIMMONS.
The city’s stony roar around!
The city’s stifling air!
The London May’s distracting sound,
And dust, and heat, and glare!
She sings to-night who puts to shame
Her fabled sisters’ syren-fame;
And, swarming through one mighty street,
From all opposing points they meet;
And hurrying, whirling, madd’ning on,
The crashing wheels and battling crowd
Are coming still, and still are gone—
The Thunder and the Cloud.
But the gush of faint odours
From apple-tree blooms—
The dew-fall by starlight
In green mossy glooms—
The sob of low breezes
Through hill-lifted pines
Looking miles o’er lone moorlands
While evening declines—
The dying away
Of far bleats at the shealing,
The hum of the night-fly
Where streamlets are stealing—
All are floating, this moment, or mournfully heard,
(Distinct as lutes mid trumpets) round thy cage, heart-breaking Bird!
They heed, nor hear—that seething mass—
But storm and brawl and burst along,
Porter and Peer—the City class—
And high-born Beauty shrined in glass—
The pale Mechanic and his lass—
Thick as the scythe-awaiting grass,
In one discordant throng.
While, loud with many a clanging bell,
Some annual joy the steeples tell,
And waggons’ groan and drivers’ yell
The loud hubbub and riot swell;
Yet still the stunn’d ear drinks, through all, that liquid song.
And far sinks the tumult,
And takes the soft moan
Of billows that shoreward
Are lapsingly thrown,
When the stars o’er the light-house
Set faintly and few,
And the waves’ level blackness
Is trembling to blue.
Wing’d Darling of Sunrise!
How oft at that hour,
Where the grassy lea lovingly
Tufted thy bower,
Thy friends the meek cowslips
Still folded in sleep,
Didst thou burst, and meet Morning
Half way from the deep,
And circle and soar
Till thy small rosy wing
Seem’d a sparkle the far-coming
Splendour might fling!
How lavishly then
On the night-hidden hill
Didst thou rain down thy carol
Deliciously shrill—
Still mounting to Heaven,
As thou didst rejoice
To be nearer the Angels,
Since nearest in voice!
And thy wild liquid warbling,
Sweet Thing! after all,
Leaves thee thus aching-breasted,
A captive and thrall.
For the thymy dell’s freshness and free dewy cloud
A barr’d nook in this furnace-heat and suffocating crowd.
No pause even here to list thy lay;
The human ferment working
Must on with unresisted sway
In bubbling thousands swept away,
Nor near thy cage be left ONE HERMIT-HEARER lurking.
Twin minstrels were ye
Once in sunshine and shade
With _thy_ hymns to the Love-star,
_His_ rhymes to the Maid.
How sweet was it then,
As he linger’d at noon
Beneath trees dropping diamonds
In shower-freshen’d June,
Beloved of the Rainbow!
To mark thee on high,
Where violet and amber
Were arching the sky;
And to deem thou wert singing
Of comfort to him—
Of some Bow yet to brighten
His destiny dim!
From _thy_ Cloud and _his_ Dream
Long the glory is gone,
And the dungeon remains
To each desolate one:
And as vainly as thine would his spirit up-spring,
Beating against his prison-bar with faint and baffled wing.
SONNET.—TO DENMARK.
Again the trumpet-blast of war is blown:
Again the cannon booms along the sea.
Now, may the God of Battles stand by thee,
True-hearted Denmark! struggling for thine own,
For right, and loyalty, and King, and throne,
Against the weight of frantic Germany!
Old Honour is not dead whilst thou art free—
Oh be thou faithful to thy past renown!
May the great spirit of thy heroes dead
Be as a bulwark to thine ancient shore:
And, midst the surge of battle rolling red,
Still be thy banner foremost as of yore;
Prouder than when it waved, to winds outspread,
On the broad bastion-keep of Elsinore!
LIFE IN THE “FAR WEST.”
PART IV.
We have said that La Bonté was a philosopher: he took the streaks of ill
luck which checkered his mountain life in a vein of perfect
carelessness, if not of stoical indifference. Nothing ruffled his
danger-steeled equanimity of temper; no sudden emotion disturbed his
mind. We have seen how wives were torn from him without eliciting a
groan or grumble, (but such _contretemps_, it may be said, can scarcely
find a place in the category of ills;) how the loss of mules and
mustangs, harried by horse-stealing Indians, left him in the
_ne-plus-ultra_ of mountain misery—“afoot;” how packs and peltries, the
hard-earned “beaver” of his perilous hunts, were “raised” at one fell
swoop by freebooting bands of savages. Hunger and thirst, we know, were
commonplace sensations to the mountaineer. His storm-hardened flesh
scarce felt the pinging wounds of arrow-point or bullet; and when in the
midst of Indian fight, it is not probable that any tender qualms of
feeling would allay the itching of his fingers for his enemy’s
scalp-lock, nor would any remains of civilised fastidiousness prevent
his burying his knife again and again in the life-blood of an Indian
savage.
Still, in one dark corner of his heart, there shone at intervals a faint
spark of what was once a fiercely-burning fire. Neither time, that
corroder of all things, nor change, that ready abettor of oblivion, nor
scenes of peril and excitement, which act as dampers to more quiet
memory, could smother this little smouldering spark, which now and
again—when rarely-coming calm succeeded some stirring passage in the
hunter’s life, and left him, for a brief time, devoid of care and victim
to his thoughts—would flicker suddenly, and light up all the nooks and
corners of his rugged breast, and discover to his mind’s eye that one
deep-rooted memory clung there still, though long neglected; proving
that, spite of time and change, of life and fortune,
“On revient toujours à ses premiers amours.”
Often and often, as La Bonté sat cross-legged before his solitary
camp-fire, and, pipe in mouth, watched the blue smoke curling upwards in
the clear cold sky, a well-remembered form appeared to gaze upon him
from the vapoury wreaths. Then would old recollections crowd before him,
and old emotions, long a stranger to his breast, shape themselves, as it
were, into long-forgotten but now familiar pulsations. Again he felt the
soft subduing influence which once, in days gone by, a certain passion
exercised over his mind and body; and often a trembling seized him, the
same he used to experience at the sudden sight of one Mary Brand, whose
dim and dreamy apparition so often watched his lonely bed, or,
unconsciously conjured up, cheered him in the dreary watches of the long
and stormy winter nights.
At first he only knew that one face haunted his dreams by night, and the
few moments by day when he thought of any thing, and this face smiled
lovingly upon him, and cheered him mightily. Name he had quite
forgotten, or recalled it vaguely, and, setting small store by it, had
thought of it no more.
For many years after he had deserted his home, La Bonté had cherished
the idea of again returning to his country. During this period he had
never forgotten his old flame, and many a choice fur he had carefully
laid by, intended as a present for Mary Brand; and many a _gâge d’amour_
of cunning shape and device, worked in stained quills of porcupine and
bright-coloured beads—the handiwork of nimble-fingered squaws—he had
packed in his possible sack for the same destination, hoping a time
would come when he might lay them at her feet.
Year after year wore on, however, and still found him, with traps and
rifle, following his perilous avocation; and each succeeding one saw him
more and more wedded to the wild mountain life. He was conscious how
unfitted he had become again to enter the galling harness of
conventionality and civilisation. He thought, too, how changed in
manners and appearance he now must be, and could not believe that he
would again find favour in the eyes of his quondam love, who, he judged,
had long since forgotten him; and inexperienced as he was in such
matters, yet he knew enough of womankind to feel assured that time and
absence had long since done the work, if even the natural fickleness of
woman’s nature had lain dormant. Thus it was that he came to forget Mary
Brand, but still remembered the all-absorbing feeling she had once
created in his breast, the shadow of which still remained, and often
took form and feature in the smoke-wreaths of his solitary camp-fire.
If truth be told, La Bonté had his failings as a mountaineer, and—sin
unpardonable in hunter law—still possessed, in holes and corners of his
breast seldom explored by his inward eye, much of the leaven of kindly
human nature, which now and again involuntarily peeped out, as greatly
to the contempt of his comrade trappers as it was blushingly repressed
by the mountaineer himself. Thus, in his various matrimonial episodes,
he treated his dusky _sposas_ with all the consideration the sex could
possibly demand from hand of man. No squaw of his ever humped shoulder
to receive a castigatory and marital “lodge-poling” for offence
domestic; but often has his helpmate blushed to see her pale-face lord
and master devote himself to the feminine labour of packing huge piles
of fire-wood on his back, felling trees, butchering unwieldy buffalo—all
which are included in the Indian category of female duties. Thus he was
esteemed an excellent _parti_ by all the marriageable young squaws of
Blackfoot, Crow, and Shoshone, of Yutah, Shian, and Arapaho; but after
his last connubial catastrophe, he steeled his heart against all the
charms and coquetry of Indian belles, and persevered in unblessed
widowhood for many a long day.
From the point where we left him on his way to the waters of the
Columbia, we must jump with him over a space of nearly two years, during
which time he had a most uninterrupted run of good luck; trapping with
great success on the head streams of the Columbia and Yellow Stone—the
most dangerous of trapping ground—and finding good market for his
peltries at the “North-west” posts—beaver fetching as high a price as
five and six dollars a “plew”—the “golden age” of trappers, now, alas,
never to return, and existing only in the fond memory of the
mountaineers. This glorious time, however, was too good to last. In
mountain language, “such heap of fat meat was not going to ‘shine’ much
longer.”
La Bonté was at this time one of a band of eight trappers, whose hunting
ground was about the head waters of the Yellow Stone, which we have
before said is in the country of the Blackfeet. With him were Killbuck,
Meek, Marcelline, and three others; and the leader of the party was Bill
Williams, that old “hard case” who had spent forty years and more in the
mountains, until he had become as tough as the parflêche soles of his
mocassins. They were all good men and true, expert hunters, and
well-trained mountaineers. After having trapped all the streams they
were acquainted with, it was determined to strike into the mountains, at
a point where old Williams affirmed, from the “run” of the hills, there
must be plenty of water, although not one of the party had before
explored the country, or knew any thing of its nature, or of the
likelihood of its affording game for themselves or pasture for their
animals. However, they packed their peltry, and put out for the land in
view—a lofty peak, dimly seen above the more regular summit of the
chain, being their landmark.
For the first day or two their route lay between two ridges of
mountains, and by following the little valley which skirted a creek,
they kept on level ground, and saved their animals considerable labour
and fatigue. Williams always rode ahead, his body bent over his
saddle-horn, across which rested a long heavy rifle, his keen gray eyes
peering from under the slouched brim of a flexible felt-hat, black and
shining with grease. His buckskin hunting-shirt, bedaubed until it had
the appearance of polished leather, hung in folds over his bony carcass;
his nether extremities being clothed in pantaloons of the same material,
(with scattered fringes down the outside of the leg—which ornaments,
however, had been pretty well thinned to supply “whangs” for mending
mocassins or pack-saddles,) which, shrunk with wet, clung tightly to his
long, spare, sinewy legs. His feet were thrust into a pair of Mexican
stirrups, made of wood, and as big as coal-scuttles; and iron spurs of
incredible proportions, with tinkling drops attached to the rowels, were
fastened to his heel—a bead-worked strap, four inches broad, securing
them over the instep. In the shoulder-belt which sustained his
powder-horn and bullet-pouch, were fastened the various instruments
essential to one pursuing his mode of life. An awl, with deer-horn
handle, and the point defended by a case of cherry-wood carved by his
own hand, hung at the back of the belt, side by side with a worm for
cleaning the rifle; and under this was a squat and quaint-looking
bullet-mould, the handles guarded by strips of buckskin to save his
fingers from burning when running balls, having for its companion a
little bottle made from the point of an antelope’s horn, scraped
transparent, which contained the “medicine” used in baiting the traps.
The old coon’s face was sharp and thin, a long nose and chin hob-nobbing
each other; and his head was always bent forward, giving him the
appearance of being hump-backed. He _appeared_ to look neither to the
right nor left, but, in fact, his little twinkling eye was everywhere.
He looked at no one he was addressing, always seeming to be thinking of
something else than the subject of his discourse, speaking in a whining,
thin, cracked voice, and in a tone that left the hearer in doubt whether
he was laughing or crying. On the present occasion he had joined this
band, and naturally assumed the leadership, (for Bill ever refused to go
in harness,) in opposition to his usual practice, which was to hunt
alone. His character was well known. Acquainted with every inch of the
Far West, and with all the Indian tribes who inhabited it, he never
failed to outwit his Red enemies, and generally made his appearance at
the rendezvous, from his solitary expeditions, with galore of beaver,
when numerous bands of trappers dropped in on foot, having been
despoiled of their packs and animals by the very Indians through the
midst of whom old Williams had contrived to pass unseen and unmolested.
On occasions when he had been in company with others, and attacked by
Indians, Bill invariably fought manfully, and with all the coolness that
perfect indifference to death or danger could give, but always “on his
own hook.” His rifle cracked away merrily, and never spoke in vain; and
in a charge—if ever it came to that—his keen-edged butcherknife tickled
the fleece of many a Blackfoot. But at the same time, if he saw that
discretion was the better part of valour, and affairs wore so cloudy an
aspect as to render retreat advisable, he would first express his
opinion in curt terms, and decisively, and, charging up his rifle, would
take himself off, and “cache”[2] so effectually that to search for him
was utterly useless. Thus, when with a large party of trappers, when any
thing occurred which gave him a hint that trouble was coming, or more
Indians were about than he considered good for his animals, Bill was
wont to exclaim—
“Do ’ee hyar now, boys, thar’s sign about? this hos feels like caching;”
and, without more words, and stoically deaf to all remonstrances, he
would forthwith proceed to pack his animals, talking the while to an
old, crop-eared, raw-boned Nez-percé pony, his own particular
saddle-horse, who, in dogged temper and iron hardiness, was a worthy
companion of his self-willed master. This beast, as Bill seized his
apishamore to lay upon its galled back, would express displeasure by
humping its back and shaking its withers with a wincing motion, that
always excited the ire of the old trapper; and no sooner had he laid the
apishamore smoothly on the chafed skin, than a wriggle of the animal
shook it off.
“Do ’ee hyar now, you darned crittur!” he would whine out, “can’t’ee
keep quiet your old fleece now? Isn’t this old coon putting out to save
’ee from the darned Injuns now, do ’ee hyar?” And then, continuing his
work, and taking no notice of his comrades, who stood by bantering the
eccentric trapper, he would soliloquise—“Do ’ee hyar, now? This niggur
sees sign ahead—he does; he’ll be afoot afore long, if he don’t keep his
eye skinned,—_he_ will. _Injuns_ is all about, they ar’: Blackfoot at
that. Can’t come round this child—they can’t, wagh!” And at last, his
pack animals securely tied to the tail of his horse, he would mount, and
throwing the rifle across the horn of his saddle, and without noticing
his companions, would drive the jingling spurs into his horse’s gaunt
sides, and muttering, “Can’t come round this child—they can’t!” would
ride away; and nothing more would be seen or heard of him perhaps for
months, when they would not unfrequently, themselves bereft of animals
in the scrape he had foreseen, find him located in some solitary valley,
in his lonely camp, with his animals securely picketed around, and his
peltries safe.
However, if he took it into his head to keep company with a party, all
felt perfectly secure under his charge. His iron frame defied fatigue,
and, at night, his love for himself and his own animals was sufficient
guarantee that the camp would be well guarded. As he rode ahead, his
spurs jingling, and thumping the sides of his old horse at every step,
he managed, with admirable dexterity, to take advantage of the best line
of country to follow—avoiding the gullies and cañons and broken ground,
which would otherwise have impeded his advance. This tact appeared
instinctive, for he looked neither right nor left, whilst continuing a
course as straight as possible at the foot of the mountains. In
selecting a camping site, he displayed equal skill: wood, water, and
grass began to fill his thoughts towards sundown, and when these three
requisites for a camping ground presented themselves, old Bill sprang
from his saddle, unpacked his animals in a twinkling, and hobbled them,
struck fire and ignited a few chips, (leaving the rest to pack in the
wood,) lit his pipe, and enjoyed himself. On one occasion, when passing
through the valley, they had come upon a band of fine buffalo cows, and,
shortly after camping, two of the party rode in with a good supply of
fat fleece. One of the party was a “greenhorn” on his first hunt, and,
fresh from a fort on Platte, was as yet uninitiated in the mysteries of
mountain cooking. Bill, lazily smoking his pipe, called to him, as he
happened to be nearest, to butcher off a piece of meat and put it in his
pot. Markhead seized the fleece, and commenced innocently carving off a
huge ration, when a gasping roar from the old trapper caused him to drop
his knife.
“Ti-yah,” growled Bill, “do ’ee hyar, now, you darned greenhorn, do ’ee
spile fat cow like that whar you was raised? Them doin’s won’t shine in
this crowd, boy, do ’ee hyar, darn you? What! butcher meat across the
grain! why, whar’ll the blood be goin’ to, you precious Spaniard? Down
the grain I say,” he continued in a severe tone of rebuke, “and let your
flaps be long, or out the juice’ll run slick—do ’ee hyar, now?” But this
heretical error nearly cost the old trapper his appetite, and all night
long he grumbled his horror at seeing “fat cow spiled in that fashion.”
When two or three days’ journey brought them to the end of the valley,
and they commenced the passage of the mountain, their march was
obstructed by all kinds of obstacles; although they had chosen what
appeared to be a gap in the chain, and what was in fact the only
practicable passage in that vicinity. They followed the cañon of a
branch of the Yellow Stone, where it entered the mountain; but from this
point it became a torrent, and it was only by dint of incredible
exertions that they reached the summit of the ridge. Game was
exceedingly scarce in the vicinity, and they suffered extremely from
hunger, having, on more than one occasion, recourse to the parflêche
soles of their mocassins to allay its pangs. Old Bill, however, never
grumbled; he chewed away at his shoes with relish even, and as long as
he had a pipeful of tobacco in his pouch, was a happy man. Starvation
was as yet far off, for all their animals were in existence; but as they
were in a country where it was difficult to procure a remount, each
trapper hesitated to sacrifice one of his horses to his appetite.
From the summit of the ridge, Bill recognised the country on the
opposite side to that whence they had just ascended as familiar to him,
and pronounced it to be full of beaver, as well as abounding in the less
desirable commodity of Indians. This was the valley lying about the
lakes now called Eustis and Biddle, in which are many thermal and
mineral springs, well known to the trappers by the names of the Soda,
Beer, and Brimstone Springs, and regarded by them with no little awe and
curiosity, as being the breathing places of his Satanic
majesty—considered, moreover, to be the “biggest kind” of “medicine” to
be found in the mountains. If truth be told, old Bill hardly relished
the idea of entering this country, which he pronounced to be of “bad
medicine” notoriety, but nevertheless agreed to guide them to the best
trapping ground.
One day they reached a creek full of beaver sign, and determined to halt
here and establish their headquarters, while they trapped in the
neighbourhood. We must here observe, that at this period—which was one
of considerable rivalry amongst the various trading companies in the
Indian country—the Indians, having become possessed of arms and
ammunition in great quantities, had grown unusually daring and
persevering in their attacks on the white hunters who passed through
their country, and consequently the trappers were compelled to roam
about in larger bands for mutual protection, which, although it made
them less liable to open attack, yet rendered it more difficult for them
to pursue their calling without being discovered; for, where one or two
men might pass unseen, the broad trail of a large party, with its
animals, was not likely to escape the sharp eyes of the cunning savages.
They had scarcely encamped when the old leader, who had sallied out a
short distance from camp to reconnoitre the neighbourhood, returned with
an Indian mocassin in his hand, and informed his companions that its
late owner and others were about.
“Do ’ee hyar now, boys, thar’s _Injuns_ knocking round, and Blackfoot at
that; but thar’s plenty of beaver too, and this child means trapping any
how.”
His companions were anxious to leave such dangerous vicinity; but the
old fellow, contrary to his usual caution, determined to remain where he
was—saying that there were Indians all over the country for that matter;
and as they had determined to hunt here, he had made up his mind
too—which was conclusive, and all agreed to stop where they were, in
spite of the Indians. La Bonté killed a couple of mountain sheep close
to camp, and they feasted rarely on the fat mutton that night, and were
unmolested by marauding Blackfeet.
The next morning, leaving two of their number in camp, they started in
parties of two, to hunt for beaver sign and set their traps. Markhead
paired with one Batiste, Killbuck and La Bonté formed another couple,
Meek and Marcelline another; two Canadians trapped together, and Bill
Williams and another remained to guard the camp: but this last, leaving
Bill mending his mocassins, started off to kill a mountain sheep, a band
of which animals was visible.
Markhead and his companion, the first couple on the list, followed a
creek, which entered that on which they had encamped, about ten miles
distant. Beaver sign was abundant, and they had set eight traps, when
Markhead came suddenly upon fresh Indian sign, where squaws had passed
through the shrubbery on the banks of the stream to procure water, as he
knew from observing a large stone placed by them in the stream, on which
to stand to enable them to dip their kettles in the deepest water.
Beckoning to his companion to follow, and cocking his rifle, he
carefully pushed aside the bushes, and noiselessly proceeded up the
bank, when, creeping on hands and knees, he gained the top, and, looking
from his hiding-place, descried three Indian huts standing on a little
plateau near the creek. Smoke curled from the roofs of branches, but the
skin doors were carefully closed, so that he was unable to distinguish
the number of the inmates. At a little distance, however, he observed
two or three squaws gathering wood, with the usual attendance of curs,
whose acuteness in detecting the scent of strangers was much to be
dreaded.
Markhead was a rash and daring young fellow, caring no more for Indians
than he did for prairie dogs, and acting ever on the spur of the moment,
and as his inclination dictated, regardless of consequences. He at once
determined to enter the lodges, and attack the enemy, should any be
there; and the other trapper was fain to join him in the enterprise. The
lodges proved empty, but the fires were still burning and meat cooking
upon them, to which the hungry hunters did ample justice, besides
helping themselves to whatever goods and chattels, in the shape of
leather and mocassins, took their fancy.
Gathering their spoil into a bundle, they sought their horses, which
they had left tied under cover of the timber on the banks of the creek;
and, mounting, took the back trail, to pick up their traps and remove
from so dangerous a neighbourhood. They were approaching the spot where
the first trap was set, a thick growth of ash and quaking-ash concealing
the stream, when Markhead, who was riding ahead, observed the bushes
agitated, as if some animal was making its way through them. He
instantly stopped his horse, and his companion rode to his side, to
inquire the cause of this abrupt halt. They were within a few yards of
the belt of shrubs which skirted the stream; and before Markhead had
time to reply, a dozen swarthy heads and shoulders suddenly protruded
from the leafy screen, and as many rifle barrels and arrows were
pointing at their breasts. Before the trappers had time to turn their
horses and fly, a cloud of smoke burst from the thicket almost in their
faces. Batiste, pierced with several balls, fell dead from his horse,
and Markhead felt himself severely wounded. However, he struck the spurs
into his horse; and as some half-score Blackfeet jumped with loud cries
from their cover, he discharged his rifle amongst them, and galloped
off, a volley of balls and arrows whistling after him. He drew no bit
until he reined up at the camp-fire, where he found Bill quietly
dressing a deer-skin. That worthy looked up from his work; and seeing
Markhead’s face streaming with blood, and the very unequivocal evidence
of an Indian rencontre in the shape of an arrow sticking in his back, he
asked,—“Do’ee feel bad now, boy? Whar away you see them darned
Blackfoot?”
“Well, pull this arrow out of my back, and may be I’ll feel like
telling,” answered Markhead.
“Do ’ee hyar now! hold on till I’ve grained this cussed skin, will ’ee!
Did ’ee ever see sich a darned pelt, now? it won’t take the smoke any
how I fix it.” And Markhead was fain to wait the leisure of the
imperturbable old trapper, before he was eased of his annoying
companion.
Old Bill expressed no surprise or grief when informed of the fate of
poor Batiste. He said it was “just like greenhorns, runnin’ into them
cussed Blackfoot;” and observed that the defunct trapper, being only a
Vide-pôche, was “no account anyhow.” Presently Killbuck and La Bonté
galloped into camp, with another alarm of Indians. They had also been
attacked suddenly by a band of Blackfeet, but, being in a more open
country, had got clear off, after killing two of their assailants, whose
scalps hung at the horns of their saddles. They had been in a different
direction to that where Markhead and his companion had proceeded, and,
from the signs they had observed, expressed their belief that the
country was alive with Indians. Neither of these men had been wounded.
Presently the two Canadians made their appearance on the bluff,
galloping with might and main to camp, and shouting “Indians, Indians,”
as they came. All being assembled, and a council held, it was determined
to abandon the camp and neighbourhood immediately. Old Bill was already
packing his animals, and as he pounded the saddle down on the withers of
his old Rosinante, he muttered,—“Do ’ee hyar, now! this coon ’ull câche,
_he_ will.” So mounting his horse, and leading his pack mule by a
lariat, he bent over his saddle-horn, dug his ponderous rowels into the
lank sides of his beast, and, without a word, struck up the bluff and
disappeared.
The others, hastily gathering up their packs, and most of them having
lost their traps, quickly followed his example, and “put out.” On
cresting the high ground which rose from the creek, they observed thin
columns of smoke mounting into the air from many different points, the
meaning of which they were at no loss to guess. However, they were
careful not to show themselves on elevated ground, keeping as much as
possible under the banks of the creek, when such a course was
practicable; but, the bluffs sometimes rising precipitously from the
water, they were more than once compelled to ascend the banks, and
continue their course along the uplands, whence they might easily be
discovered by the Indians. It was nearly sundown when they left their
camp, but they proceeded during the greater part of the night at as
rapid a rate as possible; their progress, however, being greatly
retarded as they advanced into the mountain, their route lying up
stream. Towards morning they halted for a brief space, but started again
as soon as daylight permitted them to see their way over the broken
ground.
The creek now forced its way through a narrow cañon, the banks being
thickly clothed with a shrubbery of cottonwood and quaking-ash. The
mountain rose on each side, but not abruptly, being here and there
broken into plateaus and shelving prairies. In a very thick bottom,
sprinkled with coarse grass, they halted about noon, and removed the
saddles and packs from their wearied animals, piqueting them in the best
spots of grass.
La Bonté and Killbuck, after securing their animals, left the camp to
hunt, for they had no provisions of any kind; and a short distance
beyond it, the former came suddenly upon a recent mocassin track in the
timber. After examining it for a moment, he raised his head with a broad
grin, and, turning to his companion, pointed into the cover, where, in
the thickest part, they discerned the well-known figure of old Bill’s
horse, browsing upon the cherry bushes. Pushing through the thicket in
search of the brute’s master, La Bonté suddenly stopped short as the
muzzle of a rifle-barrel gaped before his eyes at the distance of a few
inches, whilst the thin voice of Bill muttered—
“Do ’ee hyar now, I was nigh giving ’ee h——: I _was_ now. If I didn’t
think ’ee was Blackfoot, I’m dogged now.” And not a little indignant was
the old fellow that his câche had been so easily, though accidentally,
discovered. However, he presently made his appearance in camp, leading
his animals, and once more joined his late companions, not deigning to
give any explanation as to why or wherefore he had deserted them the day
before, merely muttering, “do ’ee hyar now, thar’s trouble comin’.”
The two hunters returned after sundown with a black-tailed deer; and
after eating the better part of the meat, and setting a guard, the party
were glad to roll in their blankets and enjoy the rest they so much
needed. They were undisturbed during the night; but at dawn of day the
sleepers were roused by a hundred fierce yells, from the mountains
enclosing the creek on which they had encamped. The yells were instantly
followed by a ringing volley, the bullets thudding into the trees, and
cutting the branches near them, but without causing any mischief. Old
Bill rose from his blanket and shook himself, and exclaimed “Wagh!” as
at that moment a ball plumped into the fire over which he was standing,
and knocked the ashes about in a cloud. All the mountaineers seized
their rifles and sprang to cover; but as yet it was not sufficiently
light to show them their enemy, the bright flashes from the guns alone
indicating their position. As morning dawned, however, they saw that
both sides of the cañon were occupied by the Indians; and, from the
firing, judged there must be at least a hundred warriors engaged in the
attack. Not a shot had yet been fired by the trappers, but as the light
increased, they eagerly watched for an Indian to expose himself, and
offer a mark to their trusty rifles. La Bonté, Killbuck, and old Bill,
lay a few yards distant from each other, flat on their faces, near the
edge of the thicket, their rifles raised before them, and the barrels
resting in the forks of convenient bushes. From their place of
concealment to the position of the Indians—who, however, were scattered
here and there, wherever a rock afforded them cover—was a distance of
about a hundred and fifty yards, or within fair rifle-shot. The trappers
were obliged to divide their force, since both sides of the creek were
occupied; but such was the nature of the ground, and the excellent cover
afforded by the rocks and boulders, and clumps of dwarf pine and
hemlock, that not a hand’s-breadth of an Indian’s body had yet been
seen. Nearly opposite La Bonté, a shelving glade in the mountain side
ended in an abrupt precipice, and at the very edge, and almost toppling
over it, were several boulders, just of sufficient size to afford cover
to a man’s body. As this bluff overlooked the trapper’s position, it was
occupied by the Indians, and every rock covered an assailant. At one
point, just over where La Bonté and Killbuck were lying, two boulders
lay together, with just sufficient interval to admit a rifle-barrel
between them, and from this breastwork an Indian kept up a most annoying
fire. All his shots fell in dangerous propinquity to one or other of the
trappers, and already Killbuck had been grazed by one better directed
than the others. La Bonté watched for some time in vain for a chance to
answer this persevering marksman, and at length an opportunity offered,
by which he was not long in profiting.
The Indian, as the light increased, was better able to discern his mark,
and fired, and yelled every time he did so, with redoubled vigour. In
his eagerness, and probably whilst in the act of taking aim, he leaned
too heavily against the rock which covered him, and, detaching it from
its position, down it rolled into the cañon, exposing his body by its
fall. At the same instant, a wreath of smoke puffed from the bushes
which concealed the trappers, and the crack of La Bonté’s rifle spoke
the first word of reply to the Indian challenge. But a few feet behind
the rock, fell the dead body of the Indian, rolling down the steep sides
of the cañon, and only stopped by a bush at the very bottom, within a
few yards of the spot where Markhead lay concealed in some high grass.
That daring fellow instantly jumped from his cover, and, drawing his
knife, rushed to the body, and in another moment held aloft the Indian’s
scalp, giving, at the same time, a triumphant whoop. A score of rifles
were levelled and discharged at the intrepid mountaineer; but in the act
many Indians incautiously exposed themselves, every rifle in the timber
cracked simultaneously, and for each report an Indian bit the dust.
But now they changed their tactics. Finding they were unable to drive
the trappers from their position, they retired from the mountain, and
the firing suddenly ceased. In their retreat, however, they were forced
to expose themselves, and again the whites dealt destruction amongst
them. As the Indians retired, yelling loudly, the hunters thought they
had given up the contest; but presently a cloud of smoke rising from the
bottom immediately below them, at once discovered the nature of their
plans. A brisk wind was blowing up the cañon, and, favoured by it, they
fired the brush on the banks of the stream, knowing that before this the
hunters must speedily retreat.
Against such a result, but for the gale of wind which drove the fire
roaring before it, they could have provided—for your mountaineer never
fails to find resources on a pinch. They would have fired the brush to
leeward of their position, and also carefully ignited that to windward,
or between them and the advancing flame, extinguishing it immediately
when a sufficient space had thus been cleared, and over which the
fire-flame could not leap, and thus cutting themselves off from it both
above and below their position. In the present instance, they could not
profit by such a course, as the wind was so strong that, if once the
bottom caught fire, they would not be able to extinguish it; besides
which, in the attempt, they would so expose themselves that they would
be picked off by the Indians without difficulty. As it was, the fire
came roaring before the wind with the speed of a race-horse, and,
spreading from the bottom, licked the mountain sides, the dry grass
burning like tinder. Huge volumes of stifling smoke rolled before it,
and, in a very few minutes, the trappers were hastily mounting their
animals, driving the packed ones before them. The dense clouds of smoke
concealed every thing from their view, and, to avoid this, they broke
from the creek and galloped up the sides of the cañon on to the more
level plateau. As they attained this, a band of mounted Indians charged
them. One, waving a red blanket, dashed through the cavallada, and was
instantly followed by all the loose animals of the trappers, the rest of
the Indians following with loud shouts. So sudden was the charge, that
the whites had not power to prevent the stampede. Old Bill, as usual,
led his pack mules by the lariat; but the animals, mad with terror at
the shouts of the Indians, broke from him, nearly pulling him out of his
seat at the same time.
To cover the retreat of the others with their prey, a band of mounted
Indians now appeared, threatening an attack in front, whilst their first
assailants, rushing from the bottom, at least a hundred strong,
assaulted in rear. “Do ’ee hyar, boys!” shouted old Bill, “break, or
you’ll go under. This child’s goin’ to câche!” and saying the word, off
he went. _Sauve-qui-peut_ was the order of the day, and not a moment too
soon, for overwhelming numbers were charging upon them, and the mountain
resounded with savage yells. La Bonté and Killbuck stuck together: they
saw old Bill, bending over his saddle, dive right into the cloud of
smoke, and apparently make for the creek bottom—their other companions
scattering each on his own hook, and saw no more of them for many a
month; and thus was one of the most daring and successful bands broken
up that ever trapped in the mountains of the Far West.
It is painful to follow the steps of the poor fellows who, thus
despoiled of the hardly-earned produce of their hunt, saw all their
wealth torn from them at one swoop. The two Canadians were killed upon
the night succeeding that of the attack. Worn with fatigue, hungry and
cold, they had built a fire in what they thought was a secure retreat,
and, rolled in their blankets, were soon buried in a sleep from which
they never awoke. An Indian boy tracked them, and watched their camp.
Burning with the idea of signalising himself thus early, he awaited his
opportunity, and noiselessly approaching their resting-place, shot them
both with arrows, and returned in triumph to his people with their
horses and scalps.
La Bonté and Killbuck sought a passage in the mountain by which to cross
over to the head waters of the Columbia, and there fall in with some of
the traders or trappers of the North-west. They became involved in the
mountains, in a part where was no game of any description, and no
pasture for their miserable animals. One of these they killed for food;
the other, a bag of bones, died from sheer starvation. They had very
little ammunition, their mocassins were worn out, and they were unable
to procure skins to supply themselves with fresh ones. Winter was fast
approaching, the snow already covered the mountains, and storms of sleet
and hail poured incessantly through the valleys, benumbing their
exhausted limbs, hardly protected by scanty and ragged covering. To add
to their miseries, poor Killbuck was taken ill. He had been wounded in
the groin by a bullet some time before, and the ball still remained. The
wound, aggravated by walking and the excessive cold, assumed an ugly
appearance, and soon rendered him incapable of sustained exertion, all
motion even being attended with intolerable pain. La Bonté had made a
shanty for his suffering companion, and spread a soft bed of pine
branches for him, by the side of a small creek at the point where it
came out of the mountain and followed its course through a little
prairie. They had been three days without other food than a piece of
parflêche, which had formed the back of La Bonté’s bullet-pouch, and
which, after soaking in the creek, they eagerly devoured. Killbuck was
unable to move, and sinking fast from exhaustion. His companion had
hunted from morning till night, as well as his failing strength would
allow him, but had not seen the traces of any kind of game, with the
exception of some old buffalo tracks, made apparently months before by a
band of bulls crossing the mountain.
The morning of the fourth day La Bonté, as usual, rose at daybreak from
his blanket, and was proceeding to collect wood for the fire during his
absence while hunting, when Killbuck called to him, and in an almost
inarticulate voice desired him to seat himself by his side.
“Boy,” he said, “this old hos feels like goin’ under, and that afore
long. You’re stout yet, and if thar was meat handy, you’d come round
slick. Now, boy, I’ll be under, as I said, afore many hours, and if you
don’t raise meat you’ll be in the same fix. I never eat dead meat[3]
myself, and wouldn’t ask no one to do it neither; but meat fair killed
is meat any way; so, boy, put your knife in this old niggur’s lights,
and help yourself. It’s ‘poor bull,’ I know, but maybe it’ll do to keep
life in; and along the fleece thar’s meat yet, and maybe my old hump
ribs has picking on ’em.”
“You’re a good old hos,” answered La Bonté, “but this child ain’t turned
niggur yet.”
Killbuck then begged his companion to leave him to his fate, and strive
himself to reach game; but this alternative La Bonté likewise generously
refused, and faintly endeavouring to cheer the sick man, left him once
again to look for game. He was so weak that he felt difficulty in
supporting himself, and knowing how futile would be his attempts to
hunt, he sallied from the camp convinced that a few hours more would see
the last of him.
He had scarcely raised his eyes, when, hardly crediting his senses, he
saw within a few hundred yards of him an old bull, worn with age, lying
on the prairie. Two wolves were seated on their haunches before him,
their tongues lolling from their mouths, whilst the buffalo was
impotently rolling his ponderous head from side to side, his bloodshot
eyes glaring fiercely at his tormentors, and flakes of foam, mixed with
blood, dropping from his mouth over his long shaggy beard. La Bonté was
transfixed; he dared scarcely to breathe lest the animal should be
alarmed and escape. Weak as it was, he could hardly have followed it,
and, knowing that his own and companion’s life hung upon the success of
his shot, he scarcely had strength to raise his rifle. By dint of
extraordinary exertions and precautions, which were totally unnecessary,
for the poor old bull had not a move in him, the hunter approached
within shot. Lying upon the ground, he took a long steady aim, and
fired. The buffalo raised its matted head, tossed it wildly for an
instant, and, stretching out its limbs convulsively, turned over on its
side and was dead.
Killbuck heard the shot, and crawling from under the little shanty which
covered his bed, saw, to his astonishment, La Bonté in the act of
butchering a buffalo within two hundred yards of camp. “Hurraw for you!”
he faintly exclaimed; and exhausted by the exertion he had used, and
perhaps by the excitement of an anticipated feast, fell back and
fainted.
However, the killing was the easiest matter, for when the huge carcass
lay dead upon the ground, our hunter had hardly strength to drive the
blade of his knife through the tough hide of the old patriarch. Then
having cut off as much of the meat as he could carry, eating the while
sundry portions of the liver, which he dipped in the gall-bladder by way
of relish, La Bonté cast a wistful look upon the half-starved wolves,
who now loped round and round, licking their chops, only waiting until
his back was turned to fall to with appetite equal to his own, and
capabilities of swallowing and digesting far superior. La Bonté looked
at the buffalo, and then at the wolves, levelled his rifle and shot one
dead, at which the survivor scampered off without delay.
Arrived at camp, packing in a tolerable load of the best part of the
animal—for hunger lent him strength—he found poor Killbuck lying on his
back, deaf to time, and to all appearance gone under. Having no
sal-volatile or vinaigrette at hand, La Bonté flapped a lump of raw
fleece into his patient’s face, and this instantly revived him. Then
taking the sick man’s shoulder, he raised him tenderly into a sitting
posture, and invited, in kindly accents, “the old hos to feed,”
thrusting at the same time a tolerable slice of liver into his hand,
which the patient looked at wistfully and vaguely for a few short
moments, and then greedily devoured. It was nightfall by the time that
La Bonté, assisted by many intervals of hard eating, packed in the last
of the meat, which formed a goodly pile around the fire.
“Poor bull” it was in all conscience: the labour of chewing a mouthful
of the “tender loin” was equal to a hard day’s hunt; but to them, poor
starved fellows, it appeared the richest of meat. They still preserved a
small tin pot, and in this, by stress of eternal boiling, La Bonté
contrived to make some strong soup, which soon restored his sick
companion to marching order. For himself, as soon as a good meal had
filled him, he was strong as ever, and employed himself in drying the
remainder of the meat for future use. Even the wolf, bony as he was, was
converted into meat, and rationed them several days. Winter, however,
had set in with such severity, and Killbuck was still so weak, that La
Bonté determined to remain in his present position until spring, as he
now found that buffalo frequently visited the valley, as it was more
bare of snow than the lowlands, and afforded them better pasture; and
one morning he had the satisfaction of seeing a band of seventeen bulls
within long rifle-shot of the camp, out of which four of the fattest
were soon laid low by his rifle.
They still had hard times before them, for towards spring the buffalo
again disappeared; the greater part of their meat had been spoiled,
owing to there not being sufficient sun to dry it thoroughly; and when
they resumed their journey they had nothing to carry with them, and had
a desert before them without game of any kind. We pass over what they
suffered. Hunger, thirst, and Indians assaulted them at times, and many
miraculous and hairbreadth escapes they had from such enemies.
The trail to Oregon, followed by traders and emigrants, crosses the
Rocky Mountains at a point known as the South Pass, where a break in the
chain occurs of such moderate and gradual elevation as to permit the
passage of waggons with tolerable facility. The Sweet Water Valley runs
nearly to the point where the dividing ridge of the Pacific and Atlantic
waters throws off its streams to their respective oceans. At one end of
this valley, and situated on the right bank of the Sweet Water, a huge
isolated mass of granitic rock rises to the height of three hundred
feet, abruptly from the plain. On the smooth and scarped surface
presented by one of its sides, are rudely carved the names and initials
of traders, trappers, travellers and emigrants, who have here recorded
the memorial of their sojourn in the remote wilderness of the Far West.
The face of the rock is covered with names familiar to the mountaineers
as those of the most renowned of their hardy brotherhood; while others
again occur, better known to the science and literature of the Old World
than to the unlearned trappers of the Rocky Mountains. The huge mass is
a well-known landmark to the Indians and mountaineers; and travellers
and emigrants hail it as the half-way beacon between the frontiers of
the United States and the still distant goal of their long and perilous
journey.
It was a hot sultry day in July. Not a breath of air relieved the
intense and oppressive heat of the atmosphere, unusual here where
pleasant summer breezes, and sometimes stronger gales, blow over the
elevated plains with the regularity of trade-winds. The sun, at its
meridian height, struck the dry sandy plain and parched the drooping
buffalo-grass on its surface, and its rays, refracted and reverberating
from the heated ground, distorted every object seen through its lurid
medium. Straggling antelope, leisurely crossing the adjoining prairie,
appeared to be gracefully moving in mid-air; whilst a scattered band of
buffalo bulls loomed huge and indistinct in the vapoury distance. In the
timbered valley of the river deer and elk were standing motionless in
the water, under the shade of the overhanging cottonwoods, seeking a
respite from the persevering attacks of swarms of horseflies and
mosquitos; and now and then the heavy splash was heard, as they tossed
their antlered heads into the stream, to free them from the venomous
insects that buzzed incessantly about them. But in the sandy prairie,
beetles of an enormous size were rolling in every direction huge balls
of earth, pushing them with their hind legs with comical perseverance;
cameleons darted about, assimilating the hue of their grotesque bodies
with the colour of the sand: groups of prairie-dog houses were seen,
each with its inmate barking lustily on the roof; whilst under cover of
nearly every bush of sage or cactus a rattlesnake lay glittering in lazy
coil. Tantalising the parched sight, the neighbouring peaks of the lofty
Wind River Mountains glittered in a mantle of sparkling snow, whilst
Sweet Water Mountain, capped in cloud, looked gray and cool, in striking
contrast to the burned up plains which lay basking at its foot.
Resting their backs against the rock, (on which, we have said, are _now_
carved the names of many travellers,) and defended from the powerful
rays of the sun by its precipitous sides, two white men quietly slept.
They were gaunt and lantern-jawed, and clothed in tattered buckskin.
Each held a rifle across his knees, but—strange sight in this
country—one had its pan thrown open, which was rust-eaten and contained
no priming; the other’s hammer was without a flint. Their faces were as
if covered with mahogany-coloured parchment; their eyes were sunken; and
as their jaws fell listlessly on their breasts, their cheeks were
hollow, with the bones nearly protruding from the skin. One was in the
prime of manhood, with handsome features; the other, considerably past
the middle age, was stark and stern. Months of dire privation had
brought them to this pass. The elder of the two was Killbuck, of
mountain fame; the other hight La Bonté.
The former opened his eyes, and saw the buffalo feeding on the plain.
“Ho, boy,” he said, touching his companion, “thar’s meat a-runnin.”
La Bonté looked in the direction the other pointed, stood up, and
hitching round his pouch and powder-horn, drew the stopper from the
latter with his teeth, and placing the mouth in the palm of his left
hand, turned the horn up and shook it.
“Not a grain,” he said—“not a grain, old hos.”
“Wagh!” exclaimed the other, “we’ll have to eat afore long,” and rising,
walked into the prairie. He had hardly stepped two paces, when, passing
close to a sage bush, a rattlesnake whizzed a note of warning with its
tail. Killbuck grinned, and taking the wiping-stick from his
rifle-barrel, tapped the snake on the head, and, taking it by the tail,
threw it to La Bonté, saying, “hyar’s meat, any how.” The old fellow
followed up his success by slaying half a dozen more, and brought them
in skewered through the head on his wiping-stick. A fire was soon
kindled, and the snakes as soon roasting before it; when La Bonté, who
sat looking at the buffalo which fed close to the rock, suddenly saw
them raise their heads, snuff the air, and scamper towards him. A few
minutes afterwards a huge shapeless body loomed in the refracted air,
approaching the spot where the buffalo had been grazing. The hunters
looked at it and then at each other, and ejaculated “Wagh!” Presently a
long white mass showed more distinctly, followed by another, and before
each was a string of animals.
“Waggons, by hos and beaver! Hurrah for Conostoga!” exclaimed the
trappers in a breath, as they now observed two white-tilted waggons,
drawn by several pairs of mules, approaching the very spot where they
sat. Several mounted men were riding about the waggons, and two on
horseback, in advance of all, were approaching the rock, when they
observed the smoke curling from the hunters’ fire. They halted at sight
of this, and one of the two, drawing a long instrument from a case,
which Killbuck voted a rifle, directed it towards them for a moment, and
then, lowering it, again moved forward.
As they drew near, the two poor trappers, although half-dead with joy,
still retained their seats with Indian gravity and immobility of
feature, turning now and then the crackling snakes which lay on the
embers of the fire. The two strangers approached. One, a man of some
fifty years of age, of middle height and stoutly built, was clad in a
white shooting-jacket, of cut unknown in mountain tailoring, and a pair
of trousers of the well-known material called “shepherd’s plaid;” a
broad-brimmed Panama shaded his face, which was ruddy with health and
exercise; a belt round the waist supported a handsome bowie-knife, and a
double-barrelled fowling-piece was _slung_ across his shoulder.
His companion was likewise dressed in a light shooting-jacket, of many
pockets and dandy cut, rode on an English saddle and in _boots_, and was
armed with a superb double rifle, glossy from the case, and bearing few
marks of use or service. He was a tall, fine-looking fellow of thirty,
with light hair and complexion; a scrupulous beard and mustache; a
wide-awake hat, with a short pipe stuck in the band, but not very black
with smoke; an elaborate powder-horn over his shoulder, with a Cairngorm
in the butt as large as a plate; a blue handkerchief tied round his
throat in a sailor’s knot, and the collar of his shirt turned carefully
over it. He had, moreover, a tolerable idea of his very correct
appearance, and wore Woodstock gloves.
The trappers looked at them from head to foot, and the more they looked
the less could they make them out.
“H—!” exclaimed La Bonté emphatically.
“This beats grainin’ bull-hide slick,” broke from Killbuck as the
strangers reined up at the fire, the younger dismounting, and staring
with wonder at the weather-beaten trappers.
“Well, my men, how are you?” he rattled out. “Any game here? By Jove!”
he suddenly exclaimed, seizing his rifle, as at that moment a large
buzzard, the most unclean of birds, flew into the topmost branch of a
cottonwood, and sat, a tempting shot. “By Jove, there’s a chance!” cried
the mighty hunter; and, bending low, started off to approach the unwary
bird in the most approved fashion of northern deer-stalkers. The buzzard
sat quietly, and now and then stretched its neck to gaze upon the
advancing sportsman, who on such occasions threw himself flat on the
ground, and remained motionless, in dread of alarming the bird. It was
worth while to look at the countenance of old Killbuck, as he watched
the antics of the “bourgeois” hunter. He thought at first that the dandy
rifleman had really discovered game in the bottom, and was nothing loth
that there was a chance of his seeing meat; but when he understood the
object of such manœuvres, and saw the quarry the hunter was so carefully
approaching, his mouth grinned from ear to ear, and, turning to La
Bonté, he said, “Wagh! _he’s_ some—_he_ is!”
Nothing doubting, however, the stranger approached the tree on which the
bird was sitting, and, getting well under it, raised his rifle and
fired. Down tumbled the bird; and the successful hunter, with a loud
shout, rushed frantically towards it, and bore it in triumph to the
camp, earning the most sovereign contempt from the two trappers by the
achievement.
The other stranger was a quieter character. He, too, smiled as he
witnessed the exultation of his younger companion, (whose horse, by the
way, was scampering about the plain,) and spoke kindly to the
mountaineers, whose appearance was clear evidence of the sufferings they
had endured. The snakes by this time were cooked, and the trappers gave
their new acquaintances the never-failing invitation to “sit and eat.”
When the latter, however, understood what the viands were, their looks
expressed the horror and disgust they felt.
“Good God!” exclaimed the elder, “you surely cannot eat such disgusting
food?”
“This niggur doesn’t savy what disgustin’ is,” gruffly answered
Killbuck; “but them as carries empty paunch three days an’ more, is glad
to get ‘snake-meat,’ I’m thinkin.”
“What! you’ve no ammunition, then?”
“_Well_, we haven’t.”
“Wait till the waggons come up, and throw away that abominable stuff,
and you shall have something better, I promise,” said the elder of the
strangers.
“Yes,” continued the younger, “some hot preserved soup, hotchpotch, and
a glass of porter, will do you good.”
The trappers looked at the speaker, who was talking Greek (to them.)
They thought the bourgeois were making fun, and did not half like it, so
answered simply, “Wagh! h—’s full of hosh-posh and porter.”
Two large waggons presently came up, escorted by some eight or ten stout
Missourians. Sublette was amongst the number, well known as a mountain
trader, and under whose guidance the present party, which formed a
pleasure expedition at the expense of a Scotch sportsman, was leisurely
making its way across the mountains to the Columbia. As several
mountaineers were in company, Killbuck and La Bonté recognised more than
one friend, and the former and Sublette were old compañeros. As soon as
the animals were unhitched, and camp formed on the banks of the creek, a
black cook set about preparing a meal. Our two trapping friends looked
on with astonishment as the sable functionary drew from the waggon the
different articles he required to furnish forth a feed. Hams, tongues,
tins of preserved meats, bottles of pickles, of porter, brandy, coffee,
sugar, flour, were tumbled promiscuously on the prairie; whilst pots and
pans, knives, forks, spoons, plates, &c. &c. displayed their unfamiliar
faces to the mountaineers. “Hosh-posh and porter” did not now appear
such Utopian articles as they had first imagined; but no one can
understand the relish, but those who have fared for years on simple meat
and water, with which they accepted the invitation of the Capen (as they
called the Scotchman,) to “take a horn of liquor.” Killbuck and La Bonté
sat in the same position as when we first surprised them asleep under
the shadow of Independence Rock, regarding the profuse display of
comestibles with scarce-believing eyes, and childishly helpless by the
novelty of the scene. Each took the proffered half-pint cup, filled to
the brim with excellent brandy—(no tee-totallers they!)—looked once at
the amber-coloured surface, and with the usual mountain pledge of
“here’s luck!” tossed off the grateful liquor at a breath. This prepared
them in some measure for what was yet in store for them. The Scotchman
bestirred the cook in his work, and soon sundry steaming pots were
lifted from the fire, and the skillets emptied of their bread—the
contents of the former poured in large flat pans, while pannikins were
filled with smoking coffee. The two trappers needed no second
invitation, but, seizing each a panful of steaming stew, drew the
butcher knives from their belts, and fell to lustily—the hospitable
Scotchman plying them with more and more, and administering corrective
noggins of brandy the while; until at last they were fain to cry enough,
wiped their knives on the grass, and placed them in their sheaths—a sign
that human nature could no more. How can pen describe the luxury of the
smoke that followed, to lips which had not kissed pipe for many months,
and how the fragrant honey-dew from Old Virginia was relishingly puffed!
But the Scotchman’s bounty did not stop here. He soon elicited from the
lips of the hunters the narrative of their losses and privations, and
learned that they now, without ammunition and scarcely clothed, were on
their way to Platte Fort, to hire themselves to the Indian traders in
order to earn another outfit, wherewith once more to betake themselves
to their perilous employment of trapping. What was their astonishment to
see their entertainer presently lay out upon the ground two piles of
goods, each consisting of a four-point Mackinaw, two tin canisters of
powder, with corresponding lead and flints, a pair of mocassins, a
shirt, and sufficient buckskin to make a pair of pantaloons; and how
much the more was the wonder increased when two excellent Indian horses
were presently lassoed from the cavallada, and with mountain saddle,
bridle, and lariats complete, together with the two piles of goods
described, presented to them “on the prairie” or “gift-free,” by the
kindhearted stranger, who would not even listen to thanks for the most
timely and invaluable present.
Once more equipped, our two hunters, filled with good brandy and fat
buffalo meat, again wended on their way; their late entertainers
continuing their pleasure trip across the gap of the South Pass,
intending to visit the Great Salt Lake, or Timponogos, of the West. The
former were bound for the North Fork of the Platte, with the intention
of joining one of the numerous trapping parties which rendezvous at the
American Fur Company’s post on that branch of the river. On a fork of
Sweet Water, however, not two days after the meeting with the
Scotchman’s waggons, they encountered a band of a dozen mountaineers,
mounted on fine horses, and well armed and equipped, travelling along
without the usual accompaniment of a mulada of pack-animals, two or
three mules alone being packed with meat and spare ammunition. The band
was proceeding at a smart rate, the horses moving with the gait peculiar
to American animals, known as “_pacing_” or “_racking_,” in Indian
file—each of the mountaineers with a long heavy rifle resting across the
horn of his saddle. Amongst them our two friends recognised Markhead,
who had been of the party dispersed months before by the Blackfeet on
one of the head streams of the Yellow Stone, which event had been the
origin of the dire sufferings of Killbuck and La Bonté. Markhead, after
running the gauntlet of numerous Indians, through the midst of whose
country he passed with his usual temerity and utter disregard to danger,
suffering hunger, thirst, and cold—those every-day experiences of
mountain life—riddled with balls, but with three scalps hanging from his
belt, made his way to a rendezvous on Bear River, whence he struck out
for the Platte in early spring, in time to join the band he now
accompanied, who were on a horse-stealing expedition to the Missions of
Upper California. Little persuasion did either Killbuck or La Bonté
require to join the sturdy freebooters. In five minutes they had gone
“files-about,” and at sundown were camping on the well-timbered bottom
of “Little Sandy,” feasting once more on delicate hump-rib and tender
loin.
For California, ho!
Fourteen good rifles in the hands of fourteen mountain men, stout and
true, on fourteen strong horses, of true Indian blood and
training—fourteen cool heads, with fourteen pairs of keen eyes in them,
each head crafty as an Indian’s, directing a right arm strong as steel,
and a heart as brave as grizzly bear’s. Before them a thousand miles of
dreary desert or wilderness, overrun by hostile savages, thirsting for
the white man’s blood; famine and drought, the arrows of wily hordes of
Indians—and, these dangers past, the invasion of the civilised
settlements of whites, the least numerous of which contained ten times
their number of armed and bitter enemies,—the sudden swoop upon their
countless herds of mules and horses, the fierce attack and bloody
slaughter;—such were the consequences of the expedition these bold
mountaineers were now engaged in. Fourteen lives of any fourteen enemies
who would be rash enough to stay them, were, any day you will, carried
in the rifle barrels of these stout fellows; who, in all the proud
consciousness of their physical qualities, neither thought, nor cared to
think, of future perils; and rode merrily on their way, rejoicing in the
dangers they must necessarily meet. Never a more daring band crossed the
mountains; a more than ordinary want of caution characterised their
march, and dangers were recklessly and needlessly invited, which even
the older and more cold-blooded mountaineers seemed not to care to
avoid. They had, each and all, many a debt to pay the marauding Indians.
Grudges for many privations, for wounds and loss of comrades, rankled in
their breasts; and not one but had suffered more or less in property and
person at the hands of the savages, within a few short months. Threats
of vengeance on every Redskin they met were loud and deep; and the wild
war-songs round their nightly camp-fires, and grotesque scalp-dances,
borrowed from the Indians, proved to the initiated that they were, one
and all, “half-froze for hair.” Soon after Killbuck and La Bonté joined
them, they one day suddenly surprised a band of twenty Sioux, scattered
on a small prairie and butchering some buffalo they had just killed.
Before they could escape, the whites were upon them with loud shouts,
and in three minutes the scalps of eleven were dangling from their
saddle-horns.
Struggling up mountains, slipping down precipices, dashing over prairies
which resounded with their Indian songs, charging the Indians wherever
they met them, and without regard to their numbers; frightening with
their lusty war-whoops the miserable Diggers, who were not unfrequently
surprised while gathering roots in the mountain plains, and who,
scrambling up the rocks and concealing themselves, like sage rabbits, in
holes and corners, peered, chattering with fear, as the wild and noisy
troop rode by. Scarce drawing rein, they passed rapidly the heads of
Green and Grand Rivers, through a country abounding in game and in
excellent pasture; encountering in the upland valleys, through which
meandered the well-timbered creeks on which they made their daily camps,
many a band of Yutahs, through whom they dashed at random, caring not
whether they were friends or foes. Passing many other heads of streams,
they struck at last the edge of the desert, lying along the
south-eastern base of the Great Salt Lake, and which extends in almost
unbroken sterility to the foot of the range of the Sierra Nevada—a
mountain chain, capped with perpetual snow, that bounds the northern
extremity of a singular tract of country, walled by mountains and
utterly desert, whose salt lagoons and lakes, although fed by many
streams, find no outlet to the ocean, but are absorbed in the spongy
soil or thirsty sand, which characterise the different portions of this
deserted tract. In the “Grand Basin,” it is reported, neither human nor
animal life can be supported. No oases cheer the wanderer in the
unbroken solitude of the vast wilderness. More than once the lone
trapper has penetrated, with hardy enterprise, into the salt plains of
the basin; but no signs of beaver or fur-bearing animal rewarded the
attempt. The ground is scantily covered with coarse unwholesome grass
that mules and horses refuse to eat; and the water of the springs,
impregnated with the impurities of the soil through which it percolates,
affords but nauseating draughts to the thirsty traveller.
In passing from the more fertile uplands to the lower plains, as they
descended the streams, the timber on their banks became scarcer, and the
groves more scattered. The rich buffalo or _grama_ grass was exchanged
for a coarser species, on which the hard-worked animals soon grew poor
and weak. The thickets of plum and cherry, of box-alder and quaking-ash,
which had hitherto fringed the creeks, and where the deer and bear loved
to resort—the former to browse on the leaves and tender shoots, the
latter to devour the fruit—now entirely disappeared, and the only shrub
seen was the eternal sage bush, which flourishes every where in the
western regions in uncongenial soils where other vegetation refuses to
grow. The visible change in the scenery had also a sensible effect on
the spirits of the mountaineers. They travelled on in silence through
the deserted plains; the hi-hi-hiya of their Indian chants was no longer
heard enlivening the line of march. More than once a Digger of the
Pi-yutah tribe took himself and hair, in safety, from their path, and
almost unnoticed; but as they advanced they became more cautious in
their movements, and testified, by the vigilant watch they kept, that
they anticipated hostile attacks even in these arid wastes. They had
passed without molestation through the country infested by the bolder
Indians. The mountain Yutes, not relishing the appearance of the
hunters, had left them unmolested; but they were now entering a country
inhabited by the most degraded and abject of the western tribes; who,
nevertheless, ever suffering from the extremities of hunger, have their
brutish wits sharpened by the necessity of procuring food, and rarely
fail to levy a contribution of rations, of horse or mule flesh, on the
passenger in their inhospitable country. The brutish cunning and animal
instinct of these wretches is such, that although arrant cowards, their
attacks are more feared than those of bolder Indians. These
people—called the Yamparicas or Root-Diggers—are, nevertheless, the
degenerate descendants of those tribes which once overran that portion
of the continent of North America now comprehended within the boundaries
of Mexico, and who have left such startling evidences in their track of
a comparatively superior state of civilisation. They now form an outcast
tribe of the great nation of the Apache, which extends under various
names from the Great Salt Lake along the table-lands on each side the
Sierra Madre to the tropic of Cancer, where they merge into what are
called the Mexican Indians. The whole of this nation is characterised by
most abject cowardice; and they even refuse to meet the helpless
Mexicans in open fight—unlike the Yutah or Camanche, who carry bold and
open warfare into the territories of their civilised enemy, and never
shrink from hand to hand encounter. The Apaches and the degenerate
Diggers pursue a cowardly warfare, hiding in ambush, and shooting the
passer-by with arrows; or, dashing upon him at night when steeped in
sleep, they bury their arrow to the feather in his heaving breast. As
the Mexicans say, “_Sin ventaja, no salen_;” they never attack without
odds. But they are not the less dangerous enemies on this account; and
by the small bands of trappers who visit their country, they are the
more dreaded by reason of this coward and wolfish system of warfare.
To provide against surprise, therefore, as the hunters rode along,
flankers were extended _en guerilla_ on each side, mounting the high
points to reconnoitre the country, and keeping a sharp look-out for the
Indian sign. At night the animals were securely hobbled, and a
horse-guard posted round them—a service of great danger, as the stealthy
cat-like Diggers are often known to steal up silently, under cover of
the darkness, towards the sentinel, shoot him with their arrows, and,
approaching the animals, cut the hobbles and drive them away unseen.
One night they encamped on a creek where was but little of the coarsest
pasture, and that little scattered here and there; so that they were
compelled to allow their animals to roam farther than usual from camp in
search of food. Four of the hunters, however, accompanied them to guard
against surprise; whilst but half of those in camp laid down to sleep,
the others, with rifles in their hands, remaining prepared for any
emergencies. This day they had killed one of their two pack mules for
food, game not having been met with for several days; but the animal was
so poor, that it scarcely afforded more than one tolerable meal to the
whole party.
A short time before the dawn of day an alarm was given; the animals were
heard to snort violently; a loud shout was heard, followed by the sharp
crack of a rifle, and the tramp of galloping horses plainly showed that
a stampede had been effected. The whites instantly sprang to their arms,
and rushed in the direction of the sounds. The body of the cavallada,
however, had luckily turned, and, being headed by the mountaineers, were
surrounded and secured, with the loss of only three, which had probably
been mounted by the Indians.
Day breaking soon after, one of their band was discovered to be missing;
and it was then found that a man who had been standing horse-guard at
the time of the attack, had not come into camp with his companions. At
that moment a thin spiral column of smoke was seen to rise from the
banks of the creek, telling but too surely the fate of the missing
mountaineer. It was the signal of the Indians to their people that a
“_coup_” had been struck, and that an enemy’s scalp remained in their
triumphant hands.
“H——!” exclaimed the trappers in a breath; and soon imprecations and
threats of revenge, loud and deep, were showered upon the heads of the
treacherous Indians. Some of the party rushed to the spot where the
guard had stood, and there lay the body of their comrade, pierced with
lance and arrow, the scalp gone, and the body otherwise mutilated in a
barbarous manner. Five were quickly in the saddle, mounted upon the
strongest horses, and flying along the track of the Indians, who had
made off towards the mountains with their prize and booty. We will not
follow them in their work of bloody vengeance, save by saying that they
followed the savages to their village, into which they charged headlong,
recovered their stolen horses, and returned to camp at sundown with
thirteen scalps dangling from their rifles, in payment for the loss of
their unfortunate companion.[4]
In their further advance, hunger and thirst were their daily companions;
they were compelled to kill several of their animals for food, but were
fortunate enough to replace them by a stroke of good luck in meeting a
party of Indians returning from an excursion against one of the
Californian settlements with a tolerably large band of horses. Our
hunters met this band one fine morning, and dashed into the midst at
once; half a dozen Indians bit the dust, and twenty horses were turned
over from red to white masters in as many seconds, which remounted those
whose animals had been eaten, and enabled the others to exchange their
worn-out steeds for fresh ones. This fortunate event was considered a
_coup_, and the event was celebrated by the slaughter of a fat young
horse, which furnished an excellent supper that night—a memorable event
in these starveling regions.
They were now devouring their horses and mules at the rate of one every
alternate day; for, so poor were the animals, that one scarcely
furnished an ample meal for the thirteen hungry hunters. They were once
more reduced to the animals they rode on; and after a fast of
twenty-four hours’ duration, were debating on the propriety of drawing
lots as to whose Rosinante should fill the kettle, when some Indians
suddenly appeared making signs of peace upon the bluff, and indicating a
disposition to enter the camp for the purpose of trading. Being invited
to approach, they offered to trade a few dressed elk-skins; but being
asked for meat, they said that their village was a long way off, and
they had nothing with them but a small portion of some game they had
lately killed. When requested to produce this, they hesitated, but the
trappers looking hungry and angry at the same moment, an old Indian drew
from under his blanket several flaps of portable dried meat which he
declared was bear’s. It was but a small ration amongst so many; but,
being divided, was quickly laid upon the fire to broil. The meat was
stringy, and of whitish colour, altogether unlike any flesh the trappers
had before eaten. Killbuck was the first to discover this. He had been
quietly masticating the last mouthful of his portion, the stringiness of
which required more than usual dental exertion, when the novelty of the
flavour struck him as something singular. Suddenly his jaws ceased their
work, he thought a moment, took the morsel from his mouth, looked at it
intently, and dashed it into the fire.
“Man-meat, by G—!” he cried out; and at the words every jaw stopped
work: the trappers looked at the meat and each other.
“I’m dog-gone if it ain’t!” cried old Walker, looking at his piece, “and
white meat at that, wagh!” (and report said it was not the first time he
had tasted such viands;) and the conviction seizing each mind, every
mouthful was quickly spat into the fire, and the ire of the deceived
whites was instantly turned upon the luckless providers of the feast.
They saw the storm that was brewing, and without more ado turned tail
from the camp, and scuttled up the bluffs, where, turning round, they
fired a volley of arrows at the tricked mountaineers, and instantly
disappeared.
However, the desert and its nomade pilferers were at length passed; the
sandy plains became grass-covered prairies; the monstrous cottonwood on
the creeks was replaced by oak and ash; the surface of the country grew
more undulating, and less broken up into cañons and ravines; elk and
deer leaped in the bottoms, and bands of antelope dotted the plains,
with occasional troops of wild horses, too wary to allow the approach of
man. On the banks of a picturesque stream called the San Joaquim, the
party halted a few days to recruit themselves and animals, feasting the
while on the fattest of venison and other game. They then struck to the
south-east for two days, until they reached a branch of the “Las
Animas,” a clear stream running through a pretty valley, well timbered
and abounding in game. Here, as they wound along the river-banks, a
horseman suddenly appeared upon the bluff above them, galloping at a
furious rate along the edge. His dress approached in some degree to
civilised attire. A broad-brimmed sombrero surmounted his swarthy face;
a coloured blanket, through a slit in which his head was thrust, floated
in the air from his shoulders; leathern leggings encased his lower
limbs; and huge spurs jingled on his heels. He rode in a high-peaked
Mexican saddle, his feet thrust in ponderous stirrups, and in his hand
swung a coil of ready lasso, his only offensive arm. One of the trappers
knew a little Spanish, and instantly hailed him.
“_Compadre_,” he shouted, “_por onde va?_” The Californian reined in
suddenly, throwing the horse he rode on its very haunches, and darting
down the bluff, galloped unhesitatingly into the midst of the hunters.
“_Americanos!_” he exclaimed glancing at them; and continued,
smiling—“_Y caballos quieren, por eso vienen tan lejitos. Jesus, que
mala gente!_” “It’s horses you want, and for this you come all this way.
Ah, what rogues you are!”
He was an Indian, employed at the Mission of San Fernando, distant three
days’ journey from their present position, and was now searching for a
band of horses and mules which had strayed. San Fernando, it appeared,
had once before been visited by a party of mountain free-traders, and
the Indian therefore divined the object of the present one. He was, he
told them, “_un Indio, pero mansito_:” an Indian, but a tame one;[5]
“_de mas, Christiano_;” a Christian moreover, (exhibiting a small cross
which hung round his neck.) There were many people about the mission, he
said, who knew how to fight, and had plenty of arms; and there were
enough to “eat up” the “_Americanos, sin frijoles_,” without beans, as
he facetiously observed. For his part, however, he was very friendly to
the _Americanos_; he had once met a man of that nation who was a good
sort of fellow, and had made him a present of tobacco, of which he was
particularly fond. Finding this hint did not take, he said that the
horses and mules belonging to the mission were innumerable—“like that,”
he added, sweeping his hand to all points of the compass over the plain,
to intimate that they would cover that extent; and he could point out a
large herd grazing nearer at hand than the mission, and guarded but by
three _vaqueros_. Regaled with venison, and with a smoke of his coveted
tobacco, he rode off, and made his way to the mission without delay;
conveying the startling intelligence that a thousand Americans were upon
them.
The next morning the thirteen doughty mountaineers quietly resumed their
journey, moving leisurely along towards the object of their expedition.
It will not be out of place here to digress a little, in order to
describe the singular features of the establishments formed in those
remote regions by the Catholic church, as nuclei round which to
concentrate the wandering tribes that inhabit the country, with a view
to give them the benefit of civilised example, and to wean them from
their restless nomadic habits.
The establishment of missions in Upper California is coeval with the
first settlement of Southern Mexico. No sooner had Spanish rule taken a
firm foothold in the Aztec empire, than the avowed primary object of the
military expedition began to be carried into effect. “To save the souls”
of the savage and barbarous subjects of their most Catholic majesties
was ever inculcated upon the governors of the conquered country as the
grand object to be sought after, as soon as tranquillity was partially
restored by the submission of the Mexicans; and the cross, the sacred
emblem of the Catholic faith, was to be upraised in the remotest corners
of the country, and the natives instructed and compelled to worship it,
in lieu of the grotesque images of their own idolatrous religion.
To carry into effect these orthodox instructions, troops of pious
priests, of friars and monks of every order, and even of saintly nuns,
followed in the wake of the victorious armies of Cortez; and girding up
their loins with zealous fervour and enthusiasm, and with an enterprise
and hardihood worthy of buccaneers, they pushed their adventurous way
far into the bowels of the land, preaching devoutly and with commendable
perseverance to savages who did not understand a syllable of what they
so eloquently discoursed; and returning, after the lapse of many months
passed in this first attempt, with glowing accounts of the “_muy buen
indole_,” the very ductile disposition of the savages, and of the
thousands they had converted to “_la santa fé catolica_.”
Ferdinand and Isabel, of glorious memory, at once beat up for
volunteers. Crowds of Franciscan monks, greasy Capuchinos, and nuns of
orthodox odour, joined the band; and saints even of the feminine gender,
long since canonised and up aloft amongst the goodly muster of saints
and martyrs, put foot once more on _terra firma_, and, rosary in hand,
crossed the seas to participate in the good work. As proof of this
latter fact, one Venabides, a Franciscan, whose veracity is beyond
impeachment, declared that, while preaching in the regions now known as
New Mexico, one million Indians from the “rumbo” known as Cibolo, a
mighty nation, approached his temporary pulpit on the Rio Grande, and
requested in a body the favour of being baptised. Struck with the
singularity of this request from Indians with whom he had as yet held no
communication, and with conscientious scruple as to whether he would be
justified in performing such ceremony without their having received
previous instruction, he hesitated a few moments before making an
answer. At this juncture, the Indians espied a medallion which hung
around his neck, bearing the effigy of a certain saint of extraordinary
virtue. At sight of this they fell on their knees before it; and it was
some time before they found words (in what language does not appear) to
explain to the holy father that the original of that effigy, which hung
pendant from his neck, had been long amongst them instructing them in
the elements of the Christian religion, and had only lately disappeared;
informing them that certain reverend men would shortly appear in the
land, who would finish the good work she had devoutly commenced, and
clench the business by baptising the one million miserable sinners who
now knelt before El Padre Venabides.
“Valgame Dios!” reverently exclaimed that worthy man, “qui milagro es
este;” [what a miracle is this I hear;] and casting up his eyes, and
speaking slowly, as if he weighed every word, and taxing his memory of
the historical calendar of saints, continued,—
“_Se murió—aquella—santissima—muger—en el ano 175—es decir—ya
hacen—mil—quatro—cientos—anos._” [That most holy woman died in the year
175, that is to say, one thousand four hundred years ago.]
“Oh, what a strange thing is this!” the padre continues devoutly. “After
so many ages spent in heaven in company of the angels, of most holy men,
and of virgins the most pure; and, perhaps, also in the company of my
worthy and esteemed friend and patron Don Vincente Carvajal y Calvo, who
died a few years ago in San Lucar of Xeres, (bequeathing me certain
arrobas of dry wine, of a class I greatly esteem,—for which act he
deserved to be canonised, and, I have no doubt, is,) the said Don
Vincente Carvajal y Calvo being, moreover, a man of the purest and
holiest thoughts, (Dios mio! what a puchero that man always had on his
table!) this holy woman comes here—to these wild and remote regions;
this holy woman, (who died fifteen hundred years ago,) abandoning the
company of angels, of holy men, and sanctified women and virgins, and
also of Don Vincente Carvajal y Calvo, (that worthy man!)—comes here, I
say, where there are neither pucheros, nor garbanzos, nor dry wine, nor
sweet wine, neither of Xeres, nor of Val de Peñas, nor of Peralta;
where” (sobbed the padre, and bellowed the last word) “there is—nothing
either to eat or to drink. Valgame Purissima Maria! And what is the name
of this holy woman? the world will ask,” continues Venabides. “Santa
Clara of Carmona is her name, one well known in my native country, who
leaves heaven and all its joys, wends her way to the distant wilds of
New Spain, and spends years in inducting the savage people to the holy
faith. Truly a pious work, and pleasing to God!”[6]
Thus spoke Venabides the Franciscan, and no doubt he believed what he
said; and many others in Old Spain were fools enough to believe it too,
for the shaven heads flocked over in greater numbers, and the cry was
ever “still they come.”
Along the whole extent of the table-lands, not an Indian tribe but was
speedily visited by the preaching friars and monks; and, in less than a
century after the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, these hardy and
enthusiastic frayles had pushed their way into the inhospitable regions
of New Mexico, nearly two thousand miles distant from the valley of
Anahuac. How they succeeded in surmounting the natural obstacles
presented by the wild and barren deserts they traversed; how they
escaped the infinite peril they encountered at every step, at the hands
of the savage inhabitants of the country, with whose language they were
totally unacquainted, is sufficient puzzle to those who, in the present
day, have attempted a journey in the same regions.
However, it is impossible not to admire the hardihood of these holy
pioneers of civilisation, who, totally unfitted by their former mode of
life for undergoing such hardships as they must have anticipated, threw
themselves into the wilderness with fearless and stubborn zeal.
For the most part, however, they found the Indians exceedingly
hospitable and well disposed; and it was not until some time after—when,
receiving from the missionary monks glowing, and not always very
truthful accounts of the riches of the country in which they had located
themselves, the governors of Mexico despatched armed expeditions under
adventurous desperadoes to take and retain possession of the said
country, with orders to compel the submission of the native tribes, and
enforce their obedience to the authority of the whites—that the simple
and confiding Indians began to see the folly they had committed in
permitting the residence amongst them of these superior beings, whom
they had first looked upon as more than mortal, but who, when strong
enough to do so, were not long in throwing off the mask, and proving to
the simple savages that they were much “more human than divine.”
Thus, in the province of New Mexico, Fray Augustin Ruiz, with his
co-preachers Marcos and Venabides, were kindly received by the native
inhabitants, and we have seen how one million (?) Indians came from the
“rumbo” of the Cibolo, ready and willing to receive the baptismal
sacrament. This Cibolo, or Sivulo, as it is written in some old MSS.,
is, by the way, mysteriously alluded to by the monkish historians who
have written on this region, as being a kingdom inhabited by a very
superior class of Indians to any met with between Anahuac and the Vale
of Taos—in the enjoyment of a high state of civilisation, inhabiting a
well-built city, the houses of which were three stories high, and having
attained considerable perfection in the domestic arts. This,
notwithstanding the authority of Don Francisco Vasquez Coronado, who
visited Cibolo, and of Solis and Venegas, who have guaranteed the
assertion, must be received _cum grano salis_; but, at all events, the
civilisation of the mysterious Cibolo may be compared to that of the
Aztec empire, under Montezuma, at the time of the Spanish Conquest, both
being egregiously exaggerated by the historians of the day. Cibolo was
situated on a river called Tegue. At this day, neither name is known to
the inhabitants of New Mexico. If pate-shaven Venabides had held his
tongue, New Mexico might now be in the peaceful possession of the
Catholic Missions, and the property of the Church of Mexico pretty
considerably enhanced by the valuable _placeres_, or gold washings,
which abound in that province. Full, however, of the wonderful miracle
of Santa Clara of Carmona, which had been brought to light through the
agency of the medallion at the end of his rosario, Fray Venabides must
needs return to Spain, and humbug poor old Fernando, and even the more
sensible Isabel, with wonderful accounts of the riches of the country he
had been instrumental in exploring, and of the excellent disposition of
the natives to receive the word of God. Don Juan Oñate was, therefore,
quickly despatched to take possession; and in his train followed twelve
Castilian families of _sangre azul_, to colonise the newly-acquired
territory. The names of these still remain, disgraced by the degenerate
wretches who now bear them, but in whom scarce a drop of blood remains
which ever filtered from the veins of the paladins of Old Castile.
Then commenced the troublous times. The missions were upheld by dint of
steel alone; and, on every occasion, the Indians rose, and often
massacred their white persecutors. The colonists were more than once
driven bodily from New Mexico, and were only reinstated by the aid of
large bodies of armed men.
In California, however, they managed these things better. The wily monks
took care to keep all interlopers from the country, established
themselves in snug quarters, instructed the Indians in agriculture, and
soon gained such an ascendency over them, that no difficulty was
experienced in keeping them under proper and wholesome restraint. Strong
and commodious missions were built and fortified, well stored with arms
and ammunition, and containing sufficient defenders to defy attack.
Luxuriant gardens and thriving vineyards soon surrounded these isolated
stations: the plains waved with golden corn; whilst domestic cattle,
thriving on the rich pasture, and roaming far and near, multiplied and
increased a hundred-fold.
Nothing can be more beautiful than the appearance of one of these
missions, to the traveller who has lately passed the arid and barren
wilderness of the North-west. The _adobe_ walls of the convent-looking
building, surmounted by cross and belfry, are generally hidden in a mass
of luxuriant vegetation. Fig-trees, bananas, cherry, and apple,
leaf-spreading platanos, and groves of olives, form umbrageous vistas,
under which the sleek monks delight to wander; gardens, cultivated by
their own hands, testify to the horticultural skill of the worthy
padres; whilst vineyards yield their grateful produce to gladden the
hearts of the holy exiles in these western solitudes. Vast herds of
cattle roam half-wild on the plains, and bands of mules and horses,
whose fame has even reached the distant table-lands of the Rocky
Mountains, and excited the covetousness of the hunters—and thousands of
which, from the day they are foaled to that of their death, never feel a
saddle on their backs—cover the country. Indians (Mansitos) idle round
the skirts of these vast herds, (whose very numbers keep them together,)
living, at their own choice, upon the flesh of mule, or ox, or horse.
THE CAXTONS.—PART VI.
CHAPTER XVIII.
“I don’t know that,” said my father.
“What is it my father does not know? My father does not know that
happiness is our being’s end and aim.”
And pertinent to what does my father reply, by words so sceptical, to an
assertion so little disputed?
Reader, Mr Trevanion has been half-an-hour seated in our little
drawing-room. He has received two cups of tea from my mother’s fair
hand; he has made himself at home. With Mr Trevanion has come another
old friend of my father’s, whom he has not seen since he left
college—Sir Sedley Beaudesert.
Now, you must understand that it is a warm night, a little after nine
o’clock—a night between departing summer and approaching autumn—the
windows are open—we have a balcony, which my mother has taken care to
fill with flowers—the air, though we are in London, is sweet and
fresh—the street quiet, except that an occasional carriage or hackney
cabriolet rolls rapidly by—a few stealthy passengers pass to and fro
noiselessly on their way homeward. We are on classic ground—near that
old and venerable Museum, the dark monastic pile, with its learned
treasures, which the taste of the age had spared then—and the quiet of
the temple seems to hallow the precincts; Captain Roland is seated by
the fireplace, and though there is no fire, he is shading his face with
a handscreen; my father and Mr Trevanion have drawn their chairs close
to each other in the middle of the room; Sir Sedley Beaudesert leans
against the wall near the window, and behind my mother, who looks
prettier and more pleased than usual, since her Austin has his old
friends about him; and I, leaning my elbow on the table, and my chin
upon my hand, am gazing with great admiration on Sir Sedley Beaudesert.
O rare specimen of a race fast decaying!—specimen of the true fine
gentleman, ere the word dandy was known, and before exquisite became a
noun substantive—let me here pause to describe thee! Sir Sedley
Beaudesert was the contemporary of Trevanion and my father; but, without
affecting to be young, he still seemed so. Dress, tone, look, manner—all
were young—yet all had a certain dignity which does not belong to youth.
At the age of five-and-twenty, he had won what would have been fame to a
French marquis of the old regime, viz.—he was “the most charming man of
his day”—the most popular with our sex—the most favoured, my dear lady
reader, with yours. It is a mistake, I believe, to suppose that it does
not require talent to become the fashion; at all events, Sir Sedley was
the fashion, and he had talent. He had travelled much, he had read
much—especially in memoirs, history, and belles-lettres—he made verses
with grace and a certain originality of easy wit and courtly
sentiment—he conversed delightfully—he was polished and urbane in
manner—he was brave and honourable in conduct; in words he could
flatter—in deeds he was sincere.
Sir Sedley Beaudesert had never married. Whatever his years, he was
still young enough in looks to be married for love. He was high-born, he
was rich; he was, as I have said, popular; yet on his fair features
there was an expression of melancholy; and on that forehead—pure from
the lines of ambition, and free from the weight of study—there was the
shadow of unmistakeable regret.
“I don’t know that,” said my father; “I have never yet found in life one
man who made happiness his end and aim. One wants to gain a fortune,
another to spend it—one to get a place, another to build a name; but
they all know very well that it is not happiness they search for. No
Utilitarian was ever actuated by self-interest, poor man, when he sate
down to scribble his unpopular crochets to prove self-interest
universal. And as to that notable distinction—between self-interest
vulgar and self-interest enlightened—the more the self-interest is
enlightened, the less we are influenced by it. If you tell the young man
who has just written a fine book or made a fine speech, that he will not
be any happier if he attains to the fame of Milton, or the power of
Pitt, and that, for the sake of his own happiness, he had much better
cultivate a farm, live in the country, and postpone to the last the days
of dyspepsia and gout, he will answer you fairly,—‘I am quite as
sensible of that as you are. But I am not thinking whether or not I
shall be happy. I have made up my mind to be, if I can, a great author
or a prime minister.’ So it is with all the active sons of the world. To
push on is the law of nature. And you can no more say to men and to
nations than to children,—‘Sit still, and don’t wear out your shoes!’”
“Then,” said Trevanion, “if I tell you I am not happy, your only answer
is, that I obey an inevitable law.”
“No! I don’t say that it is an inevitable law that man should not be
happy; but it is an inevitable law that a man, in spite of himself,
should live for something higher than his own happiness. He cannot live
in himself or for himself, however egotistical he may try to be. Every
desire he has links him with others. Man is not a machine—he is a part
of one.”
“True, brother, he is a soldier, not an army,” said Captain Roland.
“Life is a drama, not a monologue,” pursued my father. “Drama is derived
from a Greek verb, signifying _to do_. Every actor in the drama has
something to do, which helps on the progress of the whole: that is the
object for which the Author created him. Do your part, and let the Great
Play get on.”
“Ah!” said Trevanion briskly, “but to do the part is the difficulty!
Every actor helps to the catastrophe, and yet must do his part without
knowing how all is to end. Shall he help the curtain to fall on a
tragedy or a comedy? Come, I will tell you the one secret of my public
life—that which explains all its failure (for, in spite of my position,
I have failed) and its regrets—_I want conviction!_”
“Exactly,” said my father; “because to every question there are two
sides, and you look at them both.”
“You have said it,” answered Trevanion, smiling also. “For public life a
man should be one-sided; he must act with a party; and a party insists
that the shield is silver, when, if it will take the trouble to turn the
corner, it will see that the reverse of the shield is gold. Wo to the
man who makes that discovery alone, while his party are still swearing
the shield is silver, and that not once in his life, but every night!”
“You have said quite enough to convince me that you ought not to belong
to a party, but not enough to convince me why you should not be happy,”
said my father.
“Do you remember,” said Sir Sedley Beaudesert, “an anecdote of the first
Duke of Portland? He had a gallery in the great stable of his villa in
Holland, where a concert was given once a-week, to _cheer and amuse_ his
horses! I have no doubt the horses thrived all the better for it. What
Trevanion wants is a concert once a-week. With him it is always saddle
and spur. Yet, after all, who would not envy him? If life be a drama,
his name stands high in the playbill, and is printed in capitals on the
walls.”
“Envy ME!” cried Trevanion—“ME!—no, you are the enviable man—you who
have only one grief in the world, and that so absurd a one, that I will
make you blush by disclosing it. Hear, O sage Austin!—O sturdy
Roland!—Olivares was haunted by a spectre, and Sedley Beaudesert by the
dread of old age!”
“Well,” said my mother seriously, “I do think it requires a great sense
of religion, or, at all events, children of one’s own, in whom one is
young again, to reconcile one’s-self to becoming old.”
“My dear ma’am,” said Sir Sedley, who had slightly coloured at
Trevanion’s charge, but had now recovered his easy self-possession, “you
have spoken so admirably that you give me courage to confess my
weakness. I do dread to be old. All the joys of my life have been the
joys of youth. I have had so exquisite a pleasure in the mere sense of
living, that old age, as it comes near, terrifies me by its dull eyes
and gray hairs. I have lived the life of the butterfly. Summer is over,
and I see my flowers withering; and my wings are chilled by the first
airs of winter. Yes, I envy Trevanion; for, in public life, no man is
ever young; and while he can work he is never old.”
“My dear Beaudesert,” said my father, “when St Amable, patron saint of
Riom, in Auvergne, went to Rome, the sun waited upon him as a servant,
carried his cloak and gloves for him in the heat, and kept off the rain,
if the weather changed, like an umbrella. You want to put the sun to the
same use; you are quite right; but then, you see, you must first be a
saint before you can be sure of the sun as a servant.”
Sir Sedley smiled charmingly; but the smile changed to a sigh as he
added, “I don’t think I should much mind being a saint if the sun would
be my sentinel instead of my courier. I want nothing of him but to stand
still. You see he moved even for St Amable. My dear madam, you and I
understand each other; and it is a very hard thing to grow old, do what
one will to keep young.”
“What say you, Roland, of these two malcontents?” asked my father. The
Captain turned uneasily in his chair, for the rheumatism was gnawing his
shoulder, and sharp pains were shooting through his mutilated limb.
“I say,” answered Roland, “that these men are wearied with marching from
Brentford to Windsor—that they have never known the bivouac and the
battle.”
Both the grumblers turned their eyes to the veteran: the eyes rested
first on the furrowed, care-worn lines on his eagle face—then they fell
on the stiff, outstretched cork limb—and then they turned away.
Meanwhile my mother had softly risen, and, under pretence of looking for
her work on the table near him, bent over the old soldier, and pressed
his hand.
“Gentlemen,” said my father, “I don’t think my brother ever heard of
Nichocorus, the Greek comic writer; yet he has illustrated him very
ably. Saith Nichocorus, ‘the best cure for drunkenness is a sudden
calamity.’ For chronic drunkenness, a continued course of real
misfortune must be very salutary!”
No answer came from the two complainants; and my father took up a great
book.
CHAPTER XIX.
“My friends,” said my father, looking up from his book, and addressing
himself to his two visitors, “I know of one thing, milder than calamity,
that would do you both a great deal of good.”
“What is that?” asked Sir Sedley.
“A saffron bag, worn at the pit of the stomach!”
“Austin, my dear!” said my mother reprovingly.
My father did not heed the interruption, but continued gravely,—“Nothing
is better for the spirits! Roland is in no want of saffron, because he
is a warrior; and the desire of fighting, and the hope of victory,
infuse such a heat into the spirits as is profitable for long life, and
keeps up the system.”
“Tut!” said Trevanion.
“But gentlemen in your predicament must have recourse to artificial
means. Nitre in broth, for instance—about three grains to ten—(cattle
fed upon nitre grow fat); or earthy odours—such as exist in cucumbers
and cabbage. A certain great lord had a clod of fresh earth, laid in a
napkin, put under his nose every morning after sleep. Light anointing of
the head with oil, mixed with roses and salt, is not bad; but, upon the
whole, I prescribe the saffron bag at the”—
“Sisty, my dear, will you look for my scissors?” said my mother.
“What nonsense are you talking! Question, question!” cried Mr Trevanion.
“Nonsense!” exclaimed my father, opening his eyes; “I am giving you the
advice of Lord Bacon.—You want conviction—conviction comes from
passion—passion from the spirits—spirits from a saffron bag. You,
Beaudesert, on the other hand, want to keep youth. He keeps youth
longest who lives longest. Nothing more conduces to longevity than a
saffron bag, provided always it is worn at the”—
“Sisty, my thimble!” said my mother.
“You laugh at us justly,” said Beaudesert, smiling; “and the same
remedy, I dare say, would cure us both!”
“Yes,” said my father, “there is no doubt of that. In the pit of the
stomach is that great central web of nerves called the ganglions; thence
they affect the head and the heart. Mr Squills proved that to us,
Sisty.”
“Yes,” said I; “but I never heard Mr Squills talk of a saffron bag.”
“Oh, foolish boy! it is not the saffron bag—it is the belief in the
saffron bag. Apply BELIEF to the centre of the nerves, and all will go
well,” said my father.
CHAPTER XX.
“But it is a devil of a thing to have too nice a conscience!” quoth the
member of Parliament.
“And it is not an angel of a thing to lose one’s front teeth!” sighed
the fine gentleman.
Therewith my father rose, and, putting his hand into his waistcoat,
_more suo_, delivered his famous
SERMON UPON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN FAITH AND PURPOSE.
Famous it was in our domestic circle. But as yet, it has not gone
beyond. And since the reader, I am sure, does not turn to the Caxton
memoirs with the expectation of finding sermons, so to that circle let
its fame be circumscribed. All I shall say about it is, that it was a
very fine sermon, and that it proved indisputably, to me at least, the
salubrious effects of a saffron bag applied to the great centre of the
nervous system. But the wise Ali saith, that “a fool doth not know what
maketh him look little, neither will he hearken to him that adviseth
him.” I cannot assert that my father’s friends were fools, but they
certainly came under this definition of Folly.
CHAPTER XXI.
For therewith arose not conviction but discussion; Trevanion was
logical, Beaudesert sentimental. My father held firm to the saffron bag.
When James the First dedicated to the Duke of Buckingham his Meditation
on the Lord’s Prayer, he gave a very sensible reason for selecting his
grace for that honour,—“For,” (saith the king) “it is made upon a very
short and plaine prayer, and, therefore, the fitter for a courtier, for
courtiers are for the most part thought neither to have lust nor leisure
to say long prayers; liking best _courte messe et long disner_.” I
suppose it was for a similar reason that my father persisted in
dedicating to the member of parliament and the fine gentleman, this
“short and plaine” morality of his—to wit, the saffron bag. He was
evidently persuaded, if he could once get them to apply that, it was all
that was needful; that they had neither lust nor leisure for longer
instructions. And this saffron bag,—it came down with such a whack, at
every round in the argument! You would have thought my father one of the
old plebeian combatants in the popular ordeal, who, forbidden to use
sword and lance, fought with a sand-bag tied to a flail: a very stunning
weapon it was when filled only with sand; but a bag filled with
saffron,—it was irresistible! Though my father had two to one against
him, they could not stand such a deuce of a weapon. And after tuts and
pishes innumerable from Mr Trevanion, and sundry bland grimaces from Sir
Sedley Beaudesert, they fairly gave in, though they would not own they
were beaten.
“Enough,” said the member, “I see that you don’t comprehend me; I must
continue to move by my own impulse.”
My father’s pet book was the Colloquies of Erasmus; he was wont to say
that those Colloquies furnished life with illustrations in every page.
Out of the Colloquies of Erasmus he now answered the member:—
“Rabirius, wanting his servant Syrus to get up,” quoth my father, “cried
out to him to move. ‘I do move,’ said Syrus. ‘I see you move,’ replied
Rabirius, ‘but you _move nothing_.’ To return to the saffron bag,—”
“Confound the saffron bag!” cried Trevanion in a rage; and then,
softening his look as he drew on his gloves, he turned to my mother, and
said, with more politeness than was natural to, or at least customary
with him:—
“By the way, my dear Mrs Caxton, I should tell you that Lady Ellinor
comes to town to-morrow, on purpose to call on you. We shall be here
some little time, Austin; and though London is so empty, there are still
some persons of note to whom I should like to introduce you, and yours—”
“Nay,” said my father, “your world and my world are not the same. Books
for me, and men for you. Neither Kitty nor I can change our habits, even
for friendship; she has a great piece of work to finish, and so have I.
Mountains cannot stir, especially when in labour; but Mahomet can come
to the mountain as often as he likes.”
Mr Trevanion insisted, and Sir Sedley Beaudesert mildly put in his own
claims; both boasted acquaintance with literary men, whom my father
would, at all events, be pleased to meet. My father doubted whether he
could meet any literary men more eloquent than Cicero, or more amusing
than Aristophanes; and observed, that if such did exist, he would rather
meet them in their books than in a drawing-room. In fine, he was
immovable; and so also, with less argument, was Captain Roland.
Then Mr Trevanion turned to me.
“Your son, at all events, should see something of the world.”
My mother’s soft eyes sparkled.
“My dear friend, I thank you,” said my father, touched; “and Pisistratus
and I will talk it over.”
Our guests had departed. All four of us gathered to the open window, and
enjoyed in silence the cool air and the moonlight.
“Austin,” said my mother at last, “I fear it is for my sake that you
refuse going amongst your old friends: you knew I should be frightened
by such fine people, and—”
“And we have been happy for more than eighteen years without them,
Kitty! My poor friends are not happy, and we are. To leave well alone is
a golden rule worth all in Pythagoras. The ladies of Bubastis, my dear,
a place in Egypt where the cat was worshipped, always kept rigidly aloof
from the gentlemen in Athribis, who adored the shrewmice. Cats are
domestic animals,—your shrewmice are sad gadabouts: you can’t find a
better model, my Kitty, than the ladies of Bubastis!”
“How Trevanion is altered!” said Roland, musingly—“he who was so lively
and ardent!”
“He ran too fast up-hill at first, and has been out of breath ever
since,” said my father.
“And Lady Ellinor;” said Roland, hesitatingly, “shall you see her
to-morrow?”
“Yes!” said my father, calmly.
As Captain Roland spoke, something in the tone of his question seemed to
flash a conviction on my mother’s heart,—the woman there was quick; she
drew back, turning pale, even in the moonlight, and fixed her eyes on my
father, while I felt her hand which had clasped mine tremble
convulsively.
I understood her. Yes, this Lady Ellinor was the early rival whose name
till then she had not known. She fixed her eyes on my father, and at his
tranquil tone and quiet look she breathed more freely, and sliding her
hand from mine rested it fondly on his shoulder. A few moments
afterwards, I and Captain Roland found ourselves standing alone by the
window.
“You are young, nephew,” said the Captain; “and you have the name of a
fallen family to raise. Your father does well not to reject for you that
opening into the great world which Trevanion offers. As for me, my
business in London seems over: I cannot find what I came to seek. I have
sent for my daughter; when she arrives I shall return to my old tower;
and the man and the ruin will crumble away together.”
“Tush, uncle! I must work hard and get money; and then we will repair
the old tower, and buy back the old estate. My father shall sell the red
brick house; we will fit him up a library in the keep; and we will all
live united, in peace, and in state, as grand as our ancestors before
us.”
While I thus spoke, my uncle’s eyes were fixed upon a corner of the
street, where a figure, half in shade half in moonlight, stood
motionless. “Ah!” said I following his eye, “I have observed that man,
two or three times, pass up and down the street on the other side of the
way, and turn his head towards our window. Our guests were with us then,
and my father in full discourse, or I should have—”
Before I could finish the sentence, my uncle, stifling an exclamation,
broke away, hurried out of the room, stumped down the stairs, and was in
the street, while I was yet rooted to the spot with surprise. I remained
at the window, and my eye rested on the figure. I saw the Captain, with
his bare head and his gray hair, cross the street; the figure started,
turned the corner, and fled.
Then I followed my uncle, and arrived in time to save him from falling:
he leant his head on my breast, and I heard him murmur,—“It is he—it is
he! He has watched us!—he repents!”
CHAPTER XXII.
The next day Lady Ellinor called; but to my great disappointment without
Fanny.
Whether or not some joy at the incident of the previous night had served
to make my uncle more youthful than usual, I know not, but he looked to
me ten years younger when Lady Ellinor entered. How carefully the
buttoned up coat was brushed! how new and glossy was the black stock!
The poor Captain was restored to his pride, and mighty proud he looked!
With a glow on his cheek, and a fire in his eye; his head thrown back,
and his whole air composed, severe, Mavortian and majestic, as if
awaiting the charge of the French cuirassiers at the head of his
detachment.
My father, on the contrary, was as usual (till dinner, when he always
dressed punctiliously, out of respect to his Kitty) in his easy morning
gown and slippers; and nothing but a certain compression in his lips
which had lasted all the morning, evinced his anticipation of the visit,
or the emotion it caused him.
Lady Ellinor behaved beautifully. She could not conceal a certain
nervous trepidation, when she first took the hand my father extended;
and, in touching rebuke of the Captain’s stately bow, she held out to
him the hand left disengaged, with a look which brought Roland at once
to her side. It was a desertion of his colours to which nothing, short
of Ney’s shameful conduct at Napoleon’s return from Elba, affords a
parallel in history. Then, without waiting for introduction, and before
a word indeed was said, Lady Ellinor came to my mother so cordially, so
caressingly—she threw into her smile, voice, manner, such winning
sweetness, that I, intimately learned in my poor mother’s simple loving
heart, wondered how she refrained from throwing her arms round Lady
Ellinor’s neck, and kissing her outright. It must have been a great
conquest over herself not to do it! My turn came next; and talking to
me, and about me, soon set all parties at their ease—at least
apparently.
What was said I cannot remember: I do not think one of us could. But an
hour slipped away, and there was no gap in the conversation.
With curious interest, and a survey I strove to make impartial, I
compared Lady Ellinor with my mother. And I comprehended the fascination
the high-born lady must, in their earlier youth, have exercised over
both brothers, so dissimilar to each other. For _charm_ was the
characteristic of Lady Ellinor—a charm indefinable. It was not the mere
grace of refined breeding, though that went a great way; it was a charm
that seemed to spring from natural sympathy. Whomsoever she addressed,
that person appeared for the moment to engage all her attention, to
interest her whole mind. She had a gift of conversation very peculiar.
She made what she said like a continuation of what was said to her. She
seemed as if she had entered into your thoughts, and talked them aloud.
Her mind was evidently cultivated with great care, but she was perfectly
void of pedantry. A hint, an allusion, sufficed to show how much she
knew, to one well instructed, without mortifying or perplexing the
ignorant. Yes, there probably was the only woman my father had ever met
who could be the companion to his mind, walk through the garden of
knowledge by his side, and trim the flowers while he cleared the vistas.
On the other hand, there was an inborn nobility in Lady Ellinor’s
sentiments that must have struck the most susceptible chord in Roland’s
nature, and the sentiments took eloquence from the look, the mien, the
sweet dignity of the very turn of the head. Yes, she must have been a
fitting Orinda to a young Amadis. It was not hard to see that Lady
Ellinor was ambitious—that she had a love of fame, for fame itself—that
she was proud—that she set value (and that morbidly) on the world’s
opinion. This was perceptible when she spoke of her husband, even of her
daughter. It seemed to me as if she valued the intellect of the one, the
beauty of the other, by the gauge of the social distinction or the
fashionable _éclat_. She took measure of the gift, as I was taught at Dr
Herman’s to take measure of the height of a tower—by the length of the
shadow it cast upon the ground.
My dear father, with such a wife you would never have lived eighteen
years, shivering on the edge of a great book!
My dear uncle, with such a wife you would never have been contented with
a cork leg and a Waterloo medal! And I understand why Mr Trevanion,
“eager and ardent” as ye say he was in youth, with a heart bent on the
practical success of life, won the hand of the heiress. Well, you see Mr
Trevanion has contrived not to be happy! By the side of my listening,
admiring mother, with her blue eyes moist, and her coral lips apart,
Lady Ellinor looks faded. Was she ever as pretty as my mother is now?
Never. But she was much handsomer. What delicacy in the outline, and yet
how decided in spite of the delicacy! The eyebrow so defined—the profile
slightly aquiline, so clearly cut—with the curved nostril, which, if
physiognomists are right, shows sensibility so keen; and the classic lip
that, but for that dimple, would be so haughty. But wear and tear are in
that face. The nervous excitable temper has helped the fret and cark of
ambitious life. My dear uncle, I know not yet your private life. But as
for my father, I am sure that, though he might have done more on earth,
he would have been less fit for heaven, if he had married Lady Ellinor.
At last this visit—dreaded, I am sure, by three of the party, was over,
but not before I had promised to dine at the Trevanions’ that day.
When we were again alone, my father threw off a long breath, and looking
round him cheerfully, said, “Since Pisistratus deserts us, let us
console ourselves for his absence—send for brother Jack, and all four go
down to Richmond to drink tea.”
“Thank you, Austin,” said Roland. “But I don’t want it, I assure you!”
“Upon your honour?” said my father in a half whisper.
“Upon my honour.”
“Nor I either! So Kitty, Roland, and I will take a walk, and be back in
time to see if that young Anachronism looks as handsome as his new
London-made clothes will allow him. Properly speaking, he ought to go
with an apple in his hand, and a dove in his bosom. But now I think of
it, that was luckily not the fashion with the Athenians till the time of
Alcibiades!”
CHAPTER XXIII.
You may judge of the effect that my dinner at Mr Trevanion’s, with a
long conversation after it with Lady Ellinor, made upon my mind, when,
on my return home, after having satisfied all questions of parental
curiosity, I said nervously, and looking down,—“My dear father,—I should
like very much, if you have no objection,—to—to—”
“What, my dear?” asked my father kindly.
“Accept an offer Lady Ellinor has made me, on the part of Mr Trevanion.
He wants a secretary. He is kind enough to excuse my inexperience, and
declares I shall do very well, and can soon get into his ways. Lady
Ellinor says (I continued with dignity) that it will be a great opening
in public life for me; and at all events, my dear father, I shall see
much of the world, and learn what I really think will be more useful to
me than any thing they will teach me at college.”
My mother looked anxiously at my father. “It will indeed be a great
thing for Sisty,” said she timidly; and then taking courage she
added—“And that is just the sort of life he is formed for—”
“Hem!” said my uncle.
My father rubbed his spectacles thoughtfully, and replied, after a long
pause,—
“You may be right, Kitty: I don’t think Pisistratus is meant for study;
action will suit him better. But what does this office lead to?”
“Public employment, sir,” said I boldly; “the service of my country.”
“If that be the case,” quoth Roland, “I have not a word to say. But I
should have thought that for a lad of spirit, a descendant of the old De
Caxtons, the army would have—”
“The army!” exclaimed my mother, clasping her hands, and looking
involuntarily at my uncle’s cork leg.
“The army!” repeated my father peevishly. “Bless my soul, Roland, you
seem to think man is made for nothing else but to be shot at! You would
not like the army, Pisistratus?”
“Why, sir, not if it pained you and my dear mother; otherwise, indeed—”
“Papæ!” said my father interrupting me. “This all comes of your giving
the boy that ambitious, uncomfortable name, Mrs Caxton; what could a
Pisistratus be but the plague of one’s life? That idea of serving his
country is Pisistratus ipsissimus all over. If ever I have another son,
(_Dii meliora!_) he has only got to be called Eratostratus, and then he
will be burning down St Paul’s; which I believe was, by the way, first
made out of the stones of the temple of Diana! Of the two, certainly,
you had better serve your country with a goose-quill than by poking a
bayonet into the ribs of some unfortunate Indian;—I don’t think there
are any other people whom the service of one’s country makes it
necessary to kill just at present,—eh, Roland?”
“It is a very fine field, India,” said my uncle, sententiously. “It is
the nursery of captains.”
“Is it? Those plants take up a great deal of ground, then, that might be
more profitably cultivated. And, indeed, considering that the tallest
captains in the world will be ultimately set into a box not above seven
feet at the longest, it is astonishing what a quantity of room that
species of _arbor mortis_ takes in the growing! However, Pisistratus, to
return to your request, I will think it over, and talk to Trevanion.”
“Or rather to Lady Ellinor,” said I imprudently: my mother slightly
shivered, and took her hand from mine. I felt cut to the heart by the
slip of my own tongue.
“That, I think, your mother could do best,” said my father, drily, “if
she wants to be quite convinced that somebody will see that your shirts
are aired. For I suppose they mean you to lodge at Trevanion’s.”
“Oh, no!” cried my mother. “He might as well go to college then. I
thought he was to stay with us; only go in the morning, but, of course,
sleep here.”
“If I know any thing of Trevanion,” said my father, “his secretary will
be expected to do without sleep. Poor boy, you don’t know what it is you
desire. And yet, at your age, I—” my father stopped short. “No!” he
renewed abruptly, after a long silence, and as if soliloquising. “No,
man is never wrong while he lives for others. The philosopher who
contemplates from the rock, is a less noble image than the sailor who
struggles with the storm. Why should there be two of us? And _could_ he
be an _alter ego_, even if I wished it? impossible!” My father turned on
his chair, and, laying the left leg on the right knee, said smilingly,
as he bent down to look me full in the face; “But, Pisistratus, will you
promise me always to wear the saffron bag?”
CHAPTER XXIV.
I now make a long stride in my narrative. I am domesticated with the
Trevanions. A very short conversation with the statesman sufficed to
decide my father; and the pith of it lay in this single sentence uttered
by Trevanion—“I promise you one thing—he shall never be idle!”
Looking back, I am convinced that my father was right, and that he
understood my character, and the temptations to which I was most prone,
when he consented to let me resign college and enter thus prematurely on
the world of men. I was naturally so joyous, that I should have made
college life a holiday, and then, in repentance, worked myself into a
phthisis.
And my father, too, was right, that, though I could study, I was not
meant for a student.
After all, the thing was an experiment. I had time to spare: if the
experiment failed, a year’s delay would not necessarily be a year’s
loss.
I am ensconced, then, at Mr Trevanion’s. I have been there some
months—it is late in the winter—parliament and the season have
commenced. I work hard—Heaven knows, harder than I should have worked at
college. Take a day for a sample.
Trevanion gets up at eight o’clock, and in all weathers rides an hour
before breakfast; at nine he takes that meal in his wife’s
dressing-room; at half-past nine he comes into his study. By that time
he expects to find done by his secretary the work I am about to
describe.
On coming home, or rather before going to bed, which is usually after
three o’clock, it is Mr Trevanion’s habit to leave on the table of the
said study a list of directions for the secretary. The following, which
I take at random from many I have preserved, may show their multifarious
nature:—
1. Look out in the Reports—Committee House of Lords for the last
seven years—all that is said about the growth of flax—mark the
passages for me.
2. Do. do—“Irish Emigration.”
3. Hunt out second volume of Kames’s History of Man, passage
containing “Reid’s Logic”—don’t know where the book is!
4. How does the line beginning “Lumina conjurent, inter” something,
end? Is it in Gray? See!
5. Fracastorius writes—“Quantum hoc _infecit_ vitium, quot adiverit
urbes.” Query, Ought it not to be—_infecerit_ instead of
_infecit_?—if you don’t know, write to father.
6. Write the four letters in full from the notes I leave, _i.e._
about the Ecclesiastical Courts.
7. Look out Population Returns—strike average of last five years
(between mortality and births), in Devonshire and Lancashire.
8. Answer these six begging-letters; “No”—civilly.
9. The other six, to constituents—“that I have no interest with
Government.”
10. See, if you have time, whether any of the new books on the round
table are not trash.
11. I want to know ALL about Indian corn!
12. Longinus says something, somewhere, in regret for uncongenial
pursuits, (public life, I suppose)—what is it? N.B. Longinus is
not in my London Catalogue, but is here I know—I think in a box
in the lumber-room.
13. Set right the calculation I leave on the poor-rates. I have made a
blunder somewhere. &c. &c.
Certainly my father knew Mr Trevanion; he never expected a secretary to
sleep! To have all the above ready by half-past nine, I get up by
candle-light. At half-past nine I am still hunting for Longinus, when Mr
Trevanion comes in with a bundle of letters.
Answers to half the said letters fall to my share. Directions verbal—in
a species of short-hand talk. While I write, Mr Trevanion reads the
newspapers—examines what I have done—makes notes therefrom, some for
Parliament, some for conversation, some for correspondence—skims over
the Parliamentary papers of the morning—and jots down directions for
extracting, abridging, and comparing them, with others, perhaps twenty
years old. At eleven he walks down to a Committee of the House of
Commons—leaving me plenty to do—till half-past three, when he returns.
At four, Fanny puts her head into the room—and I lose mine. Four days in
the week Mr Trevanion then disappears for the rest of the day,—dines at
Bellamy’s or a club—expects me at the House at eight o’clock, in case he
thinks of something, wants a fact or a quotation. He then releases
me—generally with a fresh list of instructions. But I have my holidays,
nevertheless. On Wednesdays and Saturdays Mr Trevanion gives dinners,
and I meet the most eminent men of the day—on both sides. For Trevanion
is on both sides himself—or on no side at all, which comes to the same
thing. On Tuesdays, Lady Ellinor gives me a ticket for the Opera, and I
get there at least in time for the ballet. I have already invitations
enough to balls and soirées, for I am regarded as an only son of great
expectations. I am treated as becomes a Caxton who has the right, if he
pleases, to put a De before his name. I have grown very smart. I have
taken a passion for dress—natural to eighteen. I like every thing I do,
and every one about me. I am over head and ears in love with Fanny
Trevanion—who breaks my heart, nevertheless; for she flirts with two
peers, a life-guardsman, three old members of parliament, Sir Sedley
Beaudesert, one ambassador, and all his attachés, and, positively, (the
audacious minx!) with a bishop, in full wig and apron, who, people say,
means to marry again.
Pisistratus has lost colour and flesh. His mother says he is very much
improved,—_that_ he takes to be the natural effect produced by Stultz
and varnished boots. Uncle Jack says he is “fined down.”
His father looks at him, and writes to Trevanion,—
“Dear T.—I refused a salary for my son. Give him a horse, and two hours
a day to ride it. Yours, A. C.”
The next day I am master of a pretty bay mare, and riding by the side of
Fanny Trevanion. Alas! alas!
CHAPTER XXV.
I have not mentioned my Uncle Roland. He is gone—abroad—to fetch his
daughter. He has stayed longer than was expected. Does he seek his son
still—there as here? My father has finished the first portion of his
work, in two great volumes. Uncle Jack, who for some time has been
looking melancholy, and who now seldom stirs out, except on Sundays, (on
which days we all meet at my father’s and dine together)—Uncle Jack, I
say, has undertaken to sell it.
“Don’t be over sanguine,” says Uncle Jack, as he locks up the MS. in two
red boxes with a slit in the lids, which belonged to one of the defunct
companies. “Don’t be over sanguine as to the price. These publishers
never venture much on a first experiment. They must be talked even into
looking at the book.”
“Oh!” said my father, “if they will publish it at all, and at their own
risk, I should not stand out for any other terms. ‘Nothing great,’ said
Dryden, ‘ever came from a venal pen!’”
“An uncommonly foolish observation of Dryden’s,” returned Uncle Jack:
“he ought to have known better.”
“So he did,” said I, “for he used his pen to fill his pockets—poor man!”
“But the pen was not venal, master Anachronism,” said my father. “A
baker is not to be called venal if he sells his loaves—he is venal if he
sells himself: Dryden only sold his loaves.”
“And we must sell yours,” said Uncle Jack emphatically. “A thousand
pounds a volume will be about the mark, eh?”
“A thousand pounds a volume?” cried my father. “Gibbon, I fancy, did not
receive more.”
“Very likely; Gibbon had not an Uncle Jack to look after his interests,”
said Mr Tibbets, laughing, and rubbing those smooth hands of his. “No!
two thousand pounds the two volumes!—a sacrifice, but still I recommend
moderation.”
“I should be happy, indeed, if the book brought in any thing,” said my
father, evidently fascinated—“for that young gentleman is rather
expensive; and you, my dear Jack;—perhaps half the sum may be of use to
you!”
“To me! my dear brother,” cried Uncle Jack—“to me! why, when my new
speculation has succeeded, I shall be a millionnaire!”
“Have you a new speculation, Uncle?” said I anxiously. “What is it?”
“Mum!” said my uncle, putting his finger to his lip, and looking all
round the room—“Mum!! Mum!!!”
PISISTRATUS.—“A Grand National Company for blowing up both Houses of
Parliament!”
MR CAXTON.—“Upon my life, I hope something newer than that; for they, to
judge by the newspapers, don’t want brother Jack’s assistance to blow up
each other!”
UNCLE JACK, mysteriously.—“Newspapers! you don’t often read a newspaper,
Austin Caxton!”
MR CAXTON.—“Granted, John Tibbets!”
UNCLE JACK.—“But if my speculation made you read a newspaper every day?”
MR CAXTON, astounded.—“Made me read a newspaper every day!”
UNCLE JACK, warming, and expanding his hands to the fire.—“As big as the
Times!”
MR CAXTON, uneasily.—“Jack, you alarm me!”
UNCLE JACK.—“And make you write in it, too,—a leader!”
MR CAXTON, pushing back his chair, seizes the only weapon at his
command, and hurls at Uncle Jack a great sentence of Greek.—“Τους μεν
γαρ ειναι χαλεπους, ὁσε λαι ανθροποφαγειν!”[7]
UNCLE JACK, nothing daunted.—“Ay, and put as much Greek as you like into
it!”
MR CAXTON, relieved, and softening.—“My dear Jack, you are a great
man,—let us hear you!”
Then Uncle Jack began. Now, perhaps my readers may have remarked that
this illustrious speculator was really fortunate in his ideas. His
speculations in themselves always had something sound in the kernel,
considering how barren they were in the fruit; and this it was that made
him so dangerous. The idea Uncle Jack had now got hold of will, I am
convinced, make a man’s fortune one of these days; and I relate it with
a sigh, in thinking how much has gone out of the family. Know, then, it
was nothing less than setting up a daily paper on the plan of the Times,
but devoted entirely to Art, Literature, and Science—_Mental_ Progress
in short; I say on the plan of the Times, for it was to imitate the
mighty machinery of that diurnal illuminator. It was to be the Literary
Salmoneus of the political Jupiter: and rattle its thunder over the
bridge of knowledge. It was to have correspondents in all parts of the
globe; every thing that related to the chronicle of the mind, from the
labour of a missionary in the South Sea islands, or the research of a
traveller in pursuit of that mirage called Timbuctoo, to the last new
novel at Paris, or the last great emendation of a Greek particle at a
German university, was to find a place in this focus of light. It was to
amuse, to instruct, to interest—there was nothing it was not to do. Not
a man in the whole reading public, not only of the three kingdoms, not
only of the British empire, but under the cope of heaven, that it was
not to touch somewhere, in head, in heart, or in pocket. The most
crotchety member of the intellectual community might find his own hobby
in those stables.
“Think,” cried Uncle Jack—“think of the march of mind—think of the
passion for cheap knowledge—think how little quarterly, monthly, weekly
journals can keep pace with the main wants of the age. As well have a
weekly journal on politics, as a-weekly journal on all the matters still
more interesting than politics to the mass of the public. My Literary
Times once started, people will wonder how they had ever lived without
it! Sir, they have not lived without it—they have vegetated—they have
lived in holes and caves like the Troggledikes.”
“Troglodytes,” said my father mildly—“from _trogle_, a cave—and _dumi_,
to go under. They lived in Ethiopia, and had their wives in common.”
“As to the last point, I don’t say that the Public, poor creatures, are
as bad as that,” said Uncle Jack candidly; “but no simile holds good in
all its points. And the public are not less Troggledummies, or whatever
you call them, compared with what they will be when living under the
full light of my Literary Times. Sir, it will be a revolution in the
world. It will bring literature out of the clouds into the parlour, the
cottage, the kitchen. The idlest dandy, the finest fine lady, will find
something to her taste; the busiest man of the mart and counter will
find some acquisition to his practical knowledge. The practical man will
see the progress of divinity, medicine, nay, even law. Sir, the Indian
will read me under the banyan; I shall be in the seraglios of the East;
and over my sheets the American Indian will smoke the calumet of peace.
We shall reduce politics to its proper level in the affairs of
life—raise literature to its due place in the thoughts and business of
men. It is a grand thought; and my heart swells with pride while I
contemplate it!”
“My dear Jack,” said my father, seriously, and rising with emotion, “it
_is_ a grand thought, and I honour you for it! You are quite right—it
would be a revolution! It would educate mankind insensibly. Upon my
life, I should be proud to write a leader, or a paragraph. Jack, you
will immortalise yourself!”
“I believe I shall,” said Uncle Jack, modestly; “but I have not said a
word yet on the greatest attraction of all—”
“Ah! and that—”
“THE ADVERTISEMENTS!” cried my uncle, spreading his hands, with all the
fingers at angles, like the threads of a spider’s web. “The
advertisements—oh, think of them!—a perfect _El Dorado_. The
advertisements, sir, on the most moderate calculation, will bring us in
£50,000 a-year. My dear Pisistratus, I shall never marry, you are my
heir. Embrace me!”
So saying, my Uncle Jack threw himself upon me, and squeezed out of
breath the prudential demur that was rising to my lips.
My poor mother, between laughing and sobbing, faltered out—“And it is
_my_ brother who will pay back to _his_ son all, all he gave up for me!”
While my father walked to and fro’ the room, more excited than ever I
saw him before, muttering,—“A sad useless dog I have been hitherto! I
should like to serve the world! I should indeed!”
Uncle Jack had fairly done it this time! He had found out the only bait
in the world to catch so shy a carp as my father—“_hæret lethalis
arundo_.” I saw that the deadly hook was within an inch of my father’s
nose, and that he was gazing at it with a fixed determination to
swallow.
But if it amused my father? Boy that I was, I saw no further. I must own
I myself was dazzled, and perhaps, with childlike malice, delighted at
the perturbation of my betters. The young carp was pleased to see the
waters so playfully in movement, when the old carp waved his tail, and
swayed himself on his fins.
“Mum!” said Uncle Jack, releasing me: “not a word to Mr Trevanion, to
any one.”
“But why?”
“Why? God bless my soul. Why? If my scheme gets wind, do you suppose
some one will not clap on sail to be before me? You frighten me out of
my senses. Promise me faithfully to be silent as the grave—”
“I should like to hear Trevanion’s opinion too—”
“As well hear the town-crier! Sir, I have trusted to your honour. Sir,
at the domestic hearth all secrets are sacred. Sir, I—”
“My dear Uncle Jack, you have said quite enough. Not a word will I
breathe!”
“I’m sure you may trust him, Jack,” said my mother.
“And I do trust him—with wealth untold,” replied my uncle. “May I ask
you for a little water—with a trifle of brandy in it—and a biscuit, or
indeed a sandwich. This talking makes me quite hungry.”
My eye fell upon Uncle Jack as he spoke. Poor Uncle Jack, he had grown
thin!
LIFE AND TIMES OF GEORGE II.[8]
It has been the fortune of England to have undergone more revolutions
than any other kingdom of Europe. Later periods have made Revolution
synonymous with popular violence; but the more effectual revolution is
that which, being required by the necessities of a people, is directed
by the national judgment. It is not the convulsion of a tempest, which,
if it purifies the air, strips the soil; it is a change, not of
temperature but of the seasons, gradual but irresistible; it is a great
operation of moral Nature, in every change preparing for the more
abundant provision of public prosperity.
It is an equally remarkable contrast to the condition of other kingdoms,
that while their popular revolutions have almost always plunged the
country into confusion, and been ultimately rectified only by the
salutary despotism of some powerful master, the hazards of our
revolutions have chiefly originated in personal ambition, and have been
reduced to order by popular sentiment.
The Reformation was the first _great_ revolution of England: it formed
the national circle of light and darkness. All beyond it was civil war,
arbitrary power, and popular wretchedness—all within it has been
progress, growing vigour, increasing illumination, and more systematic
liberty. Like the day, it had its clouds; but the sun was still above,
ready to shine through their first opening. That sun has not yet stooped
from its meridian, and will go down, only when we forget to honour the
Beneficence and the power which commanded it to shine.
The accession of the Hanoverian line was one of those peaceful
revolutions—it closed the era of Jacobitism. The reign of Anne had
vibrated between the principles of the constitution and the principles
of Charles II. Never was a balance more evenly poised, than the fate of
freedom against the return to arbitrary power. Anne herself was a
Jacobite—she had all the superstition of “Divine right.” By her nature
she had the infirmities of the convent. She was evidently fitter to be
an abbess than a queen: a character of frigidness and formality
designated her for the cloister; and if the Hanoverian succession had
not been palpably prepared before the national eye, to ascend the throne
at the moment when the royal coffin sank into the vault, England might
have seen the profligate son of James dealing out vengeance through a
corrupted or terrified legislature; the Reformation extinguished by the
Inquisitor; the jesuit at the royal ear, mass in Westminster Abbey, and
the scaffold the instrument of conversion to the supremacy of Rome.
The expulsion of the Stuarts had left the throne to the disposal of the
nation. By the Bill of Rights, it was determined that the succession
should go to the heirs of William and Mary; and, in their default, to
Anne, daughter of James. But the deaths of Mary, and of the Duke of
Gloucester, awoke the hopes of Popery and the cabals of Jacobitism once
more. The danger was imminent. William became deeply anxious for the
Protestant succession, and a bill was brought into the House of Commons,
declaring that the crown should devolve on the Electress Sophia,
Duchess-dowager of Hanover, and her heirs,—the Electress of Hanover (or
more correctly, of Brunswick and Luneburg) being the tenth child of
Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., the only Protestant
princess among the foreign relations of the line. The next in succession
to Anne in the Roman Catholic line would have been the houses of Savoy,
France, and Spain, through Henrietta, daughter of Charles I. This order
of succession was made law by the 12th of William III., and confirmed in
the next session by the Abjuration Act, (13th William,) so named from
the oath _abjuring_ the Pretender.
It is striking to observe how many high matters of legislation have
seemed the work of casualty. The Habeas Corpus Act, confessedly the
noblest achievement of British liberty since Magna Charta, was said to
have been carried by a mistake in counting the votes of the House; the
limitation to the Electress was proposed by a half-lunatic; the oath of
abjuration was carried but by a majority of one; and the Reform Bill,
which, though a measure as doubtful in its principles as disappointing
in its promises, has yet exercised an extraordinary power over the
constitution, was carried in its second reading by a majority of only
one.
It is more important to observe how large a share of legislation, in the
reign of Anne, was devoted to the security of the Protestant succession.
The 4th, 6th, and 10th of Anne are occupied in devising clauses to give
it force. It was guaranteed in all the great diplomatic transactions of
the reign,—in the Dutch Treaty of 1706, in the Barrier Treaty of 1709,
in the Guarantee Treaty of 1713, and in the Treaty of Utrecht of the
same year, between England and France, and England and Spain.
This diligence and determination seem wholly due to the spirit of the
people. The Queen was almost a Jacobite; her ministers carried on
correspondences with the family of James; there was scarcely a man of
influence in public life who had not an agent at St Germains. Honest
scruples, too, had been long entertained among individuals of high rank.
Six of the seven bishops who had so boldly resisted the arrogance of
James, shrank from repudiating the claims of his son. It is true, that
nothing could be feebler than their reasons; for nothing could be more
evident than the treason of James to the oath which he had sworn at his
coronation. Its violation was his virtual dethronement—his abdication
was his actual dethronement; and the principles of his family, all
Papists like himself, rendered it impossible to possess freedom of
conscience, while any one of a race of bigots and tyrants retained the
power to oppress. Thus the nation only vindicated itself, and used only
the common rights of selfdefence; and used them only in the calm and
deliberate forms of self-preservation.
This strong abhorrence of the exiled family arose alike from a sense of
religion, and a sense of fear. The people had seen with disgust and
disdain the persecution of Protestantism by the French King. They had
seen the scandalous treachery which had broken all compacts, the
ostentatious falsehood which had trafficked in promises, and the
remorseless cruelty which had strewed the Protestant provinces with
dead. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes gave a sanguinary and
perpetual caution “not to put their trust in princes;” and the generous
spirit of the people, doubly excited by scorn for the persecutor, and
pity for his victims, was thenceforth armed in panoply alike against the
arts and the menaces of Jacobitism and Popery. So it has been, and so
may it ever be. The Stuarts have passed away—they mouldered from the
sight of men; they have no more place or name on earth; they have been
sunk in the mire of their monkism; their “drowned honour” is incapable
of being plucked up even “by the locks;” but their principles survive,
and against their corruption we must guard the very air we breathe.
The Electress, a woman of remarkable intelligence, died in 1714, in her
84th year. The Queen died in the August following. George I., Elector of
Brunswick, son of Sophia, arrived in England in September, and was King
of the fairest empire in the world. He was then fifty-four years old.
The habits of George I. were Continental—a phrase which implies all of
laxity that is consistent with the etiquette of a court. His personal
reign was anxious, troubled, and toilsome; but the nation prospered, and
the era had evidently arrived when the character of the sitter on the
throne had ceased to attract the interest, or influence the conduct of
the nation. The King had no taste for the fine arts: he had no knowledge
of literature. He had served in the army, like all the German princes,
but had served without distinction. He loved Hanoverian life, and he was
incapable of enjoying the life of England. He lived long enough to be
easily forgotten, and died of apoplexy on his _way to Hanover_!
George II., the chief object of these Memoirs, only son of George I. and
Sophia Dorothea, was forty-four at his accession. In 1705 he had married
Caroline, daughter of the Margrave of Brandenburg Anspach.
The reign of George II. was the era of another revolution—the supremacy
of ministers. A succession of ambitious and able men governed the
country by parties. The King was intelligent and active, yet they
controlled him, until he found his chief task to be limited to
obedience. He was singularly fond of power, and openly jealous of
authority, but his successive ministers were the virtual masters of the
crown. His chief vexations arose from their struggles for office; and
his only compensation to his injured feelings was, in dismissing one
cabinet, to find himself shackled by another. He seems to have lived in
a state of constant ebullition with the world—speaking sarcastically of
every leading person of his own society, and on harsh terms with his
family. His personal habits were incapable of being praised, even by
flattery, and the names of the Walmodens, the Deloraines, and the
Howards, still startle the graver sensibilities of our time.
But his public conduct forms a striking contrast to those painful
scenes. He was bold in conception and diligent in business. He felt the
honour of being an English king; and though he wasted time and
popularity in his childish habit of making his escape to Hanover
whenever he could, he offered no wilful offence to the feelings of the
people. His letters on public affairs exhibit strong sense, and he had
the wisdom to leave his finance in the hands of Walpole, and the
manliness to suffer himself to be afterwards eclipsed by the lustre of
Chatham. His reign, which had begun in difficulties, and was carried on
in perils, closed in triumph.—The French navy was swept from the ocean;
the battle of the Heights of Abraham gave him Canada; the battle of
Plassy gave him India; and at his death, in 1760, at the age of
seventy-seven, he left England in a blaze of glory.
The death of George I. had brought Walpole forward as the minister of
his son. The story of Sir Spencer Compton has been often told, but never
so well as in these Memoirs. The King died on the 11th of June 1727 at
Osnaburg. The news reached Walpole on the 14th, at his villa in Chelsea.
He immediately went to Richmond to acquaint the Prince of Wales with
this momentous intelligence. The Prince was asleep after dinner,
according to his custom; but he was awakened for the intelligence, which
he appeared to receive with surprise. Yet, neither the sense of his
being raised to a throne, nor the natural feelings of such an occasion,
prevented the exhibition of his dislike to Walpole. On being asked, when
it was his pleasure that the Council should be summoned, the King’s
abrupt answer was, “Go to Chiswick, and take your directions from Sir
Spencer Compton.” Sir Robert bore this ill-usage with his habitual
philosophy, and went to Compton at once. There he acted with his usual
address; told him that he was minister, and requested his protection;
declaring that he had no desire for power or business, but wished to
have one of the “white sticks,” as a mark that he was still under the
shelter of the crown.
Lord Hervey delights in portraiture, and his portraits generally have a
bitter reality, which at once proves the truth of the likeness and the
severity of the artist. He daguerreotypes all his generation. He thus
describes Sir Spencer: “He was a plodding, heavy fellow, with great
application but no talents; with vast complaisance for a court; always
more concerned for the manner of the thing than for the thing itself;
fitter for a clerk to a minister than for a minister to a prince. His
only pleasures were money and eating; his only knowledge forms and
precedents; and his only insinuation bows and smiles.” Walpole and he
went together to the Duke of Devonshire, President of the Council, but
laid up with the gout. Lord Hervey’s sketch of him is certainly not
flattering—but such is the price paid by personal feebleness for public
station—“He was more able as a virtuoso than a statesman, and a much
better jockey than a politician.”
At the council Sir Spencer took Walpole aside, and begged of him, as a
speech would be necessary for the King in Council, that, as Sir Robert
was more accustomed to that sort of composition than himself, he should
go into another room, and make a draft of the speech. Sir Robert retired
to draw up his paper, and Sir Spencer went to Leicester Fields, where
the King and Queen were already, followed by all who had any thing to
ask, or any thing to hope—a definition which seems to have included the
whole of what, in later parlance, are called the fashionable world.
Whether the present sincerity of court life is purer than of old may be
doubtful, but the older manners were certainly the more barefaced. When
the new premier was returning to his coach he walked through a lane of
“bowers,” all shouldering each other to pay adoration to the new idol.
During the four days of the King’s remaining in town, Leicester House,
which used to be a desert, was “thronged from morning till night, like
the ‘Change at noon.’” But Walpole walked through those rooms “as if
they had been empty.” The same people who were officiously, a-week
before, crowding the way to flatter his prosperity, were now getting out
of it to avoid sharing his disgrace. Horace Walpole says, that his
mother could not make her way to pay her respects to the King and Queen
between the scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could
approach nearer to the Queen than the third or fourth row, until the
Queen cried out,—“There, I am sure I see a friend.” The torrent then
divided, and shrank to either side. In short, Walpole, with his brother
Horace, ambassador to France, the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Townshend,
the two Secretaries of State, were all conceived to be as much undone,
as a pasha on the arrival of the janizary with the bowstring.
The evidences, it must be owned, seemed remarkably strong. The King had
openly, and more than once, called Walpole “rogue and rascal;” he had
called the ambassador “a scoundrel and a fool;” he had declared his
utter contempt for the Duke, and his determination never to forgive him.
Townshend fared still worse. The King looked on him to be no more an
honest man than an able minister, and attributed all the confusion in
foreign affairs to the heat of his temper and his scanty genius, to the
strength of his passions and the weakness of his understanding. There
can be no doubt that a minister of foreign affairs, with those
qualities, might become a very mischievous animal.
On Compton’s receiving the speech drawn up by Walpole, he carried it, in
his own handwriting, to the King. The King objected to a paragraph,
which Sir Spencer Compton was either unwilling or unable to amend; and
not being satisfied of his own powers of persuasion, he actually
solicited Walpole to go to the King, and persuade him to leave it as it
was! The Queen, who was the friend of Walpole, instantly took advantage
of this singular acknowledgment of inferiority, and advised the King to
retain the man whom his intended successor so clearly acknowledged to be
his superior.
Nothing can be more evident than that Sir Spencer played the fool
egregiously. To place a rival in immediate communication with the King
was, at least, an unusual way of supplanting him; while, to give him the
advantage of his authorship, by sending him to explain it to the King,
would have been ridiculous under any circumstances. But there are no
miracles in politics; and he was evidently so far convinced of his own
security, that the idea of a rival was out of the question. Compton had
been all his life a political personage. He had been Paymaster; he had
been Speaker in three Parliaments; he was _au fait_ in the routine of
office; and he had evidently received the King’s order to make a
ministry. But we have had such sufficient proof in our own time that
princes and kings are different persons according to circumstances, that
we can perfectly comprehend the cessation of the royal favouritism on
one side, and of the royal aversion on the other. The civil list was
still to be voted—the subject dearest to the royal heart. Walpole was
noted for financial management, and Compton’s awkwardness in the
preceding transaction might well have startled the monarch. The general
result was, that Walpole remained minister, Compton was quietly put out
of the way with a peerage, as Lord Wilmington, and an enormous civil
list was carried, with but a single vote, that of Mr William Shippen,
against it. The civil list was little less than £900,000 a-year, an
immense revenue, when we consider that the value of money at that time
probably made it equal to double the sum now. The present civil list
would be practically not much more than a fourth of the amount in 1777.
The Queen’s jointure was equally exorbitant; it was £100,000 a-year,
besides Somerset House and Richmond Lodge, a sum amounting to double
what any Queen of England had before.
Walpole was now paramount; he had purchased his supremacy by his
official prodigality. Lord Hervey thinks that he was still hurt by two
mortifications—the displacement of his son-in-law, Lord Malpas, and of
Sir William Yonge, a Lord of the Treasury, and his notorious tool. But,
contrasting those trifling changes with the plenitude of Walpole’s
power, and recollecting the extraordinary wiliness of his nature, it
seems not improbable that he either counselled or countenanced those
dismissals, to escape the invidiousness of absolute power; for both
Malpas and Yonge clung to the court, and, after a decent interval, were
replaced in office. Walpole was, perhaps, one of the most singular
instances of personal dexterity in the annals of statesmanship. Without
eloquence in the House, or character out of it; without manners in the
court, or virtue any where, he continued to hold supreme ministerial
power for nearly a quarter of a century, under the most jealous of
kings, with the weakest of cabinets, against the most powerful
Opposition, and in the midst of the most contemptuous people. His power
seems even to have grown out of those sinister elements. By constantly
balancing them against each other, by at once awaking fears and exciting
hopes, he deluded all the fools, and enlisted all the knaves of public
life in his cause. The permanency of his office, however, wholly rested
upon the Queen; and he had the dexterity to discover, from the moment of
the Royal accession, that, insulted as she was by the King’s conduct,
she was the true source of ministerial power. He accordingly adhered to
her, in all the fluctuations of the court, appeared to consult her on
all occasions, studied her opinions, and provided for her expenses. The
want of money, or its possession, seem to have exerted an extraordinary
influence on the higher ranks in those days; and one of the first acts
of Walpole was to offer the Queen £60,000 a-year. Sir Spencer Compton
had been impolitic enough to propose but £40,000, on the ground that
this sum had been sufficient for Charles II.’s queen. The sum was at
last settled at £50,000, and the donor was not forgotten.
But it seems impossible to doubt, that Walpole’s character was
essentially corrupt; that he regarded corruption as a legitimate source
of power; that he bribed every man whom he had the opportunity to bribe:
that he laughed at political integrity, and did his best to extinguish
the little that existed; that no minister ever went further to degrade
the character of public life; and that the period of his supremacy is a
general blot upon the reign, the time, and the people.
The celebrated Burke, in that magnanimous partiality which disposed him
to overlook the vices of individuals in the effect of their measures,
has given a high-flown panegyric on the administration of Walpole; but
the whole is a brilliant paradox. He looked only to the strength of the
Brunswick succession, and, taking his stand upon that height, from which
he surveyed grand results alone, neglected or disdained to examine into
the repulsive detail. Seeing before him a national harvest of peace and
plenty, he never condescended to look to the gross and offensive
material by which the furrow was fertilised. Nothing is more certain,
than that the daily acts of Walpole would now stamp a ministry with
shame—that no man would dare now to express the sentiments which form
the maxims of the minister; and that any one of the acts which, though
they passed with many a sneer, yet passed with practical impunity, in
the days of George II., would have ruined the proudest individual, and
extinguished the most powerful cabinet, of the last fifty years.
The arguments which Lord Hervey puts into the lips of the Queen are
scarcely less corrupt in another style. She tells the King not merely
that Walpole’s long experience and known abilities would make him the
best minister, but that his simply being in power would make him the
most submissive—that his having made a vast fortune already would make
him less solicitous about his own interest—that _new_ leeches would be
more hungry, and that, Walpole’s fortune being made, he would have
nothing in view but serving the King, and securing the government, to
keep what he had got—closing all this grave advice with that maxim of
consummate craft, that in royal breasts both enmity and friendship alike
should always give way to policy. If such were to be regarded as the
habitual rules of the highest rank, well might we remonstrate against
their baseness. The bigotry of James, or the morals of Charles II.,
would be preferable to this scandalous selfishness. But those maxims
have never found tolerance among the people of England. We are to
recollect that they came from a despotic soil, that they were the wisdom
of courts where the great corrective of state-craft, public opinion, was
unknown; that they were the courage of the timid, and the integrity of
the intriguing; and that the maxims, the manners, and the system, have
alike been long since consigned to a deserved and contemptuous oblivion.
By much the best part of Lord Hervey’s authorship consists in his
characters of public personages. No rank is suffered to shield any man.
He exercises a sort of Egyptian judgment even upon kings, and pronounces
sentence upon their faults with all the indignation of posthumous
virtue. The King of France at that period had begun to exercise a
powerful influence over Europe. France, always liable to great changes,
had been for half a century almost prostrated before the great powers of
Europe. The triumphs of Marlborough in the earliest years of the century
had swept her armies from the field, as the close of the preceding
century had desolated the industry of her southern provinces by
persecution. The supremacy of the Regent had subsequently dissolved
almost the whole remaining force of public character in a flood of
profligacy, and the reigning King was perhaps the most profligate man in
the most licentious nation of the world. The description of him in these
volumes is equally disdainful and true. “I cannot,” says Lord Hervey,
“by the best accounts I have had, and by what I have myself seen of this
insensible piece of royalty, venture absolutely to say that he was of a
good or bad disposition, for, more properly speaking, he was of no
disposition at all. He was neither merciful nor cruel, without affection
or enmity, without gratitude or resentment, and, to all appearance,
without pleasure or pain.” His actions are described as resembling more
the mechanical movements of an automaton, than the effects of will and
reason. The state of his mind seemed to be a complete apathy, neither
acting nor acted on. If he had any passion, it was avarice; and if he
took pleasure in any amusement, it was in gaming. It is observed that he
had not any share in the “epidemical gaiety that runs through the French
nation.” He appeared to take as little pleasure as he gave, to live to
as little purpose to himself as to any body else, and to have no more
joy in being King, than his people had advantage in being his subjects.
It was the good fortune of France to be governed at this period by
Cardinal Fleury, a man of no distinction for talents, yet possessing a
plain, practical understanding, habitual prudence, and personal honesty.
But his most important qualification was a remarkable absence of the
passion for disturbing the world, which seems to have made him an
exception to all Frenchmen since the days of Julius Cæsar. Fleury loved
peace, and was so far an illustrious anomaly in French nature. Something
of this singular contradiction to his countrymen may have arisen from
his being eighty years old, from his habits as an ecclesiastic, and from
his being fully acquainted with the fact, that France had not the power
to go to war. The result of this policy was not merely tranquillising to
Europe, but fortunate for France. Her task was to recover from the
wasteful wars of Louis XIV., from the general corruption of the Regency,
from the financial follies of the Mississippi scheme, and from the weak
and rapacious ministry of the Duke of Bourbon. The administration of
Cardinal Fleury met all her evils, and met them with patience, and thus
with success. France has been always the great disturber of Europe, and
will be so whenever she has the power to disturb; but the old Cardinal,
conscious of her helplessness, applied himself to restrain her ambition,
and taught her that the indulgence of vanity was no compensation for
defeat, and that war was folly, at least until success was possible.
Under this rational course of government, the public mind was turned to
intellectual advancement and national industry. Paris, instead of being
the centre of European profligacy, rapidly became the centre of European
science. A succession of extraordinary men threw light upon every
kingdom of nature and knowledge. The Continent actually basked in the
beams of France; her language became universal, her literature the
general model, her taste the leader of European refinement, her manners
the standard of fashion to the world; and, at the accession of the
unfortunate Louis XVI., Paris, the court, and the people, possessed an
acknowledged supremacy over the opinions, the habits, and the
accomplishments of Europe, to which no kingdom of the modern world has
ever exhibited a parallel.
The closing period of the eighteenth century has already been given to
the world by a historian equal to the magnitude of his subject. The
“History of the French Revolution,” by Alison, will never be superseded.
The extent of its information, the clearness of its details, the
freshness and fidelity of its descriptions, and the force and vividness
of its language, place it at the head of all contemporary annals. But we
should wish also to see a History of the whole preceding portion of the
century. The French Revolution was a result: we should desire to see the
origin. It was a burst of gigantic violence, and gigantic strength: we
should desire to have the primal _myth_ of this assault of the Titans;
the narrative of their growth, their passions, and their powers, until
the moment when they moved against the battlements of all that was
lofty, magnificent, and glittering in the land. There is nothing without
a cause on earth,—accident is a name which has no place in the
Providential supremacy of things. To investigate the sources of even the
common events of nature, is a subject worthy of the philosopher. But
there never was a time when it was more important to connect its
mightier changes with the mystery in which they find their birth; to
ascertain the laws of national convulsion; to fix the theory of moral
storms and inundations. Such would be among the highest services, as
they might administer to the most effective security of the social
system.
It strikes us, that our chief historians have hitherto limited their
view too much to England: a broader view would have been more
productive. The combinations of this great country with the Continental
kingdoms; the contrasts furnished by them all; the variety in their
means of working out the same object of national power; their
comparative tardiness; even their failures, would have supplied new
conceptions of history, and have added alike to the illustration and the
interest of that political science which is among the noblest bequests
of a great nation to posterity. We are fully convinced that politics,
rightly examined, will be found to constitute a _system_, as much as
astronomy, and that a _solitary_ kingdom would be as much a
contradiction to nature as a solitary star.
We now glance over the pages of these volumes: they are very amusing. If
they do not give the court _costumes_ of a hundred years ago, they give
the mental costumes. The witty and the wise, the great and the little,
pass before the eye with the rapidity and the oddity of the figures in a
show-box. Kings, queens, and courtiers are exhibited to the life; and,
harsh as their physiognomies may sometimes seem, the exhibition is
always amusing.
The King was generally regarded as being governed by his wife, and the
opinion was not the less general because the King constantly boasted of
his own independence. One day, alluding to this subject, he said,
“Charles I. was governed by his wife, Charles II. by his mistresses,
James by his priests, William by his men-favourites, and Anne by her
women-favourites.” He then turned with a significant and satisfied air,
and asked, “Who do they say governs now?” The political squibs of the
time were, however, of a different opinion from the King. For example—
“You may strut, dapper George, but ‘twill all be in vain,
We know ’tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign—
You govern no more than Don Philip of Spain.
Then, if you would have us fall down and adore you,
Lock up your fat spouse, as your dad did before you.”
The “dapper” was an allusion to the King’s figure, which was much under
size. The locking up was an allusion to the imprisonment of the wife of
George I., whom, by an atrocious act of cruelty, he had shut up in one
of his castles for thirty-two years. It argues something in favour of
the progress of public opinion, that in our day the most despotic or
powerful sovereign of Europe would not dare to commit an act, which was
then committed with perfect impunity by a little German Elector. Another
of those squibs began—
“Since England was England there never was seen
So strutting a King, and so prating a Queen.”
The first of those brought Lord Scarborough into a formidable scrape;
for, being taxed by the King with having seen it, evidently in private,
the King demanded to know who had shown it to him. Scarborough declared
that he was on his honour, not to reveal it. On this the King became
furious, and said to him, “Had I been Lord Scarborough in this
situation, and you king, the man should have shot me, or I him, who had
dared to affront me in the person of my master, by showing me such
insolent nonsense!” His Lordship replied, that he never told his Majesty
it was a man from whom he had it. He consequently left the King, (who
never spoke to him for three months after,) almost as much irritated
against him as the author.
Lord Hervey’s portrait of the celebrated Chesterfield is a work of
elaborate peevishness. It has all the marks of an angry rival, and all
the caricature of a pen dipped in personal mortification. He allows him
wit, but with an utter “mismanagement in its use;” talent without
common-sense, and a ridiculous propensity to love-making, with an
ungainly face and a repulsive figure. This character is new to those who
have been so long accustomed to regard Chesterfield even on the more
unfavourable side of his character. To his admirers the portrait is of
course intolerable; but we must leave some future biographer to settle
those matters with the ghost of his libeller.
An anecdote is given illustrative of the violence of Lord Townshend’s
temper, and the cutting calmness of Walpole’s. Townshend was a man of
considerable powers, but singularly irritable. He had been from an early
period engaged in office, and was a constant debater in the House. His
temper, however, made him so publicly disliked, and his selfishness so
much alienated public men, that when he left office he did not leave a
regret behind. He was followed only by epigrams, of which one is given—
“With such a head, and such a heart,
If fortune fails to take thy part,
And long continues thus unkind,
She must be deaf as well as blind,
And, quite reversing every rule,
Nor see the knave, nor hear the fool.”
Lord Townshend had been Foreign Secretary, and Walpole had to defend his
blunders in the Commons. This made the latter anxious, and the former
jealous. Another source of discontent was added, probably with still
greater effect. Walpole, who had begun as a subordinate to Townshend,
had risen above him. He had begun poor, and now exceeded him in fortune;
and, as the last offence, he had built Houghton, a much handsomer
mansion than Lord Townshend’s house at Raynham, which his lordship had
once considered as the boast of Norfolk. Thus both were in a condition
for perpetual squabble. The anecdote to which we have alluded was
this:—One evening, at Windsor, on the Queen’s asking Walpole and
Townshend where they had dined that day, the latter said that he had
dined at home with Lord and Lady Trevor; on which Walpole said to her
Majesty, smiling, “My lord, Madam, I think, is grown _coquet_ from a
long widowhood, and has some design upon my Lady Trevor; for his
assiduity of late, in that family, is grown so much beyond common
civility, that without this solution I know not how to account for it.”
The burlesque of this not very decorous observation was obvious, for
Lady Trevor was nearly seventy years old, and, besides being a woman of
character, was of the “most forbidding countenance that natural
ugliness, age, and small-pox, ever compounded.”
But Townshend, affecting to take the remark literally, replied with
great warmth—“No, sir, I am not one of those fine gentlemen who find no
time of life, nor any station in the world, preservatives against
follies and immoralities that are hardly excusable when youth and
idleness make us most liable,” &c., &c. In short, his lordship made a
speech in which his voice trembled, and every limb shook with passion.
But Walpole, always master of his temper, made him no other answer than
asking him with a smile, and in a very mild tone of voice, “What, my
lord, all this for Lady Trevor!”
The Queen grew uneasy, and, to avoid Townshend’s replying, only laughed,
and turned the conversation.
An anecdote is told of the Duchess of Queensberry’s being forbid the
court; which belongs to the literary history of the cleverest opera in
our own or any other language—Gay’s famous production. Walpole, justly
regarding himself as caricatured in the “Beggar’s Opera,” obtained the
Duke of Grafton’s authority as Lord Chamberlain to suppress the
representation of his next opera, “Polly.” Gay resolved to publish it by
subscription, and his patroness, the Duchess of Queensberry, put herself
at the head of the undertaking, and solicited every person she met, to
subscribe. As the Duchess was handsome, a wit, and of the first fashion,
she obtained guineas in all directions, even from those who dreaded to
encourage this act of defiance. The Duchess’s zeal, however, increased
with her success; and she even came to the drawing-room, and under the
very eye of majesty solicited subscriptions for a play which the monarch
had forbidden to be acted. When the King came into the drawing-room,
seeing the Duchess very busy in a corner with three or four persons, he
asked her what she was doing. She answered, “What must be agreeable, she
was sure, to any body so humane as his Majesty, for it was an act of
charity; and a charity to which she did not despair of bringing his
Majesty to contribute.” This proceeding was so much resented, that Mr
Stanhope, vice-chamberlain to the King, was sent in form to the Duchess
to forbid her coming to court. The message was verbal; but she desired
to send a written answer—wrote it on the spot—and thus furnished a
document, whose style certainly exhibited more sincerity than
courtiership.
“That the Duchess of Queensberry is surprised and well pleased that the
King has given her so agreeable a command as to stay from court, where
she never came for diversion, but to bestow a great civility on the King
and Queen. She hopes that, by such an unprecedented order as this, the
King will see as few as he wishes at his court, particularly such as
dare to think or speak truth. I dare not do otherwise, and ought not,
nor could have imagined that it would not have been the very highest
compliment I could possibly pay the King, to endeavour to support truth
and innocence in his house—particularly when the King and Queen both
told me that they had not read Mr Gay’s play. I have certainly done
right, then, to stand by my own words rather than his Grace of
Grafton’s, who hath neither made use of truth, judgment, nor honour,
through this whole affair, either for himself or his friends.
“C. QUEENSBERRY.”
When her Grace had finished this paper, drawn up, as Lord Hervey
observes, “with more spirit than accuracy,” Stanhope requested of her to
think again, and give him a more courtly message to deliver. The Duchess
took her pen and wrote another, but it was so much more disrespectful,
that he asked for the former one and delivered it.
There was, of course, a prodigious quantity of court gossip on this
occasion: and, doubtless, though some pretended to be shocked, many were
pleased at the sting of royalty, and many more were amused at the
dashing oddity of the Duchess. But public opinion, on the whole, blamed
the court. It certainly was infinitely childish in the King, to have
inquired into what the Duchess was doing among her acquaintances in the
drawing-room; it was equally beneath the natural notions of royal
dignity that the King should put himself in a state of hostility with a
subject, and in so trifling a matter as the subscription to an
unpublished play; and it was equally impolitic, for the world was sure
to range itself on the side of the woman, especially when that woman was
handsome, eccentric, and rich. It produced some inconvenience, however,
to the lady’s husband, as he, in consequence, gave up the office of
Admiral of Scotland.
The history of the “Beggar’s Opera” is still one of those mysticisms
which perplex the chroniclers of the stage. It has been attributed to
the joint conception of Swift, Pope, and Gay. The original idea probably
belonged to Swift, who, in that fondness for contrasts, and contempt of
romance, which belonged to him in every thing, had observed, “What a
pretty thing a Newgate pastoral would make!” Pope may have given hints
for the epigrammatic pungency of the dialogue; while the general
workmanship may have been left to Gay. It is scarcely possible to doubt
the sharp and worldly hand of Swift in some of the scenes and songs.
Pope may have polished the dialogue, or nerved some of the songs,
otherwise it is difficult to account for the total failure of all those
characters of sternness, sharpness, and knowledge of the world, in Gay’s
subsequent and unassisted drama, “Polly.” For, as the note on the
subject observes, nothing can be more dull and less sarcastic, or, in
fact, less applicable to either public characters or public events than
the latter opera, against which a prime minister levelled the
hostilities of the Lord Chamberlain, and engaged the indignation of the
King.
Gay had been a dependant on Mrs Howard,—a matter which, in the
scandalous laxity of the time, was by no means disgraceful. He had been
solicitor for some place under the court, and had been disappointed. But
the “Beggar’s Opera” had been written before his disappointment. Of
course, it is unlikely that he should have then thought of burlesquing
the minister. His disappointment, however, may have given him new
intentions, and a few touches from Swift’s powerful hand might have
transformed Macheath, Peachum, and Lockit into the fac-similes of the
premier and his cabinet. It is remarkable that Gay had never attempted
any thing of the kind before, nor after. His solitary muse was the very
emblem of feebleness, his ambition never soared beyond a salary, and his
best authorship was fables.
As ours is the day when rioting is popular, and rebels in every country
are modellers of government, it may be amusing to remember how those
matters were managed in the last century. The history of the famous
Excise scheme, which in its day convulsed England, and finally shook the
most powerful of all ministers out of the most powerful of all cabinets,
is amongst the curious anecdotes of a time full of eccentricity. Walpole
was no more superior to the effects of prosperity than honester men.
Long success had confirmed him in a belief of its perpetual power; and
the idea that, with a court wholly at his disposal, with a Queen for his
agent, a King almost for his subject, the peerage waiting his nod, and
the commons in his pay, he could be cast down and shattered like a
plaster image, seems never to have entered into his dreams. But in this
plenitude of power, whether to exercise his supremacy, or for the mere
want of something to do, it occurred to him to relieve the country
gentlemen by reducing the land-tax to a shilling in the pound, turning
the duty on tobacco and wine, then payable on importation, into inland
duties,—that is, changing customs on those two commodities into excise.
By which scheme, and the continuation of the salt-duty, he proposed to
improve the revenue half a million a-year, so as to supply the abatement
of the shilling in the pound. The plan seemed feasible, and it also
appeared likely to attract popularity among the country gentlemen, who
had frequently complained of the pressure of the land-tax—two shillings
in the pound.
The result, however, showed that a man may govern a court who is unequal
to govern a people. The very mention of excise raised a universal
storm,—all kinds of exaggerations flew through the land. The subject, at
no time popular, was converted into a source of frantic indignation. The
orators alleged, that if excise was once to be made a substitute for the
land-tax, it might be made a substitute for every tax; that if it was
laid on wine and tobacco, it would soon be laid on corn and clothing;
that every man’s house would be at the mercy of excise-officers, whose
numbers would amount to a standing army, and of the most obnoxious kind,
an army of tax-gatherers; that liberty must perish; Magna Charta be not
worth its own parchment; parliament be voted useless; and the monarch,
who could extract every shilling from the pockets of his subjects under
the pretext of an excise, might soon ride roughshod over the liberties
of England. Petition on petition, of course, showered into parliament;
the boroughs angrily advised their representatives to vote against the
measure; and the towns and cities haughtily commanded their
parliamentary delegates to resist all extension of the excise, however
qualified, corrected, or modelled by the minister.
Walpole was thunderstruck; but he still relied upon his fortune. His
friends crowded round him with entreaties that he would abandon the
measure. But his argument was the argument of infatuation—the old
absurdity of exposing himself to immediate ruin, through fear of being
ruined at some future time, which might never arrive. In fact, his
flexibility, which often saves a minister, was suddenly exchanged for
the stubbornness which is the ministerial road to ruin. At last the
memorable day came, March 14, 1743, when the bill was to be presented to
parliament. It was reported that thousands of the people would block up
the House, and there was a general order for constables, peace-officers,
and the Guards to be in readiness. The mob, however, were neither so
numerous nor so unruly as was expected. The debate was long, and the
question was carried for the excise scheme by a majority of 61—the
numbers being 204 and 265. The King was so anxious on the subject, that
he made Lord Hervey write to him from the House at five o’clock; and,
when the debate broke up at one in the morning, and Lord Hervey came to
St James’s to mention the result, the King carried him into the Queen’s
bedchamber, and kept him there till three in the morning, (without
having dined;) asking him ten thousand questions, not merely about the
speeches, but the very looks of the speakers.
The memoirs of persons in high life have a certain use for those who
will draw the true moral from them; which is, that the highest rank is
by no means the happiest. The exterior glitters to the eye, and
doubtless there are few pedestrians who would not rejoice to drive in a
gilt coach, with a squadron of hussars prancing round them. But the
Memoirs of George II. and his Queen, altogether independently of private
character, give formidable evidence of the cares which haunt even
thrones. Yet, perhaps, there was no more palmy state of public affairs
than that which saw George and Caroline on the throne. The country was
in profound peace, commerce was flourishing, there was no impediment to
the wheels of society—neither famine nor pestilence, nor rebellion; and
yet distress, vexation, and perplexity seem to be as frequent inmates of
the palace as they could have been of the workhouse. Even the great
minister himself, though the head and front of the whole immediate
disturbance, and likely to suffer more severely than all the rest, bore
the crisis with more equanimity than either of their majesties.
“This evening,” says Lord Hervey, “Sir Robert Walpole saw the King in
the Queen’s apartment, and the final resolution was then taken to drop
the bill; but as there was a petition to come from the city of London
against it the next day, it was resolved that the bill should not be
dropped till that petition was rejected, lest it should be thought to be
done by the weight and power of the city.” Walpole, on coming from this
conference, called on Lord Hervey to let him know what had passed. Sir
Robert was extremely disconcerted. Lord Hervey told him that he had been
twice that afternoon sent for by the King; but, not knowing in what
strain to talk to him, as he was ignorant whether Sir Robert intended to
go forward or retreat, and expecting that he should be asked millions of
questions relating to what he saw, and what he heard, and what he
thought; to avoid the difficulties which this catechism would lay him
under, he kept out of the way.
In the mean time, Sir Robert had gone to the Queen, and told her, that
the clamour had grown so great, that there were but two ways of trying
to appease it, one by dropping the project, and the other by dropping
the projector. The Queen chid him extremely “for thinking it possible
she could act so cowardly a part.” When Lord Hervey went up to the
drawing-room, he saw that her Majesty had been weeping very plentifully,
and found her so little able to disguise what she felt, that she was
forced to pretend headach and vapours, and break up her quadrille party
sooner than the usual hour. When the drawing-room was over, the King
called Lord Hervey into the Queen’s bedchamber, and began with great
eagerness to ask him where he had been all day, whom he had seen, what
he had heard, and how both friends and foes looked? To some of the
replies, referring to the Opposition, the King said with great warmth,
“It is a lie; those rascals in the Opposition are the greatest liars
that ever spoke.” The city petition was presented the next morning, and
attended by a train of coaches reaching from Temple Bar to Westminster.
The prayer of the petition was, that they might be heard by counsel
against the bill. After a debate till midnight the petition was
rejected, but only by a majority of seventeen—214 to 197. Walpole was
never more deeply smitten than by this defeat, for so small a majority
was a virtual defeat. He stood for some time after the House was up,
leaning against the table, with his hat pulled over his eyes, and some
few friends, with melancholy countenances, round him. As soon as the
whole was over, Pelham went to the King, and Hervey to the Queen, to
acquaint them with what had passed. When Hervey, at his first coming
into the room, shook his head and told her the numbers, the tears ran
down her cheeks, and for some time she could not utter a word. At last
she said, “It is over—we must give way; but pray tell me a little how it
passed.”
On the next day, Walpole proposed the postponement of the tobacco bill
for two months. On coming out of the House, the mob, who had increased
in numbers, continued to insult the members. Walpole, though warned of
the reception which he was likely to get, determined to face the mob, as
he boldly said, “there was no end of flying from their menaces, and that
meeting dangers of this kind was the only way to put an end to them.”
With some friends, and to a certain degree protected by the constables,
who made a passage for the members to go out, he at last worked his way
through the mob; though there was a great deal of jostling, and the
constables were obliged to make large use of their staves. Three of his
friends (among whom was Lord Hervey) were hurt. The city had been filled
with illuminations and bonfires the night before, when Sir Robert
Walpole, with a fat woman, (meant for the Queen,) was burnt in effigy.
It is singular that this triumph was carried as far as Oxford, where for
three nights together, round the bonfires in the streets, the healths of
Ormond, Bolingbroke, and James III. were publicly drunk!
Lord Hervey’s sketches of character are among the best specimens of his
writing, and the most interesting portions of his book. They are always
acute and forcible, natural though epigrammatic, and remorseless though
polished. As the lives of Chancellors have been, of late, so frequently
brought before the public, we give his sketch of Lord Chancellor King.
Speaking of King as having risen from obscurity to the woolsack, without
an obstruction in his career, and with the general approbation of all
judges of legal merit, he observes that, from the moment of his
presiding in Chancery, his reputation began to sink. But this is
explained, not by any newly discovered deficiency of talent, but by
deficiency of decision. “Expedition,” says Lord Hervey, “was never
reckoned among the merits of the Court of Chancery; but while Lord King
presided there, its delays became insupportable. He had such a
diffidence of himself, that he dared not do right for fear of doing
wrong. Decrees were always extorted from him; and, had he been left
alone, he would never have given any suitor his due, for fear of giving
him what was not so; never reflecting that the suspension of justice was
almost as bad as the total privation of it. His understanding was of
that balancing irregular kind, which gives people just light enough to
see difficulties and form doubts, yet not enough to surmount the one, or
remove the other. This sort of understanding, which was of use to him as
a pleader, was a trouble to him as a judge, and made him make a great
figure at the bar, but an indifferent one upon the bench. The Queen once
said of him, very truly, as well as agreeably, that ‘he was just in the
law, what he had formerly been in the gospel—making creeds of the one,
without any steady belief, and judgments in the other, without any
settled opinion. But the misfortune,’ said she, ‘for the public is, that
though they can reject his silly creeds, they are forced to submit to
his silly judgments.’” (Lord King had dabbled in divinity, and published
a history of the Apostles’ Creed.) Complaints soon arose, that all the
equity of the nation was at a stand. He afterwards nearly lost his
senses by repeated attacks of apoplexy. He was at last induced to retire
on a pension of £3000. He died in the next year, “little regretted by
any body, but least of all by his Majesty, who saved £3000 a-year by
it.”
The condition of the court seems to have been perpetual conflict. The
King’s personal conduct was inexcusable; the Queen’s great object was
the possession of power; and the Prince was an object of suspicion to
both, as both were objects of vexation to the Prince. His case in short
was this: “He had a father that abhorred him, a mother that despised
him, sisters that betrayed him, a brother set up against him, and a set
of servants that neglected him, and were neither of use to him, nor
capable of being of use, nor desirous of being of use.”
The Opposition were in pretty much the same condition: they, too, were
in a state of civil war. Lord Carteret and Bolingbroke had no
correspondence at all; Pulteney and Bolingbroke hated each other;
Carteret and Pulteney were jealous of each other; Sir William Wyndham
and Pulteney the same; while Chesterfield had a little correspondence
with them all, but was confided in by none.
The Princess’s marriage to the Prince of Orange had long engrossed the
consideration of the court. The Princess was not ill-looking, but her
figure was short, and inclined to be fat. She seems to have resembled
both the King and the Queen in their better, and in their worst,
qualities. She was quick, intelligent, and passionate; yet could be
cool, callous, and ready to sacrifice every thing to power. The Prince
of Orange was poor, having but £12,000 a-year, and he was deformed,
having a humpback, and altogether exhibiting the least attractive object
possible in the eyes of a princess as haughty as any in Christendom. The
marriage was solemnised at seven in the evening: the chapel was
splendidly fitted up; but the Queen and the Princesses exhibited so much
undisguised concern, that the procession to the chapel, and the aspect
of matters there, looked more like a sacrifice than a marriage. We
cannot go any further into details which, however suitable to foreign
manners, can only disgust the fortunate delicacy of the English mind.
But Lord Hervey’s manner of consoling the philosophic Queen in her
disdain and disgust, is capital, as a specimen at once of the man of the
world and of the courtier.
His answer was, “Madam, in half a year all persons are alike; and the
figure one is married to, like the prospect of the place one lives at,
grows so familiar to one’s eyes, that we look at it mechanically,
without regarding either the beauties or deformities that strike a
stranger.” The Queen’s answer was clever: “One may, and I believe one
does, grow blind at last; but you must allow, my dear Lord Hervey, that
there is a great difference, as long as one sees, in the _manner_ of
one’s growing blind.” The sisters spoke much in the same style as the
mother, with horror at his figure, and commiseration for his wife. The
Princess Emily said, “nothing on earth should have induced her to marry
the monster.” The Princess Caroline, in her soft sensible way, spoke
truth and said, “She must own it was very bad, but that, in her sister’s
situation, all things considered, she believed she should have come to
the same resolution.”
From time to time, some traits of men and history oddly remind us of
foreign courts in our own day. The Emperor of Germany, a personage in
whom ambition and imbecility seem to have contended for the mastery, had
commenced a war, which transferred hostilities into Italy. France,
Sardinia, and Spain attacked him there, and pushed his army to the walls
of Mantua. The position of Radetsky, while he continued constrained by a
court which gave him little more than orders and counter-orders, was
evidently the _fac-simile_ of Austrian affairs in 1733. “Those affairs,”
says Lord Hervey, “were so _well managed_, that with thirteen thousand
men in Lombardy, and provisions for double the number, and ammunition in
proportion, those essentials of war were so dispersed and scattered,
that, wherever there were provisions there was no ammunition, and where
there was ammunition there were no provisions, and where there were men
there was neither ammunition nor provisions.”
The German war engaged a good deal of the public attention at this time;
but much less in the nation than at the court. Prince Eugene, on the
Rhine, marched to the relief of Philipsburg, while Marshal Berwick, with
one hundred thousand men, carried on the siege. The high reputation of
Prince Eugene had excited the King’s hope that Philipsburg would be
relieved. It was, however, taken. This gave rise to a smart saying of
the Princess Royal. She observed to Lord Hervey, after the drawing-room,
shrugging up her shoulders, “Was there ever any thing so unaccountable
as the temper of papa! He has been snapping and snubbing every mortal
for this week, because he began to think that Philipsburg would be
taken; and this very day, that he hears it is actually taken, he is in
as good humour as ever I saw him in my life. But all this seems so odd,
that I am more angry at his good humour than I was at his bad.” Lord
Hervey said, with that sort of wit which was fashionable at the time,
“that this was like David, who, when his child lived wore sackcloth, but
when it was dead, shaved and drank wine.”—“It may be like David,” said
the Princess, “but I am sure it is not like Solomon.”
The King had a foolish habit of talking of war, of imagining his genius
made for renown, and of pronouncing himself infinitely unlucky in not
being permitted by his minister to gain laurels in Germany. Walpole
exhibited his power in nothing more effectually than in preventing the
operation of this thirst for “glory.”—“He could not bear,” said the
monarch, “that while he was engaged only in treaties, letters, and
despatches, his booby brother, the brutal King of Prussia, should pass
his time in camps and in the midst of arms,” neither desirous of the
glory, nor fit for the employment.
Walpole, who saw the danger of involving England in this war, and
probably the absurdity of going to war for the sake of any foreigners,
reminded the King of the existence of the Pretender, and of the
probability “that his crown would yet have to be fought for on British
ground.” As to the Queen, Lord Hervey said, “the _shadow_ of the
Pretender would beat the whole German body.”
His lordship’s knowledge of the world appears to have extinguished all
his ideas of its generosity: for he finds a personal motive in every
thing. Thus, he assigns three reasons for Walpole’s pacific advice. One
was, to avoid new clamour against his administration; the next was, to
avoid the unpopularity of new taxes; and the third was, that military
business might not throw his power into the hands of military men.
The Memoir then proceeds “to toss and gore” all the prominent public men
in succession. It tells us “that the Duke of Newcastle, who always
talked as his master talked,” echoed all the King’s “big words,” and
expatiated for ever on regaining Italy for the Emperor, chastising
Spain, and humbling the pride of France. Next comes the Duke of Grafton;
of whom it is said, that loving to make his court as well as the Duke of
Newcastle, he talked in the same strain, and for the same reason; but
“could never make any great compliment to the King and Queen of
embracing their opinions, as he never understood things enough to have
one of his own.” Next comes Lord Grantham. “He was a degree still lower,
and had the gift of reasoning in so small a proportion, that his
existence was barely distinguished from a vegetable.” Then follows Lord
Harrington. Of him it is said that, “with all his seeming phlegm, he was
as tenacious of an opinion, when his indolence suffered him to form one,
as any man living. His parts were of the common run of mankind. He was
well bred, a man of honour, and fortunate, loved pleasure, and was
infinitely lazy.” The Queen once in speaking of him said, “There is a
heavy insipid sloth about that man, that puts me out of all patience: he
must have six hours to dress, six more to dine, six more for his
intrigues, and six more to sleep; and there, for a minister, are the
four-and-twenty admirably disposed of; and if, now and then, he borrows
six of those hours, to do any thing relating to his office, it is for
something that might be done in six minutes, and ought to have been done
six days before.”
We have then another instance of the discomforts of Royalty in those
times. The day before the birthday, October 29, 1734, the court removed
from Kensington to London, and the Queen, “who had long been out of
order with a cough and a little lurking fever, notwithstanding she had
been twice blooded, grew every hour worse and worse. However, the King
forced her, the night she came from Kensington—the first of Farinelli’s
performances—to the Opera, and made her the next day go through all the
tiresome ceremonies of drawing-rooms and balls, the fatigues of heats
and crowds, and every other disagreeable appurtenance to the celebration
of a birthday.”
His lordship observes that “there was a strange affectation of an
incapacity of being sick, that ran through the whole royal family. I
have known the King to get out of his bed, choking with a sore throat,
and in a high fever, only to dress and have a levee, and, in five
minutes after it, undress and return to his bed, till the same
ridiculous farce of health was to be presented the next day at the same
hour. He used to make the Queen, in like circumstances, commit the same
extravagances; but never with more danger than at this time. In the
morning drawing-room, she found herself so near swooning, that she was
forced to send Lord Grantham to the King, to beg he would retire, for
that she was unable to stand any longer; notwithstanding which, at
night, he brought her into a still greater crowd at the ball, and there
kept her till eleven o’clock.”
The recollections of those times constantly bring the name of Lady
Suffolk before the eye. We have no wish to advert to the grossnesses
connected with the name; but the waning of her power gave a singular
pungency to opinion in the palace. The Princesses were peculiarly candid
upon the occasion. The Princess Emily “wished Lady Suffolk’s disgrace,
because she wished misfortune to most people. The Princess Caroline,
because she thought it would please her mother. The Princess Royal was
for having her crushed; and, when Lord Hervey made some remonstrance,
she replied, that Lady Suffolk’s conduct, with regard to politics, had
been so impertinent, that she cannot be too ill used.” It must seem
strange to us that such topics should have been in the lips of any
women, especially women of such rank—but they seem to have been
discussed with the most perfect familiarity; and a name and conduct
which ought to have been suppressed through mere delicacy, appear to
have furnished the principal conversation of the court.
The next affair was the quarrel with the Princess of Orange, from her
reluctance to return to Holland. As she was about to be confined, her
husband was desirous that his child should be born in Holland. To this
the Princess demurred. However, they at length contrived to send her on
board, and she sailed from Harwich; but after she had been some time at
sea, she either grew so ill, or pretended to be so ill, that she either
was, or pretended to be, in convulsions: we give his lordship’s rather
ungallant surmise. On this, and the wind not being quite fair, she
obliged the captain of the yacht to put back to Harwich. She then
despatched a courier to London with letters, written, as it was
supposed, by her own absolute command, from her physician, her
accoucheur, and her nurse, to say that she was disordered with her
expedition, and that she could not be stirred for ten days from her bed,
nor put to sea again, without the hazard of her child’s life and her
own. The King and Queen declined giving any orders. The Prince of Orange
was written to, and he desired that his wife might go by France to
Holland. The King, hating the bustle of a new parting, directed that she
should cross the country from Harwich to Dover; but his Majesty, after
having been informed that the roads were impassable at this time of the
year in a coach, (how strangely this sounds in our day of universal
locomotion!) permitted her to come to London and go over the bridge; but
it was a positive command that she should not lie in in London, nor even
come to St James’s. Accordingly, “after all her tricks and schemes, to
avoid going to Holland, and to get back to London, she was obliged to
comply with those orders; and had the mortification and disgrace to go,
without seeing any of her family, over London Bridge to Dover.”
A note conjectures, that the Princess Royal might have had some
expectation of ascending the throne of England, neither of her brothers
being then married; a circumstance, which may account for the Princess’s
anxiety to have her child born in this country.
The next scene is laid among the bishops. The bishopric of Winchester
had been promised to Hoadly. Willis, the Bishop of Winchester, was
seized with an apoplectic fit, and Lord Hervey instantly wrote to
Hoadly, who was then Bishop of Salisbury, to come up to town and enforce
his claim. The bishop wrote to the Queen and Sir Robert letters, which
were to be delivered as soon as Willis was dead. The Queen, on
presenting those letters, asked Lord Hervey if he did not blush for the
conduct of his friend in this early and pressing application for a thing
not yet vacant. While he was speaking, the King came in, and both King
and Queen talked of Hoadly, in such a manner as plainly showed that they
neither esteemed nor loved him. Potter, Bishop of Oxford, a great
favourite of the Queen, strongly solicited Winchester, and would have
obtained it, but for Walpole’s suggestion, that the engagements to
Hoadly could not be broken without scandal. Hoadly at last obtained
Winchester; and, as the Memoir observes, one of the best preferments in
the church was conferred upon a man hated by the King, disliked by the
Queen, and long estranged from the friendship of Walpole. Then all
followed in the way which might have been anticipated; the King not
speaking a word to the new bishop, either when he kissed his hand or did
homage; the Queen, when she found it could not be helped, making the
most of promoting him,—and Sir Robert taking the whole merit of the
promotion to himself.
Another source of contention now arose. The Chancellor Talbot had
recommended Rundle, a chaplain of his father, the late Bishop of Durham,
for the see of Gloucester, which had been vacant a twelvemonth. Gibson,
Bishop of London, objected to him, that fourteen or fifteen years before
he had been heard to speak disrespectfully of some portions of
Scripture, and Rundle was suspected of Arianism. This reason was
certainly sufficient to justify inquiry.
Sir Robert, in his usual style, tried to mediate; begged of the
Chancellor to give up his support of Rundle, offering him at the same
time a deanery, or to give him the Bishopric of Derry in Ireland, then
possessed by Henry Downes; of whom the Memoir speaks as a crazy old
fellow with three thousand a-year. This affair ended in Benson’s being
made Bishop of Gloucester, and Secker Bishop of Bristol, both formerly
chaplains to the Chancellor’s father. Rundle was subsequently made
Bishop of Derry, where he died, nine years after, in his sixtieth year,
much regretted.
Walpole was now visibly approaching decline. He had become negligent of
the claims of his friends, and solicitous only to conciliate his
enemies. Of course, where he bought over one opponent, there were fifty
others ready to fill up his place. This policy failed, and ought always
to fail. At the close of the session, say the Memoirs, “the harvest of
court favour was small, though the labourers were many.” The only things
to give away were the Privy Seal, by the retirement of Lord Lonsdale,
and the Secretaryship at War, by the dismissal of Sir William
Strickland, “who was become so weak in mind and body, that his head was
as much in its second infancy as his limbs.”
A new source of ministerial vexation was added to the _mêlée_, by the
King’s sudden determination to run over to Hanover, in spite of all
remonstrance—the royal answer being always “Pooh, stuff! You think to
get the better of me, but you shall not.”
Walpole, who dreaded that the King, once in Hanover, would plunge the
country into a war, tried to set the Queen against this untoward
journey; but her Majesty, though she gave the minister fair words, was
in favour of the freak. The reasons assigned by the Memoir for her
conduct being those rather irreverent ones, on the part of his
lordship—pride in the _éclat_ of the regency; the ease of being mistress
of her hours, which was not the case for two hours together, when the
King was in England; and, “besides these _agrémens_, she had the
certainty of being, for six months at least, not only free from the
fatigue of being obliged to entertain him for twenty hours in the
twenty-four, but also from the more irksome office of being set up to
receive the _quotidian_ sallies of a temper that, let it be charged by
what hand it would, used always to discharge its hottest fire, on some
pretence or other, upon her.”
But “one trouble arose from the King’s going to Hanover, which her
Majesty did not at all foresee;” and which was his becoming, soon after
his arrival, so much attached to a Madame Walmoden, “a married woman of
the first fashion in Hanover,” that nobody in England talked of any
thing but the declining power of the Queen.
They might justly have talked much more of the insult of this conduct to
public morals; but we shall not go further into those details. They
absolutely repel the common-sense of propriety, to a degree which, we
hope, will never be endurable in England. The King, however, gave her
Majesty, in the long succession of his correspondence, the complete
history of his passion, its progress, and his final purchase of the lady
for 1000 ducats! A proof, as Lord Hervey says, more of his economy than
his passion.
The life of courts is stripped of its glitter a good deal by the
indefatigable courtier who has here left us his reminiscences; but it
requires strong evidence, to believe that the persons who constitute the
officials of royal households _can_ submit to the humiliations described
in these volumes.
The Queen narrates a sort of quarrel which she had with Lady Suffolk, a
woman so notoriously scandalous, that the wife of George II. ought not
to have suffered her to approach her person. The quarrel was, as a note
conceives it, not about holding a basin for the Queen to wash in, but
about holding it on her knees. (What person of any degree of
self-respect can discover the difference?) But Lady Suffolk, on this
nice distinction, consulted the well-known Lady Masham, bedchamber woman
to Queen Anne, as to the point of etiquette. This authority delivered
her judgment of chambermaid duties, in the following style:—“When the
Queen washed her hands, a page of the backstairs brought and set down
upon a side-table the basin and ewer. Then the bedchamber _woman_ set it
before the Queen, and _knelt_ on the other side of the table over
against the Queen, the bedchamber _lady_ only looking on. The bedchamber
_woman_ brought in the chocolate, and gave it _kneeling_.” Lady Suffolk,
formerly Mrs Howard, had been bedchamber _woman_, and of course had
performed this menialism! “We shall see by-and-by,” adds the note,
“that, the _lady_ of the bedchamber, though a countess, presented the
basin for the Queen’s washing, _on her knees_.”
If such things were done, we must own that it wholly exceeds our
comprehension how they could be exacted on the one side, or submitted to
on the other. We are sure that there is not a scullion in England who
would stoop to hold a basin for her mistress’s ablutions on her knees.
Yet, however we may be surprised at the existence of such practices, it
is impossible to feel the slightest sympathy for the persons whom their
salaries tempt to the sufferance.
We have left ourselves but little room for the biography of Lord Hervey
himself. He was born in 1696, the second son of the first Lord Bristol.
He travelled; returned to solicit a commission; failed in his
solicitation; became, of course, “a virtuous opponent of the court,” and
attached himself to the Prince and Princess, who held a sort of
Opposition court at Richmond. Hervey, young, handsome, and polished,
became a general favourite. He won the most accomplished woman of her
time; married; and, in 1723, became Lord Hervey by the death of his
elder brother, a man of ability, but of habits remarkably profligate.
On the death of George I., Hervey changed his politics; abandoned
Pulteney; leveed Walpole; obtained a pension of £1000 a-year; received
another gilded fetter, in the office of vice-chamberlain, and became a
courtier for life.
Whether to console himself for this showy slavery, or to indulge a
natural taste for the sarcasm which is forbidden in the atmosphere of
high life, he wrote the Memoirs, of which we have given a sketch. The
prudence of his son, the third earl, kept them in secret. The marquis,
nephew of that earl, probably regarding the time as past when they could
provoke private resentment, has suffered them to emerge, and Mr Croker
has edited them, for the benefit of the rising generation.
Whether the editor has done credit to himself or service to the public,
by this employment of his hours of retirement, has been the subject of
considerable question. That the volumes are amusing there can be no
doubt; that they are flippant and frivolous there can be no question
whatever; that they disclose conceptions of the interior of courts which
may “make the rabble laugh and the judicious grieve,” that, though
filtered through three generations of correctors, they yet remain miry
enough still, requires no further proof than their perusal.
We say this in no favouritism for either the King or the Queen: the
truth was probably told of both. Their foreign habits evidently clung to
them; and the purer feelings of England, as evidently, had not the power
to purify the practices of their foreign descent. But if Lord Hervey’s
mind was exercised in giving the secret life of courts to the world, we
think that a much more contemptuous subject for the pencil might be
found, in the man who, earning his daily bread by his courtiership,
pretended to independence of opinion; who, listening to every expression
of royalty with a bow, and receiving every command with the submission
of a slave, threw off the sycophant only to assume the satirist, and
revenged his sense of servitude only by privately registering the errors
of those, the dust of whose shoes he licked for twelve hours in every
twenty-four.
But we must hope that the Memoirs of Lord Hervey will be the last with
which the national curiosity is to be stimulated. We must have no
further ill-natured overflowing on the absurdities of high life. If this
fashion shall invade the shelves and _scrinia_ of noble families, there
is probably not a household of the higher ranks which may not furnish
its tribute. We shall be overrun with feeble gossiping and obsolete
scandal. No rational purpose can be held in view by indulging the
posthumous malice of a discontented slave. No manly curiosity can be
gratified by breaking up the tomb, showing us only the decay so long
hidden by its marbles and escutcheons from the eye.—_Requiescat._
THE GREAT TRAGEDIAN.
CHAPTER I.
Amidst a storm of applause the curtain fell. The applause continued, and
the curtain rose once more; and the favourite actor, worn out with
emotion and fatigue, reappeared to receive the homage which an
enthusiastic multitude paid to his genius.
I saw a proud flush of triumph steal over his wan face, which lighted it
for a moment with almost supernatural expression. As he passed behind
the scenes, amidst the rustling dresses of the rouged and spangled
crowd, I observed his face contracted by a pang, which struck me the
more forcibly from its so quickly succeeding the look of triumph. He
passed on to his room without uttering a word—there to disrobe himself
of the kingly garments in which he had “strutted his brief hour on the
stage;” and in a little while again passed me (as I was hammering out
compliments, in voluble but questionable German, to the pretty
little * * *) in his sober-suited black, and, stepping into his
carriage, drove to the Behren Strasse.
I knew he was going there, as I had been earnestly pressed to meet him
that very evening; so, collecting all my forces, I uttered the happiest
thing my German would permit me, and accompanying it with my most
killing glance, raised the tiny hand of * * * to my lips and withdrew,
perfectly charmed with her, and perfectly satisfied with myself.
There was a brilliant circle that night at Madame Röckel’s. To use the
received phrase, “all Berlin was there.” I found Herr Schoenlein, the
great actor, surrounded by admirers, more profuse than delicate in their
adulation. He was pale; looked wearied. He seemed to heed that
admiration so little—and yet, in truth, he needed it so much! Not a
muscle moved—not a smile answered their compliments; he received them as
if he had been a statue which a senseless crowd adored. Yet, fulsome as
the compliments were, they were never too fulsome for his greed. He had
the fever-thirst of praise upon him now more than ever—now more than at
any period of his long career, during which his heart had always
throbbed at every sound of applause, did he crave more and more
applause. That man, seemingly so indifferent, was sick at heart, and
applause alone could cure him! Had he not applause enough? Did not all
Germany acknowledge his greatness? Did not Berlin worship him? True; but
that was not enough: he hungered for more.
I was taken up to him by Madame Röckel, and introduced as an “English
admirer.” Now, for the first time, he manifested some pleasure. It was
not assuredly _what_ I said—(for although, _of course_, I am always
“mistaken for a German,” so pure is my accent, so correct my
diction!)—it was the fact of my being a foreigner—an Englishman—which
made my praise so acceptable. I was a countryman of Shakspeare’s, and,
of course, a discerning critic of Shakspearian acting. We rapidly passed
over the commonplace bridges of conversation, and were soon engaged in a
discussion respecting the stage.
With nervous energy, and a sort of feverish irritability, he questioned
me about our great actors—our Young, Kean, Kemble, and Macready—which
gave me an opportunity for displaying that nice critical discrimination
which my friends are kind enough to believe I possess—with what reason
it is not for me to say.
When I told him that, on the whole, I was more gratified with the
performances of Shakspeare in Germany, he turned upon me with sudden
quickness and asked—
“In what towns?”
“At Berlin and Dresden,” I answered.
“You have seen Franz, then?”
“I have.”
His lip quivered. I saw that I had made a mistake. I am not generally an
ass—nay, I am believed to possess some little tact; but what demon could
have possessed me to talk of an actor _to_ an actor?
“Do you think Franz greater than any of your English actors?” he asked,
fretfully.
“Why, I cannot say that exactly. But I was amazingly struck with his
performance. My observation, however, principally applied to the general
‘getting-up.’”
“But Franz—Franz. I wish to hear your opinion of him.”
“He is young,” I replied; “has a fine figure, a noble voice, a grand
carriage, and, although new to the stage, and consequently deficient in
some technical matters, yet he has that undefinable something which men
call genius.”
“Hm!” was the significant answer.
I then saw whither my stupidity had led me. This, however, I will say
for myself, if ever I do get into a dilemma, I have generally readiness
of mind enough to extricate myself. I do not say this out of conceit,
for I am not at all conceited—I merely mention it as a fact. This is how
I turned my blunder to account.
“Although,” said I, “he has not _your_ mastery, yet he reminded me a
great deal of you. I cannot pay _him_ a higher compliment.”
To my surprise he did not see the flattery of this, but moved to another
part of the room; and I did not speak with him again till supper.
This little incident excited my attention. I puzzled my brain for an
explanation of the riddle which his conduct presented, and spoke to
several of my friends about it, who could only tell me that Schoenlein
was jealous of this new actor Franz.
Did you ever sup in Berlin, reader? If not, let me inform you that
supper there is a most substantial affair. I had not read Miss Bremer’s
novels when first I went there; so, not being prepared for the infinite
amount of eating and drinking which is transacted in the north, I
confess my astonishment was a little mingled with disgust to find a
supper begin with white-beer soup, (capital soup, by the way,) followed
by various kinds of fish, amongst them, of course, that eternal hideous
carp—roast veal, poultry, pastry, and dessert. To see the worthy
Berliners sup, you would fancy they had not dined, and to see them dine
next day, you would fancy they had not supped, and breakfasted _twice_.
Eating is an art. It is also—and this fact we are prone to overlook—a
habit. As a habit it may be enlarged to an indefinite extent; and
lisping _fraüleins_ have demonstrated the capacity of the human stomach
to be such as would make our beauties stare.
It must not be supposed that I am a coxcomb, since nothing can be
farther from the truth; nor must I be held to share with Lord Byron his
horror at seeing women eat. In fact I like to see the darlings enjoy
themselves: but—and I care not who knows it—to see German women eat, is
more than I can patiently endure.
Let me cease this digression to remark that, except myself, the great
tragedian was the only person at table who was not voracious—and that
because he was unhappy. While knives and forks were playing with
reckless energy he talked to me, but there was a coldness and constraint
in his manner which plainly told me that my praises of Franz had deeply
mortified him.
Poor Schoenlein! Unhappy he came to Madame Röckel’s; for, amidst the
storm of applause which saluted him at the theatre, he heard the
applause which was saluting his rival at Dresden; and he had left the
theatre for a friendly circle of admirers only to hear his rival praised
by an Englishman. All the applause of all Berlin weighed as nothing
against one compliment paid to Franz!
It was nearly twelve, and the company had gradually departed. I was left
alone with Madame Röckel; and, as usual, I stayed half-an-hour later
than the others, to have a quiet chat with her. I wanted to ask her for
an explanation of Schoenlein’s conduct. Much as I had seen of the vanity
of actors—well as I knew their petty jealousy of each other—I was not
prepared for what I had seen that night.
Madame Röckel had resumed her knitting—the never-failing accompaniment
of a German lady—and I drew a chair close to the sofa, and told her what
had passed.
“His story is a strange one,” she said; “and to understand him you must
know it.”
“Can you not tell it me?”
“Willingly. Schoenlein is a man well born and well bred, who feels his
profession is a disgrace.”
“A disgrace!”
“Very absurd, is it not? but that _is_ his feeling. At the same time,
just as the opium-eater, knowing the degradation of his vice, cannot
resist its fascination—so this actor, with an intense feeling of what he
regards as the sinfulness of the stage, cannot resist its fascination.”
“You astonish me!”
“He is an austere man—what you English would call a puritan—who looks
upon the stage as the theatre of vice, and yet cannot quit it because it
is the theatre of his triumphs!”
“But how came he to be an actor!”
“Why, thrown upon the stage when the stage seemed the only means of
livelihood open to him—forced on it by necessity, success has chained
him there. I have heard him say that every time he performs it is with
the conviction that he is performing for the last time. But the
fascination still continues—his heart is still greedy of applause—his
mind still eager for its accustomed emotions. He goes on the stage sad,
struggling, and repentant; to leave it with throbbing pulses and a
wild-beating heart. He accepts no engagement, he only plays by the
night. He has from time to time made vigorous efforts to quit the stage,
but at the end of a fortnight he invariably returns. He once set out for
Italy, thinking that if away from Germany he should be able to wean
himself from the theatre; but he got no farther than Vienna, and there
played for twenty nights.”
“But don’t you think there must be a great deal of humbug in all this?”
“Not a bit.”
“Do you really believe in his scruples?”
“I know him too well to doubt them. There are many men quite as
inconsistent. He deludes himself with all sorts of sophistry. He
persuades himself that he acts only to realise an independence for his
son, and to secure his own old age. But the truth is, he acts because he
has an irresistible impulse to act. It is a sort of intellectual
dram-drinking which he cannot forego.”
“To be sure, men are strange bundles of contradictions; and I suppose
one must give Schoenlein credit for being sincere.”
“He is his own dupe, for to no one but very intimate friends has he ever
disclosed his real opinions.”
“Then his life must be a constant struggle?”
“It is. This it is which has made him prematurely old: the struggle of
his conscience with his passions. But this it is also which gives such
touching pathos to his acting—which makes his voice so mournful that it
vibrates through your whole being. As the poet’s sufferings are sublimed
into song, and become the delight of mankind, so from the ground of this
tragedian’s despair springs the well of his inspiration, which makes him
truly great.”
We were both silent for a few moments.
“I have said enough,” added Madame Röckel, “to explain how such a man
must necessarily be, above all others, envious—how the success of
another must be torture to him. Nothing but intense vanity could keep
him on the stage. Hitherto he has really had no rival—he has stood
alone; other tragedians have not been named beside him. But now, within
the last few weeks, there has arisen this young Franz, who has only
played at Leipsic and Dresden, yet whose fame has spread all over
Germany.”
“But I have seen Franz, and I assure you he is not so great an actor as
Schoenlein. To be sure, he has youth on his side.”
“It is not his success alone which is so exasperating; it is because the
critics, as usual, will do nothing but compare the young Franz with the
old Schoenlein; while the public, with its natural inconstancy, begins
to discover that Schoenlein is no longer young. It is a sad thing,” she
pursued, with a faint smile, “for those who have reigned supreme over
audiences to feel their dynasty is drawing to a close—sad for those who
have swayed all hearts, to feel that another is now to usurp their
place. We women know what it is, in a slight degree, when we grow old.
Do we ever grow old, and _know_ it? When our glass still tells us we are
young, that the bloom is still upon our cheeks, the lustre in our eyes,
the witchery in our smiles, now as of yore—and yet what the glass tells
us, what our feelings confirm, we do _not_ see mirrored in the
admiration of those around us! We also know what it is when we see our
former adorers pass to newer beauties, and we perhaps overhear such a
phrase spoken of us as, ‘Yes, she has been handsome!’ But even we cannot
know the actor’s triumph or the actor’s humiliation. To feel that our
presence is the signal for applause, that every word we utter is
listened to with eager interest, that every part we play is an image
which we engrave upon the minds of thousands, there to abide as a thing
of beauty and of wonder—this is beyond us.”
“But, my dear Madame Röckel, I see no diminution of admiration for
Schoenlein in Berlin. Surely no audience can be more enthusiastic. Why
should he fear a rival?”
“You might as well ask a beauty,” she replied, “why she is jealous of a
woman less pretty than herself. The _why_ is not to be explained by
logic, for envy does not _calculate_—it _feels_.”
“Yet, when Franz comes to Berlin, which will be next month, there will
then be no possible doubt as to which is the finer actor.”
“Perhaps not. But the public will nevertheless applaud Franz; and
however slightly they do so, to the envious ears of Schoenlein it will
sound like thunder.”
The clock striking twelve warned me to depart, for in Berlin they keep
early hours; and I went away thinking of what I had just heard, and
feeling no small contempt for Schoenlein’s preposterous jealousy: “What
a contemptible feeling is envy!—as if only one person in the world had a
right to admiration!”
At that moment I stepped into a droschke, and was driving to my rooms,
when I passed that miserable puppy Fürstenberg, whom, I am sorry to say,
little * * * admires so much; though, for the life of me, I never could
see wherefore. Yet this uncouth German, aping the dandy, usurps all her
conversation, even when I am by!
It is not that I am jealous, for that is not my character; but I
_cannot_ bear to see so charming a girl so miserably deceived in any one
as she is in Fürstenberg!
CHAPTER II.
Schoenlein did not play for a fortnight, and, as the time of Franz’s
engagement was drawing near, I imagined he was sulking. I communicated
my suspicions to Madame Röckel.
“I would wager fifty thalers,” she replied, “that he has gone to Dresden
to see his dreaded rival, and judge for himself.”
It was as Madame Röckel said: goaded by irresistible jealousy,
Schoenlein had set off for Dresden to see his rival play.
Arrived there, he was three days before he could summon resolution to
enter the theatre. Franz’s name met him every where. At the
_table-d’hôte_ he heard nothing but praises of Franz: in the newspapers
he read nothing but invidious comparisons between Franz and himself, in
which the palm was awarded to his rival. “Franz,” it was said, “had all
the energy of Schoenlein, with youth, and grace, and beauty in his
favour. The same power of distinct conception and unexaggerated
execution, without Schoenlein’s tendency to conventional ‘points.’”
Strangers asked him if he had seen Franz. The very waiters at the hotel
recommended him to go and see Franz!
Schoenlein never hated his profession so much as at that moment. Yet,
such was his exasperation, that he was constantly tempted to appear on
the stage at Dresden, and crush his rival by acting in the same theatre
with him—constantly tempted to show the fickle public the genius of the
actor they were fast forgetting.
It was the fourth day of his presence at Dresden. Hamlet was to be
performed that evening, and Schoenlein had resolved to be there. As the
hour drew near, he was seated at a table on that beautiful terrace,
which no one who has visited Dresden can ever forget, and which the
Hahn-Hahn has so graphically set before us in her _Faustine_. He was
smoking a meditative cigar, gazing abstractedly at the promenaders, who,
in their gay dresses, passed to and fro in light happy talk, while the
sounds of a good orchestra in the Café came mellowed by the distance,
and lent another charm to the exhilarating scene. His thoughts were not
at all in harmony with that happy scene—they were fixed mournfully on
his own condition. He felt the sadness of a fallen favourite.
There he sat, and saw the sun go down over the antique bridge—saw its
last rays shimmering on the placid bosom of the Elbe, which winds its
undulating course beneath the terrace—saw the groups of promenaders
gradually disappear, and the tables all deserted. The calls for ices,
for cigars, for “light,” were becoming rarer and rarer. The music had
ceased—night had shut in. Still he sat there in the same mournful mood,
tempted to go to the theatre, so close at hand, but repelled by the idea
of hearing Franz applauded.
At the conclusion of the third act, several playgoers reappeared upon
the terrace, to cool themselves in the evening air, and to take an ice.
Their conversation, of course, turned but upon one man, and that man was
Franz. They spoke of his Hamlet as the finest part he had yet played.
Three men seated themselves at Schoenlein’s table. In the midst of their
enthusiastic criticism one of them remarked—
“Well, Franz is certainly very fine; but it is absurd to compare him
with Schoenlein.”
“I think him better,” said another.
“Nonsense!—you would not say so if you could see them together. You will
find that in a little while the public will come round to my opinion.
Let them once get over the novelty, and they will judge correctly.”
A thrill ran through the actor’s frame as he heard this. He called the
waiter; paid; rose; departed. In another instant he was in the
_parterre_ of the theatre, feverishly impatient for the curtain to rise.
The brief scene between the King and Queen, which opens the fourth act,
seemed to that impatient man as if it never would end; and when
Rosenkranz was heard within calling, “Hamlet, Lord Hamlet!” the
perspiration burst from every pore, and he trembled like a leaf as
Hamlet appeared, uttering the “Soft—what news? Who calls on Hamlet?”
Schoenlein heard no more. The tones of that voice raised a mist before
his brain—stung and perplexed him with rage and astonishment. He heard
nothing, saw nothing—his brain was in a whirl.
The Hamlet before him—Franz, the dreaded rival—was his son!
CHAPTER III.
It is necessary here to take a retrospective glance into Schoenlein’s
history, that we may understand the horror which possessed him at the
discovery of his son upon the stage.
We may readily conceive how his dislike to his profession made him very
sedulous of keeping his child from all contact with it, lest its
fascination should mislead him also. He had never permitted him to see a
play. He brought him up strictly, religiously, austerely. He had no
friends among actors: acting was never spoken of in his presence. Yet,
by an inconsistency easily enough explained, the works most constantly
read and talked about by him were those of Shakspeare, Molière, Göthe,
and Schiller. These were his household gods. Young Franz was early
initiated into their beauties, and would declaim, (in private,) with
great gusto, all the long speeches.
Franz was sent to the university of Leipsic, where it was his father’s
fond hope he would distinguish himself as a student of theology. For the
first year he was assiduous enough; but theology grew inexpressibly
wearisome, while poetry became irresistibly alluring to him. Göthe’s
_Wilhelm Meister_ fell into his hands, and was read with rapture. He
fell in love with the actor’s life, and felt secret yearnings to quit
the university, and throw himself upon the world in quest of
adventure—especially in quest of a Marianne, a Philina, and a Mignon! He
had not as yet dared to disobey his father’s strict commands—he had
never ventured inside a theatre; but he had imbibed the dangerous
poison—he had learned to look upon an actor’s life as a life of poetry.
The seed was sown!
About this time my cousin William went to the Leipsic university, and
became the fellow-student and companion of Franz. From him I learned
most of these details. William was by no means a model of select
virtue—in fact, was what, in the jargon of the day, is called “rather a
fast man;” and he led Franz into many a debauch which would have driven
Schoenlein wild, had he known it; but he could not persuade him to go to
the theatre.
Franz was ready enough at a duel, and had spoiled the beauty of some
half-dozen faces by the dexterous sword-cut which draws a line over the
nose, and lays open the cheek. He was ready enough, too, with his
beer—few youths of his age had more promising talents that way: and as
to patriotic songs, energetically demanding of the universe where the
German’s fatherland might be, or the probability of tyrants long
crushing free hearts beneath their heels, together with frantic calls
upon the sword, responded to by the clatter of beer-jugs—in these Franz
was distinguished.
At last he did brush away his scruples, and accompanied William to the
theatre. They played Schiller’s _Don Carlos_. Conceive his rapture at
this first taste of the long-coveted forbidden fruit! He thought the
Marquis of Posa a demigod. But words cannot express his adoration of the
Princess Eboli, that night played by Madame Clara Kritisch. She was to
him the “vision of loveliness and light,” which an actress always is to
an impassioned youth, the first time he sees one. Her large voluptuous
eyes, her open brow, her delicate nostrils, her full and not ungraceful
figure, together with the dazzling beauty of her (theatrical)
complexion, made a powerful impression on him. Her acting seemed to him
the acting of an angel.
He left the theatre madly in love with her.
We all know what it is to be in love with an actress. We have all of us,
in the halcyon days of boyhood, offered up the incense of our young
hearts to some painted, plain, conventional, and perfectly stupid
actress, round whose head we have thrown the halo and the splendour of
our imaginations. We have had our Juliets, our Desdemonas, our Imogens,
our Rosalinds, our Violas, our Cordelias, who, though in the
flesh-and-blood reality they were good, honest, middle-aged women,
mothers of families or disreputable demireps, to us were impersonations
of the ideal—fairy visions, to whom we have written verses, whose
portraits have hung over our beds!
Therefore, having known a touch of this “exquisite fooling,” we can
sympathise with Franz. Never having seen an actress before, any hag
painted for the heroine of the night would have charmed him. But Clara
was by no means a hag: in fact, his passion was excusable, for on the
stage she was charming.
Franz went again and again, only to return home more in love than
before. He fancied she had remarked him in the pit; he fancied the smile
on her ruddy lips was a smile of encouragement addressed to him. He
wrote her a burning love-letter, which she quietly burned. He waited
impatiently for an answer, and went to the theatre expecting to read it
in her looks. He could read nothing there but her loveliness.
He wrote again; he wrote daily. He sent her quires of verses, and reams
of “transcripts of his heart,” in the form of letters. He lived a
blissful life of intense emotion. Fatherland was forgotten; the sword
was no longer called upon; all tyrants were merged in the cruel one whom
he adored.
At length he gained admittance behind the scenes; nay, more—he was
introduced to Clara.
Alas! the shock his sense of loveliness received, when he beheld before
him the fat, rouged, spangled woman, whom he had regarded as the
incarnation of beauty! Her complexion—was this its red and white? were
its roses and lilies gathered by the hare’s foot and the powder-puff?
He could not speak; the springs of his eloquence were frozen; the
delicate compliments he had so laboriously prepared, faded away in an
unmeaning stammer. The first illusion of his life was gone.
Perhaps there is nothing more striking to a young man than his first
experience of the stage behind the scenes. That which, seen from the
boxes, looks health and beauty, behind the scenes is weariness and
paint; that which in the house is poetic, behind the scenes is horrible
mechanism. What scene-painting is when looked at closely, that are
actresses seen in the green-room.
Franz was staggered, but not cured. He could not divest his heart of her
image, and began to see her again as he had always seen her. Growing
accustomed to the reality, he again beheld it in its ideal light; and as
on the stage Clara was always enchanting, she carried with her some of
the enchantment when she left it. Poor fellow! how patiently he stood
there, hungering for the merest word—the simplest look! He saw others—a
privileged few—speaking to her boldly; jesting with her; admiring her;
giving their opinions respecting her costume, as if she were an ordinary
woman, while he could only stammer out some meaningless remark. What
would he have given to feel himself at ease with her, to be familiar, so
that he might be seen to advantage!
At last he thought of a plan for making himself better known to her. He
wrote a play, in which the heroine was destined for her; and as hers was
the only character in the piece which was effective, she pronounced it
the finest thing which had been written since Schiller. Franz was in
ecstasies. She read the play herself to the manager, and exerted all her
eloquence in its behalf. But the manager saw well enough her
motive,—knew that she was so delighted with the play merely because her
part was the important one, and declined to produce it. The play gained
its author’s end however. It had established him among Clara’s friends.
She began to notice his love for her, began to recognise its
seriousness. She knew how to distinguish between the real homage of a
heart, and the lip-homage which others offered her.
There is something inexpressibly charming in knowing yourself possessed
of a heart’s first love; and women—especially those who have passed the
first flush of youth—are more gratified by the love of a boy, than by
that of twenty men. A boy’s love has something in it so intense, so
absorbing, so self-forgetting! It is love, and love only, unmixed with
any thoughts of responsibilities; looking forward to no future,
reflected by no past. There is a bloom on first love. Its very
awkwardness is better than grace; its silence or imperfect stammerings
more eloquent than eloquence; there is a mute appeal in its eyes, which
is worth all the protestations in the world.
Clara, who had been accustomed to the admiration of _roués_, felt the
exquisite charm of this boy’s love. In a few weeks he became her
acknowledged lover; and excited no little envy among the _habitués_ of
the theatre, who could not for the life of them comprehend “what the
devil she could see in that bumpkin.”
But if boys love intensely, they love like tyrants, and Clara was made a
slave. Jealous of every one who approached her, he forced her to give up
all her friends; she gave way to every caprice; she began to idolise
him.
This connexion with an actress, as may easily be foreseen, led to
Franz’s adopting the profession of the stage. Clara taught him in a few
months that which ordinary actors take years to acquire; but this was
owing to his hereditary dramatic talent more than to her instruction.
His appearance on the stage, which would, he knew, profoundly hurt his
father, was not the mere theatrical ambition which possesses most young
men: it was stern necessity; it was the only profession open to him, for
he had married Clara!
Yes! he, the boy of one-and-twenty, had married a woman of
five-and-thirty! It was a mad act—the recklessness or delirium of a boy:
but it was an act which has too many precedents for us to wonder at it.
He had by this act separated himself, he feared, from his father for
ever. His only hope of pardon was, as he fondly thought, dramatic
success. Could his father but see him successfully following in his
footsteps, he would surely forgive him. It was a proud moment—that boy’s
triumphant debut; proud because he had succeeded, proud because his
pardon was purchased—as he thought!
Franz had only played a few weeks, and Germany was ringing with his
praises. So great was his success, that when a few critics and actors
whose judgments were all _traditional_, objected that he could not be a
good actor because he had not gradually worked his way upwards, they
were speedily silenced by the incontestible fact that he _was_ a great
actor. A brilliant engagement had been offered him at Berlin; and he was
about to appear on the same stage with his father, before that father
had the faintest suspicion of his son’s ever having entered a theatre.
CHAPTER IV.
The curtain fell. Franz had reappeared to receive the enthusiastic
homage of the audience, and was now in his room undressing, when the
door opened, and his father stood before him.
Instead of rushing into his arms, Franz stood confused, blushing,
trembling. The haggard sternness of his father’s face told but too
plainly with what feelings he was regarded.
It was a moment of cruel silence.
The position was humiliating. With his clothes scattered about the room;
with the paint still unwashed from his face; with his room in
disorder;—swords, playbills, theatrical dresses, a wig, a rouge-pot, and
washing-stand, lying about; himself in the undignified attitude of
drawing on his stockings;—all combined to present the miserable and
prosaic side of his profession to the angry glance of an incensed
parent.
“So!” said the old man, “these are your theological studies! This is the
end of all my care! you have disobeyed me. You have destroyed all my
hopes, and gone upon the stage, for which you well know my detestation.
I find you _thus_!”
Franz could make no answer.
“While I fondly believed you still at the university, pursuing an
honourable career—a career useful to mankind and honourable to
yourself—you were like a runaway apprentice taking to this odious life.”
“But, sir,—I have succeeded!”
“So much the worse!”
“Is not that my excuse?”
“No; it is your condemnation.”
“Surely, father, it proves that I have chosen right. It proves I have a
vocation for the stage?”
“It only proves your disobedience. Vocation, indeed! Any man has a
vocation for the stage: any man who has brains, and is not physically
too weak to utter the thoughts of an author. Vocation! You might as well
tell me you had a vocation for the highway—and if you had robbed a man,
by placing a pistol to his head, and bidding him stand and deliver, that
your success was your excuse!
“Is it not enough,” pursued Schoenlein, after a pause, “that there
should be _one_ actor in the family: one whose necessities have driven
him on the stage, and who, once there, is forced to remain there?”
“But I, for my part, see nothing reprehensible in the life of an actor.”
“I do.”
Franz saw there was no appeal from such a decision, so he dressed
himself in silence.
He was hurt, angry. He expected that his father would have been
delighted with his performance, would have rejoiced in his success. To
be treated like a schoolboy, to hear such tones and see such looks,
irritated him.
“Come with me to my hotel,” said Schoenlein, as Franz completed his
dressing.
They had not taken many steps before a stout middle-aged woman,
enveloped in a fur cloak, said to Franz:
“_Lieber Franz_, the carriage is waiting.”
Schoenlein did not hear the whispered reply, but strode hastily onwards:
his son followed.
“Who was that,” he inquired, as they came out into the street, “who
called you _Lieber Franz_?”
“Oh! that—an actress—one of our company—Madame Kritisch.”
“Hm!” growled the old man; but he did not speak again till they reached
the hotel. Arrived there, they went up into his room.
“Franz, my dear boy,” said Schoenlein, with great tenderness, “you must
promise me to quit this life, and I will forget that you have ever
disobeyed me. Let us look on it as a boyish freak, now over.”
Franz was silent.
“It is your father who speaks. Remember he is your best friend; and he
earnestly implores you to quit a career which even success can only make
a gilded disgrace. Will you promise me this?”
He felt very uncomfortable, and knew not what answer to make.
“You are young,” pursued his father; “young and hopeful. You look as yet
only to the bright side of life, and see only the pleasures of the
stage. You think it glorious to be applauded, to have your name in the
mouths of men, your portrait in shop windows. In a little while all this
applause will pall upon your ear; all these portraits will look like so
many signs of your disgrace, and caricatures of yourself. The charm will
pass away, and you will feel yourself to be a mountebank, painted to
amuse a gaping crowd! Then the wear and tear of the profession, its
thousand petty irritations and miserable anxieties, will be as stings of
wretchedness, and you will curse the day you first trod upon a stage.
“Look at me!” he said, suddenly pausing in the angry walk which he was
taking up and down the room. “Have _I_ not been successful? have _I_ not
been flattered, envied? have _I_ not known what it is to be a great
tragedian, to dictate terms to managers, to sway audiences? Have _I_ not
known all this? And yet, since you can remember me, have you ever seen
me happy? Is not my life an example? Does not my whole life cry out to
you, Beware! Will you not profit by the bitter lessons of my
experience?”
“But, my dear father, you forget one thing: you have always looked upon
the profession with disgust. I do not.”
“You will learn to do so.”
“I cannot believe it. You are the only actor in Germany who thinks so.
Besides, I have, as it seems to me, a real vocation.—You may sneer, but
a vocation is necessary in this as in all other professions. It is quite
clear that I have none for theology. I must get my bread somehow.”
“Your bread? Franz, listen to me. So fixed is my opinion, that if you
will obey me, from this time forward you shall have the whole of my
earnings. I have already saved enough to satisfy my own humble wants. I
will devote every shilling to furthering and maintaining you in any
profession you choose to select. You shall not say that necessity made
you—as it has made _me_—an actor.”
“I cannot accept such a sacrifice.”
“It is none. I would sacrifice every thing rather than see you on the
stage! Besides, in another year or two you may make a rich marriage. I
have already agreed with our old friend Schmidt, that you should be
united to his daughter Bertha, and her dowry will be very large.”
A deep, deep blush overspread Franz’s face, which was succeeded by a
deathlike paleness, as his father mentioned marriage.
“How can I ever break my marriage to him!” was his mental exclamation.
“Will you promise me?”
“I cannot. Believe me, it distresses me thus to disobey you, but I
cannot quit the stage.”
“I have failed to convince you then? You misapprehend my motives. You
think, perhaps”—and here an affected laugh of irony gave tenfold force
to the words—“that I am jealous of you?”
“Oh, father!” exclaimed Franz.
But his father’s words and tone had, as in a flash of light, suddenly
revealed the real feeling in his heart: he _was_ jealous, and his son
perceived it.
Do not, however, suppose that the old man was aware of this feeling; he
would have shuddered at the accusation. Blinding himself with all sorts
of sophistications, he attributed his horror at Franz’s adoption of the
stage to his very sincere disgust to that profession; and because he
really did in his own person feel an actor’s life was disgraceful, even
sinful, he fancied his objection to Franz’s being an actor was wholly
derived from that feeling. But in the depths of his heart he was
horribly jealous. He had learned to hate Franz as a rival, before he
knew him to be his son. Critics had maddened him by their comparisons.
Franz had been pointed out as the actor who was to eclipse him. And now
that he found Franz was his son, instead of rejoicing in his success,
instead of feeling proud that at any rate his rival was his son, and
that the genius which dethroned him was derived from himself—instead of
the consolation which another father would have received, he was
assailed by the bitterest thoughts at the idea of his son being an
actor! He was incensed at such disobedience, at such violation of all
his wishes; and attributed to his anger all he really felt of jealousy.
There is something so painful in the idea of a father being jealous of
his son, that many will be tempted to pronounce it impossible. Rare it
fortunately is, but not impossible. Who has not known women jealous of
their daughters: women preserving their beauty, and followed by homage,
till their girls are old enough to dispute and bear away the palm from
them? If this is not uncommon—and more than one instance must occur
within every reader’s experience—what is to prevent the same principle
applying in a man’s case? You have only to imagine the vanity pampered
by flattery into an unhealthy condition, and then bring in a rival—no
matter whom—and the thing is done. Either the father’s vanity will be
caressed by the reflection of the child’s success, (and this, happily,
is the commoner case,) or it will be irritated at the child’s
interference with its claims.
In Schoenlein’s case must be added the strange but intense dislike with
which he regarded the profession of an actor. Had there been no rivalry
in the case, had Franz been only a tolerable actor, he would still have
been excessively irritated. But for his son to be an actor, and for the
public to prefer him as an actor to his father—this was agonising!
He grew eloquent in his exhortations. Finding it was in vain to make
Franz share his religious opinions, he endeavoured to dissuade him by
painting all the dangers of the profession—its pangs, its weariness, its
disappointments—painted the disagreeable ordeal he himself had been
forced to undergo; and speaking, as he thought, to accomplish his son’s
welfare, he was eloquent.
This much is to be said for fathers who object to their sons following
their own careers: the struggles by which they have won their way, the
sorrows which have been forced upon them, the dangers they have
escaped—these are all so vividly present to their minds, that they
believe them inseparable from the career. Who shall say that another
will escape these perils? All the delight, all the rapture of hope and
of success are forgotten, or else weigh but as a feather in the scale
against these perils. A father says:—
“It is true I escaped; but I was fortunate. Besides, I had genius,—I had
rectitude,—I had strength of will. My poor boy, (and fathers are apt to
look with a sort of compassion on their children: is it because the
children have, from infancy upwards, looked to them for pity and
protection?)—my poor boy will not be able to buffet with the world as I
did! He will be led away by temptations; he will succumb beneath
adversity!”
In proportion to the precariousness of the profession is the reluctance
of the parent. Poets never wish their sons to be poets; certainly not to
trust to poetry for their livelihood. Nor do artists desire their sons
to be artists. Actors almost universally shudder at the idea of their
children becoming actors.
So that Schoenlein’s remonstrances would have been vehement, even had he
not been tormented with jealousy. But, from the moment Franz perceived
the real state of his father’s mind, all compunction vanished. No
arguments could have made him quit the stage; but now he felt his
father’s arguments to be insults.
“I hope you do not misunderstand me,” said the old man. “You must know
me well enough to believe that no one would more rejoice in your
success—that to no one should I be so proud to transmit my laurel crown,
if it were not lined with iron, which brands the forehead with disgrace.
I am growing old, and am soon about to leave the stage for ever: to whom
could I so fitly leave the inheritance of my renown, did I not perceive
that it would entail lasting misery upon him, as it has entailed it upon
me? No, no, you must relinquish this boyish notion,—you shall marry
Bertha Schmidt, and quit the stage for ever.”
“Oh, do not ask it!”
“I do more than ask it—I command!”
“Do not—dear father—do not force me to disobey you.”
“You—you will _not_ leave the stage?”
“I—I cannot! It would be hypocrisy in me to pretend it. I have a passion
for the stage; and whether that passion lead me to happiness or to ruin,
I _must_ gratify it.”
“And think you Bertha will marry an actor?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Are you indifferent to that?”
“Why—the truth is—I cannot marry her.”
“You cannot? You shall!”
“I love another!”
“You love another!” angrily exclaimed his father; and then adding, with
a sneer—
“Some _actress_, I presume!”
Franz coloured.
“It _is_ so,” said his father. “Old Clara Kritisch, I shouldn’t wonder!”
A deeper blush overspread Franz’s face, and a look of anger shot from
his eyes, as his father contemptuously let fall those words.
Franz loved his wife; but he knew the disparity between them. She was
not old to him, for he loved her,—was happy with her; but although to
him she was as young as a bride, he knew what others said of her—what
others thought of her. For himself he felt that
“Age could not wither, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety;”
yet he trembled at his father’s knowing she was his wife.
Schoenlein, who had observed the blush on Franz’s countenance, walked up
to him and, placing one hand upon his shoulder, said—
“Franz, Franz, beware! You are on the edge of an abyss: the worst
temptations of our miserable profession beset you. Beware of that artful
old woman:—do not frown, she is artful,—I have heard of her! She has
ruined more young men than any woman now upon the stage. She has
ensnared you;—do not attempt to deny it,—I see it in your countenance.
She has flattered and cajoled you. She has lured you with languishing
looks and sweet low words. You are already her dupe;—beware lest you
become her victim!”
“I cannot,” said Franz, rising wrathfully, “I must not, I will not, hear
this language of her.”
“You must and shall hear it. Why should I hesitate to utter the contempt
I feel for that _refuse_ of a hundred libertines!”
Franz was purple with suppressed passion, and, with terrible calmness,
said:—
“You are speaking, sir, of MY WIFE!”
Schoenlein’s lower jaw fell; his eyes became glazed, and, slowly sinking
on the sofa, he waved his hand for his son to withdraw.
CHAPTER V.
The following week Schoenlein was again in Berlin, and playing three
nights a-week—a thing quite unprecedented with him. All his repertory
was brought forward. A sort of rage possessed him. He was tormented with
the idea of producing such an effect upon the public as should perfectly
eclipse his rival and son.
With true actor’s ingenuity in such matters, he gave the preference to
his son’s favourite parts. He hoped, by repeatedly performing them ere
Franz arrived, he should weary the public of those plays, and so prevent
large audiences welcoming the new actor. He hoped, also, that by this
means the public would better appreciate the difference between his
finished style and the crude energy of his rival. The consequence of
this procedure he expected to be,—small audiences and unfavourable
criticisms. By these he hoped to disgust his son, and so wean him from
the stage.
Unhappily, he was so goaded by the desire to produce a greater effect
than heretofore, as to act much worse than heretofore. He overdid every
thing. He was too violent; his contrasts were too marked; the
elaboration was painful. People lamented his exaggeration, and began to
whisper that his day was gone.
Franz appeared. Young, handsome, ambitious, full of hope and
energy—around him the charm which always belongs to novelty, and within
him the inappreciable wealth of genius—how could he fail to produce a
deep impression? The calculation of his rival turned out a mistake: so
far from the public keeping away because they had so recently seen the
pieces performed, they flocked to the house because they wished to
compare the two rivals in the same parts. As in the case of all
well-known plays, the attraction was in the actor, not in the piece.
Berlin never witnessed such a debut. Franz was called sixteen times
before the curtain to receive their boisterous homage. The whole town
was in a state of excitement. Every body talked about him; every body
compared him with Schoenlein—to the general disadvantage of the latter;
and the secret of the relationship soon transpired, which led to endless
discussion. The actors mostly stood by Schoenlein: they do not like new
favourites. But the public, undisguisedly, unequivocally preferred
Franz.
Exasperated by what he called the fickleness of the public, Schoenlein
went to Dresden, there to eclipse the remembrance of his son. He played
to crowded houses. But if at Berlin he overacted, at Dresden he “tore
the passion to tatters.” Instead of crushing Franz’s reputation he
nearly ruined his own. One paper had the malice to recommend him to
retire from the stage.
He did retire; but not till after a fearful struggle with himself, and
many a bitter reflection on the world’s ingratitude, and the
worthlessness of his efforts. He was deeply hurt. He secluded himself
from every one. In the practices of devotion, and in brooding solitude,
he endeavoured to forget the world and its frivolities. He tried to find
occupation in study, and solace in religion. But to the one he did not
bring a studious mind; to the other he did not bring a religious heart.
Lacerated with envy and humiliation, his soul found no comfort in books.
He could not forget the past; he could not shut the world from his
heart. The solemn organ strains, which stirred his soul when in church,
recalled to him the stage; still more so did the inflections of the
preacher’s voice recall it to him; he could not refrain from criticising
the preacher’s declamation.
He ceased to go to church, and tried the efficacy of lonely prayer. In
vain! The stage was for ever present before his mind. He tried to
renounce the world, but the world held possession of his heart. His
renunciation was not prompted by weariness, but by rage: the world
weighed not too heavily and sorely upon his spirit, making him weary,
making him yearn “for the wings of the dove, to flee away and be at
rest;” on the contrary, he was only angry at his unjust appreciation.
His retreat was not misanthropy but sulking. He could not forget his
defeat.
Months passed away in this unavailing struggle.
Suddenly he reappeared upon the stage. His reappearance created intense
interest, and the theatre trembled with applause. The public was so glad
to see its old favourite again! Schoenlein’s heart bounded, as of old,
responsive to that thunder of applause; but the joy was transient: his
pride was soon once more to be laid low. That very public, which had
welcomed him so enthusiastically, grew indifferent by the end of the
week. In truth his acting had lost its former grandeur. Flashes of the
old genius there still were, from time to time, but they only served to
make more obvious the indifference of the whole performance. People
shook their heads, and said, “He was certainly grown too old for the
stage.”
He never reappeared.
Meanwhile Franz continued his triumphant career. He played at almost
every town in Germany; and even the old men thought him superior to the
actors of “their day.” The greatest triumph an actor can achieve is to
make the “laudator temporis acti” forget for a moment the illusions of
his youth, and confess that, even seen through the magnifying mist which
envelops and aggrandises the past, this living actor is as great as
those who are no more.
But Franz, amidst his brilliant success, was far from happy. The stage
was the scene of his triumphs, but home was the scene of his despair. He
was in a false, a very false position. Petted and idolised by the
loveliest women in Germany, he had learned to look upon his wife as what
she was—a woman past her prime, faded in beauty, insignificant in mind.
He began to blush for her! This is perhaps the cruellest torture a
husband can know, because it affects his self-love as keenly as his
love. It is a torture which generally results from such ill-assorted
unions. Slowly had the conviction dawned upon him—but it had come. He
struggled against it, but it would not be set aside; it pressed on and
on, till at last it fairly gained admittance into his mind, and made him
wretched.
For observe, it was not her faded beauty which made him blush—it was not
that she was so much older—it was because this faded insignificant woman
was fretful, jealous, ungenerous, and unprincipled. The perception of
these faults of disposition opened his eyes to the perception of her
faults of person; they raised the question in his mind—_who_ is this
whose jealousy irritates, whose fretfulness distresses me? He began to
scrutinise her, and the scales fell from his eyes!
“My dear Clara,” he said to her one day, “what in heaven’s name has
changed you so? You used to be cheerful—now you are unbearably peevish.”
“And what has changed _you_ so, Franz?”
“I am not aware of any change!”
“No!” she said ironically.
“In what, pray?”
“You used to be fond and attentive, and now you are cold and
neglectful.”
“If I am so, whose fault is it?”
“Lieschen Flemming’s. Oh, yes! pretend astonishment; but I see clearly
enough. Your tenderness _on_ the stage with her is so well acted,
because you have so often rehearsed it in private.”
“Clara! Clara! this jealousy is insupportable!”
“Yes, yes—that is the answer I always receive; but it is no answer to my
accusation.”
“Why, Lieschen is betrothed to Fechter!”
“What matters that? Are _you_ not married to me—and does that interfere
with your making love to her?”
“This is perfectly ridiculous! Last week you were jealous of Rosa Behr,
because she played Juliet; now it is Lieschen Flemming, because she
plays Gretchen. I presume every actress whom I have to make love to on
the stage will come under your suspicions?”
“Every one to whom I see you making evident love. I know I am old. I
have lost the charm I once had in your eyes.”
“This is not the way to regain it,” he said, as he put on his hat and
angrily left the room.
He that day confessed to himself that she was old, that she had lost the
charm which once had captivated him! But Franz was a man of honour; and
although he found himself in this false position, he resolved to support
his lot with courage. He was wedded to a woman too old for him, unsuited
to him; but the wedding had been his act and desire. It had been the
crown upon his hopes. He had loved her—been happy with her. He could not
forget that. And although divorces are easily obtained in Germany, he
could not bring himself to abandon her, to separate from her, now she
was past her prime. He had offered her an independence if she wished to
part from him; but she did not wish to part—she still clung to the idea
of regaining his lost affection—and made home miserable as a means of
regaining it!
For five years did Franz drag about with him this load of wretchedness.
To render his situation still more pitiable, he became conscious that he
loved another. Madame Röckel’s youngest daughter—a sweet innocent girl
of eighteen—had conceived a passion for the young tragedian, which her
artless nature had but ill concealed. Franz read it in her eyes, in her
tones, in her confusion; and reading it, he also read in his own heart
that her passion was returned.
He left Berlin in two days after the discovery, with bitter curses on
his youthful error, which had yoked him to a woman he could no longer
love, and which had shut him for ever from the love of another.
Then, indeed, the thought of a divorce rose constantly before him; but
he wrestled with the temptation, and subdued it. He resolved to bear his
fate. His only hope was that death might interpose to set him free!
CHAPTER VI.
If in these brief sentences I have indicated the misery of Franz’s
condition—the depth of the shadows which accompanied the lustre of his
success—if I have truly presented the main outlines of his domestic
history, the reader will imagine Franz’s feelings when a hand as
friendly as that of death did interfere to set him free.
Clara ran away with the low comedian of the troop!
She had worn away in tears and fretfulness all the affection she once
had felt for Franz, and having inspired a sort of passion in the breast
of this comedian, lent a willing ear to his romantic proposal of an
elopement. To a woman of her age an elopement was irresistible!
She fled, and left Franz at liberty.
The very day on which Franz received this intelligence he had to perform
in Kotzebue’s _Menschenhass und Reue_ (our “Stranger.”) He went to the
theatre extremely agitated. Great as was his delight at being released
from his wife, and released by no act of his own—he could not think
without a shudder upon the probable fate which awaited her; and a
remembrance of his former love and happiness with her returned to make
him sad.
It happened that old Schoenlein had that night been seized with a sudden
impulse to see his son act, and had gone privately into the _parterre_.
It was the first time he saw his son acting—for on that Dresden night he
_saw_ nothing—a mist was before his eyes. He was now sufficiently calm
to be critical.
Franz played the wronged husband with such intense feeling, such depth
of passion, such thrilling intonation of voice, that the old man shared
the rapture of the audience, and wept tears of joy and of pride as he
confessed that his son was really a great actor.
The curtain had no sooner descended than Schoenlein, hurrying out of the
house, went round to the stage-door, knocked at his son’s dressing-room,
and in another instant had fallen on his shoulders, sobbing—“My boy! my
dear, dear Franz! you have conquered me!”
“My dear father!” exclaimed Franz, pressing him convulsively to his
heart.
“Franz, I retract all that I have said. I forgive you. You have a real
vocation for the stage!”
This happy reconciliation was soon followed by the betrothal of Franz
Schoenlein to Matilda Röckel; and the old man had not only the delight
of seeing his son wedded to a woman worthy of him, but also to hear him
announce his intention of retiring for ever from the stage. He had
realised an independence, and the stage was connected with too many
disagreeable associations for him not to quit it on this opening of a
new era in his life.
THE MOSCOW RETREAT.
“It is scarcely necessary,” says Mr Rellstab, in the preface to an early
edition of his romance of “1812,” “for the author to confess how largely
he has availed himself of Ségur’s narrative of the Russian campaign. It
will be evident to all readers that he has followed, at times almost
word for word, the descriptions of that skilful historian.” Without
taxing Mr Rellstab with exceeding the romance-writer’s legitimate
privilege in thus largely helping himself from the pages of General
Count Ségur, we may congratulate him on having had as a guide, in the
historical portions of his book, so admirable a work as the _Histoire de
Napoleon et de la Grande Armée_. As interesting as any romance, it at
the same time conveys the conviction that the author has determined to
merit the character of historian, and to avoid that of the retailer of
campaigning gossip and anecdotes. Indeed one often feels disappointed
and almost vexed at the extreme brevity with which the Count refers to
all matters not strictly essential to the history of the grand army and
great chief whose history, during the brief existence of the former and
the first reverses of the latter, he undertakes to portray. He dismisses
in three lines many an incident of strange romance or thrilling horror,
whose details one would gladly see extended over as many pages. Mr
Rellstab has cleverly availed himself of this dignified and military
conciseness, improving upon hints, and filling up blanks. With a few
bold dashes of his graphic pen, Count Ségur furnishes the rough sketch;
this his German follower seizes, adds figures, tints, and names, and
expands it into a picture. The account in “1812” of the retreat from
Moscow to Wilna is, in fact, a poetical paraphrase of that given in
Ségur’s history; and this paraphrase Mr Rellstab, seduced by the
excellence of his text, allows somewhat to impede the progress of his
plot; or rather it protracts the book after the plot has, in all
essential respects, been wound up. Nevertheless, as we have already
said, this paraphrase, which may be considered in some degree
supplementary or parenthetical, is the best part of the work; and Mr
Rellstab displays great power of pen, and artistical skill, in his
handling and adaptation of the materials furnished by his French leader.
The last strictly original chapters of the romance are those composing
the eleventh book, commencing immediately after Ludwig is rescued by
hostile peasants from death at the hands of his own friends. Here for a
while we lose sight of the fugitive army, and abide amongst the
Russians.
The chief ground of apprehension with the Russian nobles, upon
Napoleon’s invasion of their country, was lest he should proclaim the
emancipation of the serfs, and thus enlist in his behalf millions of
oppressed peasants. The plan occurred, and was suggested to the French
Emperor, but various considerations deterred him from attempting its
realisation. He apprehended a frightful amount of license and excess
amongst a barbarous people thus suddenly released from bondage.
Tremendous destruction of property, and frightful massacres of the
higher classes, were the almost certain results. He might succeed in
raising the storm, but he could never hope to guide it. Moreover,
although the child of revolution, his sympathies were not with the
masses. The Russian landholders, however, did not reckon upon his
forbearance, and took every means in their power to counteract any
propagandist projects he might have in view. “In the first place,” says
Ségur, “they worked upon the minds of their unfortunate serfs,
brutalised by every kind of servitude. Their priests, in whom they are
accustomed to confide, misled them by deceitful discourse, persuading
these peasants that we were legions of demons, commanded by
Antichrist,—infernal spirits, whose aspect excited horror, and whose
contact polluted. Our prisoners perceived that when they had used a dish
or vessel, their captors would not touch it again, but kept it for the
most unclean animals. As we advanced into the country, however, it was
natural that the clumsy fables of the priests should lose credit with
their dupes. But, on our approach, the nobles recede with their serfs
into the interior of the land, as from the advance of some mighty
contagion. Riches, habitations, all that could delay them or serve us,
are sacrificed. They place hunger, fire, the desert, between us and
them; for it is as much against their serfs as against Napoleon that
this great resolution is executed. It is not a mere war of kings, but a
war of classes and of parties, a religious war, a national war, every
kind of war united in one.” Stimulated to hatred of the intruding
foreigners by those they most feared and respected—by their owners,
namely, and their priests—the peasant-slaves of Russia perpetrated
frightful cruelties upon those unfortunate Frenchmen who fell into their
hands; cruelties admitted and abundantly illustrated by Mr Rellstab,
although his predilections are upon the whole rather Russian than
French. It is only justice to say, however, that in all the historical
portions of his romance he displays great impartiality, and puts himself
above national antipathies, taking a cosmopolitan view of the causes,
conduct, and progress of the great struggle.
Led away by his captors to a bivouac of armed peasants in the glades of
a vast forest, Ludwig at first almost regrets having escaped the volley
of the French firing-party. A colossal Russian stretches out his hand to
appropriate his prisoner’s foraging-cap, and, upon the imprudent
resistance of the latter, raises a club to dash out his brains. Ludwig
deems himself no better than a dead man, when suddenly a woman’s scream
is heard, and a figure clad in costly furs rescues him from the fierce
savage. A veil is thrown back, and Ludwig beholds Bianca, who possesses
a castle in the neighbourhood, the same which the Polish lancers had
surprised upon her wedding-night. It is not quite clear what has brought
her into the forest among beastly Cossacks and bloodthirsty peasants,
unless it were to meet Ludwig. The sights she there meets are not all of
the most agreeable kind. Whilst the enraptured Ludwig kneels before her,
kissing her hand and weeping, a horseman, whose noble steed and rich
dress bespeaks the man of rank, dashes into the circle, and sternly
inquires the reason of this strange scene between the lady and the
captive dragoon. It is Count Dolgorow, who interrupts Bianca’s
explanation by suddenly springing from his horse, and seizing the
scoundrel Beaucaire, his former secretary, whom his quick eye has
distinguished in the group of prisoners. By a strange fatality, his
betrayer and his rescuer are together delivered into his hands. He
gratifies revenge before showing gratitude, and has the traitor
precipitated into one of the huge bivouac fires that blaze around.
Before this we have met with a French grenadier impaled alive in a wood,
and with a party of Russians setting up their captives as targets. There
is no scarcity of the horrible in Mr Rellstab’s pages, but without it
the retreat from Moscow could not be faithfully described. After
Beaucaire has been roasted, Bianca recovered from her swoon, and Ludwig
presented to the Count—who admits, but with no very good grace, his
claims to gratitude and consideration—the other prisoners are sorted.
The able-bodied are sent to the Count’s hunting-seat, thence to be
forwarded to the mines. To those unfit to work, Russia, says Dolgorow,
can afford no other nourishment than two ounces of lead. One man only is
put aside as too old for labour. This is St Luces, Beaucaire’s employer
and Ludwig’s persecutor.
“St Luces, not having understood the Count’s words, fancied that, from
his appearance and fine linen, and from his clothes (of which, however,
he was by this time pretty well stripped,) his captors had discovered
him to belong to the higher classes. The pallid horror which had spread
over his features since the terrible fate of Beaucaire, was replaced by
a faint gleam of hope. He ventured to address the Count in French.
“‘I trust, sir,’ he said, ‘I shall be treated in conformity with those
laws of war which all civilised nations respect. I am not a military
man, but belong to the civil service; my rank—’
“‘You are a Frenchman,’ sternly interrupted Dolgorow—‘one of those
vampires who have sucked the blood and marrow out of half the nations of
Europe; more contemptible and odious than the soldier, for he, at least,
fights with fair and open weapons.’
“‘They would willingly,’ persisted St Luces, again trembling with
apprehension, ‘exchange me against Russian prisoners!’
“‘Prisoners! what prisoners have you?’ cried Dolgorow with bitter scorn.
‘Thousands, certainly are set down in your bulletins, but where can you
show them? You do wrong to remind me of that. Think you we know not how
your ruthless assassin bands have treated the few who fell into their
hands? Think you we have not found them, lying with shattered skulls
upon the roads in rear of your flying columns? Did we not meet with them
shut up in churches, barns, and stables, dead in the pangs of famine?
Away with ye! We shall find enough to exchange, when exchange we
_will_.’”[9]
Discoveries and surprises now tread rapidly on each other’s heels. A
German in the service of Count Dolgorow recognises Ludwig as the son,
and St Luces as the murderer of his former master; whereupon Ludwig
generously intercedes for the Frenchman’s life, but is sternly repulsed
by the Count, and St Luces is forthwith shot. Then, upon their way to
Bianca’s castle, Ludwig and his mistress stumble upon Bernard, lying
senseless in the road. They pick him up and take him with them, in spite
of danger from wolves and of the anger of Countess Dolgorow, impatient
to proceed. At the castle Bernard and Bianca discover, by the somewhat
hackneyed contrivance of identical rings, that they are brother and
sister, and soon afterwards the Count becomes aware of the good
understanding between them, and that Bianca knows she is not his
daughter. These meetings and recognitions thwarting certain deep-laid
plans, he resolves to forward Ludwig and Bernard to Siberia; but before
he can do so, the two young men, with Bianca and Willhofen the German
servant, make their escape by the aid of some French prisoners, and take
the road to Smolensko, with the intention of joining the French army and
seeking refuge in Germany.
Meanwhile Rasinski, with the shattered remnant of his gallant regiment,
now reduced to a feeble squadron of sixty horses, forms part of the
rear-guard under the hero Ney. We will give a specimen of Mr Rellstab’s
adaptation of Ségur.
“‘Rasinski!’ suddenly exclaimed Jaromir, ‘do you see yonder on the
rising ground?’
“‘Cossacks! And I wager my head they are not alone!’ replied Rasinski.
“Upon the heights appeared three horsemen, seemingly thrown forward to
reconnoitre. They were soon remarked by all; and there occurred in the
French ranks that restless stir and low murmur, betokening the
expectation of an important event.
“‘Jump on your horse, Jaromir,’ said Rasinski, ‘and ride to the corner
of the forest; thence you will see far over the country.’
“Jaromir, now the best mounted in the regiment, sped swiftly across the
snow, in obedience to the order. But he returned even more rapidly, to
announce that the entire heights were covered with Cossacks, and that
infantry columns were debouching from the depths of the forest.
“Just then Colonel Regnard, who by the marshal’s order had also been out
to reconnoitre, rode by. ‘This looks like work, Rasinski,’ he cried in
passing; ‘the ball opens just like the day before yesterday. The wood is
as full of Russians as an anthill of ants.’ The drums beat. The troops
stood to their arms. The disorderly groups of weaponless stragglers and
invalids formed themselves into a dense mass.
“‘For us the fight is a pleasure,’ exclaimed Rasinski; ‘but it is hard
upon Boleslaw and the other wounded. We must do our best to shield them
from harm. But who comes here?’
“A Russian officer was seen descending the hill, waving a white
handkerchief.
“‘Useless trouble, sir,’ said Rasinski proudly to himself, as he
distinguished the Russian’s object. ‘We shall not treat for peace so
long as we can handle our arms.’
“The marshal was busy placing and ordering his troops. He galloped
through the ranks, showing himself every where, directing and
encouraging all. Rasinski sent an orderly to report to him the approach
of a flag of truce. But before the message reached him, the Russian
officer reached the outposts, and, on distinguishing the Polish uniform,
summoned them in their own language to surrender to overpowering forces.
Rasinski sprang forward like an incensed lion. ‘What!’ he shouted, ‘you
would seduce our men, incite them to desert! That is not the duty of a
flag of truce. You are my prisoner!’
“The alarmed officer would have turned his horse, but Rasinski already
held the bridle, and his soldiers surrounded the Russian so quickly that
resistance and flight were alike impossible.
“‘You will surely respect the sacred rights of a flag of truce!’ cried
the Russian.
“‘You should have waited at proper distance, till you knew if it pleased
us to receive you,’ replied Rasinski. ‘It is against all usage of war to
approach an enemy’s army as you have done.’
“‘Take me to your commander,’ said the officer, ‘he will listen to my
well-intended offers. The bravest must yield to impossibility. You have
no alternative but capitulation.’
“‘We shall see that,’ answered Rasinski, well assured beforehand of the
marshal’s decision. ‘Here comes our commander, Marshal Ney. That name
may suffice to convince you that you will waste your words.’
“The marshal came; Rasinski rode to meet him and reported what had
passed.
“‘You have done your duty as an officer and man of honour,’ replied Ney;
‘I should take shame to myself did I hesitate to confirm your words.’
And he rode forward and inquired the Russian’s pleasure.
“‘Marshal Kutusow sends me,’ began the officer. ‘He would not offend so
renowned a warrior and general by asking him to lay down his arms, if
any alternative remained open. Upon the surrounding heights stand eighty
thousand men, and one hundred pieces of cannon. If you doubt my words,
you are at liberty to send an officer, whom I will conduct through our
ranks that he may count our strength.’
“‘I hope to get near enough to your army to count them myself,’ replied
the marshal with flashing eyes. ‘Tell Prince Kutusow that Marshal Ney
has never yet surrendered, and that the world’s history shall never
record his having done so. Yonder is the goal which duty and honour
assign me; I will break a road through your ranks, though your forests
became armies.’
“‘They _will_ do so,’ replied the Russian. The words had scarce left his
lips, when the thunder of artillery echoed from the heights in front and
on the left flank, and an iron hail crashed and rattled upon the icy
surface of the plain.
“‘This is treachery!’ cried the marshal sternly, as he looked up and
beheld the hills crowned on all sides with levelled guns, and dark
masses of troops. ‘There is no parleying under fire! You are my
prisoner!’
“The officer, confounded at being thus sacrificed by the imprudence or
recklessness of his friends, gave up his sword.
“‘Take him to the rear!’ commanded the marshal. ‘General Ricard,
forward! Attack the enemy with the bayonet. You shall have the honour of
opening the road.’
“The general, at the head of fifteen hundred men, pressed resolutely
forward.”
Everybody who has read Ségur, and those who have not had better begin
immediately, knows how these fifteen hundred men were swept away by
Kutusow’s artillery; how Ney in person headed the next charge; and how,
after losing more than half his division, he retreated towards
Smolensko, made a flank movement, again returned southwards, and at last
struck the Dnieper, and crossed it with the remnant of his force,
without a bridge, and on blocks of floating ice, to find, upon the
further bank, Platoff and his Cossacks, with their Scythian tactics and
sledge-mounted artillery, to which he had no cannon to oppose,—the six
guns wherewith he had audaciously returned the fire of Kutusow’s
tremendous batteries having been left, of course, on the north bank of
the river. But, after braving and escaping from the whole Russian army,
Ney was not to be intimidated by a horde of ill-disciplined savages; and
he forced his way, fighting incessantly, to the neighbourhood of Orcha,
where Eugene received him with open arms. There are only five short
days’ marches from Smolensko to Orcha; but in that little section of the
long and terrible retreat, Ney, whilst losing thousands of men daily,
gathered enough laurels to shade the brows of half a dozen heroes. We do
not envy the feelings of those, be they Russians, English, or of what
country they may, who can read, without profound emotion and admiration,
the history of Marshal Ney during the Russian campaign, and especially
during its latter and most disastrous portion. When those who previously
ranked as the bravest gave in—when pride and thirst for glory were
obliterated by extremity of suffering, and by the instinct of
self-preservation—when the soldier’s most powerful incentives,
discipline, honour, and gain, were forgotten and lost sight of, and even
the iron veterans of the Old Guard, no longer sustained by their
Emperor’s presence, renounced the contest and lay down to die—when his
fellow-marshals, with rare exceptions, showed weariness and
discouragement, and even the stern Davoust complained that the limits of
human suffering were exceeded,—where was Ney, what was his aspect, what
his words and actions? In rear of the army, a musket in his hand, a
smile of confidence on his lips, the fire of his great soul and of his
own glory flashing from his eyes, he exposed his life each minute in the
day, as freely as ever he had done when he had but life to lose, before
his valour had given him riches and rank, family and fame. Surely, so
long as valour is appreciated, the name of NEY will be borne in glorious
remembrance. And surely those men who subsequently pronounced his
sentence of death, must since have sometimes felt remorse at their share
in the untimely fate of so great a warrior. “I have saved my eagles!”
joyously exclaimed Napoleon, when he learned, at two leagues from Orcha,
that Ney was safe, although he brought with him but the ghost of his
fine division. “I would have given three hundred millions to avoid the
loss of such a man.” Although Napoleon, in some things the most
magnificent charlatan upon record, dealt largely in speeches of this
sort, we may believe that in this instance the cry came from the heart.
What would the Emperor have said, had he then been told that three years
later, on the 7th December 1815, the anniversary of one of those days
when Ney so bravely breasted the Muscovite torrent, an execution would
take place in an alley of the Luxemburg gardens, and that there, by
sentence of a French chamber and the bullets of French soldiers, a
premature end would be put to the glorious career of him he had surnamed
the Bravest of the Brave!
Previously to the junction of Ney and Eugene, Colonel Rasinski, whilst
reconnoitring in the gray of the morning, falls in with a sledge
containing three persons muffled in furs, whom he at first takes for
Russians, but who prove to be Ludwig and his two companions. Upon the
occasion of so happy a meeting, M. Rellstab is of course profuse in
tears and embraces; Jaromir and Boleslaw are summoned to assist at the
jubilee, and thenceforward the three Poles, the two Germans, Bianca, her
waiting-maid Jeannette, and the faithful Willhofen, keep together as far
as Wilna, save and except those amongst them whom death snatches by the
way. The party is soon increased by an infant, the daughter of Colonel
Regnard, and of a French actress, of which Bianca takes charge. Here
again the author of “1812” has made good and effective use of an
incident thus briefly recorded by Ségur.
“At the gates of the town (Smolensko) an infamous act struck all
witnesses with a horror that still survives. A mother abandoned her son,
a child of five years old; in spite of his cries and tears she repulsed
him from her overloaded sledge, wildly exclaiming that ‘he had not seen
France! he would not regret it! But as to her, she knew France! she must
see her country again!’ Twice did Ney have the poor child replaced in
its mother’s arms, thrice she threw it upon the frozen snow. But amongst
a thousand instances of sublime and tender devotedness, this solitary
crime was not left unpunished. This unnatural parent was herself
abandoned upon the snow, whence her victim was raised and confided to
another mother. At the Beresina, at Wilna, and Kowno, the orphan was
seen, and he finally escaped all the horrors of the retreat.”
In the romance the child is first fostered by a wounded veteran, and a
compassionate canteen woman, but is separated from them when traversing
the Dnieper, and receives the tenderest care from Bianca. On the
northern bank of the Beresina we find the principal personages of the
tale assembled, at the moment when the Russian cannon pour their
murderous contents into the dense mass of fugitives, and these, crowding
to the bridge, fall by hundreds into the water. A round-shot suddenly
shatters the front of the vehicle in which Bianca, her maid, and the
child are seated. The scene that ensues is spiritedly and naturally
told.
“The frightened horses reared furiously, and would have upset the
carriage had not the pole and fore-axle been in splinters. Willhofen
sprang forward to hold them; Ludwig and Bernard hurried to his
assistance. With streaming hair, Jeannette had already leaped from the
cart, and Bianca, unconscious of what she did, followed her example,
still closely clasping the infant.
“‘Is it alive?’ cried a voice, and at the same moment she felt herself
seized from behind. She turned, and Regnard stood before her, his right
arm in a sling: he had just made his way through the crowd of carts.
‘Oh! I have you then at last,’ he tenderly exclaimed, kissing and
caressing his child as she lay in the arms of Bianca, who, stunned with
terror and the recent shock, scarce thought of wondering at his
unexpected appearance.
“‘You here, colonel?’ cried Bernard. ‘How and whence came you?’
“‘From the fight up yonder,’ replied Regnard. ‘’Tis awful work; our
fellows stand like the walls of Troy, but all must soon be overthrown,
for the Russians bury us under their bullets.’
“‘Did you see Rasinski? Is he alive? And Boleslaw and Jaromir?’
“‘They fight like lions, like devils, those Poles; but it’s all in vain,
we cannot hold out another hour. And this defile over the bridge looks
about as tempting as the jaws of hell.’
“‘You are wounded, colonel?’
“‘My right arm shattered. My horse was knocked over by a shell; I
dragged myself as far as Studianka to seek a doctor, and found ashes and
corpses, no longer of use in the fight. I thought I would have a trial
to cross the bridge. I saw these carriages from above; I knew you had
driven up here yesterday. If I could only find you, I thought, and get a
last look at my little daughter! Laugh at me, if you like, but the
thought came like a whisper from heaven. ‘Perhaps it is the last wish
you will see fulfilled,’ said I to myself. And as if some invisible
guide had led me, I made my way to your very carriage, just as the
twelve-pounder played you the trick. Only see now how hearty the child
is; it grows like its mother! Ah! if I only had something for you, poor
darling! Were we but in Paris, that I might give you a pocketful of
bonbons!’
“And in fondling and chattering with the infant, he forgot both his
crushed arm and the destruction that raged so actively around. The storm
of shot had no terrors for him; twenty battles had accustomed him to it.
But the sweet emotions of paternal love were new to him, and a secret
voice seemed to warn him that he would not long enjoy them.
“Ludwig now came up and greeted the colonel. Bianca gave the child to
Jeannette, for Regnard, with only one arm, could not hold it, and she
felt that her strength was giving way amidst this complication of
horrors. She leaned against the wheel of the carriage. Bernard observed
her faltering, and encircling her tenderly with his arm, he kissed her
pale cheek.
“‘See yonder woman,’ he said; ‘take pattern by her; see, dearest sister!
how calm she is amidst the ravages of death.’
About twenty paces off, a tall female figure sat upon a horse, a child
of three years old in her arms, and gazed steadily at the tumult. A
black veil was twined round her head, but left her noble and striking
countenance exposed. She could but just have arrived, otherwise her
appearance was too remarkable not to have attracted attention, even in
that hour of confusion when few thought of any thing but their danger.
“‘Calm?’ said Bianca, after a long look, ‘calm, say you? Petrified, you
_should_ say. See you not the tears that roll over her rigid
countenance, and the despairing gaze she directs to heaven? Alas, poor
woman!’
“‘She is the widow of Colonel Lavagnac,’ said Regnard; ‘her husband fell
three weeks ago at Wiazma; the child in her lap is her daughter.’
“All eyes were fixed in pity on the mourning figure, when a cannon-ball
boomed through the air, and struck her and her horse to the ground. A
cry of horror escaped the bystanders. The unhappy woman had disappeared.
One could not see her for the throng. Bernard, Ludwig, and Regnard
forced a passage through the mob of men and horses, but with all their
efforts their progress was slow. Bianca followed them, led partly by
pity and partly by fear of separation from her protectors.
“Silent and uncomplaining, the lady sat upon the ensanguined snow, her
tall, dignified form supported against an overturned cart, her child
clasped in her arms. The shot had shattered both her feet, but her
infant appeared unhurt, and anxiously clasped its mother’s neck with its
little hands. None thought of succouring the poor creatures; all were
too engrossed with their own selfish misery, and few vouchsafed her more
than a passing glance as they struggled onwards. She would hardly have
escaped being trampled under foot, had not her wounded horse, lashing
out convulsively in the agonies of death, cleared a space around her.
Whilst Bernard supported his trembling sister, Ludwig and Regnard
attempted to climb over the cart which intervened between them and the
wounded lady. But at that moment the noble sufferer took a strong
hair-chain from her neck, twisted it, before any could stay her hand,
around her infant’s throat, and with a sudden exertion of strength drew
it tight. The little creature drooped its head and fell strangled on its
mother’s knees. In a last frantic convulsion, the unhappy parent clasped
her child to her bosom, gave an agonised sigh, a glance to heaven, and
fell back, dead. At that moment Ludwig and Regnard reached her, but it
was too late. Bianca hid her face in her brother’s bosom.”
A fragment of a shell knocks over the faithful Willhofen. The fire from
the Russian batteries becomes more terrible than ever, the crowd more
agitated and frantic.
“‘Let us keep together!’ cried Regnard—‘once separated, we shall never
meet again.’ And he stretched out his hand to grasp that of Ludwig, when
a ball passed between them, overthrowing the colonel.
“‘Regnard!’ cried Ludwig, springing to his assistance, ‘are you badly
hit?’
“Bernard raised the wounded man by the shoulders, and bent over him.
“‘I have got my allowance,’ said Regnard, faintly. ‘Where is my little
daughter?’
“Shuddering, but with resolute step, Bianca came forward, the child in
her arms. She kneeled beside the dying soldier and held it out to him.
Regnard looked mournfully at the little creature so soon to be an
orphan.
“‘Farewell!’ he said, kissing it for the last time. ‘You have no longer
a father—but a mother—has she not?’ added he, imploringly to Bianca.
‘Greetings to Rasinski, if he still lives to receive them. Long live the
Emperor!’
“Upon this last exclamation, uttered in a hoarse soldier-like tone, the
final breath of the dying man was expended. The next instant his soul
had fled.”
From the heights of Studianka the beaten French now pour down, and
Bianca loses her female attendant, who perishes miserably, crushed by a
gun-carriage. It will be seen that there is a considerable accumulation
of horrors at this part of the romance; but tender-hearted persons, whom
narratives of human suffering too painfully affect, will naturally avoid
a book founded on such a campaign as that of 1812. The passage of the
Beresina has been too often described to be worth dwelling upon here;
and the more so as Mr Rellstab very judiciously has not attempted to
alter or improve upon the reality, of itself sufficiently extraordinary
and harrowing. He makes Rasinski execute the famous feat of Jacqueminot,
Oudinot’s aide-de-camp, who, after swimming the Beresina in spite of the
piercing cold and of the floating blocks of ice that bruised and cut his
horse’s chest and flanks, galloped after the stragglers from Tchaplitz’s
retreating column, caught one, disarmed him, put him before him on his
horse and swam back with him to Napoleon, who had expressed a wish for a
prisoner from whom to get information.
Hopeless of crossing the crowded bridge, where a fearful struggle for
precedence now goes on amongst the mob of desperate fugitives, Bianca
and her two companions take their course up stream, still bearing with
them Regnard’s orphan daughter, and hoping to find rest and shelter by
passing themselves off as Russians. At last, seeing no signs of house or
village, they sit down in despair upon the snow and await their fate;
when, in accordance with Mr Rellstab’s practice of bringing about
opportune meetings, Rasinski and his handful of lancers ride up to them,
and after the due amount of kisses and tears, a Lithuanian peasant
guides them to a ford, and they get through the river in safety. At
Zembin they procure a small sledge, and Bernard and Ludwig urge Bianca
to hurry forward to Wilna. Neither of them offer to accompany her, which
they might with great propriety have done, seeing that they are
dismounted and useless, but propose confiding her to a wounded dragoon,
a proposal which she naturally enough declines, and declares she will
stick to the ship—in other words to the regiment—and rough it with the
rest. After which plucky decision there is no more talk of parting
company till they reach Wilna. Before getting there, however, there is
much to be gone through. For winter sets in, and the tortures of cutting
cold are added to those previously endured, slaying the sick and wounded
by hundreds of a night. Overpowered by the fatigues of the day, they lie
down to sleep beside their watchfires, and in the morning are stiff and
cold. The north-west wind suddenly surrounds the harassed Frenchmen with
the terrible atmosphere of the north pole, the air is filled with an icy
dust, lips and cheeks crack and blister, the eyes are inflamed by the
glittering whiteness of the snow. The horses die from extreme cold, and
it is just as well for their riders, who would otherwise be frozen in
their saddles. Thus Rasinski and his comrades find themselves
dismounted, and Bianca’s sledge becomes useless. They pursue their way
on foot, amidst scenes of inconceivable suffering and woe. Few of those
around them show fortitude in this extremity of misery. In some
instances despair and madness lead to violence and shameful excesses.
Bianca, whose courage rises with the necessity for exertion, is walking
supported by Ludwig’s arm, and Bernard follows at a short distance,
carrying the infant, who, unconscious of the danger, smiles cheerily in
his face, when the following incident occurs.
“At this moment a hoarse firm voice was heard in rear of Bernard.
“‘Stop, dog!’ it exclaimed. ‘Your cloak, or I shoot you dead!’
“Bernard stopped and looked round. A soldier, scantily attired in
wretched rags, his features distorted, his beard long and tangled, his
face black with earth and smoke, his eyes, frightfully inflamed, rolling
wildly in their orbits, stood before him and covered him with his
musket.
“‘What would you, wretched man?’ cried Bernard, horror-struck and
stepping backwards. The child screamed with terror, clasped its arms
around him, and hid its little head in his breast.
“‘Your warm cloak, or I shoot you down!’ shouted the frantic soldier.
‘No more comrades here; I’ve as good a right to save myself as you.’
“Bernard saw himself almost alone with the assassin; although thousands
were within hail, the bullet would be quicker than their aid, supposing
even that one amongst them had sufficient pity for another’s peril to
turn aside for a moment, and thus lengthen his journey and sufferings by
a few painful paces. There was nothing for it but to yield to the menace
and give up his warm wrapper, although he well knew that with it he gave
up his life.
“‘You would murder a comrade to prolong your own life?’ said Bernard, in
a tone of dignified determination; ‘be it so, but you will profit little
by the deed. Your hour will overtake you the sooner.’
“‘Quick, death gripes me already!’ cried the madman, his musket still
levelled and his bloodshot eyes wildly rolling.
“Bernard stooped to put down the child, which impeded him in pulling off
his coat; as he did so, he heard a loud cry, and turning, he beheld
Bianca, who threw herself weeping at the feet of the furious soldier.
“‘Take this gold, these jewels!’ she exclaimed; ‘this warm cloak is
yours, but let my brother live!’ And, with the quickness of thought, she
tore the rich chain from her neck and the furs from her shoulders,
leaving her arms and delicate frame exposed with slight covering to the
rigour of that horrible climate. The soldier gazed at her for a moment
with fixed and straining eyes, then his arms slowly sank; letting the
musket fall to the ground, he pressed both hands to his face, and broke
out in loud weeping and whimpering. By this time Ludwig came up, and he
and Bernard lifted up Bianca, who was still kneeling on the frozen
ground, and extending her arms with the proffered gifts.
“‘Wild beast that I am!’ suddenly exclaimed the stranger; ‘no, I cannot
survive this shame. Forgive me; you knew me once a better man, before
suffering drove me mad! But no matter; I know my duty.’
“He stooped to pick up his musket. Bernard kept his eyes fixed upon him,
and racked his memory for the features, which, wild and distorted though
they now were, still seemed familiar to him.
“‘Where have I known you?’ he asked, as the man resumed his erect
position.
“‘I don’t wonder you’ve forgotten me,’ was the gloomy reply; ‘I have
forgotten myself. Alive, I am no longer worthy of the Order!’ cried he
wildly, tearing from his rags the ribbon of the Legion of Honour and
throwing it upon the snow. ‘I will try to earn it again, that you may
lay it upon my body. I am my own judge, and I show no favour.’
“Setting the butt of his musket firmly on the earth, he pressed his
breast against the muzzle and touched the trigger with his foot. The
piece went off, and its unfortunate owner fell heavily to the ground.
“‘Gracious God!’ exclaimed Bianca, sinking senseless into Ludwig’s arms.
“Bernard was at the side of the fallen man, supporting his head. A last
spark of life still remained. ‘If you get to France,’ gasped the
suicide, ‘a word to my wife and children—Sergeant Ferrand—of Laon,’ and
the spirit departed. As he closed his eyes, Bernard remembered him. It
was the same Sergeant Ferrand whose humanity saved him and Ludwig from
perishing during their imprisonment at Smolensko. Military honour was
the condition of the veteran’s existence; he thought himself degraded
beyond redemption by the murderous aggression to which misery, pain, and
despair, had driven him; a woman had surpassed him in courage, and that
was more than he could bear. A rigorous judge, he had pronounced his own
doom, and executed it with his own hand.
“Deeply moved, Bernard knelt beside the body; he gathered up the scrap
of tarnished ribbon which the departed soldier had prized above all
earthly goods, and laid it upon the breast of the corpse.
“‘Who shall deprive you of it?’ he said. ‘May it adorn you beyond the
grave, amidst the throng of the valiant who have preceded you!’
“And they continued their journey, for the times admitted not of delay.”
That night they have to fight for their quarters in the village of
Malodeczno, and use their artillery for the last time, being compelled
to abandon it for the want of horses. Boleslaw is killed in the action.
Soon afterwards, the Emperor leaves the army, and his departure
dispirits even those who admit its propriety. Things get worse and
worse. Often, after a fatiguing day’s march, no shelter is obtainable,
and Bianca and her tender charge are fain to brave the inclemency of the
bivouac, whilst the men watch by turns to keep off wolves and marauders.
One night, when performing this duty, Jaromir is startled by a loud
laugh, sounding strangely horrible in that scene of misery and
desolation.
“From out of the surrounding darkness a grim figure stalked into the
circle of fire-light. It was a gigantic cuirassier, wrapped in a
tattered cloak, a bloody cloth bound round his head beneath his helmet.
In his hand he carried a young fir tree, as a staff to support his
steps.
“‘Good evening,’ he said, in a hollow voice to Jaromir. ‘Good evening,
comrade. You seem merry here.’
“‘What seek you?’ demanded Jaromir, amazed at this hideous apparition!
‘There is no place for you here. Begone!’
“The cuirassier stared at him with his hollow eyes, twisted his mouth
into a frightful grin, and gnashed his teeth like some infuriated beast.
“‘Ha, ha, ha!’ he laughed, or rather yelled; ‘Sleep you then so sound,
ye idlers?’ And as he spoke he stamped with his foot on a frozen corpse
upon which he stood. ‘Awake, awake!’ he cried, ‘and come with me!’
“For a moment he stood as if listening to some distant sound, then
tottered painfully forward to the fire.
“‘Back!’ cried Jaromir, ‘Back, or I shoot you on the spot!’ And he drew
a pistol; but his hand, trembling with fever, had not strength to level
it.
“The lunatic stared at him with stupified indifference, his sunken
features varying in their expression from a ghastly smile to the deepest
misery. Jaromir gazed at him in silent horror. The huge figure stretched
its lean arms out from under the cloak, and made strange and
unintelligible gestures.
“‘Ho! I am frozen!’ howled the human spectre at last, and shook himself.
Then he clutched at the flames with his fingers, like an infant, and
staggered nearer and nearer till he stood close to the circle of
sleepers, far within which he extended his arms. For the first time he
now seemed to feel the warmth of the fire. A low whining noise escaped
him, then he suddenly exclaimed, in tones between laughing and crying,
‘To bed! to my warm bed!’ tossed his fir-tree staff far from him,
stumbled forwards over the sleeping soldiers, and threw himself, in his
raging madness, into the centre of the glowing pile.
“‘Help, help!’ cried Jaromir, his hair erect with horror, and seizing
Rasinski, he shook him with all his remaining strength.
“‘What is it?’ cried Rasinski, raising himself.
“‘There, there!’ stammered his friend, pointing to the flames, in which
the unhappy cuirassier lay writhing and bellowing with agony. Rather
conjecturing than comprehending what had occurred, Rasinski started up
to rescue the sufferer. But it was too late. The heat had already
stifled him; he lay motionless, the flame licking greedily round his
limbs, and a thick nauseous smoke ascending in clouds from his funeral
faggots. Rasinski stepped shudderingly backward, and turned away his
face to conceal his emotion; then he observed that all around him lay
buried in a deathlike sleep. Not one had been aroused by the terrible
catastrophe that had occurred in the midst of so many living men.”
After those long days of hunger and fatigue, the bonds of slumber were
of iron strength, and difficult to loosen. And it was even more
dangerous than difficult to rob the survivors of the Grand Army of that
brief repose, often their sole solace and refreshment during the
twenty-four hours. In his turn overtaken by delirium, Jaromir’s cries
and complaints at last awoke the whole party round the fire. A low
murmur arose amongst the soldiers, and rapidly increased. Soon they cast
ominous and threatening glances at the young Pole, and at last their
discontent found a voice.
“‘Who is the madman, and what ails him?’ savagely exclaimed a bearded
grenadier. ‘He robs us of our precious sleep! Thrust him from the
fire—let him freeze if he cannot be still!’
“‘Ay, thrust him out!’ was the universal cry; and several sprang to
accomplish the barbarous deed. Bianca uttered a cry of terror; Ludwig
caught her in his right arm, and with his left kept off the assailants.
Rasinski, who at once saw the greatness of the peril, left Jaromir in
Bernard’s care, and leaped with flashing eyes into the midst of the
circle. Ever prompt and decided, he snatched a half consumed branch from
the fire, waved it above his head, and shouted with that lion’s voice so
often heard above the thunder of the battle, ‘Back, knaves! The first
step forward costs one of you his life.’
“The angry soldiers hesitated and hung back, yielding to Rasinski’s
moral ascendency as much as to his threat of punishment. But then the
grenadier drew his sabre and furiously exclaimed:—
“‘What, dastards, are ye all afraid of one man? Forward! Down with the
Polish dogs!’
“‘Down thyself, inhuman ruffian!’ thundered Rasinski, and sprang to meet
his foe. Adroitly seizing the soldier by the wrist of his uplifted arm,
so that he could not use his weapon, he struck him over the head with
the burning branch so violently, that the charred wood shivered, and a
cloud of sparks flew out. But the blow, heavy as it was, was deadened by
the thick bearskin cap, and served only to convert the angry
determination of the grenadier into foaming fury. Of herculean build,
and at least half the head taller than his opponent, he let his sabre
fall, and grappled Rasinski with the intention of throwing him into the
flames. The struggle lasted but for a moment before Rasinski tottered
and fell upon his knees. To all appearance his doom was sealed, the hero
succumbed before the overpowering strength of the brute, when Ludwig
flew to his assistance, dragged the soldier backwards, and fell with him
to the ground. Rasinski picked up the sabre, with his left hand dashed
the bearskin from the head of the fallen grenadier, and with the right
dealt him a blow that clove his skull in twain. Then, erecting his
princely form, he advanced, with the calm dignity that characterised
him, into the midst of the astounded bystanders. ‘Throw the corpse into
the snow,’ commanded he: ‘lie down again and sleep. It matters no more
than if I knocked a wolf upon the head.’
“As if he had no longer occasion for it, he threw the sabre
contemptuously from him. None dared to murmur, but two soldiers
obediently raised the bloody corpse of the fallen man, carried it a few
paces, and threw it upon the snow-covered ground.”
The following evening the little band of friends reached Wilna, but
without Jaromir, who had expired on the road. Wilna, the first inhabited
town the French army had seen since their entrance into Russia, had been
looked forward to by the fugitives who escaped from the terrible passage
of the Beresina, as a refuge and a resting-place. There they fondly
expected shelter from the cold, food for the famishing, bandages and
medicine for the wounded and the sick. But their arrival took the
Lithuanian capital by surprise. The inhabitants were still without any
certain accounts of the disasters of the French, when suddenly they
beheld their streets invaded by forty thousand ragged wretches, in whom
it was impossible to recognise the remains of those magnificent troops
which had passed through with Napoleon in the previous month of July.
The very impatience of the men to get into the comfortable quarters they
had promised themselves (but which few of them found, for the
inhabitants shut their doors, and the commissaries, although their
stores were crammed with bread and meat, refused to serve out those much
needed provisions without a host of formalities rendered impossible by
the general disorganisation) was the destruction of thousands. They all
rushed in at one entrance,—the narrow suburb became blocked up with men,
horses, and vehicles, and numbers perished of cold and of suffocation.
When the survivors got through, their despair was terrible on finding
themselves every where repulsed, from hospital and barracks, from the
provision-store and the private dwelling. The hospitals and barracks,
where there were neither beds or straw, were converted into
charnel-houses, heaped with human bodies. “At last,” says Ségur, “the
exertions of certain chiefs, such as Eugene and Davoust, the pity of the
Lithuanians and the avarice of the Jews, opened places of refuge. Then
it was strange to behold the astonishment of these unfortunates on
finding themselves at last in inhabited houses. What delicious food a
loaf of bread appeared, what inexpressible pleasure did they find in
eating it seated, and with what admiration were they struck by the sight
of a single weak battalion, still armed and uniformly clothed. They
seemed to return from the extremity of the world, so completely had the
violence and duration of their sufferings detached them from all their
former habits.”
Bianca, her brother and friends, skirt the town to avoid the throng, and
get in by an unencumbered entrance. In the streets, however, Rasinski is
separated from his three companions, who find shelter in the house of a
former servant of Bianca, and there meet with Ludwig’s sister Marie, and
the Countess Micielska, a widowed sister of Rasinski, whom we have not
had occasion previously to mention, although she is a fine enthusiastic
character, and plays no unimportant part in the earlier scenes of the
book. On learning, by letters from their brothers, the burning of Moscow
and probability of retreat, the two ladies braved the severity of a
Lithuanian winter, and left Warsaw for Wilna, where their arrival
coincides with that of Napoleon’s disordered cohorts. Their joy at
meeting Ludwig and Bernard is greatly overcast by the loss of Jaromir
and Boleslaw, and by the absence of Rasinski, whom the two young Germans
vainly seek in the crowded town, until at last, overcome with weariness,
they retire to rest, dissembling, for his sister’s sake, their
uneasiness touching his fate. Scarcely in bed, however, they are aroused
by Paul, their host, who calls their attention to groans and
lamentations in the street without. Arming themselves, they hurry forth
to investigate the cause.
“Paul, bearing a lantern, preceded them to the spot whence the piteous
sounds proceeded. It was a narrow lane, running parallel to the city
wall, and inhabited entirely by Jews. Just as they turned into it they
were challenged by a manly and well-known voice in their rear. ‘Who goes
there? What is this disturbance?’
“‘Rasinski!’ exclaimed Ludwig. Paul turned, and, as the light fell upon
the face of the new comer, the features of the noble Pole were revealed
to his friends.
“‘Rasinski! you here, and alive!’ cried Ludwig, throwing himself into
the Count’s arms.”
Here follows, of course, _more Rellstab_, half a page of tender embraces
and gratulations. Then, the groans and lamentations continuing, the
friends again move forward.
“The lane was narrow and crooked, so that they could not see far before
them. On passing an abrupt bend, they distinguished several figures,
which fled noiselessly before them, like night-birds frightened by the
sudden light, keeping close in the shadow of the wall.
“‘Who goes there?’ cried Rasinski in Russian. ‘Stand, or I fire!’
“But the shadows flew onwards, grazing the wall, and gliding over the
snow. Rasinski rushed after them, stumbled over an object in his path,
fell, and, in his fall, his pistol went off. Ludwig and Bernard, close
at his heels, would have stopped to help him up—
“‘Forward, forward!’ he cried: ‘follow and catch them.’
“They hurried on, but only one figure was now visible. They called to
him to stop; he heeded them not. A shot fired by Bernard missed its
mark, but the whistle of the bullet discomposed the fugitive, who, in
stooping his head, slipped and fell. Ludwig was upon him in an instant,
inquiring who he was, and why he fled. The stranger, who wore a sort of
long black caftan, replied in piteous and terrified tones.
“‘God of my fathers!’ he cried: ‘have compassion, gracious sir! Why
persecute the poor Jew, who does harm to no one?’
“‘Paul, a light!’ cried Bernard, who just then came up. ‘Let us see who
it is that is in such haste to crave mercy. His conscience seems none of
the best.’
“Paul lifted the lantern, casting the light full on the Jew’s visage.
“‘The devil!’ cried Bernard. ‘I should know that face. Where have I seen
the accursed mask? To be sure, those red-bearded Lithuanians are all as
like each other as bullets. But I greatly err, Jew, or you are the spy
with whom we have an account to settle, that has stood over for the last
five months.’
“A shout from Rasinski interrupted the speaker.
“‘Hither, friends!’ he cried; ‘your help here!’ The three hastily obeyed
the summons, dragging the Jew with them in spite of his struggles and
cries.
“‘Here has been the most villanous crime the world ever witnessed!’
exclaimed Rasinski, pale with horror and indignation, as his friends
joined him. ‘Behold our comrades, driven out naked in this deadly cold,
plundered, strangled, hurled from the windows! Inhuman monster!’ he
cried in a terrible voice to the trembling Jew, ‘if you have shared in
this work, I will have you torn by dogs. See! here they lie. Horrible,
horrible!’
“In a nook formed by the recession of a house from the line of street,
lay eight human bodies, half naked, some with only a shirt or a few
miserable rags to cover them. Over one of these unfortunates, who was
still alive, Rasinski had thrown his furred cloak, to protect him from
the piercing cold. Ludwig and Bernard shuddered at this lamentable
spectacle.
“‘God of Abraham!’ cried the Jew, ‘to thee I lift up my right hand, and
swear that I am innocent of this deed. May I be accursed with my
children and my grandchildren if I know aught of it! May the ravens pick
out my eyes, and the flesh of my hand wither, if I speak not the truth.’
“‘He was amongst the murderers,’ the wounded man faintly gasped out: ‘he
was about to cut my throat, when the fall from the window did not kill
me, and because I called for help. Only your arrival saved me.’
“‘Fiend, inhuman fiend! the unspeakable misery that might draw tears
from a demon could not touch you.’ Thus spoke Rasinski between his set
teeth, and raised his sabre to split the skull of the Jew. In
convulsions of terror the miserable wretch embraced his knees, and
prayed for pity.
“‘God—Jehovah—mercy, noble Count, mercy!’
“Ludwig held back Rasinski’s arm. ‘Sully not your good blade with the
monster’s blood,’ he said, earnestly and solemnly. ‘Leave him to the
justice of an omnipotent Avenger.’
“‘You are right,’ replied Rasinski, quickly resuming his habitual
composure. ‘Think you I have forgotten?’ said he, with an expression of
the deepest loathing, to the Jew, who still clasped his feet in agony of
fear. ‘I know you well for the base and double traitor who once already
escaped well-merited death. Nothing could save you now, were it not that
even a villain like yourself may be made useful. Begone, and warn your
fellow-assassins, that if to-morrow I find a single dead body, a single
mark of violence in one of their houses, I lay the whole quarter in
ashes,—men, women, and habitations; and I myself will be the first to
hurl the sucking-babe into the devouring flames! Away, dog! Yet will I
mark thee, that thou mayest not escape.’
“And raising his foot, he stamped thrice upon the face of the prostrate
Jew, who bellowed like a wild beast, whilst his blood reddened the snow.
Nevertheless, the murderer managed to scramble to his feet, and reach an
adjacent house door, where he stood knocking and calling upon his fellow
Israelites for help and compassion.”
Count Ségur tells us, that the Jews enticed the unfortunate wounded into
their houses to despoil them, and afterwards, in sight of the Russians,
threw them, naked and dying, out of the doors and windows, leaving them
to perish of cold.
We approach the final chapters of Mr Rellstab’s romance. Bianca, whose
quality of a Russian noble suffices to protect her and her attendants,
remains with Ludwig, Marie, and her brother at Wilna, after the French
leave it. They then post to Germany without further adventure. Their
last sight of Rasinski is when, mounted on a Cossack horse, by the side
of Marshal Ney, he heads a scanty but determined band, covering the
retreat of the French. He subsequently falls at Leipzig, fighting with
his wonted gallantry under the orders of his countryman Poniatowski.
From the glimpses of the plot and numerous extracts we have given, the
reader will have small difficulty in forming his own estimate of the
faults and merits of “1812.” We have already commented upon both: upon
the spirit and power often conspicuous in the dialogue and description,
as well as upon the excess of forced coincidences, and upon the
occasional long-windedness and super-sentimentality. However the
interest may here and there, by reason of prolixity, be found to flag,
the book, when once begun, is not likely to be laid aside unfinished.
This alone is saying much for a historical romance in four very long
volumes. There are not many German writers, in that style, of whose
works we would venture the like prediction. And just at present Mr
Rellstab need not apprehend fresh rivals. The year 1848 is unfavourable
to German literature. The country is far too busy revolutionising to
care about belles-lettres. Fictions are ousted by realities, novels by
newspapers, trim octavos by uncouth twopenny pamphlets, polemical and
satirical, attacking and defending, supporting and tearing to pieces,
the numerous schemes afoot for the regeneration of Fatherland. In due
time it will be seen whether the literature of the country is to share
the general improvement so sanguinely anticipated from the recent
changes in a system, under which Germany undeniably has long enjoyed a
very large share of tranquillity and happiness.
WHAT WOULD REVOLUTIONISING GERMANY BE AT?
Many a confirmed wanderer upon Continental highways and byways may have
been long since wearied by the conceitedly-vulgar airs in which old
Father Rhine has indulged himself in latter years, and heartily tired of
his bald vineyards, his melodramatic old ruins, and the make-believe
majesty of his so-called mountains. But still there remained a sort of
spurious halo about his very name; some kindly reminiscence of the time
when, as an enthusiastic youth just escaped from the supposed
commonplace of England, one gazed for the first time upon this famed
show-stream of the Continent, and wondered, and admired, and poetised in
spite of one’s-self, may have cast a charm of early memory upon its
overrated allurements; and, of a surety, there must have been brought a
comfortable glow of pleasure to the heart of any one, except that
nearly-exploded animal, the exclusive exquisite, either male or female,
in witnessing the happy gaping faces of the touristic hordes, who
paddled up and down the well-known old banks—a feeling of ease, comfort,
and even homeishness, in the modern luxuries of the hundred
palace-hotels of the Rhenish towns and villages, in the contented aspect
of the thriving landlord, welcoming the guests who brought him wealth,
and in the ready alertness of the active and obsequious waiters. Well,
Germany has taken into its head to follow in the lead which distracted
France gave, when it madly beckoned with frantic finger to all the
Continent to follow in its wild dance. Germany has caught the St Vitus
of revolution, and danced off, if not as distractedly, at all events in
less connected step, and less defined figure, than its neighbour: and in
this revolutionary frenzy Germany has assumed so ungenial an aspect—a
manner so doubtful, so unpromising, so uncertain, as regards the next
step it may be inclined to take in the jerkings of its abrupt and
unregulated dance—that the gentle tourist-seekers of ease and pleasure
have turned away in disgust from this heavy Meg Merrilees, who has
forgotten even her scraps of song, and her long-pretended spirit of
romance, and declined to visit her until she shall have somewhat
recovered from her drunken fit of revolution, and become more decently
behaved. The Rhine, then, has lost the last charm of foreign bustle and
movement, with which he decked his old head, as with a crown of wild
flowers, not unbecoming his gray hairs. He looks sad, sober,
discontented, disappointed, mourning his lost old joys, and his lost
glories, of which young Germany, in its revolutionary excitement, has
despoiled him. His hotels are empty; landlords, too, have a forlorn air,
and take to rattling their last _groschen_ in their pockets; and unhappy
waiters get fat upon their inactivity, but, at the same time, pale with
ill-humour at their diminished _trinkgelder_, and apprehension of losing
their places altogether. Travellers’ visits have grown, like those of
angels, “few and far between;” and as angels do the poor scanty tourists
appear to be regarded—as munificent beings, in fact, from whom too much
cannot be demanded and expected; for the Rhenish hotel-keepers, in
pursuance of the system adopted by Parisian shopkeepers, in these days
of revolutionary scarcity and destitution, seem determined to make those
unhappy beings, who fall into their clutches, redeem the debt they
appear to consider due to them from those absent tourists, who have not
come to enjoy all the splendours prepared for them. Since Germany, with
its newborn cry for imperial unity, has appeared inclined to turn back
again, in new revolutionary spirit, to old feudal times, the Rhenish
hotel-keepers seem to think that they ought to appear in the characters
of the old robber-knights. This consideration, perfectly personal to a
poor tourist, who has lately paid his _löse-geld_ at many a modern
robber’s stronghold on the Rhine, brings him round, however, to the
question which he has been putting to himself, at every step he has been
taking in Germany—“What would revolutionising Germany be at?”
What would revolutionising Germany be at? It is a question easily put,
but very difficult to answer. The old joke, lately “freshed-up” to be
applied to the French—namely, that “they don’t know what they want, and
won’t be easy till they get it,” may, with still deeper truth, be
applied to the Germans. In spite of much inquiring conversation with all
men of all ranks, and in all positions of life, it has been quite
impossible for an unimaginative English understanding to discover
exactly, in the midst of all the vague rhapsody, florid discourse, and
poetical politics with which it has been assailed, “what they want.” To
judge by the fermenting spirit every where prevalent, the bombastic and
unpractical dreams—for plans they are not—formed as regards the future,
it would be difficult also not to suppose that “they won’t be easy till
they get it.”
What would revolutionising Germany be at? In spite of all one sees and
hears, or rather does not hear, it is impossible not to recur to the
question again and again; for, after all, in Germany we are among
thinking men, and, children as they may be in political life, _thinking
men_ they _are_; and, surely, thinking men must have some definite end
and aim to which their thoughts, their hopes, their aspirations, and
their efforts are directed. All the Utopian schemes, all the unpractical
theories of all parties, who put themselves forward in the revolutionary
movement, be their tendencies monarchic, constitutional, or republican,
aspire, then, to the setting up of the ill-defined idol of modern German
political fancies—“German unity”—“One great and powerful united
Germany”—“One great united German Empire”—or whatever name, designation,
or varied shade of name the idol, whose pedestal is “Union,” may bear.
This was the great fancied panacea for all evils, for which men
clamoured, when, in imitation of that distracted city of Paris—so worthy
of imitation, forsooth!—they got up revolutions, and tried their hands
at building barricades. This has been, in truth, long since the
watchword of the German student, when, in the recesses of his
beer-cellar at the university, he collected a set of fellow _fancied_
enthusiasts around the beer-jugs, imagined this species of club to be a
wonderful conspiracy, because he designated it by the forbidden name of
“_Burschenschaft_,” and deemed himself a notable and formidable
conspirator, because he drank off his _krug_ of beer to the cry of
“Perish all Princes—_es lebe hoch das Deutsche Vaterland_!” The princes,
by the way, were highly complimentary to such conspirators, in
considering them dangerous, and forbidding the existence of the
_Burschenschaften_, which were pretty safety-valves enough to let off
the exuberance of studentic steam. Whether the cry for a “United
Germany” first proceeded again from the mouths of these fantastic
enthusiasts, who, when they found out, to their surprise, that the parts
they had been acting in their mimic dramas of the beer-cellars might be
acted to the life and under the open sky of heaven, became in most parts
of Germany the leaders of the mobs, or the heroes of the barricades,
matters but little; nothing is more like a flock of sheep—although the
term of “a pack of wolves” might often appear more applicable—than the
general herd of men in moments of revolutionary excitement; whatever
conclusion, however far-fetched and fantastic, any old revolutionary
bell-wether may jump at, the flock is sure to follow and jump after him.
It matters, then, but little how or by whom the cry of “United Germany”
was first raised—the whole revolutionary flock immediately set up the
same “baa!” and in each convulsion of each German State, great or small,
in which a revolution may be said to have taken place, among the
grievances which mobs, deputations, or delegates laid before German
princes, as necessary to be forthwith amended and rectified, was the
immediate and indispensable want of a “United Germany.” A somewhat more
decided and definite step towards the possible realisation of this
tolerably vague and indefinite _desideratum_, in the amendment of
people’s wrongs, was taken by the call for the meeting of one united
German parliament, for the purpose of considering and regulating the
affairs of all Germany in this revolutionary crisis; but more especially
of effecting that union in one empire, under one head, or under one form
of government, which appeared to be the great desire of those who now
put themselves forward as the expression of the will of all the German
nation, either as a whole, or in its parts; and which seemed to be
considered as the great unknown remedy for all evils, real or imaginary.
The meeting of the first illegal and self-constituted body, which, in
its impatience to be ruling the destinies of the nation, assembled at
Frankfort under the name of a _Vor-Parlement_, or preliminary
parliament, and, although originally only emanating from a club of
revolutionary spirits at Heidelberg, contrived to impose itself upon
Germany and its princes, and sway the destinies of the land, in
opposition to the old German Diet assembled in the same place—the
proceedings of the _Ausschuss_, or select committee, which the members
of this _Vor-Parlement_ left behind them, to follow up their assumed
authority, when they themselves dispersed,—the constitution of the
present National Assembly, sanctioned by most of the German princes, and
acknowledged as fully legal and supreme in its authority, its members
being elected by universal suffrage,—and its meeting in time to put a
stop to the wild democratic tendencies and reckless proceedings of the
_Ausschuss_, are all matters of newspaper history, and need here no
further detail; they are mentioned only to show what revolutionising
Germany fancies and pretends it would be at, as far as any idea can be
formed from its actions—and the means it would employ to arrive at its
ends. We have got thus far, then, in the solution of our question.
Revolutionising Germany desires, above all things, one great and
powerful union of all its several parts,—the how, when, where, &c.,
being as yet very indefinite and unintelligible; and the General
National Assembly is there to settle those important preliminaries. Let
us content ourselves awhile with this very vague and uncertain answer,
and return to old Father Rhine and his neighbourhood, to have some
further idea of the physiognomy of the country under the present
revolutionary auspices, and with the soothing hopes of the realisation
of the grand desideratum of union before the country’s eyes. After
taking this superficial survey of the “outward man,” and judging as far
as we can of his character and temper therefrom, we may then speculate,
perhaps, a little upon his tendencies in his present course; and even go
so far as to attempt to take his hand, and try a trick or two of
palmistry in fortune-telling—not pretending, however, in true gipsy
spirit, to infallibility in foretelling the future, however knowingly
and mysteriously we may shake our heads in so doing.
Although the Germans cannot be said to have the capabilities of acting
any new part, that they may pretend to take upon themselves, to the
life—and even to the death—with all that reality and energy for which
the French have such an inborn talent, yet they may be looked up to as a
still more symbol-loving people than the latter; and although perhaps
not quite so much “up to” correctness of costume, at least quite as fond
of parading the dress of the new part upon all occasions. The first
thing, consequently, that strikes the tourist, on entering the Germany
of 1848, is the ostentatious display of the new-old imperial, so-called
national cockade, the red, black, and gold colours of the old German
empire. It is not only upon the caps of vapouring students, who begin to
consider themselves more or less the masters of the world, or upon the
hats of hot-headed, _soi-disant_-enthusiastic, poetico-political young
men that the new cockade is now to be seen; it stares you in the face
from the head and breast of almost every man you meet—gray-beard,
middle-aged, or youngster. It is generally from the centre of the cap or
hat, and thus just upon the forehead, that it glares upon you, like the
dark, red, gleaming eye of a new race of Cyclops: almost every male
individual looks like a political Polyphemus. The soldiers are, one and
all, adorned with two cockades, the one of the colours of the individual
country they serve, the other of those of Imperial United Germany. They
have thus two staring, distorted, and unmatched eyes, one over the
other, in the centre of their foreheads. With their two eyes they ought,
one would suppose, to see farther in the mist of the political storm
than other people. The military, however, influenced perhaps by the
example of their aristocratic young officers, have shown themselves,
generally speaking, and markedly so in Prussia, where the revolutionary
movement has been the most decided, recalcitrant towards the so-called
progress of the day, anti-popular in their sympathies, attached only to
the king and individual country they serve, disdainful of the new
central power, the authority of which they do not and will not
comprehend, and of its representatives, whom they regard as a herd of
insolent _schwätzer_, or chatterers—in fact, anti-revolutionary, or, as
it is called in the pet political phrases of the day, which the Germans
have, now more than ever, shown themselves so foolishly eager to borrow
of the French—_retrograd_ and _reactionär_.
This position of the military, which appears, generally speaking, to be
the same all over the country, is, to say the best, a very ticklish and
equivocal one, and promises but little for the future internal peace of
United Germany. Orders, however, have been given by such authorities as
still are,—and in the first instance by weak, uncertain, vacillating,
and now disappointed Prussia,—that the military should do their homage
to the ideas of the day, by wearing the imperial cockade, if not in lieu
of, at all events in addition to, that which they had heretofore
considered as their national symbol: and the double Polyphemus eye of
the soldier is one of the most striking and startling evidences of the
unsteady and contending spirit of the times, that meet the eye of the
tourist in Germany of to-day. Even more than the students—who are still,
however, sufficiently remarkable both in costume and manner in these
days of unrestricted movement and opinion—you will find a certain set of
men, whose physiognomy of race is so strongly marked by some
indescribable peculiarity of type, whatever be their colour or form of
feature, as to render them unmistakeable, and who make the most flaring
display of the imperial national colours, now so strangely converted
into the symbol of a revolutionary spirit, be it in cockade, or band, or
button-hole decoration. These are the Jews. They are positively lavish
in their display of ribbon. Ever since the revolution has begun its
dubious and unsteady course throughout Germany, it has been, invariably
and everywhere, the Jews who have displayed the strongest revolutionary
spirit, the most decided republican tendencies, the most acrimonious
hatred against the “powers that be,” and the most virulent efforts
towards the subversion of the existing state of things. What may have
been the cause of the outburst of this spirit in an essentially trading
and money-getting people, whose commercial advantages, in whatever
branch they may lie, must be so completely compromised, if not
altogether ruined, by revolutionary movements and their consequences, it
would be difficult in a superficial sketch to say: it may be conjectured
to have arisen simply from a spirit of revenge against the exclusive
upper classes of Germany, who have so long treated their sect, proud of
its wealth, and seeking influence from its power, with cutting repulsion
and contempt. The fact, however, is as stated; the most active
revolutionary spirits engaged in the task of pulling down and
destroying, as far as was possible, have been every where the Jews; the
avowed republicans may chiefly be found among men of their persuasion;
the clamour, the attack, and the denunciation, chiefly still proceed
from Jewish mouths and Jewish pens. Those who now march forward, then,
the most boldly, hand in hand in strange conjunction, along the
precipitous path of revolutionary movement, are the students and the
Jews. If you unwisely allow one of the latter to lay hold of an unlucky
button of your coat in a steamboat, he will be sure to endeavour, with
his peculiar twang, to insinuate into you all the wildest
ultra-revolutionary doctrines: the former will keep more apart from you,
and herd in knots; but, when they get drunk, instead of vapouring vague,
incomprehensible, _soi-disant_ Kantian philosophy, as of yore, they will
bellow still more vague and incomprehensible political theories about
United Germany. It is these two classes of beings, then, who make the
most ostentatious parade of the national cockades that flash across our
eyesight.
The fate of this cockade has been a very strange one, by the way, in
latter years. The red, black, and gold combination was long formally
proscribed in universities, as deleterious and dangerous, and typical of
the forbidden _Burschenschaften_: it was worn only in secret and by
stealth, by recalcitrant would-be revolutionary students. All on a
sudden it has been raised on high in flag and banner, waving not only in
revolutionary procession, but from palace walls, and tops of public
buildings. The cockade has not only been authorised, but enjoined; and
in a late reactionary movement in Berlin,—when, out of jealousy and
spite towards a central power, that had chosen its executive head from
southern and not northern Germany, a considerable public feeling was
exhibited against the imperial national flag, and in favour of the
Prussian colours exclusively—the government, or rather the king himself,
was obliged, for fear of an outbreak of the students, to command the
resumption of those colours in flag and cockade, which, but a little
while ago, he himself had proscribed. The pride of the young
_soi-disant_ heroes at being openly able to parade that symbol which
they cherished only heretofore as fancied conspirators, may be easily
conceived: and, now these boy-men find that they can dictate to the
princes of the earth, not only upon the matter of flags and cockades,
but upon matters of far graver note, there is no knowing to what height
of presumption this pride may not still further lead them.
If, now, we look around us to note the general physiognomy of the
people, we shall find many other little traits, that mark these
revolutionary times in Germany. The common people, more especially upon
the Rhine, and in many parts of the duchy of Baden—the common people,
formerly so smiling, so ready, so civil, perhaps only too obsequious in
their signs of respect, have grown insolent and rude: ask them a
question, and they will scarcely deign to bestow upon you an answer: in
many instances they will shrug their shoulders, laugh in your face, and
then turn their back upon you. On the contrary the public officials, the
government _beamten_, have considerably lowered that arrogance of tone
for which they formerly possessed a not unmerited evil repute, and will
answer your inquiries with civil words and smiling faces. Such, however,
is the natural see-saw movement of manners in revolutionary times, in
the lower and lower-middle classes; and as far as regards the latter
effect of revolutionary movement, no tourist in Germany will be disposed
to complain of the change.
Over the middle and upper classes, at the same time, there has fallen a
very visible gloom. That uncertainty of the future, which is
proverbially far more difficult for moral strength to bear than any
certain evil, has had the very evident effect, to the least observant
eye, of depressing the spirits of “all manner of men.” The _hope_
appears to exist only in the theoretical fancies of the excited liberal
politician,—the _enthusiasm_ only in the wild dreams of the declaiming
student. The prevailing impression is one of all the dulness of doubt
and the stupor of apprehension. Talk to people of the state of the
country, and they will either shake their heads with a grunt, or openly
express their fears about the future: and those fears are none the less
active because they are so vague—none the less depressing because they
wear the mysterious, visionary, and consequently awful form which the
dim distance of complete uncertainty imparts.
Another change, again, in the manners of the people, is in the
politicising spirit, so uncongenial in times gone by to the Germans,
which, in most great towns, seems now to have so completely absorbed
them. It is to be found not only in the low clubs, and in the insensate
pothouse debates, but in the eagerness to crowd round the revolutionary
addresses, which are posted by ultra-liberals at street corners, in the
anxiety to read the last revolutionary disquisition of the new radical
journal, in all its glory of large sheet and full columns, which has
taken the place of the innocent and patriarchal little _Volks-blatt_,
that was before the study and delight of the humble burgher; and in the
malicious enjoyment with which the political caricature, railing at
prince or men in power, is studied at the shop window, and the feverish
importance that is attached to it.
All these characteristic signs and changes will meet the eye of the
tourist if he even go no farther than the confines of the Rhine, and the
old city of Cologne. There at once is that depression visible to which
allusion has already been made. It is visible in the aspect of the
fallen half-ruined shopkeeper, of the disconsolate master of the hotel,
and, above all, of the anxious labourer upon the progress of that mighty
work, the completion of which evil times seem again to render an
impossible task—the Cologne cathedral. Funds for the further progress of
the great undertaking already begin to fail; and these are not times to
seek them from the munificence either of states or private individuals.
The _Baumeister_, who has spent the greater part of a life upon the
wonderful task of working out the completion of this miracle of Gothic
art,—whose whole soul has been concentrated upon this one object,—the
breath of whose very existence seems to depend upon the growth of this
foster-child of his fancy, for which alone he has lived,—now shakes his
head, like the consumptive man whose presentiments tell him that his
last hour is nigh, and who despairs of escaping his doom. The
revolutionary wind has blown like the plague-blast over the land: he
feels that his hand must soon fall powerless before the neglect, or even
ill-will of the newborn age of revolutionary liberty, and that he must
disperse abroad that band of artist-workmen whom he has fashioned and
educated to the noble work, and whom, in their completeness of artistic
intelligence, none perhaps, in future years, may be able again to
collect together. The cathedral, however, has proceeded to a certain
point, at which the whole interior may be enclosed; and there, in all
probability, the progress of the works will be checked for the present.
The consecration of the new part of the building, in this state, has
already taken place; but, even in these ceremonies, the revolutionary
modern spirit of Germany has not forgotten to assert its influence: the
deputation sent to them by the Prussian Assembly refused to join to
itself a Catholic ecclesiastic; and yet it was seriously proposed at the
same time, by the arrangers of the ceremonial _programme_, that the
monarchs who were expected to be present upon the occasion should mount
upon the roof of the cathedral, and there take an oath to preserve the
unity of Germany, which oath was to be blessed and ratified by the Pope,
who was to be invited to come over to Cologne for the purpose. The Pope
has had other deeds and other revolutionary tendencies to bless or to
ban in his own dominions; but this little trait, culled from the first
_programme_ of the consecration of the Cologne cathedral, may be taken,
at the same time, as a slight specimen of the wild poetico-political
freaks of theoretically revolutionising Germany.
Let us wend our way a little farther. Without attempting to take any
precise survey of Prussia and Austria, the continued fermenting and
agitated state of which countries is the topic of every-day newspaper
notice, and consequently without venturing upon any description of the
poisonous and ulcerating sores continually breaking out upon the face of
the fair and once healthy cities of Berlin and Vienna, the ignorant
tumult of the parliamentary meetings assembled in them, the noisy
fermentation of the ultra-revolutionary and republican clubs, the
symbolical but dangerous demonstrations of hot-headed students and other
unripe and unquiet spirits, the continual struggle and clash of parties
accusing each other reciprocally of utterly subversive or
counter-revolutionary and reactionary tendencies, and the constantly
threatened danger of fresh convulsions, with further ruin to trade, and
consequently to the well-being of the country at large—without, then,
painting to ourselves a well-known and notorious picture, let us cast
our eyes over the outward aspect of some of the smaller states.
Nothing, in the first place, can be more uneasy and disquieting than the
appearance of the Duchy of Baden. In Heidelberg, ultra-revolutionary
students have come to a total schism with their moderately and vaguely
revolutionary professors; and it is at present difficult to see how any
understanding is to be effected between teacher and scholar, so as to
render the university a seat of learning of any other kind than that of
subversive principles. In this part of Germany the revolutionary
fermentation appears far more active, and is far more visible in the
manner, attitude, and language of the lower classes, than even in those
hotbeds of revolutionary movement, Austria and Prussia. To this state of
things the confinity with agitated France, and consequently a more
active affinity with its ideas, caught like a fever from a next-door
neighbour’s house, the agency of the emissaries from the
ultra-republican Parisian clubs, who find an easier access across the
frontiers—not without the cognisance, and, it would now seem, as was
long suspected, with the aid also of certain influential members of the
Provisional Government of France—and the fact also that the unhappy
duchy has been, if not the native country, at least the scene of action
of the republican insurgents Hecker and Struve—have all combined to
contribute. It is impossible to enter the duchy and converse with the
peasant population, formerly and proverbially so peacefully disposed in
patriarchal Germany, without finding the poison of these various
influences gathering and festering in all their ideas, words, and
actions. The prostration of spirit, generally speaking, among the middle
and trading classes, the discouragement, the uncertain fear, are even
still more apparent here than on the lower Rhine; and the gloom appears
the greater, from all we see and hear, the higher we mount upon the
social ladder. The proud and exclusive German nobility, who have so long
slept cradled in the pride and exclusiveness of their courtly
prerogatives and privileges, now waken to see an abyss before and behind
them, a precipice at every step. How far they may have merited the
terrors of utter ruin to their fortunes as well as their position, by
their long contemptuous exclusion from their intercourse and society of
all who had not the magic key to secure admission to them, in the shape
of the privileged particle denoting nobility, whatever was the talent
and the worth of the despised unprivileged—and to this state of things,
even up to the present day, there have been very few exceptions at
German courts, and much less in German high society—how far they have
themselves prepared the way for their present position, by their wilful
blindness to the progress of ideas in the world, are not questions to be
discussed here. Their present apprehension and consternation are very
apparent in every word and action, however much the younger generation,
and especially those of it who may be military men, may bluster and talk
big, and defy: they fly away to their country houses, if they have them,
economise, retrench, and pinch, in preparation for that change in
circumstances and position which seems to be approaching them like a
spectre. The little capitals of Carlsruhe and Stuttgardt, with their
small ducal and royal courts, certainly never exhibited any picture of
great animation or bustle even in their most flourishing times; but the
gloom that now hangs over them is assuredly very different from the
peaceful, although somewhat torpid quietude in which they heretofore
reposed: their dulness has become utter dreariness; their lady-like
old-maidish decent listlessness a sort of melancholy bordering upon
despair. Princes and people look askance at one another: people suffer;
and princes think right to retrench. The theatres of these little
capitals are about to be closed, because they are considered to be too
expensive popular luxuries in the present state of things, and onerous
appendages to court charges. Sovereigns cut down their households and
their studs; and queens shut themselves close up in their summer
residences, declaring themselves too poor to visit German
watering-places, and support the expenses of regal _toilette_. In
Stuttgardt these symptoms are all peculiarly visible. Spite of the
long-acquired popularity of the King of Wurtemberg, as a liberal,
well-judging, and rightly-minded monarch towards his subjects, the wind
of revolution, that has blown in such heavy gusts in other parts of
Germany, has not wholly spared that kingdom; and before accomplishing
the intention attributed to him of retiring, in order to avoid those
revolutionary demands which, in spite of his best intentions, he
declares himself unable conscientiously to meet, the present king puts
in practice those measures of retrenching economy, which add to the
gloom of his capital and the disconsolate look of the court-attached and
commercial portion of his subjects. It is scarcely possible, however, to
suppose that the King of Wurtemberg can seriously think of abdicating in
favour of a son whose youthful actions have always rendered him highly
unpopular, all the more so as he is married to a Russian archduchess,
whose birth must render her _suspecte_ to the liberals of the day.
Another cause, which contributes to the melancholy and deserted air of
these capitals of the smaller German courts, is the retirement of the
ambassadors and diplomatic agents of the other German courts, who, if
not already recalled from their posts, will probably shortly be so, to
meet the views of German unity, which needs but one representative in
common. This unhappy look of the little German capitals is one of the
most melancholy signs of the times in these smaller states. In Hanover
and Brunswick the apparent resolution of their present rulers, to resist
the power of the new Central Government of would-be united Germany,
occasions agitation, uncertainty, and fear, which make themselves as
fully apparent in outward symptoms as elsewhere. Bavaria alone appears
to preserve an exceptional position. Bavaria also has had her
revolution, to be sure; but, strange to say, the revolution was
occasioned by the manœuvres of the anti-liberal, or, in that country,
Jesuitical party, against the liberal tendencies of a wild woman’s
influence over the mind of the king; and, singular as was the nature and
cause of this revolution, singular has remained the situation of
Bavaria, quiet, unagitated, and seemingly contented, in the midst of the
convulsive hurly-burly passing every where around it.
After this cursory survey of the outward aspect of a great part of
Germany, let us turn our eyes to Frankfort, the present central point of
all interest and attention; for there sits the General National
Assembly; there is to be brewed, by whatever recipe, or in whatever
manner it may be, that fancied panacea for all evils, the Union of
Germany: there, then, we may probably best learn what revolutionising
Germany would be at, or, at all events, best see the means employed to
arrive at something like a consummation. Let us first look at the cooks
at their work; and then taste the nature of the brew, as far as their
political culinary efforts have gone to “make the medley slab and good.”
Let us enter, then, that plain, dry, and harsh-looking circular
building, which is the Lutheran Church of St Paul; it is there the
Assembly holds its sittings. The interior arrangement has been fashioned
entirely upon the plan of the French Chambers. The President’s tribune,
the lower tribune of the orator before it, the gradually rising and
diverging amphitheatre of seats for the members, are all entirely French
in their plan. Completely French also, and with similar designation, is
the political shading of the members according to their seats; the
_Droit_, the _Centre_ in its variety of progressing _nuances_, and the
_Gauche_ and _Extreme Gauche_ have the same signification in the German
Assembly as in the French. Nor does the resemblance cease here; the
constitution of the Assembly, in its various elements, has a strong
affinity to that of the present French National Assembly. The majority
of the members are evidently concentrated in the different shades of the
_Centre_. The old conservatives of the right have but little influence,
except as a make-weight against the ultra-liberals. The centre consists
chiefly of the old liberals, and opposition leaders in the different
chambers of such of the German states as possessed constitutions of one
modification or another—men who have now, in turn, in their position
towards the ultra-revolutionary spirits, that tendency which may be
called liberal conservative: they are the men of progress, who, in the
present hurricane of revolutionary ideas, endeavour to guide the helm so
as to avoid the very rocks they have had so great a hand in raising, and
to restrain the very waves which their own breath has so greatly
contributed to lash into fury! They are the Odillon Barrots, and
suchlike old liberals of Germany. They find that the task before them is
one of far ruder difficulty than in their theoretical fancies they had
first imagined; and many of them there may be, who cannot but
acknowledge to themselves, however little they may be inclined to
acknowledge it to the world, that the business of a vast nation is not
to be conducted by inexperienced heads, however talented, however well
they may have conducted the business of a counting-house, or taught
theories from a professor’s chair—in fact, that theory and practice will
not walk hand in hand without a long process of amalgamating experience.
The left is occupied by the men of revolutionary utopics and crude
subversive opinions; and in its extreme by the ardent republicans and
tribunes of the people, whom the revolution has caused to spring out of
the political soil like mushrooms. These are the men who complain, in
speech or in journal, that the Assembly is wasting its time in vain
vapid disputations—an accusation, by the way, by no means unfounded—and
yet themselves, when ever they mount into the tribune, indulge, more
than any others, in declamatory would-be poetical phrases, “full of
sound and fury, signifying nothing,” and containing not one practical
idea, or feasible proposal. They seem to think that, by ringing the
changes upon certain pet words, such as “patriotism” and “nationality,”
they have said great things and done great deeds for the good of the
country; and, as far as such clap-trap efforts to gain popular applause
go, they may fairly be said to obtain their ends. In this again they
have a strong “cousin-german” resemblance with the French ultras in a
similar position—and no less so in their endeavours to overawe and
browbeat the majority of the Assembly by noisy exclamations, and even
uproarious riot. The German ultras, however, have succeeded, to a great
extent, in a manœuvre in which their French brethren have failed,
although supported in it, at first, by a certain reckless member of the
Provisional Government—that is to say, in packing the public galleries
with acolytes, said to be paid, who, while they applaud all
ultra-revolutionary speeches “to the echo,” endeavour to put down the
conservative orators by tumult, or violent hissings, and are of course
vaunted forth in the ultra-liberal journals as “the expression of the
will of the nation.” Be it said, at the same time, _en passant_, that
this manner of applauding by the clapping of hands, and expressing
disapproval by hissing, has been borrowed from a habit of the members of
the Assembly themselves, which has certainly a very unparliamentary
appearance and sound to English eyes and ears. This use of the public
galleries, which, in spite of the regulations of the Assembly, it has
been found impossible altogether to put down, has assuredly a certain
influence in overawing and intimidating some of the members of the
majority. Two causes, however, have contributed to preserve the Assembly
from utter anarchy and confusion. The first of these, a negative one,
consists in the fact that Frankfort is not a great noisy stirring
capital of a great country, where a mob is always at hand to be used as
a tyrannical influence by the leaders of the people, and that there are
no suburbs filled with a working population, whence, as in Paris, an
insurgent army may be suddenly recruited to work mischief, when it may
have no other work to do. The second, a direct and active one, arises
from the personality of the President of the Assembly; and certainly it
is in the personal qualities and physical advantages of the Herr von
Gagern, as much as in his position, and from the esteem in which he is
held, that his power to dominate, control, and will to order, very
greatly consists.
The President Gagern, long known as the most talented and leading
opposition member of the Darmstadt Chamber, has passed his life in his
energetic attempts to further those constitutional liberties, which he
would now check with powerful hand, that they may not go too far.
Disappointed and disgusted with his fruitless efforts to promote what he
considered the interests of his country, the Herr von Gagern had
retired, for some time past, into private life, when, upon the breaking
forth of the revolutionary storm, he was called upon by his prince to
take the helm of affairs, and, as minister, to steer the bark along the
current by which he might avoid the Scylla of ultra-democracy as much as
the Charybdis of resistance to the progress of the age. In this new
character he again appeared upon the stage of the political world; and
he has only retired from his post, as he has since refused to accept
office as minister of the new central executive power of all Germany, in
order to maintain the position, to which he was raised by acclamation,
as the controlling head of that Assembly which was to decide the
destinies of the country, and from the councils of which he himself had
fondly hoped to see emanate the welfare of united Germany.
Tall and stout, with a face which possesses a decision and firmness of
character, much aided by a pair of very broad black brows, Herr von
Gagern has, at the same time, a bold dignity of manner and gesture,
which is well calculated to rule an Assembly, and a powerful voice,
which knows how to make itself heard in a storm: a ready and simple
eloquence, and a clear good sense, which fastens upon the right point at
the right moment, are combined with these advantages of exterior
appearance; and as he rises, in cases of emergency, to display a vigour
of energy, rather than that system of conciliation so fatally used in
France, and so impracticable amidst all the clashing party opinions of a
revolutionary Assembly, he shows himself to be the man of the moment,
and of the place. He may be said to be the saviour of the German
National Assembly, inasmuch as his personal influence may be considered
to have rescued it from that state of anarchy and confusion which now
disgraces the French chamber, and into which the German Assembly, with
its conflicting elements, and its still greater inexperience, seemed at
first about to fall.
As it is, the German National Assembly can by no means be looked upon as
a model of parliamentary order: it is still noisy, ill-regulated, and
uncertain in its movements. It cannot be denied, at the same time, that
sufficient individual talent may be found among its members. Among the
rising men of the day, the orators of Prussia and the smaller northern
states, (for Southern Germany has as yet produced but little striking
talent,)—along with those young, ardent, and energetic men who, the
conspirators and insurgents of a few months ago, have gone over to the
liberal conservative majority, and the people’s orators, who aim at
being the O’Connells of Germany, as their phraseology goes, and who, in
spite of the impracticable nature of their tenets, and the frequently
vapid nature of their declamation, have a certain, rude ready eloquence,
that strives to be poetical—there are also a few practised statesmen, a
few wary old men of action, and several well-known authors and poets,
such as old Uhland, whose democratic ardour still keeps, him upon the
benches of the left, and the Count Auersperg, well known under the name
of Anastatius Grün, whom disappointments in his position, in society are
supposed also to have driven into the ultra-democratic ranks. But there
seems to be an utter want of purpose in most of the speeches which
emanate from the lips of these men of talent. Proverbially vague in
their philosophical theories, even when they make most pretensions to
clearness, the Germans show themselves still more so in their political
views. The speeches not only of the ultra-liberals, but of the would-be
statesmen of the centre, appear mere compilations of “words, words,
words,” without any tangible argument or practical proposal: it is
rarely that it is possible to sift from the readily flowing, but
generally most muddy stream, a sand of gold, that may be used as one of
sterling worth in the crown of unity which the hands of the Assembly
would be forging. In all that emanates from the Assembly, either in
debate or in decree, there is generally a lamentable want of correctly
defined purpose: and, in fact, to return to the point from which we have
started, it is as difficult to discover from the vague, wavering,
boggling proceedings of the Assembly, as from any other quarter, or from
any other movement, precisely what revolutionising Germany would be at.
Up to the present time, like the Provisional Government of France, it
has rather attempted to rule aristocratically itself, than to prepare
the way, as was its object, for the future definitive constitution of
Germany. The only definite step it has yet taken towards that vague
_desideratum_, a “United Germany,” has been in the appointment of a
Provisional Executive Head, and of a cabinet of ministers at its
direction.
Except in as far as regards the jealousy of Prussia, disappointed in its
hopes of itself giving the head to the Imperial government, and inclined
in consequence to quarrel with the dictates of that central power, for
which it clamoured, and which it at least accepted not ungraciously, as
long as it thought, with true Prussian conceit, that the head must
necessarily emanate from itself—a jealousy to which reference will be
made further on—the choice of the Austrian Archduke John, as
Administrator or Protector of the Government of United Germany, whatever
his charge may be called, (for the German term “Reichs Verweser”
expresses in itself both these attributive designations,) cannot be
looked upon as one of any political weight. As a prince, enjoying for
many years past a certain popularity, more perhaps from a feeling of
opposition, because he was considered as living upon ill terms with the
Imperial court of Austria, than from any personal attachment to himself,
the Archduke John may be considered to be well selected as a popular and
generally accepted head of Germany: whether he possesses either the
talent or the energy to fill so strange and awfully responsible a post
in the present disturbed state of Germany is another question, which
only those who have known him in the retirement of private life can
answer. The political writer who designated him as the Duke of Sussex of
Austria, made a happy hit in thus classifying him. The Archduke John has
rendered himself popular by his patronage and furtherance of scientific
institutions: but he has been too little known, otherwise than as the
discarded and disgraced of the Imperial family, to be called in any way
“the man of the people.” The marriage, which was the cause of his
disgrace, was thus, likewise, the cause of his popularity, such as it
was: the union of an Imperial prince with a girl of comparatively humble
birth—a union about the origin of which so many absurdly fabulous tales
have been told—flattered the instincts of the middle and lower classes.
The Archduchess, however, who now finds herself elevated still more, to
a pinnacle to which her wildest dreams could scarcely have led her, and
who is now flattered, caressed, and done homage to, as she was before
set aside, is said to reveal nothing of any humble origin, and to be as
lady-like as sensible in manner. Upon the whole, then, it is not in the
wholly provisional and most unstable appointment of the Archduke John as
“Reichs Verweser” that we shall find any solution to the inquiry as to
the more certain revolutionary tendencies of Germany.
Assuredly more ought to be gathered from the appointment of the new
central cabinet, and more especially of its Minister for Foreign Affairs
and leading member, Prince Leiningen: and naturally we look to the
recent manifesto of the prince as a document from which we may best
learn “what revolutionising Germany would be at.” Sensible and clear, or
at all events as little confused as is possible in the present confused
state of all theories, plans, and reasonings in Germany, the manifesto,
in doing no more than pointing out two methods towards effecting the
reconstruction of Germany, leaves every thing as regards the future in
as vague and uncertain a state as before. It only states a dilemma—it
does not attempt to resolve it. It puts Germany in a cleft stick, or
rather, at the division of two paths, the greater merit or
practicability of either of which it does not attempt to show very
decisively, by its concluding words, “_Entweder, Oder!_ choose!” In
fact, it does no more than ask with ourselves, “What would
revolutionising Germany be at?”
It may be surmised, certainly, from the manifesto of Prince Leiningen,
that he himself is really inclined towards the going forward in the
uncertain course of doing _something_ towards the effectuation of the
desired union, although he by no means pretends to recommend _how_ this
is to be done. He seems—and his acceptation of office would in itself
appear to confirm the fact—a partisan of what he defines somewhat
confusedly as “an actual union of all the component parts of the whole,
in such a manner as to avert the possibility of any dispute between the
whole and the parts;” for he adds, “If any other course be pursued, not
singleness or unity, but discord and separation will be established.”
But in the alternative which he places before Germany, of either
returning to the past, or of realising the uncertain and as yet
undefined desideratum of a great union for the future, it would seem,
whatever be the prince’s own meaning, or whatever may be supposed to be
the means used by the Assembly to produce a united whole, that he only
places before it at the same time the alternative of a civil war, at
which he himself hints, or a republican constitution, which must appear
to be the result of the progress in its present sense, of
revolutionising Germany.
When we hear that “to retrograde to a confederation of states, or to
establish a weak federal state, by a powerfully impressed independence
of the individual states, would only be to create a mournful period of
transition to fresh catastrophes and new revolutions;” that from such a
course of proceeding would result the danger “of harbouring in Germany
revolutionary movements, or perchance civil war, for a series of years;”
that the nation would arrive at “the most undesirable consummation of
rendering itself ridiculous for ever by trumpeting to the world German
unity and German power, and presenting in reality a spectacle the very
reverse”—when we hear that “no dynastic interests can be taken into
consideration if the nation wills unity;” that “to construct a new
empire, and at the same time to permit an organisation tending to an
inevitable contest for the supreme sovereignty between the individual
states, would be to sow disunion instead of unity, to create weakness
instead of power;” and that, consequently, “the imperial power must, in
a degree, absorb in itself the sovereignty of the individual states,
abolish the diplomatic intercourse of the individual states at home and
abroad, and concentrate it in its own hands, appropriate to itself the
unconditional disposal of the national forces, and not allow governments
or their constituent State Assemblies to occupy themselves with affairs
appertaining to the National Assembly alone, since a perfectly
established central state, in which other perfectly established states
are encased, would be virtually a monstrosity,”—when we hear all these
things, and weigh the tendency of their views, we can see in them no
other result than the abasement of the individual sovereigns, an
absorption of their power, which would leave them no more than useless
and ridiculous puppets, and, consequently, their inevitable overthrow in
the course of time, and the establishment of republican institutions,
whatever the name given to the new form of republic, whatever the title
bestowed upon its head, be it even Emperor, or _Reichs Verweser_,
Regent, Protector, Administrator, or President.
On the other hand, when we are told—although “jealousies between
individual states, and revilings of the northern by the southern parts
of the empire” are stigmatised as “criminal absurdities”—that, “if the
many collateral and coexistent interests are too preponderant to be
sacrificed to German unity, if the old spirit of discord and separation
is still too powerfully at work, if the jealousy between race and race,
between north and south, is still too strongly felt, the nation must
convince itself of the fact, and return to the old federal system,”
already hinted at as _impossible_ without fresh revolutions or long
civil wars; and when we know, at the same time, that these jealousies
between state and state not only _do_ exist, but continue to increase
and ferment still more in the present state of things,—that in fact, the
old spirit of discord and separation is still more powerfully at work
than ever,—what can we look forward to? Only the other alternative to
which we have alluded—those civil wars which the manifesto of Prince
Leiningen itself hints at so cautiously.
Since, from the very first commencement of the revolution in Germany,
the jealous spirit between the northern and southern states broke out in
a decided form, it has only increased instead of diminishing. When the
vacillating but ambitious King of Prussia, desirous of coming forward as
the “man of Germany” of the day, but “infirm of purpose,” attempted to
direct the revolutionary movement in his own states by accepting the
call for a United German Empire, and by placing himself, although
unavowedly, at its head, the Austrian _Official_ Gazette immediately
fulminated a severe, damning, and, under the circumstances, almost cruel
manifesto against the ambitious Prussian monarch; in Bavaria, the young
men of the upper classes burnt his majesty in effigy in the public
market-place of Munich; at Stuttgardt, the picture of the offending
sovereign was as publicly hung by the neck to a gallows. Southern
Germany was indignant at the thought that an upstart King of Prussia
should attempt to lead the movement for a new United Empire of Germany,
and presume even to dream of being its future emperor. But when, in the
course of events, the provisional head of the newly constituted central
power was chosen by the assembly from among the princes of Southern
Germany, it was the turn of Prussia to exhibit its spite and anger: its
jealousy was not to be concealed. The result of the disappointed
ambition of Prussia was exhibited, as already alluded to, in a
reactionary feeling against that central power, which it would have
accepted probably with acclamation, and been the first to applaud and
support, had it emanated from its own country. The exhibition of this
feeling in some violent outbreak was so much dreaded upon the occasion
of the military homage appointed to be shown to the _Reichs Verweser_ at
Berlin, that the ceremony, as is well known, was obliged to be
countermanded. The feeling is now still continuing to be shown in a
constant exhibition of mistrust on the part of Prussia towards the
National Assembly, and as well as in the counter-accusation of that new
and vaguely defined political crime “reaction,” laid by the journals of
the moderate party, as well as by the ultra-liberals, to the charge of
Prussia. With all these conflicting elements at work between the various
parts of Germany, and again between these various parts and the central
power, placed in the hands of the Assembly, it is very difficult to look
clearly as yet towards any possible constitution of that unity which
would appear to be the most vague end and aim of the revolution in
Germany. To those who attempt to look into the mist of the future, and
see visions, and dream dreams—for, in the present state of the cloudy
and wavering political horizon, it would seem that all political
foresight can pretend to no better name than that—the nearer of the two
alternatives to be deduced from Prince Leiningen’s manifesto, would
appear to be the disunion, the total rupture, the civil war.
The other alternative, however, seems not without its chances; for,
although the old liberals of republican tendencies, the suspected and
imprisoned, have now been brought round, for the most part, into the
ranks of the moderately progressive party, in the natural course of
revolutionary changes, or even been called to the councils of the kings
and princes who rejected and persecuted them; yet, on the other hand,
the exertions of the moderate party, in spite of the clog that they
would now put upon the too rapid course of ultra-democracy, appear to
tend, in the efforts made, and the views entertained respecting the
unity of Germany, towards the very republican institutions which they
disavow, and suppose themselves endeavouring to avoid. The real
republicans, at the same time, although without any present weight among
the political spirits of the day, are yet composed, as elsewhere, of the
young, hot-headed, reckless, active, stirring elements of the time, and
are always ready to make up, by violence and headlong precipitation, for
what they want in importance and experience. They are aided also in
their views by a certain party of the liberal press, which is always
preaching the imitation of French institutions and the conduct of the
present leading men in France,—as if France and the French did not hold
up a lesson and a warning instead of models for imitation—and consoling
Germany with the idea, that although it does not possess such enviable
men or measures, the men must shortly rise upon the political surface,
and that the measures will follow behind them. By a great portion of the
press, even that of the moderate party also, a continual irritation of
suspicion and mistrust is being kept up against the still reigning
sovereigns of Germany; and the cry of that very vague accusation
“reaction,” the name of which alone, however, is considered sufficiently
damning, is constantly raised upon every movement, of whatever nature it
may be, which those sovereigns may make. The moderate party may be
acquitted of republican tendencies in their hearts; but they seem to
ignore the old proverb, “give a dog a bad name,” and the consequences;
and they will make “sad dogs” out of the sovereigns, until at last the
consequences will threaten more and more nearly.
Between these two alternatives, however, Germany seems to think that it
may find a middle course, and establish its theoretical and vaunted
unity without exciting civil dissension, or plunging into the depths of
republicanism. May it prove right in its as yet uncertain hopes; but
certainly the means by which this desired consummation is to be arrived
at, are not in the least degree visible: it remains as yet the vaguest
of vague fancies—the how, the where, the when, and even the why, are as
yet matters of doubt: not only deeds but principles, not only principles
but plans, to this intent, are as yet utterly absent. In fact our
question, after all, remains unanswered; and, beyond the main point of
“unity,” to be effected somehow or other, revolutionising Germany seems
utterly unable to tell us, as we vainly endeavour to find out
definitively, “what it would be at?”
_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._
-----
Footnote 1:
See our No. for March 1848.
Footnote 2:
Hide—from _cacher_.
Footnote 3:
Carrion.
Footnote 4:
In Frémont’s expedition to California, on a somewhat similar occasion,
two mountaineers, one the celebrated Kit Carson, the other a St Louis
Frenchman named Godey, and both old trappers, performed a feat
surpassing the one described above, inasmuch as they were but two, who
charged into an Indian village to rescue some stolen horses, and
avenge the slaughter of two New Mexicans who had been butchered by the
Indians; both which objects they effected, returning to camp with the
lost animals and a couple of propitiatory scalps.
Footnote 5:
The Mexicans call the Indians living near the Missions and engaged in
agriculture, _mansos_, or _mansitos_, tame.
Footnote 6:
From a manuscript obtained in Santa Fé of New Mexico, describing the
labours of the missionaries Fray Augustin Ruiz, Venabides, and Macos,
in the year 1585.
Footnote 7:
“Some were so barbarous as to eat their own species.” The sentence
refers to the Scythians, and is in Strabo. I mention the authority,
for Strabo is not an author that any man engaged on a less work than
the History of Human Error is expected to have by heart.
Footnote 8:
_Memoirs of the Reign of George II., from his Accession to the Death
of Queen Caroline._ By JOHN LORD HERVEY. Edited, from the original
MSS. at Ickworth, by the Right Hon. J. W. CROKER. 2 vols. Murray,
London: 1848.
Footnote 9:
“Upon the evening of this long day’s march, the imperial column
approaching Gjatz was surprised to find upon the road the bodies of
Russians quite recently slain, all with their heads cloven in the same
manner, and with their brains scattered around. It was known that two
thousand prisoners preceded the column, escorted by Spaniards,
Portuguese, and Poles. Various opinions were emitted; some were
indignant, others approved or remained indifferent, according to the
character of each. Around the Emperor these different impressions
found no voice, until Caulaincourt burst out and exclaimed, ‘that it
was an atrocious cruelty. This, then, is the civilisation we bring to
Russia! What effect would this barbarity have upon the enemy? Did we
not leave him our wounded and a host of prisoners? Would he lack the
opportunity of horrible reprisals?’ Napoleon maintained a gloomy
silence, but upon the morrow these murders had ceased. The unfortunate
prisoners were allowed to die of hunger in the enclosures into which,
at night, they were huddled like cattle. Doubtless it was still a
barbarity; but what could be done? Exchange them? The enemy refused.
Set them free? They would have hastened to proclaim our destitution,
and soon they would have returned with their companions to harass our
march. In this unsparing war, to have given them life would have been
to sacrifice ourselves. We were cruel from necessity. The fault was,
to have ever placed ourselves in so terrible an alternative.
“On the other hand, during our march into the interior of Russia, our
captive soldiers were not treated more humanely, although the Russians
had not imperious necessity for an excuse.”—SÉGUR, vol. ii. p. 149.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
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● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last
chapter.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 64, NO. 395, SEPTEMBER, 1848 ***
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