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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 75, No. 463, May, 1854
Author: Various
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 75, NO. 463, MAY, 1854 ***
BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCLXIII. MAY, 1854. VOL. LXXV.
CONTENTS.
THE OXFORD REFORM BILL, 507
ANCIENT AND MODERN FORTRESSES, 522
FIRMILIAN: A TRAGEDY, 533
THE QUIET HEART.—PART THE LAST, 552
MARATHON, 568
LONDON TO WEST PRUSSIA, 572
THE NATIONAL LIFE OF CHINA, 593
RELEASE, 609
TOO LATE, 610
THE PROGRESS AND POLICY OF RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA, 611
DEATH OF PROFESSOR WILSON, 629
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & 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. CCCCLXIII. MAY, 1854. VOL. LXXV.
THE OXFORD REFORM BILL.
On Friday night, April 2, 1854—or rather at half-past one on the
Saturday morning—there passed to its second reading in the House of
Commons, represented at that time by twenty-four members, a Bill “to
make further provision for the good government and extension of the
University of Oxford.” A measure, declared by her Majesty’s Government
so important as to demand their careful deliberation—heralded by its
promoters as a new charter of intellectual liberty for England—denounced
by its opponents as unconstitutional and illegal—appears to have
commanded, at this crisis of its parliamentary existence, as little of
the attention of the House as if it had been a Welsh highway act or an
Irish grievance. True, the debate occupied its fair share of the time of
the Commons, and filled its due number of columns in the morning papers.
If the reporters as well as the speakers found themselves occasionally
upon rather difficult ground—making some trifling confusion between
“Students” and “Tutors,” and leaving out here and there a negative which
must have rather confused their non-academical readers—such little
inaccuracies are neither surprising nor important in a debate in which
almost every speaker seems to have been anxious to assure his hearers,
such as he had, that he meant nothing—at all events, that he did not
mean what he said, still less what he might have said on some previous
occasion; where the reputed parents of the bill, Lord John Russell and
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, were rather its apologists than its
advocates, promising amendments even before they were proposed; while Mr
Blackett, as the organ of the “root-and-branch” men, puzzling himself
how to deal with the sop thrown to him and his party—sweet to the taste
but far from satisfying—tendered his best thanks for a measure which he
concluded by saying “the Liberal members of that House could never
adopt.”
The truth is, that there is an apathy in the public mind upon this great
question which has reacted upon its representatives. The University
Commission, as a political speculation, has been a failure, and the game
of Academical Reform has lost much of its piquancy by a change in the
players. Setting aside the question of the legality of parliamentary
interference, it was found, somewhat to the surprise of a large section
of those who had swelled the cry for a commission—well-meaning, but
ill-informed on such subjects—that the most active, as they were the
most able university reformers, were to be found within the walls of the
University itself. That there was also a section to whom such a
discovery was a disappointment, we have little doubt. At all events,
from that time the public interest in the subject appears to have
gradually died away. Visible excitement of men’s minds, since the
issuing of the Commission, there has been none. And since the
presentation of the Report, when even the warmest imagination could no
longer picture the goodly revenues of Oxford transferred to the London
University, or handed over to a Whig minister of education, the extremes
of both parties, obstructive and destructive, must have felt their
occupation gone;—moderate non-academical politicians began to vote the
whole thing rather a bore—and the _Oxford Blue Book_, of which more
copies were sold we believe than of any similar publication, went the
way of all blue books, and was seen no more except on Tutors’ tables. In
no circles, political or social, in town or country, did University
Reform become the topic of the day. If you heard three people together
in conversation on the subject, two at least were Oxford men. They,
indeed, with that propensity charged against them, with some truth, of
“talking shop,” as it is called—and which, with deference be it said in
this large-minded and Catholic generation, is better at all events than
talking nonsense—they “ventilated” the subject sufficiently, each having
usually some pet scheme of his own for the regeneration of Alma Mater,
under which, if you were to believe the author, she was to come forth in
the renewed beauty of her youth, without losing aught of the reverend
features of age.
But while the country at large has been taking things so quietly, Oxford
herself has been neither unmoved nor silent. Her bitterest enemies
cannot have charged her, during the last few months, with inactivity.
Schemes of reform and extension, which a few years ago would have
startled the most zealous of the _progressistas_, have been poured into
the Home Office, since this year began, at a rate which would seem to
have disconcerted even the impassable Palmerston. There is not wanting
both external and internal evidence of Lord John’s present bill having
been ushered into the world somewhat in a hurry; in fact, there was some
risk of his being outbid in the improvement market. Even our old friends
of the Hebdomadal Board had made wonderful progress since we last wrote
of them, and, as an undutiful boating undergraduate of our acquaintance
phrased it to us, “put on an awful spurt at the end.” College Visitors
have been called on to discharge unwonted duties; Heads and Fellows have
been closeted in their respective common-rooms for days together;
statutes that were before as the Eleusinian mysteries are recklessly
published, with their owners’ new interpretations thereof, “by command
of her Majesty,” and may be bought, together with the select epistles of
Palmerston to his new _familiares_ in Oxford, for the small charge of
one shilling and threepence; and Mr Parker’s well-known counter teems
with pamphlets. Many a College dignitary appears to have had Job’s wish
realised; his enemy has written a book, and he, as in duty bound, has
been down upon him, in another, immediately. The brother Professors of
Modern History and Hebrew, besides a stout pamphlet each, have had a
little private (published) correspondence, in the latter part of which
the professorial tone predominates over the brotherly. The Professor of
Poetry has a letter—more poetical than anything else—to the Warden of
Wadham, who has not replied; not having, possibly, a poetical taste. Of
minor and anonymous _brochures_ there are more than we care to number.
From this category we must carefully exempt the clever argument in
defence of the private tenure of College property by Mr Neate of
Oriel—himself a staunch university reformer, and a supporter of the
Commission; and the unanswerable appeal of Mr Woodgate of St John’s to
the “National Faith,” as pledged to founders by the acceptance of their
endowments.
The introducers of the bill congratulate themselves, with some
complacency, on the satisfaction with which it has been received in
Oxford. True, when Mr Blackett expressed his disgust at the fact as an
evident proof of its utter inefficiency, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
hastened to contradict himself, and to assure his friends of _that_
party, that the remonstrances against it had been many and vehement, and
that it was by no means such an innocent measure as they feared. The
truth is, the feeling of the University on this great question has been
much misunderstood, and, we believe not intentionally, misrepresented.
This is in itself unfortunate, and adds to the difficulties which the
world without suddenly finds besetting what seemed at one time an easy
and a popular question: but more unfortunate than all will it be, if the
comparative apathy of the public mind arises from a delusive notion that
the bill now before Parliament is the advance of a government of
progress against an antiquated corporation, fortified with prejudices,
and tenacious of vested interests; that the two great parties in the
struggle are, a growing nation, clamorous for intellectual food, and a
rich and covetous university, like an unnatural stepmother, proffering
them stones for bread, and keeping her rich gifts for some few favoured
children. For such is the view carefully set before men’s minds by those
whose designs against the universities of England would accept Lord John
Russell’s bill, or even the bolder scheme of the Commissioners, as a
very small instalment of what they deem justice. Unless the people of
England can be disabused of this false notion,—and by the people, we beg
here to be understood to mean especially those classes to whom some
political authorities restrict the term, “the masses”—unless they can
learn somewhat more truly what their rightful claims upon their national
universities are, and who are perilling, and who defending them, and how
far they are likely to be secured or lost by the measures now in
contemplation,—they may only find out too late that they were led to
confound friends with foes, and to cast recklessly from them the solid
advantages which wise and good men in days gone by had bequeathed them,
for the sake of a glittering dream.
Even in Oxford itself, it seems to have been too much assumed that a
broad line of distinction could be drawn, placing on the one side the
advocates of progress, who were desirous of remodelling the constitution
of the University, and re-distributing its revenues, at whatever cost;
and, on the other, those who thought they saw in every change a
dangerous innovation. Whereas, in fact, both these extreme sections
would at any time have made but a very poor show in the
Convocation-house, the former especially having been always
inconsiderable in numbers, and more noisy than influential; while the
ranks of the latter, more open to argument and conviction, were thinning
day by day. That the first were represented in Her Majesty’s Commission
was a mistake in its composition, of which the present Government at all
events have begun to feel the consequences embarrassing; it has
furnished weapons against them to the hands of both supporters and
opponents: either too much was intended, or too little has been done.
The two great points on which a vast majority of members of Convocation,
resident and non-resident, found themselves united in a hostile attitude
against the government of the day, were, first, the constitutional right
of Parliament to interfere at all; and, secondly, the _animus_ of the
Commission. As to the necessity for practical reforms, for rearranging
some of the machinery of university education, and extending its
basis,—this had for years impressed itself upon most thinking minds,—had
at least received a formal acknowledgment at the hands of a committee of
the Hebdomadal Board so long ago as 1846, and had been elaborately, if
not wisely, dealt with in the new Examination Statute of 1850; a measure
which, whatever may have been its tendencies, could not be charged with
narrowness or prejudice, and showed, at least, much zeal and
pains-taking in its compilers, and an honest wish to meet the
educational wants of the age. The real difficulties—not the faults—of
Oxford were, that she was fettered by a code of Caroline Statutes which
checked her attempts to take a freer attitude, and a form of local
government which was the very reverse of representative. Had some
friendly ministry given her the power, as she had the will, to rid
herself of these incumbrances, we should have had a measure of reform
and extension—we are not afraid of the words—not perhaps so showy and
sweeping as the present, but much better considered, and therefore more
really effectual. No one can have read the evidence laid before the
Hebdomadal Committee, and the Tutors’ Association, and considered the
various suggestions there embodied, from men of very different minds,
sometimes widely at variance with each other, but almost always
thoughtful and fairly argued, without feeling that we have there the
only materials out of which any wholesome scheme for the “good
government” of Oxford is to be built, and can there trace the hands best
fitted to combine them. And the strongest argument in favour of the bill
now before Parliament is, that its authors have borrowed from this
legitimate source their best enactments.
To the Tutors’ Association indeed, especially, Oxford will hereafter in
any event confess herself much indebted. Numbering some fifty or sixty
of the most able and active college and private tutors—men of all shades
of party—practically acquainted with the real wants and difficulties
both of College authorities and undergraduates, and conscientiously
desirous of remedying them—they took upon themselves, not without some
obloquy, an anomalous and quite unrecognised position in the
University,—that of a voluntary and independent legislative body, and
supplied for a time, in this irregular manner, the defects of the
academical constitution. By this gentle pressure from without, the
Hebdomadal Board were made aware of the state of public feeling, and
were brought to act somewhat more in harmony with it. To them we owe the
changes of 1850—changes which, we say again, in many important features
we cannot think improvements, and which we quote only in evidence of a
progressive tendency. To them we shall owe almost all that is valuable
in the Government measure of 1854.
For let no one suppose that the bill now introduced by Government is the
scheme of her Majesty’s Commissioners. The spirit which dictated their
Report peeps out, indeed, here and there, in some of its most
objectionable enactments; but, on the whole, their ponderous blue folio
has contributed much less than the four modest pamphlets issued by the
Tutors’ Association; and when those important modifications shall have
been made in it, either in committee or in the Upper House—without which
this measure can never become the law of England—it will be difficult
for the late commissioners to recognise, in its altered features, the
rickety and unpleasant-looking offspring of their own incubations. Their
sole representative in the newly-proposed Commission, if he ever takes
his seat in the altered company in which he must be rather surprised to
find himself, will be called upon to administer an act of a character
widely different from the recommendations which received his signature
in April 1852. And before we briefly discuss the objections, both of
principle and detail, against the bill as it stands, we would first of
all draw our readers’ attention to these points of difference.
The leading idea of the Commissioners’ scheme was, as every one knows,
the Professoriate. The multiplication of professors was to be the remedy
for all shortcomings in the way of education; a government by professors
was to close all mouths which were complaining of the powers that be,
and demanding representation; college revenues, applied to the liberal
support of professors, could no longer excite the envy, or awake the
rapacity of reformers, but must be held to have been at last applied to
their rightful uses; examiners, appointed by professors, were at last to
achieve the difficult task of satisfying every candidate; to be a
professor was to be all that man ought to be—a guarantee amply
sufficient for religion, learning, and energy—an office which could
teach independently of vulgar details of actual instruction, diffusing
scholarship through the University by its mere presence—
“_Dives_, et sutor bonus, et solus formosus, et est rex.”
Where this new race of more than mortal teachers was to spring from, was
a point for which, it will be remembered, the Commissioners made no
provision; but as to their mode of appointment there was no difficulty
whatever. All newly-created chairs (pretty comfortable berths too) were
to be filled with nominees of the Crown—in plainer words, of a future
minister of public education,—for we should have soon found that office
even more necessary than a secretary at war,—and these, with such as
were already subject to the same appointment, would have had an absolute
majority in the remodelled House of Congregation. But this is by no
means the only mode in which, if the Commissioners should have had their
will, Oxford would have been gradually converted into a national
gymnasium under Government superintendence, and at the same time a
gigantic field of patronage. They did not, indeed, go so far as to
recommend, because in their delicate consideration for the feelings of
others they thought it might be “distasteful” to the societies
themselves, but they evidently entertained with favour Mr Senior’s cool
proposition,[1] that “the power of selection of Heads of Houses should
be given to the Crown, under the advice of the prime-minister.” And in
Recommendation 44 we have the first step made towards it—that the
election to these offices should, _if possible_, be left to the Fellows
of Colleges; but that in case abuses in these elections should continue,
provision to abate them should be made by an alteration in the mode of
election. To what this subtle proviso might have led, and was intended
to lead, it requires no peculiar spirit of divination to foresee. Again,
the staff of professors and the “Crown,” indirectly through these its
nominees, was, by the Commissioners’ scheme, to have the control of the
studies, and the sole appointment of the public examiners, although on
this latter head not a tittle of evidence went to show that the present
mode of nomination (by the vice-chancellor, as representing the
governing body, and by the two proctors, as representing the Masters of
Arts collectively) had in any instance been abused; it being a truth so
notorious, both in and out of the University, that we have rather taken
it for granted than given it its due weight as the highest of all
testimonies in favour of the existing system, that whatever
disappointment there may have often been amongst the candidates for
honours, the honesty and integrity of the award has never been
questioned for a moment.
These features, then, at all events, are not reproduced in the bill of
1854. Another pet idea of the Commissioners, which they may claim
exclusively as their own—for very few of their own chosen witnesses in
Oxford approved it, and those somewhat hesitatingly, and with awkward
apologies—was that of unattached students, who were to be the great
means of increasing the numbers, and new-leavening the morality of
Oxford. Whether this wild project fell before the grave and loving
Christian arguments of Dr Pusey,[2] the quiet irony of Mr Gordon,[3] or
the bitter but amusing sarcasms of the _Quarterly Review_, it is certain
that it has found no favour in the eyes of our present university
reformers. The “independent monads” have vanished.
So it has fared again, with that sweeping clause in the Commissioners’
Recommendations (32), that “all persons elected to Fellowships should be
released from all restrictions on the tenure of their Fellowships
arising from the obligation to enter into holy orders,” which, when
viewed in connection with the abolition of all religious tests in the
appointment of teachers, and the last-named provision for a large class
of students who would have been as far as possible removed from
religious influences, with their confessed longing to tread the
forbidden ground of the admission of Dissenters, clearly showed their
object to be the severance of the University as much as possible from
the Church; the gradual withdrawal of the whole education of the place
out of the Church’s hands—for the theological as well as other studies
were to be “supervised” by the professors;[4]—and the future admission,
not only to degrees, be it remembered, which is the only right openly
claimed at present, but to the emoluments and the dignities of our old
religious foundations, of men of any religion, or of no religion at all.
It is true that even the small amount of change proposed in this
direction by clause xxxiv. of the present measure, forces upon us
unpleasant suspicions, and seems founded upon no better reason than that
some Fellows of colleges in Oxford are impatient of the restrictions, or
forgetful of the professed objects, under which and for which they were
elected; still, practically, it is admitted it would not tend materially
to secularise the tone of the colleges, or weaken the clerical element
in the University generally.
These disagreeably prominent features of the report of 1852 will not be
found in the bill of 1854. Other minor points there are, in which the
views of the Commissioners have been set aside, in deference, as we may
hope, to the deliberately-expressed opinions of the University. The
abolition of the distinctive ranks of nobleman and gentleman-commoner,
odious in the eyes of the popular reformer, but proved to be at least
harmless, and probably beneficial in practice, has not been insisted on;
a light straw, perhaps, yet serving as some indication of the setting of
the reform current just at present. The general matriculation
examination, from which such benefit was hoped to the general standard
of scholarship at entrance—often it must be confessed very low—a point
in which we are not sure but that the Commissioners were in the right by
accident, this too we hear no more of, it would seem in deference to the
opinion of the University.[5] And even in the great question of the
throwing open the foundations, the clauses of the proposed act, though,
as we shall be prepared to show presently, utterly indefensible, whether
on the ground of justice or expediency, are yet not so sweepingly
destructive as Recommendation 40 of the Commissioners’ Report.
There is another point too, the great difficulty and the great evil, as
we think, not of the Oxford system, for the system itself does not
recognise it, but of Oxford practice, which, as the bill would surely
have been powerless to deal with effectually, its promoters have perhaps
done wisely in not dealing with at all. Of private tuition, with the
expenses which it involves, the idleness which it encourages, the
specious pretexts under which it has gradually wormed its way into a
sort of quasi-official existence, and is fast sapping all university and
collegiate education as such, and substituting the flimsy trickery of
“cram” for the sound and wholesome scholarship of other days,—we have
expressed our opinion elsewhere in no measured terms.[6] And we are
thankful to my Lord John, or Palmerston, or our own clever and, as he
assures us, affectionate representative,—whichever we are to thank for
such benefits, for none of these gentlemen seem over anxious to take the
credit of their good deeds,—that they have left this question, at all
events, for the University to deal with it at its own discretion. The
private Tutors, we rejoice to say, are not recognised as yet, even in
name, by act of Parliament. If we have no “enabling powers” to get rid
of them, they are at least not forced upon us by “extraneous authority.”
The Commissioners themselves found them a ticklish subject to handle;
they took them up unwillingly, apologised for them in a deprecating
manner, as being ugly but useful, and were glad to let them go. It was
not the only point upon which, for excellent reasons, they were
compelled to differ from their own witnesses. Clause xxxvi. 1, is, we
hope, specially intended to ignore them as lawfully “engaged in the
tuition or discipline of the said University.” And assuredly a “heavy
blow and a great discouragement” is dealt out to their present
occupation in the wide powers given to open private halls; whilst, at
the same time, we are glad to think it opens a legitimate field of
usefulness, and, we hope, emolument, to the many talented and excellent
men so employed; for it is against the whole system of private tuition
that our strictures are directed, and not the individuals who are forced
to take a false position by its general prevalence. It is the more
necessary to draw public attention to this prudent omission in the bill,
because already voices are raised in complaint against it. This body is
too numerous and too influential not to have its organs both in and out
of the House. The fluent Mr Byng, representing one phase of young
Oxford, takes the earliest opportunity of claiming for them their share
in the new representation;[7] and it would be very hard if they had not
their champion among the pamphleteers. We only trust that no
parliamentary friend, by some ingenious insertion of words, will be
allowed to establish a new reading of the aforesaid clause in their
favour. So much for the evil which this bill might have proposed to do,
and which it has happily left undone. These are its virtues of omission;
it has also its sins. If it has sometimes firmly resisted the
mischievous proposals of the Commissioners, it has in no case had the
courage to take a bold line of its own. One measure of practical reform
which would have trenched upon no rights, and violated no principle, and
therefore, perhaps, was not sufficiently telling to recommend itself to
the Commissioners—but which the public would have thankfully
acknowledged, and which the University could hardly have objected to—was
the removal of the inconvenient fiction, which demands four years for
the first degree, whilst, in the thirteenth term, the beginning of the
fourth year, the final examination may be, and often is, passed, not
only with success, but with honour. We are not arguing, it must be
remembered, for an actual shortening (unless it were by the odd
thirteenth term) the academical course, which we agree with Mr Justice
Coleridge in regarding as an evil; but merely for insisting, in the case
of all pass-men, that the period which is now the minimum should also be
the maximum of their university course, and that the absurd and
expensive anomaly of “grace terms” should be altogether done away with.
We will not trouble our readers again with the arguments on this subject
which we have used before;[8] but we must confess the disappointment
with which we have looked in vain through the Reports, both of the
Hebdomadal and of the Tutors’ Committee, and find this most simple and
convenient re-arrangement,—change it can hardly be called—either wholly
overlooked, or only noticed to be dismissed without consideration. It is
totally distinct in principle from the 12th Recommendation of the
Commissioners, “that, during the latter part of their course, students
should be left free to devote themselves to some special branch or
branches of study”—which of course is neither more nor less than a
postponement of classical literature, to what is popularly called
“Useful Knowledge,” against which we should assuredly protest as
strongly as any of the Oxford witnesses; three clear years of four terms
each, all strictly kept, would save undergraduates some expense, much
indecision and confusion as to when they shall go up, would be easier
understood by the public generally, and would not involve the sacrifice
of a single hour of classical training,—nay, in connection with one
little improvement to be mentioned presently, might allow more time to
be really devoted to it than at present. We are glad to recognise the
“consent, though with great doubts of its expediency,”[9] to this view
of one of the most real, because one of the most cautious and moderate
reformers in the University. And we still entertain some confidence that
it is a principle which must find its way into a well-digested scheme of
collegiate reform, whenever we have one.
Another measure which we had hoped to have seen suggested by the bill,
important as it certainly is to the “good government” of Oxford—but on
which we are sorry to find both the Oxford committees rigidly silent—is
the shortening of the long vacation. On this subject, necessarily a
distasteful one to college Tutors, we have already, in a previous
article, spoken at some length, and nothing has been written or said to
shake in the slightest degree our strong opinion of its desirability. In
all the evidence which has been sought or volunteered by the Tutors,
this point has been studiously, as it seems, avoided. Only Sir F.
Rogers, (who is not a Tutor) follows us in pressing this, as he also
confesses, “unpalatable suggestion.”[10] He sees in it, as we do, the
simplest means of shortening the time of a general university education,
without in the least impairing its efficiency. Exeter College also, in
the abstract of proposed changes in its statutes, forwarded to the Home
Office, Feb. 1, 1854, has set a solitary example of endeavouring to
reclaim to collegiate study some portion of that pleasant but not very
profitable four months during which Alma Mater usually turns her
children out of doors: “It is proposed that a Tutor or Fellow reside
during the greater part of the long vacation, to enable undergraduates
to reside there for the purpose of study.” In these few lines we gladly
hail one of those just and sensible reforms in which Exeter does not now
for the first time take the lead,—which are overlooked because they are
so simple in themselves, and so plainly within the reach of every
college, but which, when once seen in action, cannot fail to be
generally adopted.
Such are the negative tendencies of the Government measure, both for
good and evil: it remains to consider its positive enactments. And to
begin with the beginning,—that is to say, the heads, who here for the
last time take the initiative. The Hebdomadal Board, it seems, is
doomed. They are not to await, like other subjects of reform, the action
of the University itself; on the 10th day of October next, if this act
becomes law, their corporate existence ceases. Of all the sufferers by
Government legislation, they, we fear, will find the fewest champions,
and meet with the least commiseration. The Tutors, whom they unwisely
neglected to conciliate, have been their bitter enemies from the first.
They fall a sacrifice not to any cry from without, but to domestic
unpopularity. The Commissioners would have mercifully retained them as
an upper house of legislature, only placing by their side another body,
with equal powers and greater influence—the “remodelled Congregation.”
But the Tutors’ Committee would not hear of it. “Half shares” was the
formal demand of the majority of this body, just beginning to feel their
own power. And as this consciousness of strength increased, the
hopelessness of the struggle on the side of the existing authorities
became more and more apparent. A third party, however—but weakly
represented, and jealously looked upon in the Tutors’ Association, made
their claim for a share in the directory; and the Professorial interest,
addressing themselves directly to the ear of the Government, succeeded
in making the proposed Hebdomadal Council what it is in the bill as at
present—one-third Heads of Houses, one-third Professors, and one-third
Masters of Arts. We have no particular objection to the proposed
partition—we believe that any tolerably fair form of representation
would work sufficiently well—nor have we ever been the apologists of the
Hebdomadal dignitaries. We have admitted their policy to have been at
once weak and obstinate; slow to move at all, and undecided in action.
With a hostile commission hanging over their heads, they at first
affected to ignore the danger, and then wasted, in the most
unaccountable manner, the time which might, wisely used, have in great
measure averted it. They appointed a committee “to consider and report
upon” the recommendations of the Commissioners on 16th June 1852; that
report was presented on 1st December 1853. The Tutors’ Committee,
appointed five months later, presented its first report in January 1853,
its second in April, its third in November, and its fourth and last in
March 1854. The Tutors had large demands upon their time besides
legislation—the Heads should have made it their first and most earnest
duty. Yet it was not until the 24th February, after the terms of the
proposed bill must have been known in the University, that a new statute
was proposed in Convocation, which must have been felt at the time to be
mere waste paper. Nor do we think it was wise to summon Convocation
again, at four days’ notice, to divide upon a petition which the
previous voting must have told them could only be carried by a narrow
majority, and would therefore lose the only weight which could have
attached to it as a collective protest. Nor do they seem to us to have
well consulted their own dignity in the terms of that petition, after
having questioned the authority of Parliament to interfere at all. Yet,
in spite of all this, we confess we think the Heads have been harshly
treated in this measure. There seemed to be no valid objection to a more
numerous Board, in which, while the Heads retained their seats, a fair
proportion of the popular element might have been infused by election.
The scheme of the Commissioners was less offensive, and would have been
quite as effectual. We could never see the force of the objections
raised to their separate existence as an honoured estate, whose years
and experience, together with the large stake which they would always
hold in the prosperity of the University, would perhaps often have
tempered the rash enthusiasm of younger, more energetic, but not always
abler men, and whose deliberate opinion would perhaps have carried more
weight, when it had ceased to be the only source of academical
legislation. The very antagonistic position of two chambers, constituted
on different principles, to which the Tutors object, has ere this been
found conducive to good government. At all events, we can never
cordially agree with any act which disfranchises—except for proved
abuse, which in this case cannot be urged—any individual, or any body of
individuals; and we think the present Heads might have retained their
seats at the Board for life, even had it been thought expedient to
diminish those seats in number for the future. We shall part from our
old governors, if we must part from them, with regret; not the less
because we have not implicit confidence in those who may succeed them.
It is indeed very possible, as Mr Burgon says,[11] “to conceive
something worse than even the inactivity of the Hebdomadal Board.” As
things stand now, at least we know our rulers—they represent twenty-four
separate and independent interests, and are, from their very isolation,
at least above all suspicion of clique or party. Will it as surely be so
in the dynasty to come? Are the smaller societies as sure to be
represented? We shrewdly suspect that hereafter many a small college
Tutor may rue the day when, in the associated committee, he took up the
pleasant trade of tinkering a constitution. He may find out, when too
late, that when his hand helped to close the door of the delegates’ room
against the legitimate representative of his own college, he shut out
the voice of that college for ever from the great council of the
University. We may live to see an “initiative,” composed of eight Heads
of powerful colleges, plus eight Professors of the same colleges—plus
eight Tutors or M.A.’s of the same colleges again; for their influence
in the new Congregation, if exerted, will entirely neutralise the votes
of the smaller colleges and halls. And if it be said that this is an
illiberal view, and that such influence will not be put in motion, the
answer is, that there is every reason to believe that the leading
colleges have foreseen this advantage, and are prepared to use it. A
far-sighted tutor of the most powerful society in Oxford objects to the
constitution of the Commissioners’ congregation, on the significant
ground that “it gives exactly the same influence to the largest college
and the smallest hall;”[12] and unless these smaller societies unite in
protesting against this part of the scheme, their share in the
government of the University, unless in rare exceptional instances, is
forfeited for ever. An amendment to clause v., by way of proviso, that
not more than two members of the council shall be of the same college,
might tend to secure something like a fair distribution of power.[13]
From the Hebdomadal Council we descend to Congregation—the
Commissioners’ idea, clumsily expanded. The framers of the fourteen not
very clear provisions of clause xvi., which provides for the composition
of the said council, have found themselves in the position not unknown
to those who, with a somewhat miscellaneous visiting list, have to give
a very large party: anxious to issue as many invitations as possible,
they have contrived to make exclusion very invidious, whilst no one
considers his invitation a compliment. “We must draw the line somewhere,
you know,” says Mr Dickens’ friend of the cheap and fashionable
shaving-shop—“we don’t go below journeyman bakers.” And the coal-heaver
turns away, an aggrieved and angry man. The bill is here quite as
arbitrary, but hardly so distinct. Journeyman professors are included;
journeyman tutors we believe not. Masters of private halls—which might
contain two students—have a seat there; senior bursars, transacting the
business of large colleges, have not. But of all unintelligible
qualifications—“all who shall have a certificate of being habitually
engaged in the study of some branch of learning or science” are to be
members of this privileged body. (“Earnest” study, Lord Palmerston would
have had it,[14] but the others would not bite.) And the authority which
is to grant these “certificates of study” is, by clause xxxviii. 5, left
to “any college” to “declare.” This, we think, must have been a mere
successful joke of Palmerston’s inserting. Plainly the triumvirate were
wise in not declaring it themselves. A certificate of study in some
branch of learning or science!—how many hours a day? how are the results
to be ascertained? is the candidate to be examined? If not, how is the
“authority” to know? and what is to be the definition of learning and
science? Would an accurate knowledge of “Bradshaw” reckon? It is a
science which has never yet, we believe, been fully investigated. Would
a man be allowed to “take up” the Times, including the foreign
intelligence, with dates?—just at present, what with the Turkish names,
and contradictory correspondence, it is much the hardest reading we
know. Or the new and fashionable science of “common things,” hitherto
much neglected in Oxford? It is idle to argue seriously upon such an
enactment as this; it is legislation carried into its dotage. That such
a crotchet could have been calmly entertained by any three sensible
English statesmen, is one of those unaccountable instances in which fact
is more improbable than fiction. If there is to be a remodelled
Congregation, we suppose some such simple qualification as all M.A.’s
_bonâ fide_ resident, or all engaged in collegiate tuition, discipline,
or administration, would fully suffice, and be at least intelligible. On
the question of allowing such a large and heterogeneous body, however
composed, to debate in English, we think the Tutors’ objections entitled
to every consideration; they have had full opportunity of practically
judging of its tendencies; and it is quite clear that it would thus
become a perpetual field for loud and unprofitable discussion,
subversive of the dignity and quiet of the University, and wasteful of
its time.
Of the numerous petty and vexatious restrictions on the tenure of
Fellowships, it is not necessary for us to dwell at length; because this
portion of the bill, by an ingenious complication of difficulties, has
secured the opposition of all parties, and cannot by any possibility
pass as it stands. If its object was to make residence compulsory, it
would have been better to have done it by a few plain words. This would
have had at least the merit of being in accordance with the original
intention of the founders, although few would have been found to
advocate such an enactment on the ground of utility. But clause xxxvi.
assumes to treat a body of men who are to be, if the other bold
aspirations of this measure are carried out, the intellectual flower of
England, as a set of schoolboys; establishing an inquisition into their
private pursuits, which we will venture to say was never yet proposed,
and which no government will be allowed to exercise, over any society of
Englishmen. In this inquisitorial process, their pet invention of the
“certificate of study” is again to do them yeoman’s service. This is to
make sure that the intellectual genius, which their whole system is
invented to foster, shall not be turned—as we are glad to find them
recognise that even intellect may be—to purposes of mischief. The
difficulty here, as in the other case, is in the providing the
“authority” from which these certificates are to issue; for here the
bill gives us no help whatever. If Fellows of colleges, chosen solely
for their “superior fitness in character and attainments,” cannot be
trusted to take care of themselves, who is to take care of them? “Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes”? Who is this unknown “authority,” thus
mysteriously veiled, whom all are to worship? Can it be Lord John?
The term of five years, the maximum allowed by the previous clause to a
non-resident Fellow to prepare for a profession, is justly felt to be an
arbitrary limitation; as is also the three-mile boundary, outside which
no Fellow, under the provisions of the Act, is to hold a cure of souls,
retaining his fellowship; and it will scarcely be believed that the
Bursars, who have the entire administration of college business and
estates, and who are usually some of their most valuable resident
members, are, under the famous clause xxxvi., classed implicitly with
the idlers, and would not be allowed to retain their fellowships at all.
We beg our readers also to remark the miserable economy, which holds
out, in the shape of a boon to the Fellow who shall have spent
twenty-one years in the faithful discharge of college duties, permission
to retain his fellowship, exempt from such active employment, “subject
to the payment of one-third of the profits thereof.” So that the Tutor
who, for a third of a human life, has by his energy and ability
sustained or made the reputation of his college, may find himself with
failing health, or failing powers, pensioned off upon a stipend of some
£100 or £150 per annum; for the case, indeed, of ill health
incapacitating for an active share of college duties, or even for
“earnest study”—not uncommon, alas! in men overstrained in the race for
honours—has never entered into the calculations of our modern university
reformers. “Work, work!” is their cry—“what else are you paid for?”
One ground of complaint, too, which we think the University has, as a
body, against the general tone of this bill, independently of any
injustice in its enactments, is the distrust which is implied in these
and other instances where free agency is curtailed, as well as in the
attempt to guard jealously all exercise of power which is necessarily,
but grudgingly, preserved. Perhaps this strict surveillance is held
necessary in the present corrupt state of Oxford, but is to be removed
when a regenerated University has grown to the full stature, and becomes
entitled to the rights, of intellectual manhood. From Lord John Russell
and Lord Palmerston such treatment might have been expected; in them it
might have been the expression of an honest prejudice, and a pardonable
misappreciation. To have assumed, as is done in clauses xxxiii. and
xxxviii., 8, that Examiners and Electors would be found wanting in
common honesty, and must be bound to the “strict performance of their
duties” by declaration _or otherwise_—(convenient vagueness!)—might have
been understood as a little ebullition of feeling, natural if not
dignified; though we conclude no one would have attached much real
weight to such futile precautions. The Examiner or Elector who betrays
his trust by an unjust decision will not think much of supporting it by
a lying declaration. An Act of Parliament, we have heard, can make a
gentleman; we never yet heard that it could make an honest man. But Mr
Gladstone, at least for his own credit, if not for theirs who trusted
him, should have eliminated these gratuitous and unworthy passages
before he allowed his name to appear on the back of this bill. He had
more experience of such things, and knew the Oxford spirit better. He,
for very shame, should not have put this moral bribery oath to those
constituents who have thrice elected him—he knows on no selfish
grounds—amidst much obloquy, and, in many instances, at much sacrifice
of private interest and personal feeling.
There flashes upon us also, here and there throughout the several
clauses—though made to assume as unobtrusive a form as possible—the
shadow of a giant influence, as yet rather felt than seen. Any vacancy
in the number of Commissioners to be appointed by Parliament for the
purposes of this Act,—and with the selection of whose names, as at
present understood, we are fully satisfied,—is to be filled up by the
Minister of the day. A report of the “state, receipts, and expenditure,
and other particulars,” of every college, is by clause liii. to be
forwarded, if required, to “one of Her Majesty’s principal Secretaries
of State.” There is a remarkable and mysterious article in clause xliv.,
forbidding the Commissioners to “appoint any person extraneous to a
college to exercise any authority therein,” without the consent of a
majority of the Fellows of the said college. There are no scholia on
this obscure passage, but we suspect it is pregnant with possibilities,
and, like some other dark sayings of old, the interpretation may come
too late. It is no use, in short, to try to shut our eyes to the fact,
that Government has got a hold upon the colleges, and intends, as far as
possible, to keep it.
Against the diversion of college revenues to the general purposes of the
University,—the founding of new professorships, &c.,—the feeling at
Oxford is so nearly unanimous, and so reasonable,—while those colleges
upon whom alone the University had any claims of this nature, have for
some time been so fully prepared to recognise them—Magdalen proposing to
devote £750 per annum “at least” to the founding of prælectorships,
Corpus appropriating £600 to the endowment of a professorship of Latin,
and Merton promising assistance; and when these are excepted, there
remain so few colleges containing the number of fellowships (20)
required, in order to justify such an appropriation,—that we may hope
the justice and discretion of the Commissioners may safely be trusted
not to make such a diversion in the case of any college whose
authorities may be conscientiously unwilling to sanction it.
The means here proposed for the extension of the University, by the
unrestricted establishment of private halls, are those which we have
already advocated in a previous article. Established under due
regulations, they cannot prejudice the discipline of the University. It
would be ridiculous to suppose that they could interfere with the
colleges, whose wealthy foundations must always enable them, if they
will, to educate more cheaply and with greater advantages; whilst we
still believe that they will succeed in drawing to Oxford a class of
students which it does not now possess, in developing the demand of
which the existence is so disputed, and in proving, in spite of Mr
Gordon’s clever irony[15] on so tempting a subject, that a more kindly
and domestic discipline is both possible, and in some cases very
desirable, without treating men as children. At any rate, if they fail,
they will involve no interest but their own.
There is yet one principle boldly laid down in this bill—for one
principle it is under several forms—so cruel and so unwise, involving
such a deep wrong to the memory of the dead, and such contempt for the
claims of the living, that it forms alone one of the most solemn
questions ever submitted to the decision of the legislature. Beneath
this great injustice—if once it pass into law—all the minor evils of
this measure may take shelter and be forgotten. If Parliament, more
faithful to Oxford than her own sons and representatives, shall deliver
her from this, we know of no surrender of her liberties which would be
too great a price to pay. It is proposed by this bill to take away the
heritage of the poor; Oxford is to be no more what she has been for
above five hundred years—“the almshouse of noble poverty.” It is by the
merest rule of consequence that the same hands sweep away the rights of
families, of counties, and of schools. “No preference shall, after the
passing of this Act, be accorded to any candidate by reason of
birthplace, kinship, education at any school, or INDIGENCE, over any
other person of superior fitness in character and attainments,” (clause
xxviii). These are the words. Then follow some grudging exceptions in
favour of kinship, of districts, and of schools; _none_ in behalf of
poverty. For this wholesale confiscation the Commissioners had striven
hard to prepare the public mind; voices within the walls of Oxford
itself had shamefully avowed it as their object; the doctrine of “open
competition” and “abolition of preferences” has been preached as an
intellectual gospel; and still good and wise men have been slow to
realise its growth: whilst those against whose rights it is aimed are
lured into a blind belief in it.
Let the people of England look to it. If their old adage be true, that
“learning is better than house and land,” a heritage is passing from
them. “The nation has a claim to the national universities,” it is said.
If it means anything, it means this—that rank, and wealth, and worldly
position are not to hold them, to the exclusion of the poor seeker after
knowledge. Will they believe us, if we tell them, that the great and
good men who in other days built and endowed these colleges, said more
than this; they said the poor _alone_ should hold the seats of honour
there, if they could prove that they were led by the love of learning to
enter in and take possession. The sons of the rich and noble might
resort there for education; but their fellowships and their
scholarships, endowed by their bounty, were for the poor for ever. Is
this truth disputed? Is there any moral doubt that the poor scholars of
England are the true heirs of the “city of palaces,” any more than of
the true purpose of the Hospital of St Cross, which has just engaged so
much of the public attention? Is there one whit more iniquity in Lord
Guildford’s acts, than there will be in this act, if it passes? We
believe that in this case, as well as in that, the public is not awake
to the fact, and needs to have the wrong set very plainly before them in
order to appreciate it. Ancient statutes—even were the handwriting
legible, and the Latin easy—are not popular reading. Yet there are some
things in them which would open, to many a shrewd reader amongst our
middle classes, a new chapter of the rights of man. It might form a
novel, and not wholly unprofitable, theme for a popular lecturer to
teach his hearers that the Scholars or Fellows of Oriel were, by the
founder’s will, to be not only “casti et humiles” but “indigentes;” not
necessarily first- or second-class men, who had spent large sums of
money upon private tutors, but merely “ad studium habiles,” “proficere
volentes;” that the same qualifications, nearly word for word, repeated
as a sacred formula, are those for the Scholars or Fellows of the rich
and noble foundations of St John’s, of Merton, of Balliol; that at
Magdalen—perhaps now the most luxurious of all our colleges—they were,
and _are_ commanded by the same statutes, by which they claim to hold
their rich endowments, to elect “_pauperes_ et _indigentes_,” guarding
the rights of the poor by a double title. And it might not be
uninstructive to trace the different interpretations put, in different
ages, upon those strange old Latin words—especially the last new
interpretation of them; and, by the help of grammar and dictionary,
impressing upon an audience, by this time somewhat interested, the rapid
advance made, in this age of progress, and under a government of
progress, both in the philosophy of language and the recognition of
popular rights. There is many an honest Radical, hating a parson or a
lord, who no doubt chuckles over reform in any shape, but especially
reform of the universities—they being, as it were, hot-beds for raising
parsons, and lords, and such-like. He regards this bill as a little step
in the way in which we are to go,—not much, but something,—“the
beginning of the end,” as our clever friend of the _Examiner_ has it. He
thinks it is to “throw open” the good things to his children which the
higher classes have hitherto been giving away quietly among each other.
Such men look upon Oxford as aristocrat, and the Commission as the
popular champion. Never was a more complete delusion. Who will be the
fortunate claimants for these “open” scholarships, which are to be
wrested, as Mr Woodgate ably and eloquently shows, from country
grammar-schools to which the middle classes resort, from districts which
some benevolent founder, risen himself to wealth from a humble origin,
wished in his grateful affection to connect with his name for ever—in
some cases from orphans—who are to inherit them? They are to be rewards
of “merit;” we have so much unrewarded merit going about in this
generation; and merit is nothing now without reward. It will be, in nine
cases out of ten, boys from the head forms of Eton, Harrow, Rugby,
Westminster—
“Magnis centurionibus orti.”
The sons of parents who can afford to spend one or two hundred per annum
upon their education,—who have had advantages of every kind, which the
poor curate’s or the country tradesman’s son can never hope for,—who
should need no such incentives to study, as they need no such help in
its pursuit. Are these the classes for which founders bequeathed their
wealth? Hear the good William of Wykeham, one of the most magnificent of
Oxford benefactors—whose too princely foundations are, as it would
appear, never to be allowed to do the noble and pious work for which he
intended them—“I will have,” says he, “not those already learned,
skilled in letters, wealthy, accomplished in arts.” His gifts were
wisdom to those who sought after wisdom, and help to those who needed
help to seek it.
It is curious to mark the poverty of argument amongst the champions—of
all parties—who advocate this nefarious spoliation. “Fellowships and
scholarships,” says the Edinburgh Reviewer, “have now become situations
of influence and honour; it would be wrong to appoint men to these
simply because they are poor.”[16] Let the words go down to posterity as
the expression of the sentiments of our self-styled friends of the
people: because the poor man’s heritage has increased, it may be his no
longer—what has he to do in situations of “honour and influence?”
“Because he is poor?” No; but because, being poor, with the many
disadvantages which poverty entails, he has proved himself “ad studendum
habilis et idoneus”—“proficere volens”—these must be his claims besides
poverty; and they may involve at least as high an order of “merit” as
any mere examination-test of acquirements. Hear again, in the same
strain, Professor Garbett. University emoluments, according to him, are
“the intellectual property of the nation.”[17] Now, if this be a mere
flower of diction—a _vox artis_—if, being Professor of Poetry, he
thought he was nothing if not poetical, we have nothing more to say—it
may pass for what it is worth. But if it be put forth as a serious
prosaic assertion—if he means to say that the wealth of Oxford is the
property of mere intellect, then is Professor Garbett the strongest of
all living arguments against professorial teaching. We are then to deify
intellect; to this idol we are to sacrifice the rights of the poor, the
claims of kindred and of neighbourhood. Does he know who is the
impersonation of intellect unsanctified?
And, as the claim of poverty is to be extinguished within Oxford itself,
so are those institutions which were to supply claimants to be robbed in
their turn. Here is the sentence of disfranchisement for a multitude of
provincial grammar-schools throughout England. No preference to any
scholarship shall be accorded to any school except such school shall
contain one hundred scholars. Is this wisdom and justice? Will the towns
of Appleby, Abingdon, Ashburton, Bromsgrove, Coventry, Hereford,
Marlborough, Reading, Tiverton, Worcester, call this a liberal scheme?
Will you withdraw from these places the fruits of the munificence,
often, of some grateful townsman, and deprive them of the only hope of a
good classical education for their sons? For be it remembered, it is not
merely the two or three boys here and there, who are the fortunate
holders of these helps to study, who are benefited thereby—it is the
many that, thus encouraged to exertion, and the still greater number who
have the advantage of first-rate masters, whom these very scholarships
have attracted to these schools. And is there no injustice to such men
themselves?—who have given up perhaps fair prospects at Oxford, resigned
fellowships, married wives, and carried their talents into remote
districts of England to take charge of country schools, which two lines
of this bill are to empty for ever? Then the absurd estimate of the
efficiency of a school by its actual numbers—giving it a scholarship, we
suppose, when it had the even hundred, and next year destroying it for
lack of five. A school may be in a high state of efficiency, and yet
never reach near a hundred boys. Bridgnorth, Oakham, Uppingham, when in
the last generation they ranked almost as public schools, did not;
Bromsgrove has not ninety, Repton just sixty, at the present time. Are
these inefficient places of education?
We are estranging the middle classes from us day by day. With all our
large professions, we are a narrow-minded age. It has been well
remarked, how, in olden times, many of our great divines were sons of
tradesmen.[18] This enactment would close in great measure the avenues
by which the Church was meant to draw into its ranks those who now,
partly in ignorance, shrink from her teaching.
Here then, or never, the Universities must take their stand. This is no
struggle for privileges. It cannot be said that colleges have any
interest in keeping up a preference for the poor. Rather, most
unhappily, their tendency has been to pass over these claims, not being
fonder of poor connections than the world in general is—preferring the
scholar and the gentleman, and merging the preference into a poor
“_cæteris paribus_.” Perhaps—not unnaturally—corporations, like
individuals, require to be often recalled to homely duties. In this, as
in other points, Oxford has not been immaculate. Let her make amends.
Let us hear no more of “poor halls,” when almost every one of her
proudest buildings should be an “Hospitium Pauperum Scholarium.” Much of
what she holds to be her legal rights may be given up for the sake of
peace—obedience to lawful, though arbitrary authority; some things
indifferent may even be sacrificed as popular concessions; but in this
there must be no compromise—in this she is a steward for GOD.
ANCIENT AND MODERN FORTRESSES.
Having been moved to put together some ideas on ancient fortresses, with
a slight unprofessional glance at modern fortifications, we feel at a
loss to say whether the subject was suggested by the prospect of a
European war, or by finding, on turning up page 52 of the second volume
of Edward King’s _Munimenta Antiqua_, the curious statement about famous
Conisborough Castle, “that, if a person chances to stand in the least
degree nearly opposite to any one of the buttresses, the whole building
appears, notwithstanding its perfect rotundity, to be a square tower
instead of a round one.”
If we led the reader to suppose, that anything he finds in this article
will indicate the probable result of the coming European Struggle, we
should grossly deceive him; and it is but fair to say, that if the
opening sentences have induced him to expect a succinct digest of the
history of fortified places from the era of the Flood, he will have to
complain that his anticipations are by no means fulfilled. We intend to
take advantage of that happy vagrant eclecticism, which nothing in this
world but a magazine admits of, and which, in truth, is a blessing too
often forgotten and betrayed by its proper guardian, when he consents to
be nothing but the expounder of opinion for a polemical or a civic
conclave, or the recorder of the pother of local antiquaries. Our
remarks on fortresses will follow no specific line, logical, or
otherwise—will supply no desideratum—prove no problem, and exhaust no
subject of inquiry; and, with these preliminary indications, we now
offer them.
Be it a question which, among ancient nations, was most illustrious in
deed and thought—the Jewish, the Assyrian, the Persian, the Egyptian,
the Hellenic, or the Roman—there can be no doubt that the most
illustrious race acting within the sphere of modern history is the
Norman. And when we give them this local name, we do not mean to confine
its comprehension to the descendants of the Rollo who bullied the King
of France out of a province, or to those of the band of adventurous men
who “came over” with the Conqueror. The real Norman who founded the
institutions which still live to attest his greatness, was a mixed
being, possessed of the hardy, enduring energy of the North, and the
fire and versatility of the South. Most European countries have enjoyed
his presence. France has largely partaken of it, so has Spain—though the
spirit of the old greatness it produced has died, and the faded lustre
of its memory only remains. Italy, Sicily, and portions of Germany, have
had their share of these high-spirited wanderers; and indeed often, in
the history of European states, might it be traced that, as if by an
injection of fresh blood, the Norman element has saved them from
immediate dissolution, if it has failed to confer on them a prolonged
and invigorated existence.
Greatest, however, of all the obligations to this race are those which
we of the British empire owe; for the illustrious adventurers—whose
spirit and energy sometimes seemed to consume and destroy the feebler
qualities of the people on whom they were ingrafted—found among their
Saxon brethren only a reinforcement of those steady and enduring powers,
which had not yet acquired a sufficient preponderance in the composition
of the Norman. To the character and tendencies of this race we owe the
centralising influence which has given power to our democratic
institutions. We owe to them the principle of honour, courtesy to women,
social disinterestedness, and the many virtues which have grown out of
the system of chivalry. In art, we owe to them the great system of
ecclesiastical architecture, which, after slumbering for a couple of
centuries, is now flourishing in so remarkable a revival, that every
genuine vestige of it is preserved with pious care; and even a
worshipful municipality, if it design to destroy a remnant of the art,
as it would have almost been thanked for doing fifty years ago, is
restrained from the act by a feeling of public indignation.
The magnificent system which goes commonly by the name of Gothic
architecture, is essentially the work of the Norman race, taking both
the character of the architecture and the name of the race in a
comprehensive sense.
If it be an inferior achievement, yet it is something to say that to the
same race we owe the fortalice of the middle ages—the parent of the
modern fortress. The castle, as we know it in romance and history, is
essentially a Norman creation. The symmetrical external strength, and
the gloomy mysteries of the interior, necessary to make a castle be a
castle in poetry or romance, are features entirely belonging to the
Norman edifice. The vaulted form of internal roofing, with all its
grandeur and gloom—the dungeons beneath—the battlements above—the secret
passages—and other mysteries which are necessarily connected with these
in architectural arrangement, are all peculiarities of the Norman
fortalice. To find what there is in this, inquire how _The Old English
Baron_—_The Castle of Otranto_—Mrs Radcliffe’s or Victor Hugo’s novels
could have been written without this element of poetic romance. Go
higher up, and see how much of the glorious interest of Scott’s novels
has been created out of this element; and whether it is presented at
Torquelstone or Tillytudlem, all comes of Norman origin. But go still
higher, and see how such a tragedy as Macbeth could have existed, if
Shakespeare had been a contemporary of the Scottish monarch, and had
been bound to describe him living in an extensive craal of wicker or
turf huts, instead of placing the whole tragic history in one of those
mysterious Norman castles which did not exist until centuries after
Macbeth’s day, and were beginning to add to their other interest that of
a mellow age in Shakespeare’s.
Besides these elements of associative interest, there is the external
beauty involved in a marvellous development of strength and symmetry.
Take the Norman castle in its most perfect development—the stern square
mass in the centre—the flanking round towers at the angles, widening
with a graceful sweep towards the earth, after the manner in which the
oak stem widens to its root—the varied crest of battlements, turrets,
and machicolations which crown all, adjusting their outline to the
graceful variations of the square and circular works below,—all make a
combination, the grandeur and beauty of which has been attested by its
eternal repetition in landscape-painting, since landscape-painting
began.
Nor were the beauty and grandeur all that the Norman fortalice could
boast of. It was a great achievement in science. Of all the steps taken
onwards in fortification, from the primitive earthwork on the steppes of
Tartary down to the fortification of Paris, the greatest was taken by
that one which combined together the dwelling-house and the fortress,
and made that organisation of main edifice and flanking protections of
which the great works of Vauban were but a further development, as we
shall have occasion more fully to show.
But we must stop here.—External beauty and grandeur, engineering skill,
we attribute to the Norman castle; but we cannot award the same praise
to its moral objects, which were ever those of subjugation and regal or
lordly despotism. In fact, the castle was the embodiment of the feudal
system, and ripened into the Parisian Bastille, the largest and most
perfect Norman fortress ever built. As one of our kings said of a border
keep, the man who built that was a thief in his heart; and they who
reared the stately dwellings of the Norman kings and nobles had
subjugation and tyranny in their hearts, and indeed embodied these
qualities in mason-work; for, after all, these gloomy edifices owe a
mighty portion of their influence to that overawing quality which Burke
made out to be the source of sublimity. If all admiration of artistic
achievement in architecture must depend on the honourableness, the
faithfulness, the humaneness of those who were the designers, we fear we
would need to abandon our favourite edifices as structural lies, and
architectural shams, only fit to be cast into oblivion, and there obtain
Christian burial. But so callous are we in the matter of the faith and
morality of designers, that we can even confess that the exterior
structure so well fitted for defence against an oppressed peasantry, and
the dreary dungeons so well fitted for feudal vengeance, when these were
driven desperate, only raise our interest by a contemplation of their
objects; while the assurance that some murder has been committed within
the gloomy recesses—the baser and more brutal the better—simply affords
additional zest to the tragic interest of the whole.
Let us cast a glance back to the condition of the art of fortification,
at the time when it was taken up by these Normans. The most truly
primitive forts are naturally decided by antiquaries to be those which
are found constructed solely out of the native materials which the site
may have afforded. In this matter time has been by no means impartial to
the handiwork of man; since, in some places it remains, and is likely to
remain, so long as the crust of the earth keeps together: while in
others, the stronghold of the dwellers in vast watery wastes and swamps
has melted away with the mud of which it may have been originally
formed. So, in the swamps of Friesland, defended in the dawn of history
as they were in the seventeenth century, and in the flats of Lincoln,
defended against the Normans, many a place of strength has departed; but
on the tops of barren hills the rude stone circles remain, the relics of
some utterly unknown antiquity.
There is scarcely to be named that part of the world where there are
hills, and no hill-forts. They occur in the Holy Land; and Jeremiah
speaks of the people being hunted “from every mountain, and from every
hill.” On the approach of the Assyrians, we hear that the Israelites
possessed themselves of all the tops of the high mountains. They are
found all over the East—on the steppes of the Russian provinces—on the
German and Scandinavian hills—in all parts of the British empire: while
those which have been discovered in the valley of the Mississippi, and
other parts of America, are said to have a precise resemblance to the
specimens in the county of Angus. Often, of course, efforts have been
made to connect them with early historical events—as when the fortified
camp of Caractacus has been found in England, and that of Galgacus, in
fifty different places of Scotland: while the Germans are naturally
anxious to find the circle within which their national hero, Arminius,
or Hermann, assembled the tribes who punished the presumption of Varus.
But these are all vain speculations; and when or how these forts were
made, we shall probably find out when we get the working plans and the
engineers’ contract for Stonehenge.
Among the English hill-forts, there is the Herefordshire beacon, on the
highest point of the Malvern hills, commanding the main pass through the
chain. It is an irregular oblong, one hundred and seventy-five feet by
one hundred and ten; and the inner wall is a strong work of stones and
turf. Three exterior walls encompass it, and an eccentric work lops out
at either side, on some engineering principle, which, doubtless, was
highly approved of in its day, but is sunk in as deep oblivion as the
name of the people who awaited anxiously within the inner ring to see
the heads of the enemy, as they strove to mount the steep acclivity, in
the year of the world in which the defence was completed. Wales claims
the chief specimens in England, for the reason we have already
stated—that Wales has hills. Hence we have Moel y Gaer in Flintshire,
and a great work close to the Castle of Montgomery, where, King says, it
was certainly needless, “unless it had been long prior to the erection
of that castle.” There are, besides these, Carn Madryn, Trer Caeri in
Carnarvonshire, and Caer Caradoc, which tradition associates with
Caractacus. One of the oddest of these forts is Penman Mawr, of which
Pennant says, “After climbing for some space among the loose stones, the
fronts of three, if not four walls presented themselves very distinctly,
one above the other. In most places the facings appeared very perfect,
but all dry work. I measured the height of one wall, which was at the
time nine feet; the thickness seven feet and a half. Between these
walls, in all parts, were innumerable small buildings, mostly circular,
and regularly faced within and without, but not disposed in any certain
order. These had been much higher, as is evident from the fall of stones
which lie scattered at their bottoms. Their diameter, in general, is
from twelve to eighteen feet; but some were far less, not exceeding five
feet. On the small area of the top had been a group of towers or cells,
like the former—one in the centre, and five others surrounding it.”[19]
Some of our northern forts have been, however, on a greater scale. Of
the White Caterthun in Strathmore, General Roy says, “The most
extraordinary thing that occurs in this British fort is the astonishing
dimensions of the rampart, composed entirely of large loose stones,
being at least twenty-five feet thick at top, and upwards of one hundred
at bottom, reckoning quite to the ditch, which seems, indeed, to be
greatly filled up by the tumbling down of the stones. The vast labour
that it must have cost to amass so incredible a quantity, and carry them
to such a height, surpasses all description. A simple earthen breastwork
surrounds the ditch; and beyond this, at the distance of about fifty
yards on the two sides, but seventy on each end, there is another double
intrenchment, of the same sort, running round the slope of the hill. The
intermediate space probably served as a camp for the troops, which the
interior post, from its smallness, could only contain a part of. The
entrance into this is by a single gate on the east end; but opposite to
it there are two leading through the outward intrenchment, between which
a work projects, no doubt for containing some men posted there, as an
additional security to that quarter.”[20]
The author who is found thus to speak of the rude hill-fort was an
experienced officer of engineers, on service in Scotland. The tone of
professional respect with which he treats the effort of the primitive
engineer is remarkable; one might suppose him discussing the merits of
Sebastopol or Cronstadt. In the unprofessional, such works create
perhaps all the more astonishment from their unexpected magnitude; for
when you are desired to ascend a desolate, uninteresting-looking
secondary hill, in a remote district of Scotland, apart from any of the
tourist circuits, you do not expect to find its brows covered with some
triumph of industrial development. The height necessarily ascended
before these works can be seen—a matter which must have made the raising
of them all the more formidable—keeps them away from observation. Were
they on flat ground, and near watering-places, they would be among the
wonders of the world. In the vastness of the mass of collected stones,
they are more like the great breakwaters of harbours of refuge than any
other works we can name. Even more remarkable than General Roy’s
Caterthun, appears to us to be the Barmkyn of Echt, a few miles farther
north. The etymologist may call Barmkyn a corruption of Barbican if he
likes. The lonely hill is so steep and circular that it seems as if it
must have been artificially scarped. Scarcely from below can any curve
be seen to interrupt the straight line of the ascent, and one is utterly
unprepared for the mighty ramparts of stone—five of them—of which the
innermost encloses a space of about an acre, quite flat, and seeming to
be levelled, as the sides of the hill seem to be scarped, by art.
It may be a question if these stone masses were ever built, either so as
to represent external courses, like the Roman wall in Northumberland, or
even in the fashion called cyclopean. They bear, in their heaped
character, and the regularity of their course, more resemblance to the
moraines on the edge of the glacier, than to any other object, natural
or artificial, with which we happen to be acquainted. So ancient,
indeed, must they be supposed to be, that in the war with the elements
all minuter structural characteristics seem to have been lost, and the
stones lie, not as they were placed, but virtually in a heap of ruins.
In these stormy hills, indeed, it is difficult to suppose that anything
less imperishable than the gneiss, or granite, of which the blocks
forming the circular forts are composed, would have preserved the
original plan. In flatter and more turfy districts of Scotland, as well
as in England, there are mounds seeming to be artificial, and cast in
circular terraces, as if they had been put on a turning lathe and
bevelled down. There is one of these—perhaps the most remarkable in
Britain—at Old Sarum, and it was generally supposed to have some
connection with the franchise of that scheduled corporation. How these
could have been very available for forts it is difficult to imagine; and
to devise any other purpose to which they can have been applicable would
be still more difficult. But when it was reported in England, as it was
about seventy years ago, that there were some ancient hill-forts in
Scotland made of glass, the antiquaries, not having a prescience of the
Crystal Palace before their eyes, turned from puzzling themselves about
the earthen mounds in England, to burst forth in scornful laughter about
the glass fortresses of Scotland. But people who have had much
experience in the ways of this world, learn how the same word may,
without the slightest misapplication, be used for very different things.
The dingy slag-like lumps, with a vitreous fraction, found in the
heather of some Scottish fortified hills, has undoubtedly a claim to the
vitreous character, perhaps as strong as the glittering diaphanous
squares which are to let in all the sun, and exclude the wind and rain,
at Sydenham. That they were the creation of fire is certain; and though
the geologists sought at first to make out a case of volcano, yet it
became evident that it was administered by the hand of man; for the
materials, which had been calcined and vitrified so as to resemble in a
considerable degree the scoriæ of a glass-house, were built into walls
round the summits of steep circular hills;—those with which we are
acquainted have much the appearance, from their extreme steepness and
regularity, of having been scarped. And then come the questions—were the
vitrified masses produced by some accident, such as the burning of a
stronghold? or were they a deliberate method of cementing stones
together by fusion? or, perchance, were they the wide circuits within
which might be consumed some whole forest of trees, cut down and piled
together within a ring of stone, whether as a vast beacon, reddening the
sky from the Tweed to Cape Wrath, or a sacrifice to the ancient God of
fire?—Questions these which we respectfully decline taking the
responsibility of answering.
The step from such rude Titanic works as these to the Norman fortress is
great—and perhaps a word or two on other forms of places of strength may
be suitable, as showing distinctly that the feudal castles were the
combination of the rude strength of the primitive fortress with
domiciliary comfort—that they brought the defensive strength, supposed
to reside only in inaccessible mountain regions or swamps, into the
midst of rich agriculture and smiling abundance—that they no longer
rendered necessary a retreat to the place of strength, as one may
suppose the whole community of a district to have retreated to a
hill-fort, but were themselves alike the abode of luxurious ease in time
of peace, and of resistance and fierce contest in time of war. Perhaps
we may best comprehend how original was the idea of the union of
fortress and house or palace in one, by observing how few are the
vestiges of such a combination having existed elsewhere before the
establishment of the feudal system. Towns undoubtedly seem to have been
fortified from the beginning of town life; and of the extent to which
the system was carried, let us take once for all the account which
honest old Herodotus gives of Babylon, with its walls two hundred cubits
high, on which a chariot could be driven with four horses abreast, and
its hundred gates of brass. But, of anything of the nature of a domestic
fortress in which people lived in their ordinary manner during peace,
and defended themselves in war, we remember but few vestiges.
Separate buildings like towers there probably have been in many times
and places, and they may have been used as fortresses. Along the Roman
Wall were the square towers called mile-castles, which are interesting,
not only as the best remains of the arrangements made by the great
aggressors for the protection of their frontier, but as the models on
which the ancient inhabitants would probably build their castles—if they
built any. It is singular enough that the Border peel towers—built a
thousand years after the Romans had abandoned Britain to her fate—have,
in their compact squareness, more resemblance to these castella, than
any type of earlier British castellated architecture possesses. Since
the publication of Mr Bruce’s book on the Roman Wall, to which we lately
had occasion to refer, no one need remain ignorant of any feature,
however minute, which, now existing, attests what these mile-castles
originally were. Mr Bruce tells us, in a summary description, that “they
derive their modern name from the circumstance of their being usually
placed at the distance of a Roman mile from each other. They were
quadrangular buildings, differing somewhat in size, but usually
measuring from sixty to seventy feet in each direction. With two
exceptions, they have been placed against the southern face of the wall:
the castle of Portgate, every trace of which is now obliterated, and
another near Æsica, the foundations of which may with some difficulty
still be traced, seem to have projected equally to the north and south
of the wall. Though generally placed about seven furlongs from each
other, the nature of the ground, independently of distance, has
frequently determined the spot of their location. Whenever the wall has
had occasion to traverse a river or a mountain pass, a mile-castle has
uniformly been placed on the one side or other to guard the defile. The
mile-towers have generally had but one gate of entrance, which was of
very substantial masonry, and was uniformly placed in the centre of the
south wall: the most perfect specimen now remaining, however, has a
northern as well as a southern gateway. It is not easy to conjecture
what were the internal arrangements of these buildings—probably they
afforded little accommodation, beyond what their four strong walls and
well-barred gates gave.”[21]
They were evidently mere barracks or stations, nor can much more be said
for any of the Roman works in the lands of their conquests. Roman troops
were taught, in the conflict with the barbarian, to look solely to
discipline; and the places called forts, apart from these square towers
along the wall, were merely intrenched camps.
Investigation is, in this country, ever apt to strip our stone edifices
of their hoar antiquity. Mr Petrie has “taken the shine,” as the
Cockneys say, out of the round towers of Ireland, by showing that they
have the ordinary details of the Romanesque ecclesiastical work, and has
rendered it unnecessary to decide whether they are anchorite hermitages
for a multitude of rivals to St Simeon Stylites, or temples for Photic
or for Phalic worship. Criticism has gone in the same way back upon our
castles, proving, in truth, that very few of them are so old as they
were supposed to be. Yet there is a particular class of buildings of a
systematically castellated type, which the scythe of the archæological
iconoclast has not yet swept—on the age of which no particle of
authentic light has been cast, and which we are thus entitled to count
as old as we like.
These are the circular towers called sometimes Dunes, Burghs, Danish
forts, Pictish forts, &c., scattered hither and thither in the far
northwest of Scotland. They are supposed to be of Scandinavian origin—to
have been the fortresses built by the Seakings, but nothing in the least
degree resembling them has been found elsewhere within Scandinavian
land. Their mysterious builders have carefully avoided every particle of
incidental evidence that might lead to a betrayal of their origin.
Graceful and symmetrical as they are in their outline—perfectly
circular, and rising without a bulge in a decreasing sweep from the
broad base—there is not a single ornament or moulding to let the
antiquary detect them, as the Romanesque work proved the betrayal of the
Irish round towers. Nay, there is not the mark of chiselling on the
stones to show that human hands have touched them. That can be inferred
from the structure alone; and the unhewn lumps of mica schist or gneiss
are laid in distinct courses perfectly parallel and round, by the
selection of rough stones of equal size, and the insertion of minute
splinters to make up deficiencies—for, as there is no stone hewing,
there is also no cement.
It is the most puzzling of the peculiarity of these perplexing
buildings, that they have tiers of galleries running round them within
the thickness of the wall. To form the roofs of these tiny serpentine
chambers, large slabs have been necessary, but, in some marvellous
manner, they have been obtained without being wrought; for, on the
largest, it is vain to look for the mark of a chisel, or even artificial
squaring or smoothing. It would seem, at least in such of them as we
have seen, that the thinnest large slabs of schist had been collected in
the mountains, and brought probably from great distances to fulfil the
object of the builder.
It seems to have been ever taken for granted that these round towers
must have been fortresses, and the only remaining question seemed to
be—by what people, nation, or language were they so used? Was it by the
Phœnicians? A great antiquary showed that in Tyre and Sidon there must
have been edifices precisely of the same character, though no vestige of
them now remains. Did they belong to the Caledonians of the days of
Tacitus, or to the Atacotti, or to the Dalriads, or to the Albanich, or
to the Siol Torquil, or the Fion Gall, or the Dubh Gall? Or, were they
erected especially by some individual Aulaf or Maccus, or Sigurd, or
Thorfin, or Godred M‘Sitric, or Diarmid M‘Maelnambo—all gentlemen having
their own peculiar claims on the architectural merit? It occurred to us
one day to ask internally the question, whether they were fortresses or
strongholds at all? It arose as we looked down from the broken edge of
the galleried wall of one of those towers in solitary Glen-Elg Beg. It
stands, a hoar ruin on the edge of a precipice, where a torrent takes a
sudden turn; and nothing could be better conceived for the landscape
ideal of the remains of some robber stronghold of the middle ages, than
the remnant of circular masonry rising flush from the edge of the
precipice. But it was precisely the force with which these apparent
conditions of a fortified character were conveyed, that showed the utter
want of them in the others scattered throughout the valley. What could
they have defended? Whom could they have resisted?
Primitive fortresses are places where considerable armies or large
numbers of people go for protection from besieging enemies. Now, though
the outside circle of these burghs is considerable, yet, from the
thickness of the galleried wall, they only contain an inner area of from
twenty to thirty feet—the size of a moderate dining-room. And, while the
numbers they could have held were thus few, they possessed no means like
the medieval castles for assault, and could have been easily pulled to
pieces by an enemy. Nor, if they were places of strength, can it be
easily conceived why there should be a whole cluster of them in a place
like Glen Beg, and no others in the neighbouring districts.
The notion, indeed, of their being strongholds, seems to have been
grasped at once by their striking resemblance in structure and
dimensions to the Norman flanking round towers. But the Norman towers
were only outworks, to aid in defence of the central keep, and could
have been of small service as detached forts. There are many things
which have a warlike resemblance to this part of a feudal castle;—a
windmill, as Don Quixote’s chivalrous eye at once told him, possesses
the character very decidedly—so does a modern blast-furnace. The
columbarium lingering on the grounds of some old mansion is often
mistaken for a tower; and the prototype of the columbarium, the Roman
tomb, eminently anticipated the form of the Norman tower. Of one of
these Byron says,—
“There is a stern old tower of other days,
Firm as a fortress with its fence of stone;
Such as an army’s baffled strength delays,
Standing with half its battlements alone.”
One of these tombs is the nucleus of the castle of St Angelo, others
were incrusted into the fortified mansions of the quarrelsome Colonna—so
like were they, though built as the quiet mansions of the dead, to the
towers of feudal fortresses.
Shall we venture a theory about these Highland round towers? We have not
yet found one to our own satisfaction; but the reader, if he likes, may
take the following, which we guarantee to be of the average quality of
such theories. It is well known that, when the Scots under Kenneth
M‘Alpine conquered the Picts, they saved from death just two inhabitants
of that devoted race, a father and son; their disinterested object in
this clemency was, to find out how the Picts got their beer. It seems
that they possessed a precious and much-coveted secret, in the means of
brewing heather-ale. The Scots offered to spare the lives of the
captives, if they would reveal the secret. The father promised to do so
if they would, in the first place, comply with his request,—a very odd
one for a father to make in such circumstances—to put to death his son.
They did so; and then the father uttered a loud yell of triumph—the
secret of the beer would be for ever hidden in his bloody grave. He
could not trust to the firmness of his son; he could entirely rely on
his own, and he was ready to bear all tortures rather than make the
revelation. Now, why not suppose that these mysterious buildings were
just breweries of heather-ale, and that, in the various galleries,
decreasing as they ascend until they become mere pigeon-holes, the
brewsts of the different years were binned for the use of hospitable
dinner-giving Picts? No one can disprove the theory, and this is more
than can be said for many another.
The more they are examined, the more are the actual fortresses of
Britain stripped of any pretensions to extreme antiquity, and brought
within the Norman period. There are two leading objects of
fortification—the protective and the aggressive; and, according to the
view we have been supporting, it has been the function of the Norman, in
the development of European history, to have been the inventor and
propagator of the kind of works adapted to the latter object. Fortresses
of mere refuge are on the tops of hills, or in other inaccessible
places. It does not suit the aggressor to go to the wilds—he must have
his elements of strength in the very middle of the people whom he is to
rule over. If a rock happens to be found bulging out of a fine alluvial
district—as the plutonic upheavings of trap have supplied in Edinburgh,
Stirling, and Dumbarton—it is well; but, where there are no natural
strengths, they must be artificially constructed—and art has in this
department far outstripped nature, or has rather found in her own
resources better means of defence against her instruments of destruction
than nature provides.
The Saxons did not raise strongholds of this kind, nor did the northern
races, in their native districts; and, indeed, it is rather curious to
observe that there is scarcely a feudal castle to be found in the
Scandinavian territories, whence issued the race who strewed all Europe
with fortresses. Scott speaks of Bamborough as “Ida’s castle, huge and
square;” but there can now be little doubt that it is a Norman edifice.
If the tall gaunt tower of Conisborough retain its Saxon antiquity, yet
it is evident that it must have been a rude and feeble strength,
standing alone without the outworks, which were the great achievement of
Norman engineering. Some other bare towers of this character are
supposed to be of ante-Norman origin, as the round tower of Trematon, in
Cornwall, and that of Launceston, on the apex of a conical rock, round
the base of which Norman works have been raised.
Scott is historically correct, as he almost ever is, when he thus
describes the abode of Cedric the Saxon:—“A low irregular building,
containing several courtyards or enclosures, extending over a
considerable space of ground; and which, though its size argued the
inhabitant to be a person of wealth, differed entirely from the tall,
turreted, and castellated buildings in which the Norman nobility
resided, and which had become the universal style of architecture
throughout England.”
William the Norman found no castles to resist him. He resolved that any
one who came after him should complain of no such omission. England
proper immediately bristled with strongholds. They were afterwards
extended to Wales and Ireland; and it is perhaps the most remarkable
episode in the history of Norman fortification, as indicative of the
systematic zeal with which the system was conducted, that during the
brief tenure of Scotland, the opportunity was taken for dispersing
throughout the country Edwardian castles.
The earliest Norman form was the vast square keep, such as Bamborough
New Castle, or the Tower of London. The value of projecting angles seems
soon to have been felt, but it does not appear that the noble flanking
round towers, which make a perfect Norman fortress, were devised until
the days of the Edwards. The central strength then consisted of a square
work, with a round tower at each angle. When the work was very large,
demi-towers might project here and there from its face. This was the
leading principle of modern fortification—the protection of the face. It
is understood that no plain wall-plate, however strong, can be defended
from an enemy ready to sacrifice a sufficient number of men to batter it
open and rush in by the breach. The object, then, is by outworks to keep
the assailants at a distance. The flanking towers accomplished this for
the Norman fortress, and the work of a siege was not in those days
utterly unlike what it now is in general character, though the less
destructive character of the weapons on either side made it a much
closer affair.
There is room for considerable classification, and even for abundant
technical nomenclature, among the besieging engines used before the
invention of gunpowder. The term mangona, or mangonel, was generally
applicable to ballistic engines, moved by springs, or quick descending
weights. The trebuchet, the matafunda, the ribaudequin, and the petrary,
were special machines for discharging what the Americans call rocks.
There were the robinet, the espringal, and the bricole, which discharged
huge iron bolts and other miscellaneous mischievous articles. The oddest
of all names to find among these wicked and destructive agents is
conveyed in a sentence by Grose, who says that “Beugles, or bibles, were
also engines for throwing large stones, as we learn from an ancient
poem;” and he quotes as his authority the Romance of Claris, in the
Royal library of Paris (No. 7534).
“Et pierres grans, et les perrieres,
Fit les bibles qui sont trop fieres,
Gétent trop manuement.”
Besides the ram and the testudo, with which every boy becomes acquainted
in the plates to his _Roman Antiquities_, there were the instruments
bearing the quadrupedal names of the war-wolf, the cat, and the sow.
“The cattus or cat-house, gattus or cat,” says the instructive Grose,
“was a covered shed, occasionally fixed on wheels, and used for covering
of soldiers employed in filling up the ditch, preparing the way for the
movable tower, or mining the wall. It was called a cat because under it
soldiers lay in watch like a cat for its prey. Some of these cats had
crenelles and chinks, from whence the archers could discharge their
arrows. These were called castellated cats. Sometimes under this machine
the besiegers worked a small kind of ram.”[22] The sow reminds all true
Scotsmen of Black Agnes of Dunbar jeering Salisbury with the farrowing
of his sow, when she toppled on its wooden roof a mass of rock, and
beheld the mutilated sappers crawling from beneath their shattered
protector, like so many pigs. But the chief of all besieging works was
the movable tower, brought up face to face with the defenders, and
containing battering-rams below, with the various instruments already
mentioned, employed in its several upper storeys. To oppose such a
formidable engine, which could only be applied by some commander of vast
resources, the flanking round towers were of invaluable service, as the
bastions and outworks are at the present day. The main difference in the
projectile direction of the operations in the two is, that while the
fire of a fort is chiefly horizontal, the assaults made by the Norman
keep were vertical, and hence came the crest of machicolations and
turrets which has given so picturesque a character to the whole school
of baronial architecture.
The instances of the Norman castle in its more perfect shape, still
existing, are very interesting in a historical view. It may be observed,
that in the settled districts of England there are specimens of the
older and ruder style of Norman work; but that, in the Edwardian
conquests, the fully developed form is the oldest of which vestiges are
to be found.
Aberconway, or Snowdon Castle in Carnarvonshire, must have been one of
the most formidable specimens, from the great extent of its curtain
walls, and its numerous round towers. It was built, say authorities on
which we place no reliance, except in so far as they correspond with the
character of the edifice, in 1284; it served the purpose for which the
strongest fortresses are required—that of a frontier defence. In
Flintshire there are Hawarden and Rhudland. Beaumaris, in Anglesea, has
some fine diminishing towers. Carew, in Pembrokeshire, has a sort of
angular buttresses, instead of the graceful increment towards the base,
in the round towers; but it is a luxuriant and noble specimen; and
though Welsh tradition says it belonged to the princes of South Wales—no
man can tell how many hundreds of years before William or Rollo
either—and was given by Rhys ap Theodore, with his daughter, Nest, as a
marriage portion to Gerrald de Carrio, yet we take the liberty of
holding that it as clearly bears the mark of the invader of Wales, as
any government-house in Canada or New Zealand bears evidence that it is
not the work of the natives. We take Cilgarron, Haverford-west, and
Mannorbeer castles, in the same county, to belong to the same category.
The same characteristics do not so frequently occur in the southern
English counties, though there is Pevensey in Sussex, Goodrich in
Herefordshire, and Cowling in Kent, and there may be several other
instances. They reappear on the Border, where they were connected with
the Scottish wars; the forms may be seen in Prudho, Twizel, the outworks
of Bamborough, and in a modernised shape at Alnwick.
Ireland is rich in these quadrilateral flanked edifices. There is
Enniscorthy guarding the bridge of the Slaney in Wexford, and Dunmore in
Meath, one of the most entire and regular specimens, if we may judge by
the representation of Grose, who, to do him justice, never idealises. It
is one of the many castles attributed to De Lacey, the governor of
Meath. Another of them, Kilkea, continued long to raise its flanking
round towers after it had laughed at the ferocious raids of the O’Moors
and O’Dempsies in the English pale. Two of the best specimens, Lea, in
Queen’s county, and Ferns in Wexford, were attacked and taken in the
romantic inroad of Edward Bruce, who thought that, as his brother had,
by one gallant achievement, wrested a crown in Scotland from the
encroaching Norman, he might as well endeavour to take one in Ireland.
Grandison Castle, with two beautiful specimens of the bell-shaped round
tower, is attributed to the reign of James I.; but, though it is not the
peculiar defect of Irish antiquities to be post-dated, this portion
must, we think, belong to the Norman period. There are fine specimens of
the round tower at Ballylachan and Ballynafad, whence the M‘Donoughs
were driven forth, and the utterly un-Norman names of these buildings do
not exclude them from identification as the work of the courtly
invaders. In Ireland, however, this sort of work never ceased. There
were ever O’Shauchnessies, O’Donahues, O’Rourkes, or O’Dempsies, keeping
the Norman or the Saxon at work in making fortresses; and perhaps the
latest specimen of it is a relic of the ’48, which we saw the other day
in an antiquarian rummage in ancient and ruiniferous Cashel, being a
large iron box with loopholes projecting out from the barrack where it
was placed, to rake the street into which it projected with musketry
from the loopholes.
In Scotland, the Anglo-Norman origin of the earliest true baronial
fortresses is attested with remarkable precision. In the first place,
there is not a vestige in Scotland of the earlier kind of square keep,
such as might have been raised in the days of the Conqueror, or of
William Rufus, with its semicircular arches and dog-toothed decorations.
The pointed architecture and the Edwardian baronial had come into use
ere any of the fortresses of which we possess remains were erected.
Hence, the oldest of the Scottish castles were evidently built by Edward
to secure his conquest. They may be enumerated as those of Caerlaverock,
Bothwell, Dirleton, Kildrummie, and Lochindorb. These names at once
excite recollections of the war of independence, when these castles were
taken and retaken, and were surrounded by the most interesting and
enduring associations of that majestic conflict.
The architectural progeny which this style of building left in Scotland,
is very different from its growth into the bastioned fortifications of
other countries. The Scottish laird, or chief, when he made his house a
fortress, as he had imminent necessity for doing, could not afford to
erect the great flanking towers of the Normans; but he stuck little
turrets on the corners of his block-house, which served his purpose
admirably; and there are no better flanked fortresses, considered with a
view to the form of attack to which they were subjected, than our
peel-houses.
On the other hand, in the Continental castles of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, as Heidelberg, Perronne, and Plessis la Tour, as
the old representations give it, we see the flanking system extending
itself laterally, until it forms something between the Norman keep and
the modern fortress. It was on Plessis that Philip de Comines moralises,
as a large prison into which the great King Louis had virtually immured
himself, becoming, by his own exertions for the enlargement of his
power, and his protection from secret enemies, nothing better than the
hapless immured prisoner, whose lot he forced upon so many others.
The one great leading step which modern fortification took beyond the
mere flanking system, is the discovery of the glacis for covering the
stone-work, and protecting it from the attacks of cannon. The whole
system, it appears, is now on trial. The charge against it is, that
every addition made to it in the way of protecting works, only renders a
fort the more certain of ultimate capture, since these protecting works
are themselves easily taken. It is said that they save the main work
from a general escalade which is never likely to be attempted, but
facilitate a deliberate siege, which is the proper method of taking
fortified places. It is said that in fortification we must, as in other
matters of war, recur to the first principle, that the best way to
protect ourselves is to kill our enemy. Of old, the main defences of a
vessel were to protect the deck by castles stem and stern from a
boarding enemy; now the arrangement is directed to the destruction of
the enemy before he can board. Our old knights in armour were a sort of
moving fortresses made more for protection than destruction. In Italy,
the steel encasement was brought to such perfection, that at the battle
of Tornoue, under Charles VIII., we are told by Father Daniel that a
number of Italian knights were overthrown, but could not be killed until
the country people brought huge stones and sledge-hammers and broke
their shells, like those of so many lobsters. It sounds like an odd
accompaniment of civilisation that she should make the external form of
warfare more destructive and less defensive—but so it is; and a reform
in fortification is proposed, which, by the abandonment of the flanking
system, and something like a restoration of the primitive form, is to
make the fort more terrible to the invader, as a means of making it a
more effective defence.
We profess not to enter on so great a question. Mere theories we have
herein offered to our reader; and as they are given in all innocence and
good-humour, all we pray is, that he will not, if they differ from his
own, condemn us to some dire mysterious fate. Let him, if we displease
him, simply content himself with the old established remedy, and mutter
to himself, “Pooh! humbug!” And we on our part engage that we shall live
in all charity with all men who accept not our theory; and will by no
means endeavour to prove that they are sensual, lewd, dishonourable
people, deserving of some dire punishment.
FIRMILIAN: A TRAGEDY.[23]
We have great pleasure in announcing to our readers the fact, that we
have at last discovered that long-expected phenomenon, the coming Poet,
and we trust that his light will very soon become visible in the
literary horizon. We cannot, however, arrogate to ourselves any large
share of merit in this discovery—indeed, we must confess, with a feeling
akin to shame, that we ought to have made it at a much earlier date.
_Firmilian_ is not altogether new to us. We have an indistinct
recollection of having seen the tragedy in manuscript well-nigh two
years ago; and, if we remember aright, a rather animated correspondence
took place on the subject of the return of the papers. We had, by some
untoward accident, allowed them to find their way into the Balaam-box,
which girnel of genius was at that particular time full up to the very
hinges. We felt confident that _Firmilian_ lay under the weight of some
twenty solid layers of miscellaneous literature; and we should as soon
have thought of attempting to disinter an ichthyosaurus from a
slate-quarry, as of ransacking the bowels of the chest for that treasury
of rare delights. However, we took care, on the occasion of the next
incremation, to make search for the missing article, and had the
pleasure of returning it to Mr Percy Jones, from whom we heard nothing
further until we received his tragedy in print. Our first perusal having
been rather of a cursory nature, we are not able to state with certainty
whether the author has applied himself during the intervening period to
the work of emendation; but we think it exceedingly probable that he has
done so, as we now remark a degree of vivacity and force of expression,
however extravagant many of the ideas may be, which had escaped our
previous notice. We hope that, by a tardy act of justice, we shall offer
no violence to that amiable modesty which has, in the mean time,
restrained him from asking the verdict of the general public.
As to the actual amount of poetic genius and accomplishment which Mr
Percy Jones possesses, there may, even among the circle of his friends,
be considerable difference of opinion. Those who admire spasmodic throes
and writhings may possibly be inclined to exalt him to a very high
pinnacle of fame; for certainly, in no modern work of poetry—and there
have been several recently published which might have borne the
_imprimatur_ of Bedlam—have we found so many symptoms of unmistakable
lunacy. Still there is a method in his madness—a rapidity of perception
and originality of thought, which contrasts very favourably with the
tedious drivellings of some other writers of the same school. His taste
is not one whit better than theirs, but he brings a finer fancy and a
more vivid imagination to the task; nor is he deficient in a certain
rude exaggerated dramatic power, which has more than once reminded us of
the early style of Marlowe and the other predecessors of Shakespeare.
It is not very easy to comprehend the exact creed and method of the new
school of poets, who have set themselves to work upon a principle
hitherto unknown, or at all events unproclaimed. This much we know from
themselves, that they regard poetry not only as a sacred calling, but as
the most sacred of any—that, in their opinion, every social relation,
every mundane tie, which can interfere with the bard’s development, must
be either disregarded or snapped asunder—and that they are, to the
fainting race of Adam, the sole accredited bearers of the Amreeta cup of
immortality. Such is the kind of nonsense regarding the nature of his
mission which each fresh poetaster considers it his duty to enunciate;
and as there is nothing, however absurd, which will not become credited
by dint of constant repetition, we need not be surprised that some very
extraordinary views regarding the “rights of genius” should of late
years have been countenanced by men who ought to have known better.
Poets are, like all other authors or artisans, valuable according to the
quality of the article which they produce. If their handiwork be good,
genuine, and true, it will pass at once into circulation and be
prized—if the reverse, what title can they prefer to the name which they
so proudly arrogate to themselves?
We do not, however, quarrel with a poet for having an exalted idea of
his art—always supposing that he has taken any pains to acquire its
rudiments. Without a high feeling of this kind, it would be difficult to
maintain the struggle which must precede eminent success; nor would we
have alluded to the subject but for the affectation and offensive
swaggering of some who may indeed be rhymsters, but who never could be
poets even if their days were to be prolonged to the extent of those of
Methusaleh. When the painter of the tavern sign-post, whereon is
depicted a beer-bottle voiding its cork, and spontaneously ejecting its
contents right and left into a couple of convenient tumblers, talks to
us of high art, Raphael, and the effects of _chiaroscuro_, it is utterly
impossible to control the action of the risible muscles. And, in like
manner, when one of our young poetical aspirants, on the strength of a
trashy duodecimo filled with unintelligible ravings, asserts his claim
to be considered as a prophet and a teacher, it is beyond the power of
humanity to check the intolerable tickling of the midriff.
But, apart from their exaggerated notions of their calling, let us see
what is the practice of the poets of the Spasmodic School. In the first
place, they rarely, if ever, attempt anything like a plot. After you
have finished the perusal of their verses, you find yourself just as
wise as when you began. You cannot tell what they would be at. You have
a confused recollection of stars, and sunbeams, and moonbeams, as if you
had been staring at an orrery; but sun, moon, and stars, were intended
to give light to something—and what that something is, in the poet’s
page, you cannot, for the life of you, discover. In the second place, we
regret to say that they are often exceedingly profane, not, we suppose,
intentionally, but because they have not sense enough to see the limits
which decency, as well as duty, prescribes. In the third place, they are
occasionally very prurient. And, in the fourth place, they are almost
always unintelligible.
Now, although we cannot by any means aver that Mr Percy Jones is
entirely free from the faults which we have just enumerated, we look
upon him as a decidedly favourable specimen of his tribe. There is, in
_Firmilian_, if not a plot, at least some kind of comprehensible action;
and in it he has portrayed the leading features of the poetical school
to which he belongs with so much fidelity and effect, that we feel
called upon to give an outline of his tragedy, with a few specimens from
the more remarkable scenes.
The hero of the piece, Firmilian, is a student in the university of
Badajoz, a poet, and entirely devoted to his art. He has been engaged
for some time in the composition of a tragedy upon the subject of Cain,
which is “to win the world by storm;” but he unfortunately discovers,
after he has proceeded a certain length in his task, that he has not yet
thoroughly informed himself, by experience, of the real nature of the
agonies of remorse. He finds that he cannot do justice to his subject
without steeping his own soul in guilt, so as to experience the pangs of
the murderer; and as, according to the doctrines of the spasmodic school
of poetry, such investigations are not only permitted, but highly
laudable, he sets himself seriously to ponder with what victim he should
begin. All our spasmodic poets introduce us to their heroes in their
studies, and Mr Percy Jones follows the tradition. He does not, however,
like some of them, carry his imitative admiration of Goethe’s _Faust_ so
far, as personally to evoke Lucifer or Mephistopheles—an omission for
which we are really thankful. Firmilian begins by a soliloquy upon his
frame of mind and feelings; and states himself to be grievously
perplexed and hindered in his work by his comparative state of
innocence. He then meditates whether he should commence his course of
practical remorse by putting to death Mariana, a young lady to whom he
is attached, or three friends and fellow-students of his, with whom he
is to dine next day. After much hesitation, he decides on the latter
view, and, after looking up “Raymond Lullius” for the composition of a
certain powder, retires to rest after a beautiful but somewhat lengthy
apostrophe to the moon. There is nothing in this scene which peculiarly
challenges quotation. The next is occupied by love-making; and
certainly, if Mr Percy Jones had intended to exhibit his hero throughout
in the most amiable and romantic light, nothing could be better than his
appearance in the bower of Mariana. If, here and there, we encounter an
occasional floridness, or even warmth of expression, we attribute that
in a great measure to the sunny nature of the clime; just as we feel
that the raptures of Romeo and Juliet are in accordance with the
temperament of the land that gave them birth. But we presently find that
Firmilian, though a poet, is a hypocrite and traitor in love. The next
scene is laid in a tavern, where he and his friends, Garcia Perez,
Alphonzo D’Aguilar, and Alonzo Olivarez are assembled, and there is a
discussion, over the winecup, on the inexhaustible subject of knightly
love. Alphonzo, claiming to be descended from the purest blood of
Castile, asserts the superiority of European beauty over the rest of the
universe; to which Firmilian, though known to be betrothed to Mariana,
makes the following reply—
FIRMILIAN.
I knew a poet once; and he was young,
And intermingled with such fierce desires
As made pale Eros veil his face with grief,
And caused his lustier brother to rejoice.
He was as amorous as a crocodile
In the spring season, when the Memphian bank,
Receiving substance from the glaring sun,
Resolves itself from mud into a shore.
And—as the scaly creature wallowing there,
In its hot fits of passion, belches forth
The steam from out its nostrils, half in love,
And half in grim defiance of its kind;
Trusting that either, from the reedy fen,
Some reptile-virgin coyly may appear,
Or that the hoary Sultan of the Nile
May make tremendous challenge with his jaws,
And, like Mark Anthony, assert his right
To all the Cleopatras of the ooze—
So fared it with the poet that I knew.
He had a soul beyond the vulgar reach,
Sun-ripened, swarthy. He was not the fool
To pluck the feeble lily from its shade
When the black hyacinth stood in fragrance by.
The lady of his love was dusk as Ind,
Her lips as plenteous as the Sphinx’s are,
And her short hair crisp with Numidian curl.
She was a negress. You have heard the strains
That Dante, Petrarch, and such puling fools
As loved the daughters of cold Japhet’s race,
Have lavished idly on their icicles.
As snow melts snow, so their unhasty fall
Fell chill and barren on a pulseless heart.
But, would you know what noontide ardour is,
Or in what mood the lion, in the waste,
All fever-maddened, and intent on cubs,
At the oasis waits the lioness—
That shall you gather from the fiery song
Which that young poet framed, before he dared
Invade the vastness of his lady’s lips.
Judging from the implied character of the ditty in question, we are not
sorry that we cannot lay it before our readers—indeed it does not appear
in the volume, for D’Aguilar was so disgusted with the introduction that
he openly reviled Firmilian as a pupil of Mahound, and bestowed a buffet
on him, whereupon there was a flashing of swords. These, however, were
sheathed, and the students again sate down amicably to drink. Firmilian,
being suddenly called away, entreats his friends to amuse themselves,
during his absence, with a special bottle of “Ildefronso”—a vintage
which we do not remember having seen in any modern list of wines. They
comply—feel rather uncomfortable—and the scene concludes by the chaunt
of a funeral procession beneath the window; an idea which we strongly
suspect has been borrowed from Victor Hugo’s tragedy of _Lucrèce
Borgia_.
The next scene exhibits Firmilian pacing the cloisters. His three
friends have died by poison, but he is not able by any means to conjure
up a feeling of adequate remorse. He does not see that he is at all
responsible in the matter. If he had poured out the wine into their
glasses, and looked upon their dying agonies, then, indeed, he might
have experienced the desired sensation of guilt. But he did nothing of
the kind. They helped themselves, of their own free will and accord, and
died when he was out of the way. On the whole, then, his first
experiment was a blunder. During his reverie, an old preceptor of his,
the Priest of St Nicholas, passes; and certain reminiscences of stripes
suggest him as the next victim. The reader will presently see by what
means this scheme is carried into execution. Suffice it to say, that the
mere anticipation of it sheds a balm upon Firmilian’s disappointed
spirit, who, being now fully convinced that in a few days he will be
able to realise the tortures of Cain, departs for an interview with
Lilian, a young lady for whom he entertains a clandestine attachment.
The next scene speaks for itself.
EXTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL OF ST NICHOLAS.
_Choir heard chaunting within._
_Enter_ FIRMILIAN.
How darkly hangs yon cloud above the spire!
There’s thunder in the air—
What if the flash
Should rend the solid walls, and reach the vault
Where my terrestrial thunder lies prepared,
And so, without the action of my hand,
Whirl up those thousand bigots in its blaze,
And leave me guiltless, save in the intent?
That were a vile defraudment of my aim,
A petty larceny o’ the element,
An interjection of exceeding wrong!
Let the hoarse thunder rend the vault of heaven,
Yea, shake the stars by myriads from their boughs,
As autumn tempests shake the fruitage down;—
Let the red lightning shoot athwart the sky,
Entangling comets by their spooming hair,
Piercing the zodiac belt, and carrying dread
To old Orion, and his whimpering hound;—
But let the glory of this deed be mine!
ORGAN _and_ CHOIR.
Sublimatus ad honorem
Nicholai presulis:
Pietatis ante rorem
Cunctis pluit populis:
Ut vix parem aut majorem
Habeat in seculis.
FIRMILIAN.
Yet I could weep to hear the wretches sing!
There rolls the organ anthem down the aisle,
And thousand voices join in its acclaim.
All they are happy—they are on their knees;
Round and above them stare the images
Of antique saints and martyrs. Censers steam
With their Arabian charge of frankincense,
And every heart, with inward fingers, counts
A blissful rosary of pious prayer!
Why should they perish then? Is’t yet too late?
O shame, Firmilian, on thy coward soul!
What! thou, the poet!—thou, whose mission ’tis
To send vibration down the chord of time,
Until its junction with eternity—
Thou, who hast dared and pondered and endured,
Gathering by piecemeal all the noble thoughts
And fierce sensations of the mind—as one
Who in a garden culls the wholesome rose,
And binds it with the deadly nightshade up;
Flowers not akin, and yet, by contrast kind—
Thou, for a touch of what these mundane fools
Whine of as pity, to forego thine aim,
And never feel the gnawing of remorse,
Like the Promethean vulture on the spleen,
That shall instruct thee to give future voice
To the unuttered agonies of Cain!
Thou, to compare, with that high consequence
The breath of some poor thousand knights and knaves,
Who soaring, in the welkin, shall expire!
Shame, shame, Firmilian! on thy weakness, shame!
ORGAN _and_ CHOIR.
Auro dato violari
Virgines prohibuit:
Far in fame, vas in mari
Servat et distribuit:
Qui timebant naufragari
Nautis opem tribuit.
FIRMILIAN.
A right good saint he seems, this Nicholas!
And over-worked too, if the praise be just,
Which these, his votaries, quaver as his claim.
Yet it is odd he should o’erlook the fact
That underneath this church of his are stored
Some twenty barrels of the dusky grain,
The secret of whose framing, in an hour
Of diabolic jollity and mirth,
Old Roger Bacon wormed from Belzebub!
He might keep better wardship for his friends;
But that to me is nothing. Now’s the time!
Ha! as I take the matchbox in my hand,
A spasm pervades me, and a natural thrill
As though my better genius were at hand,
And strove to pluck me backwards by the hair.
I must be resolute. Lose this one chance,
Which bears me to th’ Acropolis of guilt,
And this, our age, foregoes its noblest song.
I must be speedy—
ORGAN _and_ CHOIR.
A defunctis suscitatur
Furtum qui commiserat:
Et Judæus baptizatur
Furtum qui recuperat:
Illi vita restauratur,
Hic ad fidem properat.
FIRMILIAN.
No more was needed to confirm my mind!
That stanza blows all thoughts of pity off,
As empty straws are scattered by the wind!
For I have been the victim of the Jews,
Who, by vile barter, have absorbed my means.
Did I not pawn—for that same flagrant stuff,
Which only waits a spark to be dissolved,
And, having done its mission, must disperse
As a thin smoke into the ambient air—
My diamond cross, my goblet, and my books?
What! would they venture to baptise the Jew?
The cause assumes a holier aspect, then;
And, as a faithful son of Rome, I dare
To merge my darling passion in the wrong
That is projected against Christendom!
Pity, avaunt! I may not longer stay.
[_Exit into the vaults. A short pause, after which he reappears._
’Tis done! I vanish like the lightning bolt!
ORGAN _and_ CHOIR.
Nicholai sacerdotum
Decus, honor, gloria:
Plebem omnem, clerum totum—
[_The Cathedral is blown up_].
We back that scene, for intensity, against anything which has been
written for the last dozen of years. Nay, we can even see in it traces
of profound psychological observation. Firmilian, like Hamlet, is
liable, especially on the eve of action, to fits of constitutional
irresolution; and he requires, in order to nerve him to the deed, a more
direct and plausible motive than that which originally prompted him.
Hence we find him wavering, and almost inclined to abandon his purpose,
until a casual passage in the choral hymn jars upon an excitable nerve,
and urges him irresistibly forward. We shall presently find the same
trait of character even more remarkably developed in another scene.
We then come to the obsequies of the students, which, being episodical,
we may as well pass over. There are two ways of depicting grief—one
quiet and impressive, the other stormy and clamorous. Mr Percy Jones, as
might have been expected, adopts the latter method; and we are bound to
say that we have never perused anything in print so fearful as the
ravings of the bereaved Countess D’Aguilar, mother of the unfortunate
Alphonzo. She even forgets herself so far as to box the ears of the
confessor who is officiously whispering consolation.
Meanwhile, where is the hero of the piece—the successful Guy Fawkes of
the cathedral? Perched on a locality which never would have occurred to
any but the most exalted imagination.
SUMMIT OF THE PILLAR OF ST SIMEON STYLITES.
FIRMILIAN.
’Twas a grand spectacle! The solid earth
Seemed from its quaking entrails to eruct
The gathered lava of a thousand years,
Like an imposthume bursting up from hell!
In a red robe of flame, the riven towers,
Pillars and altar, organ-loft and screen,
With a singed swarm of mortals intermixed,
Were whirled in anguish to the shuddering stars,
And all creation trembled at the din.
It was my doing—mine alone! and I
Stand greater by this deed than the vain fool
That thrust his torch beneath Diana’s shrine.
For what was it inspired Erostratus
But a weak vanity to have his name
Blaze out for arson in the catalogue?
I have been wiser. No man knows the name
Of me, the pyrotechnist who have given
A new apotheosis to the saint
With lightning blast, and stunning thunder knell!
And yet—and yet—what boots the sacrifice?
I thought to take remorse unto my heart,
As the young Spartan hid the savage fox
Beneath the foldings of his boyish gown,
And let it rive his flesh. Mine is not riven—
My heart is yet unscarred. I’ve been too coarse
And general in this business. Had there been
Amongst that multitude a single man
Who loved me, cherished me—to whom I owed
Sweet reciprocity for holy alms
And gifts of gentle import—had there been
Friend,—father,—brother, mingled in that crowd,
And I had slain him—then indeed my soul
Might have acquired fruition of its wish,
And shrieked delirious at the taste of sin!
But these—what were the victims unto me?
Nothing! Mere human atoms, breathing clods,
Uninspired dullards, unpoetic slaves,
The rag, and tag, and bobtail of mankind;
Whom, having scorched to cinders, I no more
Feel ruth for what I did, than if my hand
Had thrust a stick of sulphur in the nest
Of some poor hive of droning humble-bees,
And smoked them into silence!
I must have
A more potential draught of guilt than this,
With more of wormwood in it!
Here I sit,
Perched like a raven on old Simeon’s shaft,
With barely needful footing for my limbs—
And one is climbing up the inward coil,
Who was my friend and brother. We have gazed
Together on the midnight map of heaven,
And marked the gems in Cassiopea’s hair—
Together have we heard the nightingale
Waste the exuberant music of her throat,
And lull the flustering breezes into calm—
Together have we emulously sung
Of Hyacinthus, Daphne, and the rest,
Whose mortal weeds Apollo changed to flowers.
Also from him I have derived much aid
In golden ducats, which I fain would pay
Back with extremest usury, were but
Mine own convenience equal to my wish.
Moreover, of his poems he hath sold
Two full editions of a thousand each,
While mine remain neglected on the shelves!
Courage, Firmilian! for the hour has come
When thou canst know atrocity indeed,
By smiting him that was thy dearest friend.
And think not that he dies a vulgar death—
’Tis poetry demands the sacrifice!
Yet not to him be that revealment made.
He must not know with what a loving hand—
With what fraternal charity of heart
I do devote him to the infernal gods!
I dare not spare him one particular pang,
Nor make the struggle briefer! Hush—he comes.
HAVERILLO, _emerging from the staircase_.
How now, Firmilian!—I am scant of breath;
These steps have pumped the ether from my lungs,
And made the bead-drops cluster on my brow.
A strange, unusual rendezvous is this—
An old saint’s pillar, which no human foot
Hath scaled this hundred years!
FIRMILIAN.
Aye—it is strange!
HAVERILLO.
’Faith, sir, the bats considered it as such:
They seem to flourish in the column here,
And are not over courteous. Ha! I’m weary:
I shall sleep sound to-night.
FIRMILIAN.
You _shall_ sleep sound!
HAVERILLO.
Either there is an echo in the place,
Or your voice is sepulchral.
FIRMILIAN.
Seems it so?
HAVERILLO.
Come, come, Firmilian—Be once more a man!
Leave off these childish tricks, and vapours bred
Out of a too much pampered fantasy.
What are we, after all, but mortal men,
Who eat, drink, sleep, need raiment and the like,
As well as any jolterhead alive?
Trust me, my friend, we cannot feed on dreams,
Or stay the hungry cravings of the maw
By mere poetic banquets.
FIRMILIAN.
Say you so?
Yet have I heard that by some alchemy
(To me unknown as yet) you have transmuted
Your verses to fine gold.
HAVERILLO.
And all that gold
Was lent to you, Firmilian.
FIRMILIAN.
You expect,
Doubtless, I will repay you?
HAVERILLO.
So I do.
You told me yesterday to meet you here,
And you would pay me back with interest.
Here is the note.
FIRMILIAN.
A moment.—Do you see
Yon melon-vender’s stall down i’ the square?
Methinks the fruit that, close beside the eye,
Would show as largely as a giant’s head,
Is dwindled to a heap of gooseberries!
If Justice held no bigger scales than those
Yon pigmy seems to balance in his hands,
Her utmost fiat scarce would weigh a drachm!
How say you?
HAVERILLO.
Nothing—’tis a fearful height!
My brain turns dizzy as I gaze below,
And there’s a strange sensation in my soles.
FIRMILIAN.
Ay—feel you that? Ixion felt the same
Ere he was whirled from heaven!
HAVERILLO.
Firmilian!
You carry this too far. Farewell. We’ll meet
When you’re in better humour.
FIRMILIAN.
Tarry, sir!
I have you here, and thus we shall not part.
I know your meaning well. For that same dross,
That paltry ore of Mammon’s mean device
Which I, to honour you, stooped to receive,
You’d set the Alguazils on my heels!
What! have I read your thought? Nay, never shrink,
Nor edge towards the doorway! You’re a scholar!
How was’t with Phaeton?
HAVERILLO.
Alas! he’s mad.
Hear me, Firmilian! Here is the receipt—
Take it—I grudge it not! If ten times more,
It were at your sweet service.
FIRMILIAN.
Would you do
This kindness unto me?
HAVERILLO.
Most willingly.
FIRMILIAN.
Liar and slave! There’s falsehood in thine eye!
I read as clearly there, as in a book,
That, if I did allow you to escape,
In fifteen minutes you would seek the judge.
Therefore, prepare thee, for thou needs must die!
HAVERILLO.
Madman—stand off!
FIRMILIAN.
There’s but four feet of space
To spare between us. I’m not hasty, I!
Swans sing before their death, and it may be
That dying poets feel that impulse too:
Then, prythee, be canorous. You may sing
One of those ditties which have won you gold,
And my meek audience of the vapid strain
Shall count with Phœbus as a full discharge
For all your ducats. Will you not begin?
HAVERILLO.
Leave off this horrid jest, Firmilian!
FIRMILIAN.
Jest! ’Tis no jest! This pillar’s very high—
Shout, and no one can hear you from the square—
Wilt sing, I say?
HAVERILLO.
Listen, Firmilian!
I have a third edition in the press,
Whereof the proceeds shall be wholly thine—
Spare me!
FIRMILIAN.
A third edition! Atropos—
Forgive me that I tarried!
HAVERILLO.
Mercy!—Ah!—
[FIRMILIAN _hurls him from the column_.
There is a grand recklessness and savage energy displayed in this scene,
which greatly increases our admiration of the author’s abilities. He
seems, indeed, in the fair way of making the spasmodic school famous in
modern literature. With the death of Haverillo an ordinary writer would
have paused—not so Percy Jones, who, with a fine aptitude for
destruction, makes his hero, Firmilian, kill two birds with one stone.
The manner in which he accomplishes this feat is most ingenious. He
maintains the unity of the design by a very slight alteration of the
locality. Whilst the two poets are ominously conversing on the summit of
the pillar, a critic, affected by an intolerable itch for notoriety, is
prowling in the square beneath—
SQUARE BELOW THE PILLAR.
_Enter_ APOLLODORUS, _a Critic_.
Why do men call me a presumptuous cur,
A vapouring blockhead, and a turgid fool,
A common nuisance, and a charlatan?
I’ve dashed into the sea of metaphor
With as strong paddles as the sturdiest ship
That churns Medusæ into liquid light,
And hashed at every object in my way.
My ends are public. I have talked of men
As my familiars, whom I never saw.
Nay—more to raise my credit—I have penned
Epistles to the great ones of the land,
When some attack might make them slightly sore,
Assuring them, in faith, it was not I.
What was their answer? Marry—shortly this:
“Who, in the name of Zernebock, are you?”
I have reviewed myself incessantly—
Yea, made a contract with a kindred soul
For mutual interchange of puffery.
Gods—how we blew each other! But, ’tis past—
Those halcyon days are gone; and, I suspect,
That, in some fit of loathing or disgust,
Mine ancient playmate hath deserted me.
And yet I am Apollodorus still!
I search for genius, having it myself,
With keen and earnest longings. I survive
To disentangle, from the imping wings
Of our young poets, their crustaceous slough.
I watch them, as the watcher on the brook
Sees the young salmon wrestling from its egg,
And revels in its future bright career.
Ha! what seraphic melody is this?
_Enter_ SANCHO, _a Costermonger, singing_.
Down in the garden behind the wall,
Merrily grows the bright-green leek;
The old sow grunts as the acorns fall,
The winds blow heavy, the little pigs squeak.
One for the litter, and three for the teat—
Hark to their music, Juanna my sweet!
APOLLODORUS.
Now, heaven be thanked! here is a genuine bard,
A creature of high impulse, one unsoiled
By coarse conventionalities of rule.
He labours not to sing, for his bright thoughts
Resolve themselves at once into a strain
Without the aid of balanced artifice.
All hail, great poet!
SANCHO.
Save you, my merry master! Need you any leeks or onions? Here’s the
primest cauliflower, though I say it, in all Badajoz. Set it up at a
distance of some ten yards, and I’ll forfeit my ass if it does not look
bigger than the Alcayde’s wig. Or would these radishes suit your turn?
There’s nothing like your radish for cooling the blood and purging
distempered humours.
APOLLODORUS.
I do admire thy vegetables much,
But will not buy them. Pray you, pardon me
For one short word of friendly obloquy.
Is’t possible a being so endowed
With music, song, and sun-aspiring thoughts,
Can stoop to chaffer idly in the streets,
And, for a huckster’s miserable gain,
Renounce the urgings of his destiny?
Why, man, thine ass should be a Pegasus,
A sun-reared charger snorting at the stars,
And scattering all the Pleiads at his heels—
Thy cart should be an orient-tinted car,
Such as Aurora drives into the day,
What time the rosy-fingered Hours awake—
Thy reins—
SANCHO.
Lookye, master, I’ve dusted a better jacket than yours before now, so
you had best keep a civil tongue in your head. Once for all, will you
buy my radishes?
APOLLODORUS.
No!
SANCHO.
Then go to the devil and shake yourself!
[_Exit._
APOLLODORUS.
The foul fiend seize thee and thy cauliflowers!
I was indeed a most egregious ass
To take this lubber clodpole for a bard,
And worship that dull fool. Pythian Apollo!
Hear me—O hear! Towards the firmament
I gaze with longing eyes; and, in the name
Of millions thirsting for poetic draughts,
I do beseech thee, send a poet down!
Let him descend, e’en as a meteor falls,
Rushing at noonday——
[_He is crushed by the fall of the body of_ HAVERILLO.
We then find Firmilian wandering among the mountains, and lavishing a
superfluity of apostrophe upon the rocks, forests, and cataracts around
him. Whatever may be his moral deficiencies, we are constrained to admit
that he must have studied the phenomena of nature to considerable
purpose at the University of Badajoz, since he explains, in no fewer
than twelve pages of blank verse, the glacier theory, entreating his own
attention—for no one is with him—to the striated surface of rocks and
the forcible displacement of boulders. He then, by way of amusement,
works out a question in conic sections. But, notwithstanding these
exercitations, he is obviously not happy. He is still as far as ever
from his grand object, the thorough appreciation of remorse—for he can
assign a distinct moral motive for each atrocity which he has committed.
He at last reluctantly arrives at the conclusion that he is not the
party destined—
To shrine that page of history in song,
And utter such tremendous cadences,
That the mere babe who hears them at the breast,
_Sans_ comprehension, or the power of thought,
Shall be an idiot to its dying hour!
I deemed my verse would make pale Hecate’s orb
Grow wan and dark; and into ashes change
The radiant star-dust of the milky-way.
I deemed that pestilence, disease, and death
Would follow every strophe—for the power
Of a true poet, prophet as he is,
Should rack creation!
If this view of the powers of poets and poetry be correct, commend us to
the continuance of a lengthened period of prose!
Firmilian then begins to look about him for a new subject, and a new
course of initiative discipline. Magic first occurs to him—but he very
speedily abandons that idea, from a natural terror of facing the fiend,
and a wholesome dread of the Inquisition. He admits having made already
one or two experiments in that line, and narrates, with evident horror,
how he drew a chalk circle in his apartments, kindled a brazier, and
began an incantation, when suddenly a lurid light appeared in the
sockets of a skull upon the shelf, and so nearly threw him into
convulsions that he could barely mutter the exorcism. (It appears, from
another part of the poem, that this exploit had been detected by his
servant, a spy of the Inquisition, in consequence of his having
neglected to erase the cabalistic markings in chalk, and was of course
immediately reported.) At last he determines to fall back upon
sensuality, and to devote his unexampled talents to a grand poem upon
the amours of the Heathen deities. He states, with much show of truth,
that the tone of morals which an exclusively classical education is apt
to give, cannot but be favourable to an extensive and sublime erotic
undertaking—and that the youthful appetite, early stimulated by the
perusal of the Pantheon, and the works of Ovid, Juvenal, and Catullus,
will eagerly turn to anything in the vernacular which promises still
stronger excitement. We shall not venture, at the present, to apply
ourselves seriously to that question.
That Firmilian—for we shall not say Mr Percy Jones—was well qualified
for such an undertaking as he finally resolved to prosecute, must be
evident to every one who has perused the earliest extract we have given;
and we shall certainly hold ourselves excused from quoting the terms of
the course of study which he now proposes to himself. Seriously, it is
full time that the prurient and indecent tone which has liberally
manifested itself in the writings of the young spasmodic poets should be
checked. It is so far from occasional, that it has become a main feature
of their school; and in one production of the kind, most shamefully
bepuffed, the hero was represented as carrying on an intrigue with the
kept-mistress of Lucifer! If we do not comment upon more recent
instances of marked impurity, it is because we hope the offence will not
be repeated. Meantime, let us back to Firmilian.
As he approaches the catastrophe, we remark, with infinite
gratification, that Mr Percy Jones takes pains to show that he is not
personally identified with the opinions of his hero. Up to the point
which we have now reached, there has been nothing to convince us that
Jones did not intend Firmilian to be admired—but we are thankful to say
that before the conclusion we are undeceived. Jones, though quite as
spasmodic as the best of them, _has_ a sense of morals; and we do not
know that we ever read anything better, in its way, than the following
scene:—
A GARDEN.
FIRMILIAN. MARIANA.
FIRMILIAN.
My Mariana!
MARIANA.
O my beautiful!
My seraph love—my panther of the wild—
My moon-eyed leopard—my voluptuous lord!
O, I am sunk within a sea of bliss,
And find no soundings!
FIRMILIAN.
Shall I answer back?
As the great Earth lies silent all the night,
And looks with hungry longing on the stars,
Whilst its huge heart beats on its granite ribs
With measured pulsings of delirious joy—
So look I, Mariana, on thine eyes!
MARIANA.
Ah, dearest! wherefore are we fashioned thus?
I cannot always hang around thy neck
And plant vermilion kisses on thy brow;
I cannot clasp thee, as yon ivy bush—
Too happy ivy!—holds, from year to year,
The stalwart oak within her firm embrace,
Mixing her tresses fondly up with his,
Like some young Jewish maid with Absalom’s.
Nay, hold, Firmilian! do not pluck that rose!
FIRMILIAN.
Why not? it is a fair one.
MARIANA.
Are fair things
Made only to be plucked? O fie on thee!
I did not think my lord a libertine!
FIRMILIAN.
Yet, sweetest, with your leave I’ll take the rose,
For there’s a moral in it.—Look you here.
’Tis fair, and sweet, and in its clustered leaves
It carries balmy dew: a precious flower,
And vermeil-tinctured, as are Hebe’s lips.
Yet say, my Mariana, could you bear
To gaze for ever only upon this,
And fling the rest of Flora’s casket by?
MARIANA.
No, truly—I would bind it up with more,
And make a fitting posy for my breast.
If I were stinted in my general choice,
I’d crop the lily, tender, fresh, and white,—
The shrinking pretty lily—and would give
Its modest contrast to the gaudier rose.
What next? some flower that does not love the day—
The dark, full-scented night-stock well might serve
To join the other two.
FIRMILIAN.
A sweet selection!
Think’st thou they’d bloom together on one breast
With a united fragrance?
MARIANA.
Wherefore not?
It is by union that all things are sweet.
FIRMILIAN.
Thou speakest well! I joy, my Mariana,
To find thy spirit overleaps the pale
Of this mean world’s injurious narrowness!
Never did Socrates proclaim a truth
More beautiful than welled from out thy lips—
“It is by union that all things are sweet.”
Thou, darling, art my rose—my dewy rose—
The which I’ll proudly wear, but not alone.
Dost comprehend me?
MARIANA.
Ha! Firmilian—
How my eyes dazzle!
FIRMILIAN.
Let me show you now
The lily I have ta’en to bind with thee.
[_He brings_ LILIAN _from the summer-house_.
MARIANA.
Is this a jest, Firmilian?
FIRMILIAN.
Could I jest
With aught so fair and delicate as this?
Nay, come—no coyness! Both of you embrace.
Then to my heart of hearts—
MARIANA.
Soft you a moment!
Methinks the posy is not yet complete.
Say, for the sake of argument, I share
My rights with this pale beauty—(for she’s pretty;
Although so fragile and so frail a thing,
That a mere puff of April wind would mar her)—
Where is the night-stock?
FIRMILIAN _brings_ INDIANA _from the tool-house_.
Here!
MARIANA.
A filthy negress!
Abominable!
LILIAN.
Mercy on me! what blubber lips she has!
MARIANA, _furiously to_ FIRMILIAN.
You nasty thing! Is this your poetry—
Your high soul-scheming and philosophy?
I hate and loathe you! (_To Indiana_).—Rival of my shoe,
Go, get thee gone, and hide thee from the day
That loathes thine ebon skin! Firmilian—
You’ll hear of this! My brother serves the king.
LILIAN.
My uncle is the chief Inquisitor,
And he shall know of this ere curfew tolls!
What! Shall I share a husband with a coal?
MARIANA.
Right, girl! I love thee even for that word—
The Inquisition makes most rapid work,
And, in its books, that caitiff’s name is down!
FIRMILIAN.
Listen one moment! When I was a babe,
And in my cradle puling for my nurse,
There fell a gleam of glory on the floor,
And in it, darkly standing, was a form—
MARIANA.
A negress, probably! Farewell awhile—
When next we meet—the faggot and the pile!
Come, Lilian!
[_Exeunt._
INDIANA.
I shake from head to foot with sore affright—
What will become of me?
FIRMILIAN.
Who cares? Good night!
[_Scene closes._
Bravo, Percy! The first part of that scene is managed with a dexterity
which old Dekker might have applauded, and the conclusion shows a
perfect knowledge of womanly character and feeling. Firmilian is now
cast beyond the pale of society, and in imminent danger, if apprehended,
of taking a conspicuous part in an _auto-da-fé_. An author of inferior
genius would probably have consigned him to the custody of the
Familiars, in which case we should have had a dungeon and rack scene, if
not absolute incremation as the catastrophe. But Jones knew better. He
felt that such a cruel fate might, by the effect of contrast, revive
some kind of sympathy in the mind of the reader for Firmilian, and he
has accordingly adopted the wiser plan of depicting him as the victim of
his own haunted imagination. The closing scene is so eminently graphic,
and so perfectly original, that we give it entire.
A BARREN MOOR.
_Night—Mist and fog._
_Enter_ FIRMILIAN.
They’re hot upon my traces! Through the mist
I heard their call and answer—and but now,
As I was crouching ’neath a hawthorn bush,
A dark Familiar swiftly glided by,
His keen eyes glittering with the lust of death.
If I am ta’en, the faggot and the pile
Await me! Horror! Rather would I dare,
Like rash Empedocles, the Etna gulf,
Than writhe before the slaves of bigotry.
Where am I? If my mind deceives me not,
Upon that common where, two years ago,
An old blind beggar came and craved an alms,
Thereby destroying a stupendous thought
Just bursting in my mind—a glorious bud
Of poesy, but blasted ere its bloom!
I bade the old fool take the leftward path,
Which leads to the deep quarry, where he fell—
At least I deem so, for I heard a splash—
But I was gazing on the gibbous moon,
And durst not lower my celestial flight
To care for such an insect-worm as he!
How cold it is! The mist comes thicker on.
Ha!—what is that? I see around me lights
Dancing and flitting, yet they do not seem
Like torches either—and there’s music too!
I’ll pause and listen.
_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.
Follow, follow, follow!
Over hill and over hollow;
It is ours to lead the way,
When a sinner’s footsteps stray—
Cheering him with light and song,
On his doubtful path along.
Hark, hark! The watch-dogs bark.
There’s a crash, and a splash, and a blind man’s cry,
But the Poet looks tranquilly up at the sky!
FIRMILIAN.
Is it the echo of an inward voice,
Or spirit-words that make my flesh to creep,
And send the cold blood choking to my heart?
I’ll shift my ground a little—
_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.
Flicker, flicker, flicker!
Quicker still, and quicker.
Four young men sate down to dine,
And still they passed the rosy wine;
Pure was the cask, but in the flask
There lay a certain deadly powder—
Ha! his heart is beating louder!
Ere the day had passed away,
Garcia Perez lifeless lay!
Hark! his mother wails Alphonzo,
Never more shall strong Alonzo
Drink the wine of Ildefronso!
FIRMILIAN.
O horror! horror! ’twas by me they died!
I’ll move yet farther on—
_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.
In the vaults under
Bursts the red thunder;
Up goes the cathedral,
Priest, people, and bedral!
Ho! ho! ho! ho!
FIRMILIAN.
My brain is whirling like a potter’s wheel!
O Nemesis!
_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.
The Muses sing in their charmed ring,
And Apollo weeps for him who sleeps,
Alas! on a hard and a stony pillow—
Haverillo! Haverillo!
FIRMILIAN.
I shall go mad!
_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.
Give him some respite—give him some praise—
One good deed he has done in his days;
Chaunt it, and sing it, and tell it in chorus—
He has flattened the cockscomb of Apollodorus!
FIRMILIAN.
Small comfort that! The death of a shard-beetle,
Albeit the poorest and the paltriest thing
That crawls round refuse, cannot weigh a grain
Against the ponderous avalanche of guilt
That hangs above me! O me miserable!
I’ll grope my way yet further.
_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.
Firmilian! Firmilian!
What have you done to Lilian?
There a cry from the grotto, a sob by the stream,
A woman’s loud wailing, a little babe’s scream!
How fared it with Lilian,
In the pavilion,
Firmilian, Firmilian?
FIRMILIAN.
Horror! I’m lost!—
_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.
Ho! ho! ho!
Deep in the snow
Lies a black maiden from Africa’s shore!
Hasten, and shake her—
You never shall wake her—
She’ll roam through the glens of the Atlas no more!
Stay, stay, stay!
This way—this way—
There’s a pit before, and a pit behind,
And the seeing man walks in the path of the blind!
[FIRMILIAN _falls into the quarry. The_ IGNES FATUI _dance as the
curtain descends_.
And so ends the tragedy of Firmilian.
It is rather difficult to give a serious opinion upon the merits of such
a production as this. It is, of course, utterly extravagant; but so are
the whole of the writings of the poets of the Spasmodic school; and, in
the eyes of a considerable body of modern critics, extravagance is
regarded as a proof of extraordinary genius. It is, here and there,
highly coloured; but that also is looked upon as a symptom of the divine
afflatus, and rather prized than otherwise. In one point of proclaimed
spasmodic excellence, perhaps it fails. You can always tell what Percy
Jones is after, even when he is dealing with “shuddering stars,”
“gibbous moons,” “imposthumes of hell,” and the like; whereas you may
read through twenty pages of the more ordinary stuff without being able
to discern what the writers mean—and no wonder, for they really mean
nothing. They are simply writing nonsense-verses; but they contrive, by
blazing away whole rounds of metaphor, to mask their absolute poverty of
thought, and to convey the impression that there must be something
stupendous under so heavy a canopy of smoke. If, therefore,
intelligibility, which is the highest degree of obscurity, is to be
considered a poetic excellence, we are afraid that Jones must yield the
palm to several of his contemporaries; if, on the contrary, perspicuity
is to be regarded as a virtue, we do not hesitate in assigning the
spasmodic prize to the author of _Firmilian_. To him the old lines on
Marlowe, with the alteration of the name, might be applied—
“Next Percy Jones, bathed in the Thespian Springs,
Had in him those brave sublunary Things
That your first Poets had; his Raptures were
All Air and Fire, which made his Verses clear;
For that fierce Madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a Poet’s Brain.”
THE QUIET HEART.
PART THE LAST.—CHAPTER XXXI.
Courage, Menie Laurie! Heaven does not send this breeze upon your cheek
for nought—does not raise about you these glorious limits of hill and
cloud in vain. Look through the distance—look steadily. Yes, it is the
white gable of Crofthill looking down upon the countryside. Well, never
veil your eyes—are you not at peace with them as with all the world?
Little Jessie here wearies where you have left her waiting, and trembles
to move a finger lest she spoil the mysterious picture at which she
glances furtively with awe and wonder. “The lady just looks at me,” says
little Jessie; “no a thing mair. Just looks, and puts it a’ doun like
writing on a sclate.” And Jessie cannot understand the magic which
by-and-by brings out her own little bright sun-burnt face, from that
dull canvass which had not a line upon it when Jessie saw it first.
Come to your work, Menie Laurie; they make your heart faint these
wistful looks and sighs. No one doubts it is very heavy—very heavy—this
poor heart; no one doubts it is full of yearnings—full of anxious
thought and fears, and solitude. What then!—must we leave it to brood
upon its trouble? Come to little Jessie here, and her picture—find out
the very soul in these surprised sweet eyes—paint the loveliest little
heart upon your canvass, fresh and fair out of the hands of God—such a
face as will warm cold hearts, and teach them histories of joyous
sacrifice—of love that knows no evil—of life that remembers self last
and least of all. You said it first in bitterness and sore distress;
but, nevertheless, it is true. You can do it, Menie. It is “the trade”
to which you were born.
And with a long sigh of weariness Menie comes back. No, it is not a very
fine picture; the execution is a woman’s execution, very likely no great
thing in the way your critics judge; but one can see how very like it
is, looking at these little simple features—one could see it was still
more like, looking in to the child’s sweet generous heart.
“What were you crying for this morning, Jessie?”
A cloud came over the little face—a mighty inclination to cry again; but
Jessie glanced at the picture once more, and swallowed down her grief,
feeling herself a very guilty Jessie, as one great blob of a tear fell
upon her arm.
“It wasna little Davie’s blame—it was a’ me.” Poor little culprit, she
dares not hang her head for terror of that picture. “He was paidling in
the burn—and his new peeny ga’e a great screed, catching on the auld
saughtree; but it wasna his blame—he’s owre wee—it was a’ mine for no
looking after him. Just, I was awfu’ busy; but that’s nae excuse—and my
mother ga’e Davie his licks, for a’ I could say.”
Another great tear; no one knows so well what an imp this said little
Davie is—but Jessie sighs again. “It was a’ me.”
But it is not this little cloud of childish trouble that throws a
something of pensive sadness into Jessie’s pictured face. The face is
the face before you; but the atmosphere, Menie Laurie, is in your own
heart. Something sad—touched with that sweet pathos which lies on the
surface of all great depths—and this true picture grows under Menie’s
hand to a heroic child.
It is a strange place for an artist to be. From this dark raftered
threatening roof which catches your first glance, you look down to the
mother by the fire with her unpretending look of gentlewoman—to the
daughter’s graceful head bending over her work—to pretty little Jessie
here with her flutter of extreme stillness, looking at the grey walls
and sober thatch without. You would never think to surprise such a group
within; and yet, when you look at them again, there is something of
nobleness in the primitive cottage where these women have come to live
independent and unpitied—come down in the world—very true; but it would
be hard to presume upon the tenants of this wayside house.
You need not fear to enter, little July. Half-weeping, blushing,
trembling, and with all these beseeching deprecations of yours, you may
come in boldly at this narrow entrance. “It is no blame of hers, poor
bairn,” Mrs Laurie says, with a little sigh. No blame of hers nor of
Randall’s either, for Menie has kept her secret religiously, and will
never tell to mortal ear what broke her engagement. Nelly Panton knows
it, it is true; but Nelly, with the obtuse comprehension of a mercenary
mind, thinks Randall broke off the match in consequence of Mrs Laurie’s
poverty, and knows of no more delicate difficulties behind. Come in
boldly, July Home—for no manner of interpretation could disclose to you
the sudden pang which seizes Menie as she bends her head down for an
instant, when she discovers you at the door. Now she says nothing, as
she holds out her hand; but Menie is busy; it is only her left hand she
extends to her friend; that is why she does not speak.
“I’m not to come out again,” whispers July, sitting back into Mrs
Laurie’s shadow, and speaking under her breath. “I came here the very
last place—and oh, Menie, will you come?”
The colour mounts high to Menie’s temples; this means, will she come to
July’s marriage, which is to happen a week hence. Will she be there?
Some one else will be there, the thought of whose coming makes Menie’s
heart beat strong and loud against her breast. But Menie only shakes her
head in reply—shakes her head and says steadily, “No.”
“You might come, for me. I never had a friend but you, and you’ve aye
been good to me. Mrs Laurie, she might come?”
But Mrs Laurie too, after quite a different fashion, shakes her head
with a look of regret—of only partial comprehension, but unmistakable
solicitude. “No,” she says, doubtfully; “I do not see how Menie could
go;” but, as she speaks, she looks at Menie, with an eager wish that she
would.
Courage, Menie Laurie! If your hand falters, they will see it; if a
single tear of all this unshed agony bursts forth, your mother’s heart
will be overwhelmed with pain and wonder—your little friend’s with
dismay. This is best—to look at the child and go on—though little Jessie
has much ado to keep from weeping when she meets, with her startled
face, the great gloom and darkness of Menie’s eye.
“This is from Menie and me,” said Mrs Laurie, taking out a pretty ring.
“You are to wear it for our sake, July. Menie, can you put it on?”
Yes—Menie takes the little trembling hand within her own, and fits her
mother’s present to a slender finger—and no one knows how Menie presses
her own delicate ankle under her chair, to keep herself steady by the
pain. “You must try to be very happy, July,” says Menie, with a faint
smile, holding the hand a moment in her own; then she lets it drop, and
turns to her work once more.
What can July do but cry? She does cry, poor little trembling heart,
very abundantly, and would fain whisper a hundred hesitations and
terrors into Menie’s ear. But there is nothing of encouragement in
Menie’s face—so steady and grave, and calm as it looks. The little bride
does not dare to pour forth her innocent confidences—but only whispers
again, “I never had another friend but you, and you were aye so good to
me;” and weeps a flood of half-joyful, half-despairing tears, out of her
very heart.
CHAPTER XXXII.
“No one can doubt that Randall is unhappy; but Randall is not a humble
man, Mrs Laurie; he will not woo and plead and supplicate, I am afraid;
he will honour only those who honour him, and never obtrude his love
where he thinks there is no response. You know them both—could anything
be done?”
Alas! good Johnnie Lithgow, we are all proud. This is not the wisest
line of attack, in the circumstances. Mrs Laurie sits gravely by the
fireside to listen. Mrs Laurie was Mrs Laurie before Randall Home was
born. It is wonderful how she recollects this; and, recollecting, it is
not difficult to see which of the two, in the opinion of Menie’s mother,
has the best right to stand on their dignity.
“I cannot advise,” said Mrs Laurie somewhat coldly. “Menie has made no
explanation to me. Mr Home has not addressed me at all on the subject. I
am sorry I cannot suggest anything—especially when I have to take into
consideration the lofty ideas of your friend.”
It was a little bitter this. Lithgow felt himself chilled by it, and she
saw it herself immediately; but Mrs Laurie said no word of atonement,
till a sudden recollection of Menie’s strangely altered and sobered fate
broke upon her. Her countenance changed—her voice softened.
“I would be glad to do anything,” she said, with a slight faltering. “To
make Menie happy, I could accept any sacrifice. I will see—I will try.
No,” she continued, after a considerable pause, “I was right after
all—your friend is what you call him. My Menie has a very high spirit,
and in this matter is not to be controlled by me. They must be left to
themselves—it is the wisest way.”
Lithgow made no answer. Mrs Laurie sank into silence and thought. As
they sat opposite to each other by the little fireplace, the young man’s
eye wandered over the room. His own birthplace and home was such another
cottage as this; and Lithgow’s mother, with her homely gown and check
apron—her constant occupation about the house—her peasant tastes and
looks and habits, was suitable and homogeneous to the earthen floor and
rude hearth of the cottars’ only room. But very strangely out of place
was Menie’s easel—Menie’s desk—Mrs Laurie’s delicate basket of work—her
easy-chair and covered table; strangely out of place, but not
ungracefully—bearing, wherever they might be, a natural seemliness and
fitness of their own. And if a rapid cloud of offence—a vapour of pride
and resentment, might glide over Mrs Laurie’s brow, it was never shaded
by so much as a momentary shame. As undisturbed in her household dignity
as at her most prosperous time, she received her visitor in the
cot-house, nor ever dreamt she had cause to be ashamed of such an
evidence of her diminished fortunes.
But Lithgow’s thoughts were full of Randall; he was not willing to give
up his attempt to reconcile them. “Randall is working very hard,” said
his generous fellow-craftsman. “I think his second success will lift him
above all thought of hazard. He does his genius wrong by such
unnecessary caution; he could not produce a commonplace thing if he
would.”
“And you, Mr Lithgow”—Mrs Laurie’s heart warmed to him, plebeian though
he was.
“I do my day’s work,” said the young man, happily, “thanking God that it
is very sufficient for the needs of the day; but between Randall and
myself there is no comparison. I deal with common topics, common
manners, common events, like any other labouring man. But Randall is an
artist of the loftiest class. What he does is for generations to come,
no less than for to-day.”
This enthusiasm threw a flush upon his face. As it receded, gradually
fading from his forehead, a quick footstep went away from the cottage
threshold. Menie Laurie had paused to listen whose the voice was before
she entered, and, pausing, had heard all he had to say.
The happy golden purple of the sunset has melted from Criffel and his
brother hills; but there is a pale light about all the east, whither
Menie Laurie’s face is turned as she leaves the cottage door. From her
rapid step, you would fancy she was going somewhere. Where will she go?
Nowhither, poor heart—only into the night a little—into the silence. It
would not be possible to sit still in that noiseless house, by that
lonely fireside, with such a tumult and commotion in this loud throbbing
heart—forcing up its rapid cadence into the ears that thrill with
sympathetic pulses—leaping to the very lips that grow so parched and
faint. Oh! for the din of streets, of storms, the violence of crowds and
noise of life—anything to drown this greater violence, these strong
perpetual throbs that beat upon the brain like hailstones—anything to
deaden this.
But all the air remains so still—so still; not a sound upon the silent
road, but the heart and the footsteps, so rapid and irregular, which
keep each other time. But by-and-by, as Menie goes upon her aimless way,
another sound does break the silence—voices in the air—the sound of
wheels and of a horse’s feet. Listen, Menie—voices in the air!
But Menie will not listen—does not believe there are voices in the world
which could wake her interest now—and so, unconsciously, looks up as
this vehicle dashes past—looks up, to receive—what? The haughty
salutation—uncovered brow and bending head, of Randall Home.
She would fain have caught at the hedge for a support; but he might look
back and see her, and Menie hurried on. She had seen him; they had
looked again into each other’s eyes. “I never said I was indifferent,”
sobbed Menie to herself, and, in spite of herself, her voice took a
shriller tone of passion—her tears came upon her in an agony. “I never
said I was indifferent; it would have been a lie.”
Hush!—be calm. It is safe to sit down by the roadside on this turf,
which is unsullied by the dust of these passing wheels;—safe to sit
down, and let the flood have vent, once and never more. And the soft
whispering air comes stealing about Menie, with all its balmy gentle
touches, like a troop of fairy comforters; and the darkness comes down
with gracious speed, to hide her as she crouches, with her head upon her
hands, overcome and mastered;—once, and never more.
Now it is night. Yonder the lights are glimmering faintly in the cottage
windows of the Brigend. Far away above the rest, shines a little speck
of light from the high window of Burnside, where once was Menie Laurie’s
chamber—her land of meditation, her sanctuary of dreams. The wind
rustles among the firs—the ash-trees hold up their bare white arms
towards the heavens, waiting till this sweet star, lingering at the
entrance of their arch, shall lead her followers through, like children
in their dance. And—hush!—suddenly, like a bird new awaked, the burn
throws out its voice upon the air, something sad. The passion is
overpast. Look up, Menie Laurie; you are not among strangers. The hills
and the heavens stretch out arms to embrace you; the calm of this great
night, God’s minister, comes to your heart. Other thoughts—and noble
ones—stretch out helping hands to you like angels. Rise up; many a hope
remains in the world, though this one be gone for ever.
And Menie, rising, returns upon her way—away from Burnside, her old
beloved home, and, going, questions with herself if aught is changed
since she made the bitter and painful decision which in her heart she
thought it right to make. Nothing is changed—the severance has been
made—the shock is over. At first we knew it would be very hard; at first
we thought of nothing but despair. We never took into our calculation
the oft-returning memories—the stubborn love, that will not be slain at
a blow; and this it is that has mastered mind and heart and resolution
now.
There is no one else upon the road. The night, and the hills, and Menie
Laurie, look up through the silence to heaven—and no one knows the
conflict that is waging—none is here with human voice or hand to help
the struggle. Fought and won—lie still in her religious breast, oh
heart! Fittest way to win your quiet back again, Menie Laurie has laid
you down—come good or evil, come peace or contest—laid you down once for
all at the feet of God.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A brilliant company—the very newspapers would say so if they had note of
it; distinguished people—except here and there a few who are only wives
or sisters of somebody; the ladies and gentlemen present, individual by
individual, are somebodies themselves. For a very pretty collection of
Lions, as one could wish to see, are drawn together into Mr Editor
Lithgow’s drawing-room, to do honour to his wedding-day.
And you may wonder at first to hear such a moderate amount of roaring;
Lions of the present day are not given to grandiloquence. If the truth
must be told, the talk sounds somewhat professional, not unlike the
regimental talk of soldier officers, and the ladies pertaining to the
same. True, that a picturesque American, bolder than her compeers on
this side the Atlantic, _poses_ in one corner, and by-and-by makes a
tableau, lying down in wild devotion at the feet of two respectable and
somewhat scared good people—literary ladies of a modest standing, who
have done just work enough to make their names known, but are by no
means prepared for such homage as this. And for the rest of the company,
it must be said that they sit or stand, lean back or lean forward, as
propriety or common custom enjoin;—that there is a great talk of babies
in that other corner, where the mistress of the house is surrounded by a
band of matron friends;—and that there is in reality very little out of
the common in this company, if it were not for the said professional
talk.
The young mistress of the house! She talks pretty nearly as much now as
other people talk—quite as much, indeed, when her heart is opened with
that all-interesting subject, babies—or when her tongue has leisure to
talk of the marvellous feats of certain babies of her own. July Home has
been a married wife five years.
There is nothing very costly or rare in this drawing-room; but it is
well-sized and well-furnished, notwithstanding, and a pretty apartment.
Lithgow himself, not a very stately host, attends to his guests with an
unassuming kindliness which charms these somewhat sophisticated people,
in spite of themselves; and Lithgow is full of the talk of the
profession, and speaks great names with the confidence of friendship. In
these five years, mother though she be, and mistress of a London
household, all you can say of July is, that she has grown a pretty
girl—a little taller, a little more mature in action—but a girl, just as
she was when we saw her last.
Being addressed, but of his own will scarcely speaking to any one, there
is a remarkable-looking person among Mr Lithgow’s guests. Looking up to
his great height, you can just see some threads of white among his hair,
though his age does not justify this, for he is a young man still; and a
settled cloud upon his brow gives darkness to his face. It is not
grief—it is not care; a gloomy self-absorbed pride is much more like
what it is.
“That is Mrs Lithgow’s brother,” says another guest, in answer to the
“who’s that” of an unaccustomed visitor. Mrs Lithgow’s brother! Is this
all the distinction that remains to the lofty Randall Home?
“And a literary man, like all the rest of us,” continues,
condescendingly, this gentleman, who is a critic, and contemptuous in
right of his craft. “He made a great success with his first publication
six or seven years ago. I saw it on that table in the corner, covered
with a pile of prints and drawings. They say Home cannot bear to see it
now. Well; he lingered a long time polishing, and elaborating, and
retouching his second book, expecting, no doubt, a universal
acclamation. Poor fellow! the public never so much as looked at it—it
was a dead failure.”
“Was it not equal to the first?” inquired breathlessly the original
speaker, who in his heart was a warm adherent of Randall, though
personally unknown to him, and who was a great deal better acquainted
with the work in question than his informant.
“There was merit in the book,” said the critic, poising a pretty
paper-knife carelessly on his forefinger—“merit, such as it was; and
Lithgow, here, gave him an article, and tried hard to get up a feeling;
but he’s a supercilious fellow, sir—proud as Lucifer; he is constantly
running against somebody, and we put him down.”
The critic turned to speak to another critic on his other hand; the
interrogator stood aside. Solitary in the midst of this animated
company—dark, where all was glowing with a modest brilliancy—it was not
wonderful that this good man should inquire of himself whether there was
nought of the evil thing called affectation in the gloom and pride of
Randall Home. One thing at least it was not difficult to see—that
Randall knew people were looking at him—wondering about him—and that
more than one lady of sentiment and enthusiasm had marvelled already,
with wistful melancholy, whether any one knew what the grief was which
had blighted the young author’s life.
The young author’s life was not blighted. On him, like a nightmare, sat
a subtle spirit, self-questioning, self-criticising. He was
disappointed;—a bitter stream had come into his way, and by its side he
walked, his eyes bent downward on it, pondering the evils of his fate,
trying with a cold philosophy to believe them no evils, assuming to
despise them, yet resenting them with bitterness in his own secret
heart.
“Randall, look at this; it minds me of home,” said his sister in his
ear. He took mechanically what she put into his hand—carelessly: not the
slightest interest in _his_ face for poor July’s enthusiasm—as like as
not he would smile and put it down with a careless glance. Things that
other people look on with interest were matters of chilled and
disappointed indifference to Randall Home.
Yet he looks at this child’s face that has been brought before him;
insensibly a smile breaks upon his lips in answer to this sweet child’s
smile. He, who is a critic, knows it is no _chef d’œuvre_, and has
little claim to be looked upon as high art; but for once Randall thinks
nothing of the execution—as on a real countenance he gazes upon this.
These sweet little features seem to move before him with the throng of
gracious childlike thoughts that hover over the unclouded brow—childlike
thoughts—thoughts of the great eternal simplicities which come nearest
to angels and to children. This man, through his intricacies and glooms,
catches for an instant a real glimpse of what that atmosphere must be
through which simple hearts look up into the undoubted heavens; for
scarcely so much as a summer cloud can float between this child and the
sky.
Come this way, Randall. Here is a little room, vacant, half-lighted,
where lie other things akin to this. Take them up after your careless
fashion. What message can they have to you? Be ready, if you can, to put
them aside with a word of bitter criticism—only leave out this child’s
portrait. Say with your lips it is good and you like it; feel in your
heart as if it spoke to you long, loving, simple speeches; and when you
turn from it—hush! it is irreverent—do not try with either sarcasm or
jest to cheat this sudden desolateness which you feel at your heart.
A cloudy face—is this no portrait? The wind is tossing back wildly the
curls from its white high brow, and out of a heavy thunder-cloud it
looks down darkly, doubtfully, with a look which you cannot fathom.
Uneasily the spectator lays it aside to lift another—another and
another; they are very varied, but his keen eye perceives in a moment
that every face among them which is a man’s bears the same features.
Other heads of children unknown to Randall—pictures of peasant women,
real and individual, diversify the little collection; but where the
artist has made a man’s face, everywhere a subtle visionary resemblance
runs through each and all. Through altered features the same
expression—through changed moods and tempers the same sole face. The
room swims about him as he looks—is it a dream or a vision—what does it
mean?
The long white curtains faintly stir in the autumn night-wind which
steals in through the open window; the shaded lamp upon the table throws
down a little circle of light—a larger circle of shadow—upon these
pictures, and faintly shines in the mirror above the vacant hearth. He
has sunk on one knee to look at them again. What memory is it that has
kept this face, what sad recollection has preserved its looks and
changes so faithfully and so long? No ideal, noble, and glorious, such
as a heart might make for itself—no human idol either, arrayed in the
purple and gold of loving homage—and the heart of Randall, startled and
dismayed, hides its face, and beholds itself for the first time truly.
He knows that none of these is meant for him—feels with certain
confidence that reproach upon him is the last thing intended by this
often portraiture; yet stands aside, and marvels, with a pang—a great
throb of anguish and hope—to see himself, changed in habit and in
aspect, with years added and with years taken away; but he feels in
every one that the face is his own.
Love that thinks you loftiest, noblest—love that worships in you its
type of grace and high perfection, its embodiment of dreams and
longings—rejoice in it, oh youth! But if you ever come to know a love
that is disenchanted—a love that with its clear and anxious sight has
found you out and read your heart—knowing not the highest part alone,
but, in so far as human creature can, _all_ that is written there—yet
still is love; if you rejoice no longer, pause at least, and tremble.
Light is the blind love of the old poets—frail, and in constant peril.
Heaven help those to whom is given the love that sees as nothing else
can see—It struck to the heart of Randall Home.
Through secrets of his being, which himself had never guessed, this
lightened eye had pierced like a sunbeam. Unwitting of its insight,
nought could it say in words of its discovery, but unconsciously they
came to light under the artist-hand. Menie Laurie—Menie Laurie!—little
you wist when your pencil touched so dreamily these faces, which were
but so many shadows of one face in your heart—little you wist how
strange a revelation they would carry to another soul.
“Something has happened to Randall—he will not hear me,” said July to
her husband when the guests went away. “He makes me no answer—he never
hears me speak, but stands yonder steadfast at the mirror, looking in
his own face.”
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The sun has struck on Criffel’s sullen shoulder. Look you how it besets
him, with a glorious burst of laughter and triumph over his gloom. And
now a clown no longer, but some grand shepherd baron, he draws his
purple cloak about him, and lifts his cloudy head into the sky. Marshal
your men-at-arms, Warder of the Border! Keep your profound unbroken
watch upon the liege valleys and homes at your feet—for the sun is
setting in a stormy glory, and the winds are gathering wild in their
battalions in the hollows of the hills.
Travelling with his face towards the east, is one wayfarer on this
lonely road. He knows the way, but it is long to his unaccustomed feet;
and he is like to be benighted, whatever speed he makes. The sky before
him is cold and clear, the sky of an autumn night, gleaming itself with
an intense pale lustre, while great mountain-heaps of clouds, flung upon
it, stand out round and full against its glittering chilly light; and
with a wild rush the wind comes down upon the trees, seizing them in a
sudden convulsion. The road ascends a little, and looks from this point
as if it went abruptly into the skies; and on either side lies the low
breadth of a peat-moss, on which it is too dark now to distinguish the
purple patches of heather, or anything but the moorland burn and deep
drain full of black clear water, from which is thrown back again, in
long flying glimmers of reflection, the pale light of the sky.
There is not a house in sight. Here and there a doddered oak or thorn,
or stunted willows trailing their branches into the pools, give a kind
of edge, interrupted and broken, to the moorland road; and now and then
on a little homely bridge—one arch of stone, or it may be only two or
three planks—it crosses a burn. With every gust of wind a shower of
leaves comes rustling down from the occasional trees we pass, and the
same cold breath persuades this traveller very soon to regret that his
breast is not guarded by the natural defence—the grey plaid of the
Border hills.
He does not lift his foot high and cumbrously from the ground, as the
men of this quarter, used to wading through the moss and heather, are
wont to do; nor does he oppose to this wild wind the broad expanded
chest and weather-beaten face of rural strength; but he knows the way
along which he walks so smartly—pauses now and then to recognise some
ancient landmark—and pushes forward without hesitation, very well aware
where he is going to, nor fearing to choose that shorter way across the
moss, like one to the manner born.
A narrower path, broken in upon here and there by young sapling trees,
self-sown willows, and bushes, which are scattered over all the moss.
Suddenly—it may be but a parcel of stones, a little heap of peats—but
there is something on the edge of the way.
Going forward, the traveller finds seated on the fallen trunk of a tree
two children—a little girl drawing in to her side the uncovered flaxen
head of a still younger boy, and holding him firmly with her arm. The
little fellow, with open mouth and close shut eyes, is fast asleep, and
his young guardian’s head droops on her breast. You can see she watched
long before she yielded to it; but she too has dropped asleep.
The traveller, touched with sudden interest, pauses and looks down upon
them. Indistinctly, in her sleep, hearing his step, or conscious of the
human eye upon her which breaks repose, the little girl moves uneasily,
tightens the firm pressure of her arm, murmurs something—of which the
spectator, stooping down, can hear only “little Davie”—and then,
throwing back her head and changing her attitude, settles again into her
profound child’s sleep.
What arrests him that he does not wake her? What makes him pause so long
after his previous haste? Yes, look closer—stoop down upon the damp and
springy soil—bend your knee. The pale faint light has not deceived you,
neither has the memory, which holds with unwonted tenacity, the likeness
of this face—for this is indeed the original. Sweet in its depth of
slumber, its lips half closed, its eyelash warm upon its cheek, the same
sweet heart you saw in London in the picture—the very child.
Eleven years old is Jessie now; and to keep little Davie out of mischief
is a harder task than ever. So helpless, yet in such an attitude of
guardianship and protection, the traveller’s eyes, in spite of himself,
fill with tears. He is almost loth to wake her, but the wind rushes with
growing violence among the cowering trees.
He touches her shoulder—she does not know how gently—as suddenly she
starts up broad awake. One terrified look Jessie gives him—another at
the wild sky and dreary moor. “You’re no to meddle wi’ Davie; it’s a’ my
blame,” said Jessie with one frightened sob; “and oh, it’s dark nicht,
and we’ll never win hame!”
“How did you come here?” said the stranger gently. Jessie was reassured;
she dried her eyes and began to look up at him with a little returning
confidence.
“I dinna ken; it was Davie would rin—no, it was me that never cam the
road before—and we got on to the moss. Oh, will you tell me the airt I’m
to gang hame?”
He put his hand upon the child’s head kindly. This was not much like
Randall Home. The Randall of old days, if he never failed to help,
scarcely ever knew himself awakened to interest. There was a great
delight of novelty in this new spring opened in his heart.
“Were you not afraid to fall asleep?”
Poor little Jessie began to cry; she thought she had done wrong. “I
couldna keep wakin. I tried as lang as I could, and then I thocht I
would just ask God to take care o’ Davie, and then there would be nae
fear. That was the way I fell asleep.”
A philosopher! But how have these tears found their way to his face?
Somehow he cannot look on this little speaker—cannot perceive her small
brother laying his cheek upon her breast, without a new emotion which
ought to have no place in the mind of an observing moralist whose
thought is of cause and effect. Again he lays his hand upon her head—so
kindly that Jessie looks up with a shy smile—and says, “You are used to
say your prayers?”
“I aye do’t every nicht.” Jessie looks up again wistfully, wondering
with a sudden pity. Can it be possible that he does not say his prayers,
gentleman though he be?
“Say them here, little girl—I would like to hear your prayers”—and his
own voice sounds reverent, low, as one who feels a great presence near.
But Jessie falters and cries—does not know what to answer, though it is
very hard to contend against the impulse of instant obedience. “Oh, I
dinna like—I canna say them out-by to a man,” she says in great trouble,
clasping and unclasping her hands. “I just mind a’body, and little
Davie—and give my soul to Christ to keep,” added the little girl
solemnly, “for fear I shouldna wake the morn.”
There is a little silence. She thinks this kindly stranger is angry with
her, and cries; but it is only a something of strong unusual emotion,
which he must swallow down.
“Now, you must wake up little Davie, and I will take you home. Is it
far? You do not know, poor little guardian. Come away—it is near
Brigend? Well, we will manage to get there. Come, little fellow, rouse
up and give me your hand.”
But Davie, very wroth at such a sudden interruption of his repose, shook
his little brown clenched hand in the stranger’s face instead, and would
hold by no other but his sister. So in this order they went on, Jessie,
with much awe, permitting her hand to be held in Randall’s, and sleepy
Davie dragging her back at the other side. They went on at a very
different pace from Randall’s former rate of walking—threading their
encumbered way with great difficulty through the moorland path—but
by-and-by, to the general comfort, emerged once more upon the high-road,
and near the cheerful light from a cottage door.
And here he would pause to ask for some refreshment for the lost
children, but does not fail to glance in first at the cottage window.
This woman sitting before the fire has a face he knows, and she is
rolling up a heavy white-faced baby, and moving with a kind of
monotonous rock, back and forward upon her seat. But there is not a
murmur of the mother-song—instead, she is slowly winding up to extremest
aggravation a little girl in a short-gown and apron, who stands behind
her in a flood of tears, and whose present state of mind suggests no
comfort to her, but to break all the “pigs” (_Anglicè_ crockery) in the
house and run away.
“Will I take in twa bairns?—what would I do wi’ twa bairns? I’ve enow o’
my ain; but folk just think they can use ony freedom wi’ me,” said the
woman, in answer to Randall’s appeal made from the door. “I’m sure
Peter’s pack micht be a laird’s lands for what folk expect; and because
there’s nae ither cause o’ quarrelling wi’ a peaceable woman like me, I
maun aye be askit to do things I canna do. It’s nane o’ my blame they
didna get their denner. Lad, you had best take them hame.”
“I will pay for anything you give them cheerfully; but the little
creatures are exhausted,” said Randall again from the door. He thought
he had altered a good deal his natural voice.
The woman suddenly raised her head. “I’m saying, that’s a tongue I ken,”
she said in an under-tone. “This is nae public to gie meat for siller,
lad,” she continued; “but they may get a bit barley scone and a drink o’
milk—I’ve nae objections. Ye’ll no belang to this country yoursel?” For,
with a rapidity very unusual to her, she had suddenly deposited her
gaping baby in the cradle, and now stood at the door. Randall kept
without in the darkness. The lost children were admitted to the fire.
“No.”
“I wouldna say but you’re out o’ London, by your tongue. I’ve been there
mysel before I was married, biding wi’ a brother o’ mine that’s real
weel-off and comfortable there. I’ve never been up again, for he’s
married, and her and me disna ’gree that weel. It’s an awfu’ world—a
peaceable person has nae chance—and I was aye kent for that, married and
single. Ye’ll have heard o’ my man, Peter Drumlie, if you come out o’
Cumberland; but I reckon you’re frae London, by your tongue.”
With a bow, and a sarcastic compliment to her discrimination, Randall
answered her question; but the bow and the sarcasm were lost upon the
person he addressed: she went on in her dull tone without a pause.
“Ay, I aye was kent for discrimination,” she said with modest
self-approval, “though it’s no everybody has the sense to allow’t. But
you’ll ha’e come to see your friends, I reckon—they’ll be biding about
this pairt?”
“Just so,” said Randall.
“Ye’ll ken mony a change in the countryside,” continued the woman.
“There’s the auld minister dead in Kirklands parish, and a’ the family
scattered, and a delicate lad, a stranger, in the Manse his lane; and
maister and mistress gane out o’ Kirklands House, away somegate in
foreign pairts; and Walter Wellwood, the young laird, he’s married upon
a grand lady and joined to the Papishes; and—but ye’ll maybe ken better
about the common folk o’ the parish. There’s auld Crofthill and Miss
Janet their lee lane up the brae yonder, and ne’er a word frae
Randy—maybe you would ken Randy?—the awfullest lad for thinking of
himsel; and then there’s the family at Burnside—they’re come down in the
world, wi’ a’ their pride and their vanity—living in naething but a
cot-house on the siller Jenny makes wi’ her kye; and Miss Menie, she
makes pictures and takes folk’s likenesses, and does what she can to
keep hersel. Eh, man, there’s awfu’ changes!—And wee July Home,
Crofthill’s daughter, she’s married upon our Johnnie, keepit like a
leddy, and never has a hand’s turn laid to her, wet day or dry—it’s a
grand marriage for the like o’ her;—and there’s mysel—I was ance Nelly
Panton, till I got my man—but I’ve nae occasion to do a thing now but
keep the house gaun, and mind the siller—for Peter, he’s a man o’ sense,
and kens the value o’ a guid wife—and I live real comfortable among my
ain folk in a peaceable way, as I was aye disposed—though they’re an ill
set the folk hereaway—they’re aye bickering amang themsels. Will you no
come in by and rest?”
Randall, who felt his philosophy abandon him in this respect as well as
others, and who could not persuade himself by any arguments of her
insignificance to quench the passion which this slow stream of malicious
disparagement raised within him, answered very hotly, and with great
abruptness, that he could not wait longer. A moment after he found
himself again upon the road, with the reluctant children dragging him
back, and Nelly looking out after him from her door. He had time to be
annoyed at himself for betraying his anger; but Randall began to have
changed thoughts—began to lose respect for the self-constraint which
once had been his highest form of dignity—began to think that no natural
emotion was unworthy of him—of _him_. For the first time he laughed at
the words with bitterness as he looked up to the pale gleaming sky, with
its clouds and stars. Unworthy of him—who then was he?
CHAPTER XXXV.
“The man’s richt—they’ll ha’e strayed in on the moss. Oh, my bairns! my
bairns!” cried the distressed mother into the night. “And Patie was
telling, nae farther gane than yestreen, what a bogilly bit it was, till
a’ the weans were fleyed; and if they’re no sunk in the moss itsel,
they’ll be dead wi’ fricht by this time. Oh, my bonnie Jessie! that was
aye doing somebody a guid turn; and wee Davie—puir wee Davie! he was aye
the youngest, and got his ain way. My bairns! my bairns!”
A snort came through the misty gloom. By this time it was very dark, and
Randall could hear the voices as they approached.
“What’s the woman greeting for? Her bairns?—her bairns? I would just
like to ken what suld ail her bairns—little mischiefs! They’re warm at
somebody’s ingle-neuk, Ise warrant. That wee Davie’s an imp o’ Satan;
neither fricht nor bogles will harm him. Come this road, woman. What
gart ye leave the lantern? If there werena better wits than yours”—
Jenny’s voice was interrupted by a sudden footstep crushing the bramble
branches on the side of the way, and by a sudden glow of light thrown
full upon the dazzled eyes of little Jessie, who left Randall’s hand
with a cry of joy—“Oh, it’s the leddy—we’re safe at hame.”
The lantern flashed about through the darkness. Randall’s heart beat
loudly. With a great start, he recognised the voice which gave kindly
welcome to the strayed child, and he could distinguish the outline of
her figure, as she shaded the lantern with her hand; then she raised
it—he felt the light suddenly burst upon his face—another moment, and it
was gone. Little Jessie flew back to him dismayed; voice and figure and
light had disappeared as they came; one other step upon the brambles,
and they were alone once more.
He had no time to marvel or to follow, for now the mother and Jenny,
suddenly drawing close to them, fell upon the lost children, with cries
of mingled blame and joy. “It was the gentleman brought us hame.”
“Thanks to the gentleman—would he no come in and rest?—he would be far
out of his way—the guidman would take a lantern, and convoy him”—and a
hundred other anxious volunteerings of gratitude poured upon Randall’s
ears. “I must go on—I must go on!” He burst past them impatiently; he
did not know where the house was, or if she had gone home; but Menie had
seen him, and Menie he must see.
Step softly, Randall! In her high excitement, she hears every stir of
the falling leaves without, and could not miss your footstep, if you
trod as softly as a child. She has reached to her shelter already—she
has put out her mother’s lights, and stands in the darkness, pressing
her white face against the window, looking out, wondering if she will
see you again—wondering why you come here—praying in a whisper that you
may not cross her path any more, but contradicting the prayer in her
heart. Mrs Laurie stands by the door without, watching for the
children’s return; and now they come, Davie lifted into his mother’s
arms (for he has been almost asleep on his feet), Jessie eager that
everybody should understand “it was my blame,” and Jenny smartly
lecturing each and all. The rest of the family—all but the goodman, who
has gone to the moss to seek the children—are gathered in a group before
the cottage; and the red light of the fire glows out upon them, and some
one has picked up the lantern which Menie Laurie dropped. A little
crowd—the inner circle of faces brightened by the lamp, the outer ones
receding into partial gloom, hearing little Jessie tell her story,
speculating what part of the moss it could be, and “where was the
gentleman?”—a question which none could answer.
“Though I’ve heard his tongue afore, mysel,” said Jenny, “I’m just as
sure—woman, will ye no take that little Satan to his bed?—and puir wee
Jessie’s een’s gaun thegither. It wasna your blame, you deceitful
monkey! Ye may cheat the wife there, but ye’ll no cheat Jenny. It was a’
that little bother—it wasna you. Gang out o’ my gate, callant! If nane
o’ the rest o’ ye will stir, I maun pit the bairn to her bed mysel.”
From her window Menie Laurie looks out upon this scene—upon the darkness
around—the one spot of light, and the half-illuminated faces; looks out
wistfully, straining her eyes into the night, wondering where he has
gone, and getting time now, as her agitation calms, to be ashamed and
annoyed at her own weakness. Very calm for many a day has been Menie
Laurie’s quiet heart—soberly, happily contented, and at rest. Little
comforts and elegancies, which neither Mrs Laurie’s income nor Jenny’s
kye could attain, Menie has managed to collect into this little room.
Her “trade,” as she still calls it—for Menie is the person of all others
least satisfied with her own performances, and will not assume to be an
artist—has brought her in contact with many pleasant people; her mother
is pleased that they have even better “society” here, in the cot-house,
than they had in prosperous Burnside; and it even seems a thing
probable, and to be hoped for, that by-and-by they may go back to
Burnside, and be able to live without its fifty yearly pounds. This
success could not come without bringing some content and satisfaction
with it; and constant occupation has restored health and ease to Menie’s
mind, while almost as calm as of old, but with a deeper, loftier quiet,
a womanly repose;—light, within her eased breast, has lain Menie
Laurie’s heart.
And why this face of strange excitement now, Menie cannot tell. She
found him out so suddenly—flashing her light upon the face which least
of all she thought to see. But Menie wonders to feel this strong thrill
of agitation returning on her as she touches the window with her pale
cheek, and wonders if she will see him again.
The night falls deeper—darker; the wind overhead comes shouting down
upon the trees, throwing their leaves from them in wild handfuls, and
tearing off their feebler branches in a frenzy. Here where we stand, you
can hear it going forth with its cry of defiance against the hills,
flinging a magic circle round the startled homesteads, attacking bridges
upon rivers, stacks in farmyards. The goodman, who has returned with a
glad heart to find his children safe, says, when he closes the cottage
door, that it is a wild night; but here, amid all its violence, waiting
a moment when he may see her—strangely excited, strangely emancipated,
owning the sway of one most passionate and simple emotion, and for the
first time forgetting, not only himself, but everything else—here, with
his bare forehead to the wind, stands Randall Home.
Now come hither: Jenny’s candle in the kitchen thriftily extinguished,
leaving her window only lightened by the firelight, proves that Jenny
has come “ben” to the family service—the daily meeting-ground of
mistress and servant, child and mother. There is no need to close the
shutters on this window, which no one ever passes by to see. Calm in her
fireside corner sits Mrs Laurie, with her open Bible in her lap; Jenny
is close by the table, drawing near the light, and poring very closely
upon the “sma’ print,” which runs into a confused medley before her, not
to be deciphered—for Jenny will not be persuaded to try spectacles, lest
they should “spoil her een;” while Menie, who reads the chapter aloud,
reverently turns over the leaves of the family Bible, and, with all her
quiet restored, speaks the words which say peace to other storms than
that storm never to be forgotten, in the Galilean Sea.
You remember how she was when you saw her last—you remember her through
the flush of your own anger, the mortification of your own pride—but
pride and mortification have little to do with this atmosphere which
surrounds our Menie now. Her delicate hand is on the open Book—her
reverent eyes cast down upon it—her figure rising out of its old girlish
freedom and carelessness, into a womanly calm and dignity. He follows
the motion of her head and lips with an unconscious eager
gesture—follows them with devotion, longing to feel himself engaged with
her; and hears, his frame quivering the while—rising upon his heart with
a command, that hushes all these violent strong voices round—the low
sound of _her_ voice.
Now they are at prayer. Her face is folded in her hands, Randall; and
there may be a prayer in Menie’s heart, which Mrs Laurie’s voice, always
timid at this time, does not say. Whatever there is in Menie’s heart,
you know what is in your own—know at once this flood of sudden yearning,
this sudden passion of hope and purpose, this sudden burst of womanish
tears. Now then, overmastered, subdued, and won, turn away, Randall
Home—but not till Jenny, starting from her knees, has burst into a
violent sob and scream. “I dreamt he was come back this very nicht; I
dreamt o’ him yestreen—Randall—Randall Home!” But, with an awed face,
Jenny returned from the door to which she had flown. Randall was not
there!
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Something of languor is in this chill morning, as its quiet footstep
steals upon the path of the exhausted storm—something worn out and heavy
are Menie’s eyes as she closes them wearily upon the daylight when Jenny
has cleared the little breakfast-table, and it is time for the day’s
work to begin. They speak to her softly, you will perceive, and are very
tender of Menie, as if she were ill, and Jenny cannot forgive herself
for the shock that her exclamation caused last night.
A heavy stupor is on Menie’s mind, lightened only with gleams of wild
anxiety, with fruitless self-questionings, which she fain would
restrain, but cannot. Jenny, firm in the belief that she has seen a
spirit, is melancholy and mysterious, and asks suggestive
questions—whether they have heard if there is “ony great trouble in
London ’enow,” or who it was that was prayed for in the kirk last
Sabbath—a young man in great distress. Mrs Laurie, uneasy and
solicitous, cannot stay these pitiful looks which unawares she turns
upon her daughter, and hangs perpetually about her with tender touches,
consoling words, and smiles, till poor Menie’s heart is like to break.
The day’s work is over in Jenny’s “redd-up kitchen;”—the uneven earthen
floor is carefully swept—the hearth as white and the fireside as
brilliant as Jenny’s elaborate care can make them; and Jenny has drawn
aside a little the sliding pannel which closes in her bed, to show the
light patch-work quilt, and snowy linen of the “owrelay.” Bright brass
and pewter carefully polished above the high mantel-shelf—bright plates
and crockery against the walls—with a glance of satisfaction Jenny
surveyed the whole as she passed into the private corner where she made
her toilette—a “wiselike” kitchen; it was worthy of Jenny.
And now, in her blue and yellow gown, in her black and red checked
plaiden shawl, in her great Leghorn bonnet, fashioned in antique times,
Jenny sets out from the cottage door. No one knows where Jenny is going,
and there has been some surprise “ben the house” at her intimation of
her proposed absence. But Jenny keeps her own counsel, and walks away
soberly, seeing Mrs Laurie at the window, in the direction of Burnside.
“Nae occasion to let the haill town see the gate Jenny was gaun,” she
says to herself, with a slight fuff; and, altering her course before she
reaches the Brigend, Jenny turns rapidly towards the hills.
And something of growing gravity, almost awe, is on Jenny’s face. “Eh,
puir callant, he’s young to take fareweel o’ this life. Weel, laddie,
mony’s the time Jenny’s grutten for ye; and maybe it’s best, after a’,
if ane could but think sae.” These lamentations fall like so many tears
on Jenny’s way—and she is rapidly climbing the brae, as she utters them,
towards the house of Crofthill.
It is a wintry autumn afternoon—so dull, that the potato-gatherers in
the fields are chilled into silence, and the ploughmen scarcely can
whistle into the heavy atmosphere which droops upon them laden with
unfallen rain. The paths of the little triangular garden of Crofthill
are choked with masses of brown leaves, fallen from the trees, which
sway their thin remaining foliage drearily, hanging lank from the crest
of the hill. The goodman is thrashing to-day; you can hear the heavy
tramp of the horses, the swing of the primitive machine: it is almost
the only sound that breaks the silence of the place.
Nay, listen—there is another sound; a slow monotonous voice, wont to
excite in Jenny certain sentiments the reverse of peaceable. The kitchen
door is open, a great umbrella rests against the lintel, and Miss
Janet’s tall figure is just visible, in a gown not much unlike Jenny’s
own, standing before the fire listening, as Jenny, arrested at the
threshold, must be content to listen too.
“Na; I can do nae mair than tell what’s true; I canna gie folk the
judgment to put trust in me. I’m no ane that meddles wi’ ither folk’s
concerns—but I thocht it richt ye should ken—I’m no saying whether it’s
in the flesh or the spirit—that Randall Home was seen upon the Kirklands
road last nicht.”
“But I tell ye, woman, it couldna be our Randy—it couldna be my bairn,”
exclaimed Miss Janet in great distress. “Do ye think Crofthill’s son
would ca’ upon the like o’ you, and no come hame? It’s been some English
lad, that’s spoken grand, like Randall; and how was you to ken to look
at his presence, that never ane had like him? Na, it wasna our son.”
“Presence or no presence, I mind him weel,” said Nelly, emphatically. “I
wouldna think, mysel, an appearance or a wraith could ha’e grippit thae
weans, and kent the road sae weel to carry them hame—no to say that
spirits would ha’e little patience, as I think, wi’ barley scones, when
they canna partake themsels; and I tried him about the Burnside family,
and Crofthill as weel; and I saw his een louping wi’ passion, and he
scarce ga’e me thanks for my charity. It’s an awfu’ thing to see as I do
ilka day—and I canna think but what it’s just because I’m sae peaceable
mysel that a’body flees into raptures wi’ me. But I just ken this—I saw
Randall Home.”
Miss Janet turned round to wring her hands unseen. She was very much
troubled and shaken, and turning, met, to her dismay, the keen
inquisitive face of Jenny. With a little start and cry, Miss Janet
turned again, to dash some tears off her cheek. Then she addressed the
newcomer in a trembling voice. “Ye’ll have heard her story—your house is
on the same road—have ye seen onything like this?”
“I wouldna put a moment’s faith in her—no me!” said Jenny, promptly.
“It’s a dull day to her when she disna put somebody in trouble; and it’s
just because there’s no a single mischief to the fore in Kirklands that
she’s come to put her malice on you. Put strife amang neibors,
woman—naebody can do’t sae weel; but what would ye come here for to
frichten honest folk in their ain houses?”
“For every friendly word I say, I aye get twa ill words back,” said
Nelly meekly, with a sigh of injury. “But it’s weel kent the spirit
that’s in Burnside Jenny, and I wouldna take notice, for my pairt, o’
what the like o’ her micht say; but I canna help aye being concerned for
what happens to Crofthill, minding the connection; and if I didna see
Randall Home’s face, and hear Randall Home’s tongue, in the dark at my
ain door yestreen, I never saw mortal man. If he’s in the flesh, I
wouldna say but he was hiding for some ill-doing—for you may be sure he
didna want me to see his face, kenning me for far sicht langsyne; and if
it was an appearance, I’ll no gie you muckle hope o’ his state, for the
awsome passion he got in, though he never said a word to me; and, as I
said before, I can tell you what’s true, but I canna gie ye faith to
believe—sae I’ll bid ye good day, Miss Janet; and ye’ll just see if ye
dinna think mair o’ what I’ve said, afore you’re a day aulder—you and
the auld man too.”
Slowly Nelly took her departure, Miss Janet looking on like one
stupefied. As the unwelcome visitor disappeared, Miss Janet sank into a
chair, and again wrung her hands; but looking up with sudden fright to
perceive Jenny’s elaborate dress, and look of mystery, hastily
exclaimed, “Jenny, woman—it’s no but what you’re aye welcome,—but what’s
brocht you here the day?”
“I cam o’ my ain will; naebody kens,” said Jenny abruptly.
“But ye maun have come with an errand—I’m no feared to greet before you,
Jenny,” said Miss Janet, with humility. “Oh, woman, tell me—do you ken
onything of my bairn?”
“Me! what should I ken?” said Jenny, turning her face away. “You’ll have
gotten word? Nae doubt, being grand at the writing, he aye sends
letters. What gars ye ask the like o’ me?”
Miss Janet caught her visitor’s hand, and turned her face towards the
light with a terrified cry. “You may tell me—I ken you’ve seen him as
weel.”
Jenny resisted for some time, keeping her head averted. At length, when
she could struggle no longer, she fell into a little burst of sobbing.
“I never would have telled ye. I didna come to make you desolate—but I
canna tell a lee. I saw him in the dark last nicht, just ae moment,
glancing in at the window—and when I gaed to the door, he was gane.”
Half an hour after, very drearily Jenny took her way down the hill—and
looking back as the early twilight began to darken on her path, she saw
Miss Janet’s wistful face commanding the way. The twilight came down
heavily—the clouds dipt upon the hill—drizzling rains began to fall,
carrying down with them light dropping showers of half-detached and
dying leaves—but still Miss Janet leaned upon the dyke, and turned her
anxious eyes to the hilly footpath, watching, with many a sob and
shiver, for Randall—in the flesh or in the spirit. Surely, if he
revealed himself to strangers, he might come to her.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
After this there fell some very still and quiet days upon Mrs Laurie’s
cottage. Everything went on languidly; there was no heart to the work
which Menie touched with dreamy fingers; there was something subdued and
spiritless in her mother’s looks and movements; and even Jenny’s foot
rang less briskly upon her earthen floor. They did not know what ailed
them, nor what it was they looked for; but with a brooding stillness of
expectation, they waited for something, if it were tempest, earthquake,
or only a new glow of sunshine out of the kindly skies.
Was it a spirit? Asking so often, you make your cheek pale, Menie
Laurie; you make your eyelids droop heavy and leaden over your dim eyes.
Few people come here to break the solitude, and we all dwell with our
own thoughts, through these still days, alone.
“Menie, you are injuring yourself; we will take a long walk, and see
some people to-day,” said Mrs Laurie. “Come, it is quite mild—it will do
us both good; we will go to the manse to see Miss Johnston, and then to
Woodlands and Burnside. Put up your papers—we will take a holiday
to-day.”
Menie’s heavy eyes said faintly that she cared nothing about Miss
Johnston, about Woodlands or Burnside; but Menie put aside her papers
slowly, and prepared for the walk. They went out together, not saying
much, though each sought out, with labour and difficulty, something to
say. “I wonder what ails us?” said Menie, with a sigh. Her mother made
no answer. It was not easy to tell; and speaking of it would do more
harm than good.
A hazy day—the sky one faint unvaried colour, enveloped in a uniform
livery of cloud; a faint white mist spread upon the hills; small
invisible rain in the air, and the withered leaves heavily falling down
upon the sodden soil.
“This will not raise our spirits, mother,” said Menie, with a faint
smile; “better within doors, and at work, on a day like this.”
But why, with such a start and tremble, do you hear those steps upon the
path? Why be struck with such wild curiosity about them, although you
would not turn your head for a king’s ransom? Anybody may be coming—the
shepherd’s wife from Whinnyrig yonder, the poor crofter from the edge of
the peat-moss, or little Jessie’s mother bound for the universal
rural-shop at the Brigend. We are drawing near to the Brigend—already
the aromatic flavour of the peats warms the chill air with word of
household fires, and we see smoke rise beyond the ash-trees—the smoke of
our old family home, the kind hearth of Burnside.
Hush! whether it were hope or fear, is no matter; the steps have ceased;
vain this breathless listening to hear them again; go on through the
ash-trees, Menie Laurie—on through the simple gateway of this humble
rural world. By the fireside—in the cottage—with such simple joy as
friendly words and voices of children can give you—this is your life.
And only one—only one—this your mother—to watch your looks and
gestures—the falling and the rising of your tired heart. Wistful eyes
she turns upon you—tender cares. Look up to repay her, Menie; smile for
her comfort; you are all that remains to her, and she is all that
remains to you.
Look up; see how solemnly the ash-trees lift their old bleached arms to
heaven. Look up, Menie Laurie; but here, at our very ear, these
bewildering steps again!
Do not shrink; here has come the ordeal you have looked for many a day.
Well said your prophetic heart, that it drew near in the hush and
silence of this fated time. They stand there, arched and canopied, under
these familiar trees, the hamlet’s quiet houses receding behind
them—Burnside yonder, the limit of the scene, and the burn, the kindly
country voice, singing a quiet measure to keep them calm. An old man and
a young, learned with experiences of life: the elder, fresh and noble,
daring to meet the world with open face, aware of all the greatest
truths and mysteries of the wonderful existence which we call common
life, but nothing more; the younger, trained in a more painful school,
with his lesson of self-forgetting newly conned, with knowledge sadder
than his father’s, with a heart and conscience quivering still with
self-inflicted wounds—they stand there bareheaded under the cloudy
sky—not with the salutation of common respect, which might permit them
to pass on. A courtly natural grace about them both, makes their
attitude all the more remarkable. With blanched cheeks and failing eyes,
Menie Laurie’s face droops; she dares not look up, but waits, trembling
so greatly that she can scarcely stand, for what has to be said.
Mrs Laurie, with a sudden impulse of protection, draws her child’s arm
within her own—moves forward steadily, all her pride of mother and of
woman coming to her aid; bows to her right hand and her left; says she
is glad to see that this is really Mr Randall, and not the wraith her
simple Jenny had supposed; and, speaking thus in a voice which is but a
murmur of inarticulate sound to Menie, bows again, and would pass on.
But John Home of Crofthill lays his hand upon her sleeve. “You and me
have no outcast to settle. Leave the bairns to themselves.”
With a startled glance Mrs Laurie looks round her, at the old man’s face
of anxious friendliness, at the deep flush on Randall’s brow, and at her
own Menie’s drooping head. “Shall I leave you, Menie?” Menie makes no
answer—as pale and as cold as marble, with a giddy pain in her forehead,
unable to raise her swimming eyes—but she makes a great effort to
support herself, as her mother gradually looses her hand from her arm.
Passive, silent, her whole mind absorbed with the pain it takes to keep
herself erect, and guide her faltering steps along the road; but Randall
is by Menie’s side once more.
Father and mother have gone on, back towards the cottage; silently,
without a word, these parted hearts follow them side by side. If she had
any power left but what is wanted for her own support, she would wonder
why Randall does not speak. She does wonder, indeed, faintly, even
through her pain. With downcast eyes like hers, he walks beside her,
through this chill dewy air, between these rustling hedges, in a
conscious silence, which every moment becomes more overpowering, more
strange.
“Menie!” With a sudden start she acknowledges her name; but there is
nothing more.
“I said, when we parted, that you were disloyal to me and to Nature,”
said Randall, after another pause. “Menie, I have learned many a thing
since then. It was I that was disloyal to Nature—but never to you.”
Still no answer; this giddiness grows upon her, though she does not miss
a syllable of what he says.
“There is no question between us—none that does not fade like a vapour
before the sunlight I see. Menie, can you trust me again?”
She cannot answer—she can do nothing but falter and stumble upon this
darkening road. It grows like night to her. What is this she leans
upon—the arm of Randall Home?
Miss Janet sits in her shawl of state in Jenny’s kitchen—very curious
and full of anxiety. “Eh, woman, such a sair heart I had,” said Miss
Janet, “when wha should come, as fast up the road as if he kent I was
watching, but my ain bairn? He hasna been hame since July’s wedding; ye
wouldna think it o’ a grand lad like our Randall, and him sae clever,
and sae muckle thocht o’ in the world—but when he gaed owre his father’s
doorstane again, the puir laddie grat like a bairn. Will you look if
they’re coming, Jenny?—nae word o’ them? Eh, woman, what can make Miss
Menie sae ill at the like o’ him?”
“The like o’ him’s nae such great things,” said Jenny, with a little
snort. “I wouldna say but what Miss Menie has had far better in her
offer. She’s a self-willed thing—she’ll no take Jenny’s word; but weel I
wat, if she askit me——”
“Whisht, you’re no to say a word,” cried Miss Janet, coming in from the
door. “I see them on the road—I see them coming hame. Jenny, you’re no
to speak. Miss Menie and my Randall, they’re ae heart ance mair.”
And so it was—one heart, but not a heart at ease; the love-renewed still
owned a pang of terror. But day after day came out of the softening
heavens—hour after hour preached and expounded of the mellowed
nature—the soul which had learned to forget itself; other pictures rose
under Menie’s fingers—faces which looked you bravely in the face—eyes
that forgot to doubt and criticise. The clouds cleared from her
firmament in gusts and rapid evolutions, as before these brisk October
winds. One fear followed another, falling like the autumn leaves; a
warmer atmosphere crept into the cottage, a brighter sunshine filled its
homely rooms. Day by day, advancing steadily, the son drew farther in,
to his domestic place. The mother gave her welcome heartily; the
daughter, saying nothing, felt the more; and no one said a word of
grumbling, save perverse Jenny, who wept with joy the while, when
another year and another life lighted up into natural gladness the sweet
harmonious quiet of Menie Laurie’s heart.
MARATHON.
[_Note._—These lines were written shortly after a visit to the plain
of Marathon, and personal inspection of the ground. The historical
facts are taken from Herodotus; the mythological allusions, and
other incidental circumstances, from the two chapters of Pausanias
(Att. I., c. 15 & 32), where the paintings of the famous Portico of
the Stoics in Athens, and the district of Marathon, are described
with characteristic detail.]
1.
From high Pentelicus’ pine-clad height[24]
A voice of warning came,
That shook the silent autumn night
With fear to Media’s name.
Pan from his Marathonian cave[25]
Sent screams of midnight terror,
And darkling horror curled the wave
On the broad sea’s moonlit mirror.
Woe, Persia, woe! thou liest low, low!
Let the golden palaces groan!
Ye mothers weep for sons that shall sleep
In gore on Marathon!
2.
Where Indus and Hydaspes roll,
Where treeless deserts glow,
Where Scythians roam beneath the pole
O’er fields of hardened snow,
The great Darius rules; and now,
Thou little Greece, to thee
He comes; thou thin-soiled Athens, how
Shalt thou dare to be free?
There is a God that wields the rod
Above: by Him alone
The Greek shall be free, when the Mede shall flee
In shame from Marathon.
3.
He comes; and o’er the bright Ægean,
Where his masted army came,
The subject isles uplift the pæan
Of glory to his name.
Strong Naxos, strong Eretria yield;
His captains near the shore
Of Marathon’s fair and fateful field,
Where a tyrant marched before.[26]
And a traitor guide, the sea beside,
Now marks the land for his own,
Where the marshes red shall soon be the bed
Of the Mede in Marathon.
4.
Who shall number the host of the Mede?
Their high-tiered galleys ride
Like locust-bands with darkening speed
Across the groaning tide.
Who shall tell the many-hoofed tramp
That shakes the dusty plain?
Where the pride of the horse is the strength of his camp,
Shall the Mede forget to gain?
O fair is the pride of those turms as they ride,
To the eye of the morning shown!
But a god in the sky hath doomed them to lie
In dust on Marathon.
5.
Dauntless beside the sounding sea
The Athenian men reveal
Their steady strength. That they are free
They know; and inly feel
Their high election on that day
In foremost fight to stand,
And dash the enslaving yoke away
From all the Grecian land.
Their praise shall sound the world around,
Who shook the Persian throne,
When the shout of the free travelled over the sea
From famous Marathon.
6.
From dark Cithæron’s sacred slope
The small Platæan band
Bring hearts that swell with patriot hope
To wield a common brand
With Theseus’ sons at danger’s gates;
While spell-bound Sparta stands,
And for the pale moon’s changes waits
With stiff and stolid hands,
And hath no share in the glory rare
That Athens made her own,
When the long-haired Mede with fearful speed
Fell back from Marathon.
7.
“On, sons of the Greeks!” the war-cry rolls,
“The land that gave you birth,
Your wives, and all the dearest souls
That circle round each hearth;
The shrines upon a thousand hills,
The memory of your sires,
Nerve now with brass your resolute wills,
And fan your valorous fires!”
And on like a wave came the rush of the brave—
“Ye sons of the Greeks, on, on!”
And the Mede stept back from the eager attack
Of the Greek in Marathon.
8.
Hear’st thou the rattling of spears on the right?
See’st thou the gleam in the sky?
The gods come to aid the Greeks in the fight,
And the favouring heroes are nigh.
The lion’s hide I see in the sky,
And the knotted club so fell,
And kingly Theseus’ conquering eye,
And Macaria, nymph of the well.[27]
Purely, purely the fount did flow,
When the morn’s first radiance shone;
But eve shall know the crimson flow
Of its wave by Marathon.
9.
On, son of Cimon, bravely on!
And Aristides just!
Your names have made the field your own,
Your foes are in the dust.
The Lydian satrap spurs his steed,
The Persian’s bow is broken;
His purple pales; the vanquished Mede
Beholds the angry token
Of thundering Jove that rules above;
And the bubbling marshes moan[28]
With the trampled dead that have found their bed
In gore at Marathon.
10.
The ships have sailed from Marathon
On swift disaster’s wings;
And an evil dream hath fetched a groan
From the heart of the king of kings.
An eagle he saw, in the shades of night,
With a dove that bloodily strove;
And the weak hath vanquished the strong in fight—
The eagle hath fled from the dove.
Great Jove, that reigns in the starry plains,
To the heart of the king hath shown,
That the boastful parade of his pride was laid
In dust at Marathon.
11.
But through Pentelicus’ winding vales
The hymn triumphal runs,
And high-shrined Athens proudly hails
Her free-returning sons.
Chaste Pallas, from her ancient rock,
Her round shield’s beaming blaze
Rays down; her frequent worshippers flock,
And high the pæan raise,
How in deathless glory the famous story
Shall on the winds be blown,
That the long-haired Mede was driven with speed
By the Greeks from Marathon.
12.
And Greece shall be a hallowed name
While the sun shall climb the pole,
And Marathon fan strong freedom’s flame
In many a pilgrim soul.
And o’er that mound where heroes sleep,[29]
By the waste and reedy shore,
Full many a patriot eye shall weep,
Till Time shall be no more.
And the Bard shall brim with a holier hymn,
When he stands by that mound alone,
And feel no shrine on earth more divine
Than the dust of Marathon.
J. S. B.
LONDON TO WEST PRUSSIA.
Northward and eastward the eyes of Englishmen are turning, straining to
catch a glimpse of the white sails of their country’s ships, to discern
the streaks of smoke which tell of far-off steamers, or to hear the echo
at least of their thundering cannon. And many, too, not content to wait
for tidings, are hurrying towards the scenes of action, if haply they
may witness or sooner learn what the fortune of war may bring. Due east
from the northern part of our island the Baltic fleet is now manœuvring;
but from London the speediest route is through Belgium, and along the
German railways, till the traveller reaches Stettin. Thence he can skirt
the Baltic landwards by Königsberg as far as Memel, beyond which it will
scarcely be safe to venture; or he can, by ship or boat, from the mouths
of the Stettiner Haaf, prosecute his recognisance on the waters of the
east sea itself.
But as mere ever-moving couriers, few, even in these exciting times,
will travel. Most men will stop now and then, look about them, ask
questions, gather information, reflect between whiles, and thus add
interest at once and extract instruction from the countries they pass
through. Especially they will observe what bears upon their individual
professions, pursuits, or favourite studies; and thus, almost without
effort, will gather new materials, to be used up in the details of
ordinary life, when, the warlike curiosity being gratified, they return
again to the welcome routine of home or domestic duties.
Such has been our own case, in a recent run from London through Stettin
into Western Prussia, in less genial weather than now prevails; and it
may interest our readers to make the journey with us, by anticipation,
at their own firesides, while the trunks and passports are preparing for
their own real journey.
On the 27th of January, at eight in the morning, a huge pyramid of
luggage blocked up the London station of the South-eastern Railway.
Troops of boys hovered about, some true Cockney lads, and others
half-Frenchified, with an occasional usher fussing about the boxes. “Do
you see that mountain, sir?” said the superintendent to us. “All school
traps, sir.” “Two hundred boys at least?” we interposed,
interrogatively. “No; only fifty. Fill a steamer, sir, itself.” However,
the master contrived to get all put right, the mountain vanished into
the waggons, the whistle blew, and we were off. The boys gave a hearty
hurra as we left the station, which they repeated, time after time, at
every fresh start we made, from station to station. At Dover the boat
was waiting, the day fine, the wind in our favour, the sea moderately
smooth, and by 11.40 we were on our way to Calais. Alas for the brave
boys! The last cheer was given as they bade adieu to the cliffs of
Dover. Melancholy came over them by degrees. It was painful to see how
home-sick they became. From the bottom of their stomachs they regretted
leaving their native land, and, heart-sore, chopfallen, and sorely
begrimed as to their smart caps and jackets, they paraded, two hours
after, before the customhouse at Calais, like the broken relics of a
defeated army. M. Henequin was importing the half-yearly draft of
Cockney boys to his school at Guines; and we recommend such of our
readers as are curious in sea-comforts respectfully to decline the
companionship of M. Henequin and his troop, should they at any future
time lucklessly stumble upon them on the gangway of a steamer.
At Calais the patriotic and Protestant Englishman, who visits the
cathedral of Nôtre Dame, will particularly admire a huge modern
painting, which is supposed to adorn the north transept, and will have
no difficulty in interpreting the meaning looks of the gaping peasantry
when he reads underneath—“Calais taken from the English in 1558, and
_restored to Catholicity_.”
The Pas de Calais—at least that portion of the department of that name
through which the railway runs—at once tells the Englishman that he is
in a new country. Low, wet, and marshy, like the seaward part of
Holland, it is parcelled out, drained, and fenced by numberless ditches.
Wandering over its tame and, in winter at least, most uninviting
surface, the eye finds only occasional rows of small pollard willows to
rest upon, as if the scavengers of the land had all gone home to dinner,
and in the mean time had planted their brooms in readiness along the
sides of the ditches they were employed to scour.
But passing St Omer and approaching Hazebrook, the land lifts itself
above the sea marshes, becomes strong and loamy, and fitted for every
agricultural purpose. Arrived at Lille, the traveller is already in the
heart of the most fertile portion of northern France. Twin fortresses of
great strength, Lille and Valenciennes, are also twin centres of what,
in certain points of view, is the most wonderful industry of France. The
sugar beet finds here a favourite soil and climate, and a rural and
industrial population suited to the favourable prosecution of the
beet-sugar manufacture. Though long before suggested and tried in
Germany, this manufacture is purely French in its economical origin. The
Continental System of the first Napoleon raised colonial produce to a
fabulous price. At six francs a pound colonial sugar was within the
reach of few. The high price tempted many to cast about for means of
producing sugar at home, and a great stimulus was given to this research
by the magnificent premium of a million of francs offered by the Emperor
to the successful discoverer of a permanent source of supply from plants
of native growth. Of the many plants tried, the beet proved the most
promising; but it required twenty years of struggles and failures, and
conquering of difficulties, to place the new industry on a comparatively
independent basis. Twenty years more has enabled it to compete
successfully with colonial sugar, and to pay an equal tax into the
French exchequer. From France and Belgium the industry returned to its
native Germany, and has since spread far into the interior of Russia.
The total produce of this kind of sugar on the continent of Europe has
now reached the enormous quantity of three hundred and sixty millions of
pounds, of which France produces about one hundred and fifty millions in
three hundred and thirty-four manufactories.
It is a pleasant excursion on a fine day in autumn, when the beet
flourishes still green in the fields, and the roots are nearly ripe for
pulling, to drive out from Lille, as we did some years ago, among the
country farmers ten or twelve miles around. The land is so rich and
promising, and on the whole so well tilled—and yet in the hands of good
English or Scotch farmers might, we fancy, be made to yield so much
more, and to look so much nicer, and drier, and cleaner, that we enjoy
at once the gratification which in its present condition it is sure to
yield us, while we pleasantly flatter ourselves at the same time with
the thoughts of what we could make it. That it is not badly cultivated
the practical man will infer from the average produce of sugar beet
being estimated about Lille at sixteen, and about Valenciennes at
nineteen tons an acre. At the same time, that much improvement is
possible he will gather from the fact that, though often strong and but
little undulating, the land is still unconscious of thorough drainage,
and of the benefits which underground tiles and broken stones have so
liberally conferred upon us.
The adjoining provinces of Hainault and Brabant—which the traveller
leaves to the right on his way to Ghent and Brussels—are the seat of the
sugar manufacture in Belgium. There the average yield of beetroot is
said to be from eighteen to twenty-four tons an acre, the land in
general being excellent, while the total produce of beet-sugar in
Belgium is ten millions of pounds. In Belgium, as in France, the
home-growth of sugar is equal to about one-half of the home consumption.
Late in the evening we found ourselves in Brussels, and the following
morning—though wet and dirty—we were visiting, as strangers do, the
numerous churches. It was Sunday; and as in the face of nature we had
seen in the Pas de Calais that we were in a foreign country, so to-day
the appearance of the streets told us at every step that we were among a
foreign people. The shops open everywhere, and more than usually
frequented; the universal holiday sparkling upon every face; the
frequent priests in gowns, bands, and broadbrims to be met with on the
streets; the crowding to morning mass at St Gudule’s and St Jacques’;
the pious indifference of the apparently devout congregations; the
huddling together and intermixture among them of all classes and
costumes; the mechanical crossings and genuflections even in the
remotest corners, where only the tinkling of the bells was faintly
heard; the easy air of superiority, and lazy movements and mumbling of
the officiating clergy at the altar; and the happy contentment pictured
on every face as the crowd streamed from the door when the service was
ended;—all these things spoke of a foreign people and a foreign church.
The evening theatres and Sunday amusements told equally of foreign ideas
and foreign habits; while the old town-hall and the other quaint
buildings which the English traveller regards at every new visit with
new pleasure, kept constantly before his eyes that he was in a foreign
city.
The characteristic of Belgium among foreign countries is, that, with the
exception of Spain, it is probably the most completely Roman Catholic
sovereignty in Europe. To this almost exclusive devotion to the Roman
Church the peculiarities to which we have referred are mainly to be
ascribed. Of its population, which by the last census was 4,337,000, not
less than 4,327,000 were Roman Catholics, and only 7,368 Protestants.
The total expense of the dominant Church to the state, which pays all
the clergy, is 4,366,000 francs, or about a franc a-head for each member
of the Church. It has besides private revenues of various kinds for
repairing churches, for charitable foundations, &c., amounting to
800,000 francs, making the total revenue about 5,000,000 of francs.
This, divided among five thousand clergy of all ranks, gives less than
one thousand francs as the average stipend. And when we add to this that
the archbishop’s stipend is only £840, that of a bishop £580, and of a
cathedral canon from £100 to £130, we should fancy the Church to be in
money matters poor, and the clergy badly off. But in Protestant
countries we understand very little of the system of fees and unseen
payments in the Catholic Church, and we form probably a very erroneous
idea of the real income and means of living of a Roman Catholic clergy
when we conclude that, as a general rule, their main dependence is upon
the known and avowed salaries they derive from the State or from other
public sources.
While we are at home discussing with some little sectarian animosity the
subject of State payments to Popish chaplains for our prisons and
military hospitals, it is but fair to this most Catholic country to
mention, that to the 7,368 Protestants the Belgian state-chest pays
yearly 56,000 francs to eleven native pastors and six Church of England
ministers, for salaries and other church expenses—being at the rate of
eight francs for each Protestant in the kingdom. It allows also 7,900
francs to the Jews, or about seven francs a-head. For their religious
liberality the reader will give such credit to the Belgian clergy as he
may think they deserve.
Detained by unforeseen circumstances for a day in Brussels, we witnessed
the honours paid to Prince Napoleon on his entry from Paris, and in the
afternoon were on our way to Cologne. Passing Louvain and Tirlemont in
the dark, we recognised the neighbourhood of Liege only by its
coke-ovens and iron-works, and an hour before midnight reached Cologne.
Cologne, with thy sixty stinks still redolent, even a midnight entrance
reveals to travelling olfactories thy odoriferous presence! As we jogged
along to the Hotel Disch, enjoying alone a luxurious omnibus, the
slumbering memory of long-familiar smells sprung up fresh in our
nostrils, and awoke us to the full conviction that our railway conductor
had made no mistake, and that we were really passing beneath the shadow
of the magnificent cathedral of Cologne.
Early morning saw us pacing the nave of the gigantic pile, admiring anew
its glorious windows, peering into its chapels, glancing hurriedly at
its saintly pictures, turning away both eyes and ears from
unwholesome-looking priests intoning the morning service, admiring the
by-play called “private worship,” which was proceeding at the same
moment in the northern aisle, and offending susceptible un-fee’d
officials by indecent looks, as we stealthily paced the circumference of
the lordly choir. No familiarity can reconcile an English Protestant to
the mummeries of a worship performed before tawdry dolls by the light
even of a dozen penny candles. And the paltriness appears the greater in
a vast pile like this, which itself is but a feeble attempt to do
something adequate to the greatness of Him who dwelleth not in temples
made with hands. This feeling awoke within us in full force as we came,
in our promenade round the church, upon a large side-chapel, with its
Virgin dressed in lace, enclosed in a small glass cupboard, with votive
offerings of waxen limbs and other objects hung up beside it, while
three small candles in dirty sconces burned beneath. And before this
trumpery exhibition knelt and prayed grave men and women, who had passed
the middle of life; and young girls with warm hearts, who had still the
world with all its lures and temptations before them. Pity that hearts
so devout and so susceptible should be so badly directed—that the plain
helps and comforts of Scripture should be set aside for the
aggrandisement of a powerful craft!
Much had been done here by architects and masons since our former visit.
Much money had been collected and expended, and many men are still at
work on this vast building; and yet the stranger’s eye discovers from
without only small changes to have been effected during the past ten
years. Here and there, as he walks around it, a white pillar, or a less
discoloured arch, tells him where the workmen have been busy; but the
several portions of the work are so massive, and proceed of necessity so
slowly, that the progress of years produces advances which seem almost
microscopic when compared with the whole. While they satisfy us,
however, that generations will still come and go, leaving the growing
cathedral still immature, yet they give us at the same time a far
grander idea both of the vastness of the work which has already been
accomplished, and of the original greatness of the conception, which so
many centuries have failed to embody fully in durable stone.
At eleven in the forenoon we had already crossed the Rhine to Deutz, had
taken our seats on the Winden railway, and at the blowing of the
official trumpet had begun to move along the rich flat land which here
borders the Rhine. The walls and river-face of Cologne, now spread out
before us, carried back our musings to the times of the historical
grandeur of this ancient city. During the period of Roman greatness,
emperors of the world were born and proclaimed within its walls;
centuries later, a king of the Franks was chosen in Cologne; and still
six hundred and fifty years later began that bright period of its
commercial prosperity, which for three hundred years made it the most
flourishing city of Northern Europe. Thirty thousand fighting men, from
among its own armed citizens, could then march defiantly from its gates.
Its whole population is now but ninety thousand, and its trade
comparatively trifling.
But the cause of this decline interests an Englishman more than the
actual decay. Commerce, it is true, had begun in the seventeenth century
to find new channels, and this circumstance, had the city been merely
abandoned to supineness, might have gradually affected its prosperity.
But it was positive measures of repression that forced it to decline. It
fell under the dominion of the Roman priesthood, which first drove out
the Jews, afterwards banished the weavers, and finally, in 1618,
expelled the Protestants. From this time, for nearly two hundred years,
it became a nest of monks and beggars, till at the Revolution the French
changed everything, drove out the two thousand five hundred city clergy,
seized their revenues, and turned to other uses their two hundred
religious buildings. Hand over Liverpool or London to the same clerical
dominion, and the same depressing consequences would most certainly
follow.
High over walls and houses, as we fly along the railway, towers the
cathedral, with its ancient crane still erect on its unfinished tower.
Who designed this huge building? Alas! centuries before his work is
complete, the name of the architect is lost. Six hundred years ago the
work was begun, but the glory of God is the plea on which it has been
prosecuted, and upon that altar the humble designer has sacrificed his
fame!
And as it fades from the sight, memory recalls another scene which, four
centuries ago, was witnessed beneath the shadow of this great pile. In a
small upper room, with rude appliances, and a scanty store of materials,
two men are seen curiously putting together the letters of a movable
alphabet, arranging them into the form of tiny pages, and with slow
deliberation impressing them, page by page, on the anxiously moistened
paper. The younger of the two is William Caxton, the father of English
printing. Here he learned the then young art which has since rendered
him famous in his native land. How would William Caxton admire, could he
now for a moment be carried into the printing-office of a metropolitan
journal, and see with what marvellous speed and certainty the operations
he watched so anxiously at Cologne are now conducted.
But as the quick thoughts course through our mind, we rush as quickly
along towards Dusseldorf. We have now left the country of hedgerows of
timber and of visible fences, and divisions of the land. Open, flat, and
rich, it stretches inward from the Rhine, often light, and sometimes
sandy or gravelly; all cultivated on the flat, all neat and clean, but
naked, at this season, both of animal and vegetable life. A few sheep
sprinkled over one field, and a rare man or woman trudging along beside
deep ditches, were the only symptoms of moving life we saw between
Cologne and Dusseldorf; while pollard trees here and there, and long
rows of unpollarded poplars by the highway-sides, where a village was
near, as tamely represented the vegetable ornaments which beautify an
English landscape.
Following the Rhine for twenty miles farther, the line turns to the
right, and we pass through the coal district which supplies the soft
coke by which the locomotives are fed, and the dirty-looking coal to
which the neighbouring region owes so much of its industrial prosperity.
Iron furnaces, coal-pits, and chemical manufactories, remind us, as we
pass Oberhausen, of the denser peopled and more smoke-blackened
coal-fields of northern and western England, while all the appointments
we see around them speak of an economy in management somewhat different
from our own. No heaps of waste and burning coal indicate the approach
to a colliery, nor columns of black smoke vomiting waste fuel into the
tainted air, nor wheels and ropes rattling and busily revolving in the
open day, nor troops of blackened men and boys lifting their heads to
gaze, as the train skims swiftly by. Fine buildings cover in and conceal
the openings to the pits with all their gear; and it is not quite
obvious whether climate and profit compel this system, or whether it is
the general habits of the people which thus manifest themselves. Cattle
are kept under cover nearly all the year through; thoughts are very much
kept under cover, even in so-called constitutional Prussia and Hanover;
and the operations of the coal-pit may be boxed in and hidden from the
vulgar gaze, merely as the consequence of a precautionary habit.
Dordmund, with its fortifications, and its associations with the famous
“Vehm-gericht,” stands in the middle of this coal-field. Several borings
in progress on the flats of black land, which stretch away from its old
walls, exhibited the living influence of railway communication in
changing the surface even of old countries, in opening up long-neglected
resources, and in imparting new energy to half-dormant populations.
Through the fertile Hellweg we sped along, leaving Dordmund behind us,
and through the region of Westphalian hams, till the dark wet night
overtook us. But, easy and comfortable in our luxurious carriages, we
only quitted the train at Hanover that we might spend a morning in a
city with which England has had so many relations.
From the moment the Englishman enters a Continental railway carriage,
and especially if he is proceeding into Germany, two things strike him:
First, the extreme luxury, roominess, and comfort of the carriages; and,
second, the universal propensity to the use of tobacco. The second-class
carriages are generally fully equal in their fitting and provisions for
ease to our British first-class, while the German first-class carriages
surprise us by the numerous little thoughtful appliances they exhibit to
the wants and fancies of their temporary occupants. This seems rather a
contradiction to an Englishman, who flatters himself that the word
_comfort_ is indigenous to his own country, and who actually sees, go
where he will, that in its domestic arrangements an English house and
houshold is the most comfortable in the world. This discordance between
the practice of home and foreign countries, is probably to be traced to
the difference of general habits and tendencies. To an Englishman, home
is the place which is dearer than any other. In it he spends his time
chiefly. He makes his home, therefore, and likes to see it made, the
most comfortable place of all. To him a public conveyance or a public
place of resort is no permanent temptation. He comes back always the
happier, and he counts generally how soon he may get back again to his
home. But on the Continent it is generally different. Home has few
comforts or attractions, chiefly because habit has led to the custom of
dining, of supping, of sipping coffee and punch, of drinking wine, and
of smoking, in public. The public places of resort are made comfortable
and luxurious to invite these visits. People look for and provide more
comfort abroad than at home; and thus into their railway carriages,
which, like other public places, are really smoking-shops, they carry
the luxurious appliances which they deny themselves at home.
In Germany there is thus an excuse for travelling in second-class
carriages, because of their excellence, which we do not possess in
England. This custom, in consequence, is very general, not only among
natives, but among foreigners also. “On the Continent,” says Professor
Silliman, in a book of travels he has lately published, “and
particularly in Germany, we have generally taken the second-class
carriages. They are in all respects desirable, and few persons, except
the nobility, travel in those of the first class, which appear to
possess no advantage except the aristocratic one of partial exclusion of
other classes by the higher price.” There is, perhaps, a little
advantage in point of comfort; but the second-class carriages are
certainly in this respect quite equal to the average of the railway cars
in the United States. As to our second-class carriages in England, they
are, adds Professor Silliman, “made very uncomfortable. They have no
cushions, but simply naked board seats. The backs are high and
perpendicular.” But in these arrangements the learned Professor was not
aware that our railway directors patriotically study the conservation of
our domestic habits. Were the carriages made too comfortable, people
might prefer them to their own easy-chairs and sofas at home, and thus
might be tempted to frequent them too much and too often for the general
good. As to ourselves, we have always taken first-class tickets in our
German tour, chiefly because in this way we could, in most cases, secure
to ourselves a carriage in which we could avoid, for our lungs and our
clothes, the contamination of the perpetual tobacco. In West Prussia, it
is true, we were told that nobody but “prinzen und narren” (princes and
fools) travelled first class; but even with the risk of such nicknames
we continued our plan.
“On ne fume pas ici,” you see stuck up on a rare Belgian carriage in a
long train; and in Prussia a ticket with the words, “Für nicht
rauchende,” is in like manner suspended to a carriage in most of the
trains on the main lines. But if this select carriage be full, you must
take your place among the _fumeurs_ or the _rauchende_; and should you
there be fortunate enough to escape the torments of living smoke, you
have the still more detestable odours to endure, the after-smells which
linger wherever tobacco-smokers have been. We have lately perceived
symptoms of the introduction of this custom into our English railway
carriages. We trust that no desire to increase the home revenue in these
war times will induce even our most patriotic railway directors to shut
their eyes to the growth of so annoying a nuisance.
A morning in Hanover is agreeably spent. Like other German cities, it
has derived an impulse from the railway, and new streets and magnificent
buildings already connect the station with the older parts of the town.
But it is in these old streets and their quaint buildings that the
greatest enjoyment awaits the sight-seer. The dress and manners of the
people, especially in the markets, their habits and tastes, as indicated
by the articles everywhere exposed for sale, and especially the quaint
old Gothic and curiously-ornamented houses, which range their gables
here and there along the streets—these attractions interest even the
keenest lovers of progress. Old-world times come up on the memory with
all their associations, and by dint of contrast awaken trains of thought
not the less pleasant that they are totally different from those which
railways and their accompaniments are continually suggesting to us.
Among these quaint old houses, that in which Leibnitz lived is in itself
one of the most attractive, and in its associations by far the most
interesting. Elevated from the din of the main street (Schmiede strasse)
on which it is situated, the philosopher is said to have studied in the
garret which looks out from the upper part of the gable, and there to
have arrived at those results of thought which have given both his name
and his monument a place in the annals of the city, which none of its
kings can boast of. It is honourable to one of these kings, Ernest
Augustus, that he bought the old house, and caused it to be kept from
disrepair, and to the citizens of Hanover that in 1790 they erected a
simple monument to the memory of the philosopher, consisting of a bust
on a marble pedestal. This now stands on a slight mound of earth on one
side of Waterloo Place, surrounded by a humble railing. Few strangers
visit the city who have not heard of the man, and who do not feel
gratified to have seen his likeness in his bust. Fewer, whose love of
books has carried them to the royal library, have not in silence looked,
and with a melancholy interest, on the chair in which he sat when the
death-stroke came upon him, and at the book which he was still holding
in his hand when the sudden summons came.
Bursting its old boundaries, like Hamburg, Brunswick, Breslau, and many
other fortified cities, the walls and ditches and towers of Hanover are
gradually disappearing. Some of the last of the ditches we saw in the
act of being filled up; and the progress of the arts of peace will
henceforth, it is to be hoped, save its modern inhabitants from the
frequent sufferings which besieging armies have in former times
inflicted. Traversed by the river Leine, which, at a short distance from
the town, becomes navigable from the junction of the Ihme, they have now
facilities for communication in every direction; the mercantile class of
the city is every year becoming more influential; and as education is
beginning to spread among the masses—a thing which is far from being
unnecessary—a more rapid advancement of the neighbourhood, both in
commerce and agriculture, may hereafter be anticipated.
To the south west of Hanover, at the distance of a few miles, appear the
terminating hills of the Deister, from which sloping grounds, densely
peopled and generally fertile, extend almost to the city. Rich
clay-soils on this side are fruitful in varied crops; but, stretching
away from its very walls on the other side, are sand, moor, and heath,
the flat and inhospitable beginnings of the far-extending Luneburg
heath. Away over these flat, black, and sandy moors we sped in the
afternoon to Brunswick. The brief stoppage of the train gave us time to
walk through some of the clean streets of this city, and to admire its
richness in picturesque gable-fronted buildings, many of them three
centuries old. We commend it to the leisurely traveller as worthy of a
more protracted visit; and if he is cunning in malt liquor, we entreat
him to indulge his palate with a glass of the so-called “Brunswicker
mumme,” the real substantial black-strap for which Brunswick is famous.
Daylight scarcely served to bring us to Magdeburg. We hurried past
Wolfenbüttel, famous for its library and its relics of Luther; and as we
glided into the station of the celebrated fortress-city, we could form
little idea either of the fertility of the river banks on which it
stands, or of the strength of the fortifications from which Magdeburg
derives its place in history. Within the walls it resembles Hanover and
Brunswick in the mixture of old and new, plain and picturesque, common
and quaint, which its streets present. Here are the simple remarks which
a day’s stroll through the city suggested recently to Madame Pfeiffer:—
“Magdeburg is a mixed pattern of houses of ancient, medieval, and
modern dates. Particularly remarkable in this respect is the principal
street, the “Broadway,” which runs through the whole of the town. Here
we can see houses dating their origin from the most ancient times;
houses that have stood proof against sieges and sackings; houses of
all colours and forms; some sporting peaked gables, on which stone
figures may still be seen; others covered from roof to basement with
arabesques; and in one instance I could even detect the remains of
frescoes. In the very midst of these relics of antiquity would appear
a house built in the newest style. I do not remember ever having seen
a street which produced so remarkable an impression on me. The finest
building is unquestionably the venerable cathedral. In Italy I had
already seen numbers of the most beautiful churches, yet I remained
standing in mute admiration before this masterpiece of Gothic
architecture.”[30]
This cathedral is worthy of all the admiration which Madame Pfeiffer
expresses. The glitter of the Roman Catholic worship is now foreign to
it, but the dignity of the pile remains. The city is Protestant, and
fondly it ought to cherish its purer worship, for in the same quaint
streets Luther sang as a poor scholar for charity, and at the doors of
the rich men of the time, to enable him to prosecute his learning.
But without the walls Magdeburg is equally attractive to one who has
just escaped from the sands and peaty flats of the Luneburg heath.
Situated where the Elbe widens, with its citadel planted on one of the
river islands, the city walls are skirted on either hand by fertile
plains, rich in corn and other produce. Still flat, however, unenclosed,
without hedgerows, clumps of trees, straying cattle, and the numerous
rural peculiarities which give life and variety and interest to an
English landscape, almost a single glance suffices to take in all they
exhibit of the picturesque, and to satisfy the merely superficial
tourist. But there is attraction in these flat plains, nevertheless, and
an economical interest, which may induce even the railway traveller to
stay and inspect them. Fitted by its free and open nature for the growth
of root crops, these alluvial shores of the Elbe have become the centre
of a husbandry of which little is known as yet in England. In Murray’s
_Handbook_, the traveller is informed that “much chicory is cultivated
in this district;” and this is one of the roots for the growth of which
the soil is specially adapted. The culture was in former years more
extensive than at present; but there are still five or six thousand
acres devoted to the raising of this crop. The yield in dried chicory
from this extent of land is from twenty to thirty millions of pounds. It
is largely exported to England and America through Hamburg—that which we
receive from this port being chiefly from the Magdeburg chicory
manufactories.
But the growth of the sugar beet, and the extraction of beet-sugar, are
superseding the chicory trade, and are gradually assuming the first
place both in the rural and manufacturing industry of Magdeburg and its
neighbourhood. The largest producer of beet-sugar in the world is
France; but the German Customs’ Union is the second in this respect, and
Magdeburg is the principal centre of the German production. Like eager
horses, skilfully jockeyed, and running neck and neck, the _Cis_ and
_Trans_ Rhenave sugar-extractors have for years back been struggling
hard to get ahead of each other in the perfection of their methods, and
the profit of their fields and manufactories; and many curious facts and
difficulties have come out or been surmounted during this
chemico-agricultural and chemico-manufacturing contest. For it is an
interesting circumstance, that while chemistry was, on the one hand,
aiding the farmer to grow large and profitable crops of roots, it was,
at the same time, on the other, assisting the manufacturer more
perfectly and profitably to extract the sugar from the roots when
raised. But it is curious, at the same time, that in the advances thus
made on either hand, the increased profits of the one party were found
singularly to clash and interfere with the profits and processes of the
other. Increase the size of your turnip by chemical applications, said
agricultural chemistry, and you have a heavier crop to sell to the
sugar-manufacturer. And the grower took the advice, and rejoiced in his
augmenting profits. The practices of North British turnip-growers were
introduced by British settlers, and their imitators, on the plains of
Magdeburg; and root crops more like those which cover our British
turnip-fields were seen, for the first time, on the banks of the Elbe.
Then up rose economical chemistry, on the other hand, and said, No, no,
Mr Farmer, we don’t want, and we won’t buy, your larger roots. We cannot
afford to purchase your gigantic beets, the offspring of your high
manuring. The chemistry which enlarged the roots did not increase the
quantity of sugar in proportion. “A ton of good big beets gives me less
sugar,” says the extractor, “than a ton of your small ones; and
therefore, if you will grow the big ones, I must have them at a less
price in proportion. And, besides, your high manuring puts salt into the
turnip, which prevents me from fully extracting all the sugar they do
contain.” Thus chemistry, on the one side, was at issue with chemistry
on the other, and the progress of a profitable scientific agriculture
appeared to be arrested by that of a scientific and economical
extraction of the sugar.
But difficulties to men of science are only things to be overcome. On
the one hand, the farmer kept down the size of his roots. He sought to
make up in number for the deficiency in size, while he applied his
manure at such times in his rotation, and of such a quality, as to give
him a slower-grown, more solid root, rather than a porous, light,
rapidly forced, and less saccharine crop. And on the other hand, the
chemical sugar-maker set his skill to work to devise means of more fully
extracting the sugar still, and of overcoming the difficulties which the
presence of salt in the juice had hitherto thrown in his way. And thus,
by improving in different directions, the two interests are gradually
ceasing to clash, and at the present moment a mutually advancing
prosperity binds together more and more the chemical manufacturer and
the chemical farmer on the alluvials of the Elbe.
We have already alluded to the importance of the beet-sugar industry to
the continent of Europe. But the reader will see, from what we have just
said, that it has a relative as well as a positive importance, very
similar to that which the arts of brewing and distilling have in this
country. It cannot flourish anywhere without causing the agriculture of
the place to flourish along with it. A necessary condition to the
establishment of a flourishing sugar-manufactory, is the existence of
well-cultivated farms, and skilful farmers in the neighbourhood. The
erection of such works, therefore, is a positive and direct means of
promoting agriculture, by affording a tempting and constant market for
an important part of the yearly produce. This is no doubt one of the
reasons why the German governments have given so many encouragements of
late years to the extension of this branch of manufacture, and why the
astute government of Russia should have incited the nobles of the empire
to exert themselves in its behalf in the various provinces of the Czar’s
dominion. Russia, in consequence, possesses a greater number of
beet-sugar works than any other country. Even as far as Odessa the
culture has penetrated, and is now carried on.
Mr Oliphant, who recently visited the shores of the Black Sea, informs
us that—
“Lately, in the neighbourhood of Odessa, the cultivation of beetroot,
and extraction of sugar from it, was carried on to a considerable
extent by the large landed proprietors of the adjoining provinces.
Notwithstanding most praiseworthy exertions, these aristocratic
beetroot growers were totally unable to make their speculation
remunerative, and many of them must have been ruined had not the
legislature stepped in and prohibited the sale of any other sugar. The
consequence is, that the inhabitants are obliged to buy sugar at a
hundred per cent higher than the price at which our colonial sugar
could be imported into the country. It is some satisfaction to know
that, notwithstanding this iniquitous regulation, combined with the
system of forced labour, the beetroot growers are unable to cultivate
with profit.”[31]
But the train is in motion, the trumpet has sounded, and we are off
through the darkness, and along the slightly undulating flats, on our
way to Berlin. We found ourselves in company with a pleasant Frenchman
_en route_ from the embassy in London to the embassy in Berlin; and
before our most unanimous deliberations on the affairs of the East had
come to a close, we found ourselves at the end of our journey, and by 10
P.M. had reached our quarters in the Hôtel de Russie.
Berlin, how many beauties and attractions dost thou present to the
stranger who steps out for the first time from this hotel, and, walking
a few yards, places himself in the centre of the Unter den Linden, with
his back to the river and bridge. Leisurely he feasts his eyes as he
turns, now to the right and now to the left, now gazing down the long
vista which terminates at the Brandenburg gate, now turning towards the
arsenal and the museum, and now farther round towards the cathedral and
the royal palace. Architecture, sculpture, and the arts of decoration
and design, all contribute their attractions; massing, grouping, and
colouring, add their effects upon the intelligent eye, while the heart
is touched by the mementoes of the past which here and there arrest his
glance, the grateful homage to the departed which the monumental
statuary exhibits, the love of country breathing from brief but frequent
inscriptions, and over all the love and veneration of both king and
people for the Great Frederick, the founder of the Prussian fortunes.
Deeper than all the other sights which thus first arrest the stranger’s
eye, the monument to Frederick and his times will touch and impress the
sensitive stranger. On his war steed there he rides, the iron man, the
observed of all eyes, surrounded, it is true, by the generals who rose
to fame beneath his banner, but not less conspicuously by the statesmen
who led his civil armies, by the poets and great writers whom he
esteemed and imitated, by the advancers of science in his time, and by
those who ornamented his reign through the decorations of the fine
arts,—all here find their place side by side, attendant upon the great
monarch, at once giving and receiving lustre. It is a monument to the
age rather than to the man—or, we might rather say, to the man and his
age; and the lover of abstract art, and the worshipper of modern
progress, will equally admire the design and execution of this
interesting monument. We were touched by a feature in the inscription,
which others have no doubt noticed as well as ourselves. The words of
the whole inscription are: “To Frederick the Great, Frederick-William
III., 1850, completed by Frederick-William IV., 1851.” Two kings emulous
of the distinction of dedicating this monument to their illustrious
predecessor! This scarcely expresses more highly the mutual veneration
of both father and son for the national hero whose blood they boast of,
than it bespeaks their pride in the work of art it was their happiness
to be able to dedicate to his memory. How many will admire and cherish
in it the genius of art, who will deplore and condemn the genius of war
to which the great hero offered his most ardent and most costly
sacrifices!
Yet the most deadly haters of war cannot but acknowledge that there is
something sublime in the special features of Frederick’s character,
which the letters recently published have disclosed. Oppressed by the
anxieties consequent upon military disasters, and apprehensive of
further defeats, in which he sees the possibility of himself being taken
prisoner, he writes to his minister, and prescribes the course to be
taken for the safety of the royal family in such an eventuality. And
then, speaking of his own possible position, and of the compulsion which
might be exercised upon him as a prisoner, he commands them to attend to
no instructions or orders he may issue while detained a prisoner, and no
longer to be regarded as a free agent. He is of a great mind who knows,
can anticipate, and provide against the special or possible weaknesses
of his bodily nature. And so Frederick, dreading what impatience for
liberty or personal suffering might possibly force from him in such
circumstances, lays upon his servants, while free, his heaviest commands
to regard him no more than one dead, should he happen to become a
prisoner, and to consider not his state or condition or written orders
_then_, but solely the tenor and substance of what he _now_ writes,
viewed in connection with the interests of his people and his country.
How many men have lived to despise themselves for acts of weakness, of
folly, or of vice, which in feeble hours they have committed! Here we
have the philosophical hero providing for the possible contingency of
such an hour of bodily weakness or mental imbecility casting its heavy
shadows over him! There is in this trait something not only for
descendants to be proud of, and for a people to venerate, but for
strangers of other nations also to respect and admire.
The character of the society in Berlin is familiar to most travellers.
To those who have access to diplomatic circles, the evening reunions in
the hotels of the ambassadors are described as agreeable in a high
degree. But of real Berlin hospitality in the houses of the Berlin
aristocracy, or of the nobles whose domains are in the provinces, little
is either to be seen or said. We had no leisure to seek an _entrée_ to
the houses of imperial and kingly representatives, then over head and
ears in notes, rejoinders, protocols, and despatches, and teased every
hour of the night by thundering couriers and impatient despatch-boxes.
We had, indeed, occasion to experience, as we had long before done in St
Petersburg, the kindness and affable attention of Lord Bloomfield, and
were happy to find that his long residence abroad had not lessened his
keen sympathy with English feeling, nor his contact with Prussian
vacillation made him undecided as to the conduct and policy of England
in the then approaching crisis.
But Berlin boasts a scientific society, to which it was our pride and
happiness to obtain an easy introduction. Every one is acquainted with
some of the numerous names which adorn the list of scientific men who
form the educational staff of the University of Berlin, or who hold
official situations of various kinds in the Prussian capital. No city in
Germany can boast of so many men of real eminence as illustrators and
discoverers in the several walks of science; and nowhere will you find a
pleasanter, franker, happier, more unpretending, jolly, and good-natured
a set of evening companions, over a bottle of good Rhine wine and a
_petit souper_, than these same distinguished philosophers!
One of the most agreeable of the evening meetings at which the stranger
may have the fortune to meet the greater part of the men of science in
Berlin, is that of the Geographical Society. The President is the
distinguished Carl Ritter, who was in the chair when we attended, and
around him were many whom we had come to see. But on turning over the
leaves of the book of travels of our friend Professor Silliman, of which
we have already spoken, we find an account of the meeting of the same
Society at which he was present two years before, which appears so exact
a photograph of the one at which we assisted that we shall not scruple
to quote his words.
“Several papers were read on geographical subjects, and different
gentlemen were called upon to elucidate particular topics. Their
course is, not only to illustrate topography, but all allied themes,
including the different branches of natural history and of meteorology
that are connected with the country under consideration. In this
manner the discussions become fruitful of instruction and
entertainment, and the interest is greatly enhanced.
“A supper followed in the great room of the Society. Among the eminent
men present whose fame was known to us at home were Professor
Ehrenberg, the philosopher of the microscopic world; the two brothers
Rose; Gustav, of mineralogy, and Heinrich, of analytical chemistry;
Dove, the meteorologist and physicist; Magnus, of electro-magnetism;
Poggendorff, the editor of the well-known journal which bears his
name; Mitscherlich, of general and applied chemistry, besides many
others almost equally distinguished. We received a warm welcome to
Berlin, and throughout the evening the most kind and cordial
treatment.”[32]
We, too, had the pleasure of eating and drinking with all these great
men. We had the satisfaction also, among the papers read, to hear one by
our friend Professor Ehrenberg, on microscopic forms of life which exist
in the bottom of the Atlantic, under the enormous pressure of a thousand
feet of water. They are found in a fine calcareous mud or chalk which
covers the sea-bottom, and which was fished up from this and still
greater depths by Lieutenant Maury, of the United States’ coast survey.
Ehrenberg, as a scientific man, enjoys the singular distinction, we
might almost say felicity, not only of having discovered a new world,
but of living to see it very widely explored, and of having himself
been, and still being, its chief investigator. His microscope and his
pencil are as obedient to him as ever, eye and hand as piercing, as
steady, and as truthful as ever; and, to all appearance, microscopic
investigation, and the classification of microscopic life, must assume a
new phase under the guidance of some new genius, before Ehrenberg cease
both himself to steer, and mainly to man and work, the ship which he
built, and rigged, and launched, and for so many years has guided on its
voyage of discovery.
Among the curiosities of the microscopic world which Ehrenberg has
investigated, we may notice in this place, as likely to interest our
readers, his singular suggestion in relation to the foundations of the
city of Berlin. This city stands in the midst of an infertile flat
plain, through which the river Spree wends its slow way, passing through
the centre of the city itself. Beneath the present “streets of palaces
and walks of state” exists a deep bog of black peat, through which
sinkings and borings in search of water have frequently been carried.
This peat, at the depth of fifty feet below the surface, swarms at this
moment with infusorial life. Countless myriads of microscopic animals,
at this great depth, beneath the pressure of the superincumbent earth
and streets, live and die in the usual course of microscopic life. They
move among each other, and wriggle, to human sense, invisible; so that
the whole mass of peaty matter is in a state of constant and usually
insensible movement. But in Berlin the houses crack at times, and yawn
and suffer unaccountable damage, even where the foundations seem to have
been laid with care. And this, our philosopher has conjectured, may be
owing to the changes and motions of his invisible world—the sum of the
almost infinite insensible efforts of the tiny forms producing at times,
when they conspire in the same direction, the sensible and visible
movements of the surface by which the houses that stand upon it are
deranged! The conjecture is curious, the cause a singular one, but who
shall say that it is inadequate to the effect?
Another among the names above mentioned—that of Mitscherlich—stands in
relation to the crystalline forms of matter in a nearly similar relation
to that which Ehrenberg occupies in regard to microscopic life. The
discoverer, at an early period of his life, of what is called the
doctrine of Isomorphism, he has lived to see his discovery assume a most
important place in chemico-crystallographic science, and to branch out
into various kindred lines of research; and at the same time has the
happy satisfaction of feeling that he has himself always led the
progress, and that he is acknowledged everywhere as still the principal
advancer and head authority in the department of knowledge he was the
first to open up.
But among the scientific men of Berlin, we must spare a few words for
one who shines among them as the acknowledged chief—the veteran and
venerable Alexander Von Humboldt. Here is Professor Silliman’s
description of the old gentleman, as the American Professor saw him, by
appointment, in the autumn of 1851:—
“I then introduced my son, and we were at once placed at our ease. His
bright countenance expresses great benevolence, and from the fountains
of his immense stores of knowledge a stream almost constant flowed for
nearly an hour. He was not engrossing, but yielded to our prompting,
whenever we suggested an inquiry, or alluded to any particular topic;
for we did not wish to occupy the time with our own remarks any
further than to draw him out. He has a perfect command of the best
English, and speaks the language quite agreeably. There is no
stateliness or reserve about him; and he is as affable as if he had no
claims to superiority. His voice is exceedingly musical, and he is so
animated and amiable that you feel at once as if he were an old
friend. His person is not much above the middle size; he stoops a
little, but less than most men at the age of eighty-two. He has no
appearance of decrepitude; his eyes are brilliant, his complexion
light; his features and person are round although not fat, his hair
thin and white, his mind very active, and his language brilliant, and
sparkling with bright thoughts. We retired greatly gratified, and the
more so, as a man in his eighty-third year might soon pass away.”—Vol.
ii. p. 318.
Two years more had passed away, when we were honoured with an audience
of the distinguished philosopher during our stay in Berlin. Age sits
lightly upon his active head. Still full of unrecorded facts and
thoughts, he labours daily in committing them to the written page,—for
the grave, he tells you, waits him early now, and he must finish what he
has to do before he dies. And yet he is as full at the same time of the
discoveries and new thoughts of others, and as eager as the youngest
student of nature in gathering up fresh threads of knowledge, and in
following the advances of the various departments of natural science.
And in so doing it is a characteristic of his generous mind to estimate
highly the labours of others, to encourage the young and aspiring
investigator to whatever department of nature he may be devoted, and to
aid him with his counsel, his influence, and his sympathy. We found him
congratulating himself on the possession of a power with which few
really scientific men are gifted—that of making science popular—of
drawing to himself, and to the knowledge he had to diffuse, the regard
and attention of the masses of the people in his own and other
countries, by a clear method, and an agreeable and attractive style in
writing. “To make discoveries plain and popular is, perhaps, more
difficult,” he said to us, “than to make the discoveries themselves.”
And the feeling of the present time seems very much to run in sympathy
with this sentiment. The power of diffusing is a gift perhaps as high,
and often far more valuable to the community, than the power of
discovering, and it should be esteemed and honoured accordingly. He
expressed himself as especially pleased that no less than four original
translations of one of his late books have appeared in the English
tongue. In a work so honoured by publishers’ regards, there must exist
some rare and remarkable element of popularity which our scientific
writers would do well to study.
Professor Silliman, in his description of Humboldt, scarcely seized the
most salient and characteristic points of his personal appearance. Fifty
commonplace men have “benevolent countenances, lively and simple
manners, and persons which are round though not fat.” But look, gentle
reader, at the picture of the venerable sage as it hangs there before
us. What strikes you first? Is it not that lofty, towering, massive
brow, which seems all too large, as it overarches his deep-sunk eyes,
for the dimensions of the body and the general size of the head itself?
And then, does not the character of the eye arrest you—the thinking,
reflecting, observing eye—which, while it looks at you quietly and
calmly, seems to be leisurely looking into you, and reflecting at the
same time upon what you have said or suggested to his richly-stored
mind? There is benevolence, it is true, in the mouth, and something of
the satisfied consciousness of a well-spent life, the more grateful to
feel that it is almost universally acknowledged. But there is tenacity
of purpose in the massive chin, and indications of that rare
perseverance which for so long a life has made him continuously, and
without ceasing, augment the accumulated knowledge of his wide
experience, and as continuously strive to spread it abroad.
The celebrity of Berlin among German cities depends in part upon its
architectural and other decorations, but chiefly upon the scientific and
literary men whom, during the last half-century, it has been the pride
and policy of successive governments to attach to its young university.
Where so many high-schools exist, as is the case in Germany, the resort
of students can only be secured by the residence of teachers of greater
genius and wider distinction. Fellowships and other pecuniary
temptations do not invite young talent to the universities there as with
us. Place a man of high reputation in a scientific chair in a puny
university like Giessen, and students will flock to his prelections.
Remove him to Berlin or Heidelberg, and all Germany will send its most
ardent natures to sit at his feet in his new home. The love of knowledge
carries them to college, the fame of its professors decides in which
college they shall enrol themselves. To the sedulous choice of the best
men from the various schools of Germany, and to great care in rearing
and fostering the best of its own alumni, the university of Berlin owes
its rapid growth in numbers and in reputation, and the city of Berlin
the agreeable circle of distinguished philosophers, among whom the
intellectual stranger finds at once a ready welcome and a great
enjoyment.
Though Berlin is actually south of London, yet its inland position gives
it a winter climate of much greater seventy. It derives, also, a
peculiar character from the cold north wind which, descending from the
frozen Baltic, sweeps across the flat country by which this sea is
separated from Berlin. These winds gave to the air, during a portion of
our stay, the feeling as if it was loaded with minute icicles, which
impinged upon and stuck in the throat as the breath descended. The
public statuary, and the plants in the public walks, were mostly done up
in straw to keep them from injury; scarcely an evergreen was anywhere to
be seen, and, as in Russia, our common ivy was cultivated in flowerpots,
and preserved as a hothouse plant.
In our walks through the city, our attention was attracted one day by a
sign-board announcing a “Cichorien fabrique und eichel _caffee
handlung_”—a chicory and acorn coffee-manufactory. As the latter
beverage at least was a novelty to us, we entered the premises and
explored the rude manufactory. Attending a huge revolving cylinder,
something like a gas-retort, stood one unclean workman, while on the
floor at his feet was a heap of dirty half-charred rubbish, which we
learned was the roasted chicory. Watching another machine, from which
streamed a tiny rivulet of coarse brown powder, stood a boy, who, with
the master, completed the staff of the establishment. The one machine
roasted and the other ground the materials, while place and people were
of the untidiest kind. We saw and bought samples of both varieties of
so-called coffee. The chicory, as the master told us without any
reserve, was made up half of chicory and half of turnips, roasted and
ground together. The latter admixture made it sweeter. The acorn coffee,
made from acorns roasted and ground, was made, he said, and sold in
large quantities. It was very cheap, was given especially to children,
and was substituted for coffee in many public establishments for the
young. This may be done with a medicinal rather than an economical view,
as acorn coffee finds a place in the Prussian and other German
pharmacopœias, and is considered to have a wholesome effect upon the
blood, especially of scrofulous persons. It is, however, manufactured
and used in many parts of Germany for the sole purpose of adulterating
genuine coffee, and it has been imported into this country for the same
purpose, chiefly, we believe, from Hamburg.
It is very interesting, in an economico-physiological point of view, to
mark and trace the historical changes which take place in the diet and
beverages of nations. The potato came from the west, and by diffusing
itself over Europe has changed the daily diet, the yearly agriculture,
and the social habits of whole kingdoms. Tea came from the east, and has
equally changed the drinks, the tastes, the bodily habits and cravings,
and we believe also very materially the intellectual character and
general mental and bodily temperament, of probably a hundred millions of
men, who now consume it in Europe and America. Coffee, coming in like
manner from the east, has in some countries of Europe turned domestic
life, we may say, literally out of doors. The coffee-house and living in
public have in France and elsewhere superseded the domestic circle and
the quiet amenities of the home hearth. And now, to succeed and
supersede both coffee and tea, we are ourselves in the west now growing
and manufacturing chicory, which in its turn is destined materially to
alter the taste, and probably to change the constitution, and thus to
affect the mental habits, dispositions, and tendencies of the people who
consume it. In chemical composition, and consequent physiological action
upon the system, this substance differs essentially from tea and coffee,
and, whether for good or for evil, it must gradually produce a change of
temperament which we cannot at present specially predict,—that is to
say, if the consumption spread and increase as it has done in recent
years. For, little comparatively as we have yet heard of this plant in
England, the European consumption of chicory, mixed and unmixed, amounts
already to not much less than one hundred millions of pounds.
Between Brussels and Berlin, when seen on a Sunday, much difference will
strike the English traveller. He is now in a Protestant country; and
though the bill-sticker announces balls and concerts, and open theatres
for the evening, yet the Sunday mornings are quiet in the streets, and
the bustle of business or of holiday pleasures in no offensive way
obtrudes itself upon the attention. The tendency also, during the
present reign, is to make the observance of the day more strict still,
though there, of course, as at home, opposition shows itself, and
diverse opinions prevail. Among the four hundred and sixty thousand
inhabitants of Berlin, there are comparatively few Roman Catholics. Two
churches and a chapel are all the places of public worship they possess;
and hence the passing to and fro of priestly vestments as we walk the
streets does not strike the eye here as it does in Brussels.
But at a time like this, politics are likely to be talked of in the
military capital of Prussia quite as much as either religion or science.
As to the Russian question, three main things, difficult to reconcile,
embarrass the Prussian policy. The people hate Russia—barely tolerate
the supposed sympathy of the court of Berlin with that of St
Petersburg—and would not suffer the King to take part with the Czar.
Then both court and people equally hate and distrust the French. They
fear to be robbed of their Rhenish Provinces by a sudden incursion from
France; and that, were Prussia once engaged in a struggle with Russia,
the occasion would be too favourable for the French to resist. The life
of Louis Napoleon is uncertain, his death would be followed by a
revolution, and this very probably by war upon their neighbours. With
England they would unite, but they cannot cordially do so with a country
they talk of as fickle and faithless France. And as a third main element
in the question comes the jealousy of Austria. Berlin and Vienna watch
each the motions of the other. If the one were to commit itself, the
course of the other would be clear; but so long as neither feels that it
can heartily trust in France or safely defy Russia, a union between the
two on a German basis, equally anti-Russian and anti-French, such as has
recently been announced, seems the only safe solution possible. But cool
reasoning on probabilities and situations is not to be expected from a
Prussian more than from an Englishman—less, perhaps, from the former
than the latter, since, in Prussia, patriotism is always associated with
more or less of that military feeling and ardour with which a three
years’ service in the army more or less inoculates all; and still less
can it be expected from an unstable and wavering Prussian King, whom
sympathy, more than duty, bends and binds.
Among the items in Berlin newspapers which daily amused us more than
their politics, were the marriage advertisements which have their
constant corner in the _Berliner Intelligenz Blatt_. Here is a bit of
conceit. “A man in his thirtieth year wishes to marry. To ladies who
possess a fortune of four to five thousand dollars or upwards, and who
have no objections to become acquainted with persons of good character,
I hereby give the opportunity to send in their addresses to,” &c. &c.
Side by side with this we have—“An active and respectable widow, about
thirty years of age, who has a secure pension, wishes to connect herself
in marriage with a man of business, and requests in all negotiations the
most inviolable secresy. Addresses to be sent,” &c. &c. Some of the
ardent male candidates for connubial bliss put forth the melting plea
that they want to marry, but have no female acquaintances; while the
females, on the other hand, urge that they have no protectors, and in
these piteous circumstances both sexes find an excuse for making their
wishes known through the public prints.
But we linger, not unnaturally perhaps, but somewhat long for our
narrative, in the city of Berlin. The passports are again _viséd_,
however, and stowed away in our safest pocket, the trumpet sounds anew,
and we are off to Stettin. Through flats and sands and moors as before,
and occasional patches of pine forest, we pass for the most part of the
way. Here and there a stretch of poor corn-land breaks upon the
monotony, and occasional undulations of the surface confine the view.
But no home-like fences divide the land, nor signs of comfort make up
for the natural nakedness and repulsive aspect of the bleak-looking
country. This character of the land and landscape prevails both east and
west along the southern shores of the Baltic Sea, not only in Prussia,
but in the Danish appendages of Holstein and Sleswick, and across to the
mouth of the Elbe. Yet there are some so little experienced in the
features of a fair landscape, or so patriotically blind, or so
poetically disposed by nature, as to see beauties even in these
unpromising countries, and to derive a pleasure from passing through
them which the majority of travellers can scarcely appreciate. Madame
Pfeiffer crossed this tract of country on her way from Hamburg through
Holstein to Kiel, in which route we also remember sands and heaths
somewhat less forbidding than those which intervene between Ungernsunde
and Stettin. This matter-of-fact old lady, who was already beyond the
age of poetry, thus speaks of what she saw and heard as she glided
along—
“The whole distance of seventy miles was passed in three hours; a
rapid journey, but agreeable only by its rapidity. The whole
neighbourhood presents only widely-extended plains, turf bogs, and
moorlands, sandy places and heaths, interspersed with a little meadow
and arable land. From the nature of the soil, the water in the ditches
and fields looked black as ink.”
And then, in the way of reflection, she adds—
“The little river Eider would have passed unnoticed by me, had not
some of my fellow-passengers made a great feature of it. In the finest
countries, I have found the natives far less enthusiastic about what
was really grand and beautiful, than they were here in praise of what
was neither the one nor the other. My neighbour, a very agreeable
lady, was untiring in her laudation of her beautiful native land. In
her eyes, the crippled wood was a splendid park, the waste moorland an
inexhaustible field for contemplation, and every trifle a matter of
real importance. In my heart I wished her joy of her fervid
imagination; but, unfortunately, my colder nature would not catch the
infection.”[33]
This region, so tiresome to the eye, is yet interesting to the student
of the pre-historic condition of this vast flat region. Covered
everywhere with a deep layer of drifted materials, which consist, for
the most part, of sand, sometimes of gravel, and more rarely of clay, no
rocks are seen _in situ_ for thousands of square miles. But strewed, now
on the surface, now at depths of two or three feet, and now beneath
fifty or sixty feet of sand or gravel, lie countless blocks of foreign
stone, of every size, from that of the fort to that of a small house.
These the waters of the once larger Baltic brought down ages ago from
the rocky cliffs of the Finnish and Bothnian gulfs. During that very
recent geological epoch which immediately preceded the occupation of the
country by living races, these flats of North Germany, as far south and
east as the mountains of Silesia, were covered by the waters of the
Baltic Sea. Yearly over this sea the northern ice drifted, bearing with
it blocks of granite and other old rocks as it floated southward,
dropping masses here and there by the way as the ice-ships melted before
the summer sun. But in greater numbers they bore them to the shores on
which the ice floes stranded and strewed them in heaps along the flanks
of the Silesian hills. Hence now, when the land has risen above the sea,
the huge stones so transported, age after age, are found at every step,
if not on the very surface, yet always at some small depth beneath the
sand, or gravel, or clay, or in the deep peat which covers so much of
the wide area. And, piled up in heaps on the slopes of the Silesian
mountains, at heights of nine hundred to twelve hundred feet, the
traveller wonders to see the same distant-borne strangers, unlike any of
the living rocks on which they rest, and which talk intelligibly to the
geologist of their ancient homes in the frozen wilds of Scandinavia.
Admired by the students of pre-historic physical geography, these
boulder-stones are prized and sought for by the inhabitants of this wide
tract of rockless plains. Though hard and intractable beneath the chisel
and hammer, these hard granitic and metamorphic masses are the only
durable building materials which are within their reach. Hence all solid
constructions are formed of them, and the houses of wood generally stand
on a substratum of these more lasting stones. In this way the traveller
sees them employed in town, village, and farm. Palace, fortress, and
cottage are equally indebted to the antediluvian icebergs of the
old-world Baltic. And thus near the ancient towns, and wherever frequent
people live, few of the unmoved boulders catch the traveller’s eye as he
rides over the unenclosed plains around them. But they occur singly, in
groups, and in rapid succession, when he penetrates to the less-peopled
interior, or explores the primeval forests, or where railway cuttings
dip deeply into the drift, or clay-beds are worked for economical
purposes, as we see them in the vicinity of Berlin.
Stettin, well known to our Baltic merchants and shipowners, and famed
among the fortresses of Germany, stands near the mouth of the Oder—where
the river, escaping from the long flats through which it has wound its
slow way, is about to expand into a broad lake. This lake, called the
Haaf, would in reality be a wide firth or arm of the sea, were it not
that its mouth is blocked up by the islands of Usedom and Wollin, which
leaves three channels for the escape of the waters of the Oder. The
central channel, called the Swine, is the deepest and most used; but all
are difficult and narrow, and easy of defence against attacks by sea.
The Silesian commerce has its principal outlet by the Oder, which
connects Stettin with Frankfort-on-the-Oder and with Breslau. Above the
town of Stettin, for the two or three last miles, the river winds, and
again and again returns upon itself, through the almost perfect flat—and
even throws off several small arms, which flow to the Haaf through
channels of their own, before the main stream passes the city. To look
down upon these windings from the tower of the old palace, when the
bright morning sun rests upon the valley, reminded us of the winding
Forth, as it is seen by thousands yearly from the beautiful summits of
our well-beloved Ochil Hills. Beyond this distance the whole valley on
either side is hemmed in by a lofty natural embankment of sand and
gravel, the ancient limits of the Haaf when the land was lower and its
waters covered the whole flat. The embankment which thus girdles the
valley, and skirts at a distance the river flanks, consists for the most
part of a ridge of ancient downs, such as we see on our own sandy shores
where sea-born winds blow often inland; which hide Flemish towns and
steeples from the eyes of the passing sailor; and which in Holland occur
far from the modern shores, telling how widely in former times the sea
asserted her dominion. Through this amphitheatre of sandy ridges the
river forces its way into the flat valley; and it is the natural
strength which the ridge possesses on the right bank, where the town now
stands, of which art has taken advantage in erecting the strong
fortifications which make Stettin the key of Pomerania. In the city
itself there is not much to see even in summer. At the time of our visit
the river was frozen up, some inches of snow covered the ground, the
people had already commenced the winter amusements to which snowy
climates offer so many inducements, and a single day was enough to
satisfy our taste for sight-seeing. The rumours of war here, as
elsewhere, were agitating the Prussian population. The course that our
Government might take naturally touched very nearly the interests of a
city which, by its commerce, was concerned for the openness of the sea
to its ships; which, as a fortress of the first class, was liable to
bombardment and siege in the event of hostilities by land; and which, by
its nearness to the Russian territory, was so likely to be assailed
should war commence. House property in the city was said to have already
fallen much in value, and commercial speculation for the time was in a
great measure paralysed.
But we were bound for West Prussia. We had a desire to see the manners
and _manège_ upon an old Prussian barony, where an ancient schloss still
overlooks lake, field, and forest, and a numerous peasantry, though not
bound like serfs to the soil, still pay so many days of bodily toil for
the house and land which they hold of the lord. By the Posen railway,
therefore, we left Stettin, and in four hours reached Woldenburg, whence
four hours more by extra post brought us to the village of Tütz. Here a
welcome awaited us from our friends in the old palace, while a natural
interest, not unmixed with a little wonder, recommended us to the kind
consideration of the villagers. Many of these simple people had never
before seen a real live John Bull, and could not help suspecting a
connection of some sort between the visit of “die zwei Englander” and
the rumours of war which even in this secluded spot were already
agitating their minds.
The lands attached to the old schloss in which we found ourselves, were
in former times very extensive. When there were Dukes of Brandenburg,
the lord of the place, it is said, was wont to go to war with his
neighbours; on one occasion, when taken prisoner, he was obliged to
ransom himself by ceding to the duke a large forest, which is still the
property of the Crown. But the castle has passed through several hands
since, and the whole estate now includes only twenty thousand acres,
worth in fee about £30,000. Of these, about nine thousand are in forest,
chiefly pine, four thousand in lakes and bogs, four thousand in arable
culture, and three thousand rented in farms. These divisions include a
considerable quantity of pasture and meadow land, and on the edge of the
forests the sheep find food in summer. The soil is generally light and
sandy, with a bed of clay marl at a greater or less depth below. The
custom of the Prussian proprietors is to farm their own land, and thus
they have extensive establishments, and carry on various branches of
rural economy. The timber is felled, and either sold on the spot to
merchants who come from a distance to buy, or is split up into billets
and sent to the large towns for firewood; or, where a shipping place is
accessible, is sawn into balks (_balken_) suitable for the English
market. The pines are principally Scotch firs (_Pinus sylvaticus_); and
here and there at the outskirts, or in the open glades of the forest,
are seen magnificent trees of this species throwing out picturesque old
arms, such as at times arrest the eye and step of the traveller in our
Scottish highlands. Such he may see, for instance, on the borders of
Loch Tula—the straggling relics of what were great forests in the days
of our forefathers.
The arable land is chiefly under rye, of which great breadths are
occasionally seen without fences or divisions. Already, where the snow
had melted, the surface of these rye-fields was beautifully green. The
average yield scarcely exceeds twenty bushels an acre, and it is often
very much less. Were the labour and manure expended upon half the land,
the profit, as our own experience has shown, would on the whole be much
increased. Few root crops are grown, and these only on the low, black,
and boggy land. The manures employed are what is made by the cattle and
sheep, marl, black earth (_moder_) from the peaty bottoms, the pine
leaves which are collected in the forests, and are known under the name
of _waldstrew_ (forest straw), and the wood and peaty ashes from their
fires. It is common to grow rape for the seed; and then the proprietor,
if he has the means, erects a crushing-mill, uses the cake for his
cattle, and sells the oil. Of rape-cake it is usual to give about a
quarter of a pound a-day to the horses—their other food being oats,
pease, and rye, mixed in equal quantities, and given three times a-day
with chopped straw _ad libitum_. Of his potatoes the lord makes brandy,
and feeds his stock on the refuse which remains in the still. Thus, he
is a distiller as well as an oil-crusher, and a distillery in most parts
of Germany is a usual appendage to the farm. Only very small, usually
waxy, potatoes are retained for table use, the large and mealy ones
being given either to the pigs or to the brandy-maker. Then the lakes
yield their share of revenue. They are fished in winter, with nets
introduced through holes in the ice; and the take from the lakes in this
quarter is sent to the market of Berlin. Thus the lord is a
fish-merchant also. Some proprietors, again, begrudge the waste of wood
ashes upon the land; and as these readily melt into glass, another way
of adding to the revenue is to build a glass-house. Hence many small
glass-houses are scattered about in the midst of the forests, and
another complication is added to the affairs and the manifold accounts
of the North Prussian landlord. If he possess a bed of good marl, he
burns it into lime with his waste timber, and both sells and uses it. If
he find good clay, he makes bricks and coarse pottery. Thus he attempts
to develop everything, to turn everything into money. He is the sole
capitalist. There is no division of labour. He monopolises all trades
and wholesale commerce. He has large concerns, various establishments,
numerous servants, intricate accounts, and withal, as we Englanders
would expect, it is only one man here and there who makes things yearly
better, and finally enriches himself. Thus the Prussian aristocracy are
livers in the country, full of affairs, rarely reside in Berlin, and at
the most come for a month or two to apartments in a hotel, and attend a
few state balls and receptions given by the royal family, and return
again to their country habits. Amid the limited society of the
unproductive sandy plains these habits not unfrequently degenerate.
Upon this estate two farms were let to tenants. We visited one of them.
It was let on a lease for fifteen years, contained 2000 acres of
corn-land, and 550 of meadow. The rent was 1800 dollars in money, 200 in
kind, and about 500 in taxes—in all, about 2500 dollars, or a dollar
(3s.) an acre. The tenant had upon it 800 sheep, 14 cows, 18
draught-oxen, and 10 horses. Twelve families of labourers were lodged
upon the farm, and extra labour was employed as required. Everything in
the way of stock and implements was defective. The sheep are kept under
cover in the winter. They are fed on hay, the breeding ewes receiving,
besides, chopped turnips and carrots. The sheep-houses, both here and
elsewhere, we found to be warm and comfortable. The lord worked his own
land with 64 horses and 76 draught-oxen, and had a yearly increasing
flock of sheep, amounting at present to 4500.
The farm labourers are but poorly off. Those who live on the farm (the
_hausinnen_) receive for the man’s wage four silver groschen, and for
the woman’s three silver groschen a-day. (Five silver groschen make an
English sixpence.) They have a house, for which each of them, the man
and woman, must pay two days a week in summer, one day and a half in
autumn, and half a day in the three first months of the year. They are
allowed also two acres of corn-land, and a third of an acre for a
garden. They have pasture for a cow, and are permitted to cut the
inferior wood on the heath for fuel, and to gather the pine-needles from
the forest for manure. Day-labourers, not resident on the farm, receive
5 silver groschen a-day—the unhappy sixpence of our Irish peasant.
There are on the outside, and here and there indenting the large estate,
numerous small properties of from five to eighty acres, formerly
belonging to the lord, and many of them owing him still a yearly
acknowledgment. These people, though in a sense independent, yet upon
such land are generally poor. They keep one or two horses, or two cows,
to plough their light sandy soil, from three to thirty sheep, and a few
pigs. With a single horse a man will work his farm of forty or fifty
acres. Milk is their principal diet, and many never eat meat once a
year, unless it be a bit of their own home-fed pork.
In this part of Prussia the people are nearly all Roman Catholics. Most
of the traffic is in the hands of Jews. Each sect has its own place of
worship and its own school in the village. The Roman Catholic priest is
nominated by the lord, and the evangelical minister and the Jewish rabbi
must both be approved by him. There are six schools on the estate, which
are under government inspection, and of which the salaries of the
masters are paid by the estate. Religious instruction is not excluded
from the schools, but each denomination has here at least its own
school. The sectarian spirit is very bitter, especially on the part of
the ignorant Romanists, against the evangelicals, whose church had gone
down, but has lately been rebuilt, very much to the dissatisfaction of
the dominant party. Hence, though Protestant children are sometimes
found in the Romanist school, the contrary is never the case. On
occasion of our visit, a grander display than usual was got up by the
priest in honour of the English visitors of our host. The village
Schüzerei, sixty strong, marched up on the Sunday morning, with music
and banners, to escort us to church. The whole population had turned out
to see the strangers. The church was crowded to suffocation; and to
identify himself with the occasion, the priest got up a religious
procession through and around the church. First went so many of the
sharpshooters, carrying their muskets; next a party bearing the Virgin
and Child under a canopy; then the Herrschaft from the schloss, with
lighted candles in their hands; then the priest with the Host under a
large canopy, borne by four men; and the procession was closed by the
remainder of the armed Schüzer, and by men and women in great numbers
from the congregation. Coming out at the west end of the church, it
marched northwards round the church, through six inches of untrodden
snow; and when the head of the procession again reached the west end,
the priest stopped, and with him the people. He then elevated the Host,
when down went men and women, all in adoration, kneeling in the cold
snow. Our travelling-companion, who had never assisted at a Roman
Catholic service, had accompanied the party to church, not knowing what
awaited him, and he was indeed mortified when he found himself
unintentionally, and from the goodness of his nature, involved in such
an act of worship.
While the party were absent at church, we walked to an adjoining round
hill for the purpose of enjoying the view, when, in a thin plantation
which partially covered it, we stumbled upon the Jewish burying-ground.
Scattered among the trees, here and there stood on end slabs of granite
and other hard rock, split from the boulder-stones of which we have
already spoken; and on the flat faces of these were graven large,
beautifully clear, deeply cut, Hebrew characters, bearing, no doubt, the
names and commemorating the virtues of the dead, and expressing the love
and sorrow of the living. In this far-off region the lonely Hebrew
graves, so far from the homes of the once-favoured people, recalled to
our minds those distant days when the Euphrates saw them weeping
disconsolate, and the oppressor, as now in Poland and its borders,
treating them with contumely and despite.
“By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down; yea, we wept when we
remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst
thereof.
“For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song,
and they that wasted us, mirth. Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her cunning.
“If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my
mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”
It is very remarkable to find three millions of Jews settled in this
portion of Europe. It may have been that, in former ages, when the Roman
Church persecuted them so madly, they found greater peace and safety
near the limits of the Eastern and Western churches, where the power of
both was somewhat lessened; but certainly, in modern times, the two
million two hundred thousand who are subjects of the Czar might readily
find a more comfortable home.
Among other things which will amuse the Englishman in Germany, and, if,
like ourselves, he refreshes himself at times with a cup of good tea,
may perchance annoy him occasionally, is the kind of beverage he will
obtain under this name. In the hotels we had often experienced this, and
we expected to have our tea weak enough in the schloss also. But a
refinement we had heard of, but never met, here presented itself in the
form of a tiny bottle of rum, which was handed round with the sugar and
cream to give a flavour to the tea! This contrivance for giving the tea
some taste and flavour, so much less simple, one would suppose, than
adding more of the pure leaf, is common in other parts of Germany
besides West Prussia. Here is a humorous passage from a recent work of
fiction by a German baroness, which illustrates very graphically the
Teutonic notions about tea-drinking.
“At this moment Walburg exclaimed, ‘The water boils!’ and they all
turned towards the hearth. ‘How much tea shall I put into the
tea-pot?’ asked Madame Berger, appealing to Hamilton.
‘The more you put in the better it will be,’ answered Hamilton,
without moving.
‘Shall I put in all that is in this paper?’
Hamilton nodded, and the tea was made.
‘Ought it not to boil a little now?’
‘By no means.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Walburg, ‘a little piece of vanille would improve the
taste.’
‘On no account,’ said Hamilton.
‘The best thing to give it a flavour is rum,’ observed Madame Berger.
‘I forbid the rum, though I must say the idea is not bad,’ said
Hamilton, laughing.
Hildegarde put the tea-pot on a little tray, and left the kitchen just
as her stepmother entered it.
His tea was unanimously praised, but Madame Rosenberg exhibited some
natural consternation on hearing that the whole contents of her paper
cornet, with which she had expected to regale her friends at least
half-a-dozen times, had been inconsiderately emptied at once into the
tea-pot!
‘It was no wonder the tea was good! English tea, indeed! Any one could
make tea after that fashion! But then, to be sure, English people
never thought about what anything cost. For her part, she found the
tea bitter, and recommended a spoonful or two of rum.’ On her
producing a little green bottle, the company assembled around her with
their tea-cups, and she administered to each one two or three
spoonfuls as they desired.”[34]
Here our limits compel us to stop. After staying a few days at Tütz we
returned upon our steps, again saw our friends at Berlin, thence came to
Cologne in one day, to Ghent the second, and to London the third. We
fell in with the Peace deputies on their way from St Petersburg, and
divers other accidents happened to us which our most patient readers
will thank us for passing by.
THE NATIONAL LIFE OF CHINA.
If it becomes one to know something of those with whom he is about to be
brought into contact, it is high time the rest of the world were
acquainting itself with that portion of the vast human family that has
so long segregated itself upon the plains of China. The world seems to
have entered again upon a migratory era of mankind, in which no longer
solitary individuals are seen groping their way over land or over sea,
in search of the excitement of adventure or the pleasure of acquiring
strange knowledge; but whole nations are seen feverous with the passion
for emigration, and throwing off their surplus swarms to settle in the
more favoured places of the earth. Ireland is emptying itself upon
America,—England and Scotland are peopling Australia; a restless host,
150,000 strong, yearly takes its march from the Continent, mostly for
the New World;—while in America itself a similar movement is ever afoot,
pressing peacefully from east to west, but not seldom dashing covetously
against the crumbling States that line the coveted shores of the Mexican
sea. We do not know if the Old World likewise, within its own bosom, is
not on the eve of exhibiting a similar movement of nations—a heave and
roll of people upon people, of north upon south—an overflowing of the
long-pent-up barbaric energies of Muscovy over the crumbling States
which fringe alike its European and Asiatic borders. But how different
the impelling motive here, and how significant of the undeveloped state
of the Russian compared with the Western world! It is the barbaric lust
of territorial extension, the rude fervour of fanaticism, the sensual
dream of luxury to be captured in the South;—in one word, it is the same
spirit that animated the hordes of an Attila or Gengis Khan that now
spreads its contagion among the Russians. They move, too, like an inert
mass. There is no _individual life_ in them, that culminating phase of
civilisation,—no spontaneous and self-reliant action in the units of the
mass. They move, not by virtue of an innate and self-directing force,
but are swayed to and fro by the will of their Czar, as vastly and
unresistingly as the slumbrous mass of ocean beneath the influence of
the moon. They press southwards from their northern homes as the vast
torpid mass of the glacier gravitates from its cradle in the snows,
crushing its slow way down to the plain, and spreading a cold blight
around in valleys that once bore the vine. The glacier soon melts when
it overpasses the zone of cultivation; so, we trust, will the power of
Russia when it strives to take hold of the seats of civilisation.
It is a fanatic but unholy crusade that now enlists the sympathies of
the Slavonic millions; but it is peace and wisdom that elsewhere foster
the spirit and guide the course of emigration. It is the effort of
individuals to better themselves. The units of society are learning to
think for themselves; and the spread of peace and tolerance, and the
triumphs of mechanical invention, are laying “the world all before them
where to choose.” It is a great thing to see this power of reflection
and self-reliance spreading among mankind; for assuredly, wherever it is
met with, it argues a stage of national development which only long
centuries of civilisation suffice to produce. Such a faculty it is,
fostered by the external circumstances which we have named above, which
is now drawing those hermits of the world, the Chinese, from their long
seclusion, and bringing them into yearly and fast-increasing contact
with Europeans. Alike in California and Australia, in our West India
colonies and in the islands of the Pacific, the Chinaman may be seen
side by side with the European, the Negro, and the Malay; and as he
immeasurably transcends the other coloured races in industry and
intelligence, so not unfrequently he may compare with the European even
in point of that business-like cast of intellect which we self-managing
Anglo-Saxons so highly prize.
The Chinese are coming out into foreign lands to meet us, and we in turn
are posting ourselves on their shores to become better acquainted with
them. In fact, of late, China has been such a centre of interest, that
almost every Power that has a navy, has a detachment of war-vessels
cruising off its shores. Great Britain, America, France, Russia (not to
speak of stray vessels from other Powers), are regularly represented by
naval squadrons in its waters; so that China, the oldest and not least
notable of existing empires, is actually revolutionising and reforming
herself under the eyes of the leading representatives of the world’s
civilisation. It is high time, then, we repeat, that Europe should know
as much as possible of this vast Power that is now for the first time
being linked into the community of nations. Every information respecting
their character and customs has now a practical and more than ordinary
value; and it is all the more wanted, inasmuch as no people appears
hitherto to have been more imperfectly comprehended by the rest of the
world. Twelve centuries before our era, we find them, by indisputable
proof, in a condition of advanced civilisation. Not to speak of the
larger items of civilisation, which we have discussed on former
occasions, they were then in possession of gold and silver—had money,
and kept accounts—had silks, dyed in many colours—leather, hemp, wine,
jewels, ivory, carriages, horses, umbrellas, earthenware, &c.;—they had
a literature, and a Board of History; and, moreover, a very complete
ceremonial of observances, the empire being regulated with all the
minute formality of a household, in conformity with its household
origin. Arrived at that condition thirty centuries ago, the Chinese are
commonly supposed to have remained nearly stationary ever since, and to
offer at this day a living picture of the condition of their nation
three thousand years ago. We recently showed, from the history of this
curious people, how fallacious was this opinion, alike in regard to
their religion and their government, and filled in with broad touch the
more salient features which have characterised the material and
intellectual career of the nation throughout its forty centuries of
vicissitude. Now, dispensing with abstract disquisitions, we desire to
present to our readers a rapid _coup-d’œil_ of the national life of
China, especially in its more practical and social aspects.
In length of years the Chinese Empire has no rival; nor is it easy to
find, in the rest of the world’s history, any States which may
profitably be paralleled with it. In point of extent and populousness,
the only ancient empire that can at all compare with it is the Roman;
yet, in almost every other respect, they differ as widely as it is
possible for any two States to do. Rome founded its empire wholly by the
sword, China mainly by the ploughshare; the former by daring soldiers,
the latter by plodding peasants. The conquests of Rome were those of a
city that came to cast its chains over a world; the triumphs of China
were those of a prolific nation, that absorbed its very conquerors. The
splendid talents of the Roman generals, the ardour of the citizens to
extend the republic, the thirst for glory, and the matchless skill and
self-devotion of the legionaries, may find nothing equal among the sons
of Han; but these latter produced heroes of peace, who instructed the
people in industry and the useful arts, and increased by their skill the
riches and population of the country. The former were masters in the art
of destroying, the latter in that of preserving and multiplying human
life. In China we must not (at least nowadays) look for the noble
sentiments and grand actions which immortalised Greece and Rome. We find
there an industrious but common-minded race, which strives stoutly to
maintain its existence, however its numbers may multiply, and which
finds no heart to sacrifice life for glory, no time to postpone business
for politics. The rice-bearing plains are the fields of their glory, the
centre of their hopes; and as they trudge forth to their never-ceasing
labours, thus they sing:—
“The sun comes forth, and we work;
The sun goes down, and we rest.
We dig wells, and we drink;
We sow fields, and we eat.
The Emperor’s power, what is it to us?”[35]
The art of agriculture is coeval with the first establishment of the
empire; and to this useful employment China mainly owes its grandeur and
populousness. The enormous numbers of the people has caused the utmost
attention to be paid to the art, and the cultivation of much of the
country approaches as near as possible to garden-farming. Some parts of
the country are mountainous and infertile, but the greater proportion of
it is fruitful, and densely studded with houses. The hills and
mountain-sides are terraced; the rocky fragments are gathered off the
slopes, and formed into retaining-walls; and the wonders of Chinese
irrigation have never been rivalled. Upon the decease of the parents,
lands are divided among the male children, and, like all Orientals, the
people cleave with great fondness to their patrimonial acres. Any one,
by simply applying to Government, may obtain permission to reclaim waste
land; and a wise exemption from all taxes, until it becomes productive,
allows the cultivator to reap a proper reward for his industry and
enterprise. The agricultural knowledge of China cannot vie with ours in
point of science; but it is far more widely diffused. A uniform system
of cultivation, the result of centuries of experience, is known to, and
practised by, every cottar in the empire; and that system is indubitably
unequalled by that of any other nation, unless it be our own. The
steeping of seeds, and drilling in sowing, are practised, and have been
so for ages; they never fail to seize promptly the proper season and
weather for their farming operations; they take every advantage of their
summer time by the system of double-cropping; and in the vitally
important matters of manuring and irrigation, as well as in making the
most of their land, they are unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, by any
nation in the world.
The Chinese Government has always fostered agriculture as peculiarly the
national pursuit; and well has it repaid the imperial patronage. A
country nearly as large as all Europe, and far more densely
peopled—containing, in fact, more than a third of the whole human
race—sustains them more comfortably than any similar number of men on
the face of the globe. No emigration has until now issued from its
shores, and each new myriad of the rapidly-augmenting population has
gone to increase the strength and resources of the State; while the
invidious extremes of poverty and riches (that prime bane of old States)
are there unknown, wealth being more equally divided than in any
civilised country. Undisturbed in their little farms, the people are
contented and cheerful; and with comparatively little commerce, and no
manufactures (viewed as a distinct employment), the empire has continued
for centuries thriving and unshaken by intestine commotions. The home
consumers have maintained in comfort the home producers,—the grand
opening of new markets has been found in the increase of the
population,—the only emigration has been to the hill-side and the marsh.
The French historian and philosopher, Sismondi, maintains that the real
bone and muscle of a nation is its agricultural population, and
predicted the coming ruin of the older states of Europe from the evident
decline of this class of their people; but whatever truth there may be
in his opinion, no such state of matters is likely soon to sap the
foundations of the Chinese empire. There, no millionaire manufacturers,
with machinery costing £30,000 or £40,000, overwhelm all competition,
and, by ruining the small traders who ply the shuttle as well as till
the ground, draw starving thousands to Nanking or Shanghae, feeding the
towns to plethora at the expense of the country, and accumulating from
the labour of thousands gigantic fortunes for individuals. The small
farmer rears his crop of rice, cotton, or tea, dresses it, and sends it
to market, and turns it to his own use as food or clothing; and although
he cannot succeed in laying by money, it is only in periods of famine or
inundation that he experiences the pressure of want.
“There are few sights more pleasing,” says Mr Fortune, “than a
Chinese family in the interior engaged in gathering the leaves of
the tea-plant, or, indeed, in any of their agricultural pursuits.
There is the old man—it may be the grandfather, or even the
great-grandfather—patriarch-like directing his descendants, many of
whom are in their youth and prime, while others are in their
childhood, in the labours of the field. He stands in the midst of
them, bowed down with age, but—to the honour of the Chinese as a
nation—he is always looked up to by all with pride and affection,
and his old age and grey hairs are honoured, revered, and loved.” In
the tea-districts, every cottager or small farmer has his own little
tea-garden, the produce of which supplies the wants of his family,
and the surplus brings him in a few dollars, which procure for him
the other necessaries of life. “When, after the labours of the day
are over,” says Mr Fortune, “they return to their humble and happy
homes, their fare consists chiefly of rice, fish [with which their
rivers and lakes abound], and vegetables, which they enjoy with
great zest, and are happy and contented. I really believe that there
is no country in the world where the agricultural population are
better off than they are in the north of China. Labour with them is
pleasure, for its fruits are eaten by themselves, and the rod of the
oppressor is unfelt and unknown.... For a few _cash_ (1000 or 1200
cash = 1 dollar) a Chinese can dine in a sumptuous manner upon his
rice, fish, vegetables, and tea; and I fully believe that in no
country in the world is there less real misery and want than in
China. The very beggars seem a kind of jolly crew, and are kindly
treated by the inhabitants.”
Commerce is discouraged by the Chinese Government, chiefly on account of
their jealousy of strangers; but it is a pursuit so congenial to the
national spirit that no exertions could succeed in putting it down.
Wherever money can be made, a Chinaman will brave dangers to gain it,
and will fear neither the jungles and marshes of his southern frontier,
nor the inhospitable deserts of the north and west. For a thousand years
and more, they have trafficked with the isles of the Indian Archipelago,
and for nearly twice that time their silks have found their way into
Europe. Nevertheless, the geographical situation of the country on the
one hand, and the unskilfulness of the Chinese in maritime enterprise on
the other, oppose great obstacles to their prosecution of external
commerce, so that the carrying-trade is almost entirely in the hands of
foreigners. The journey across the inhospitable steppes of Mongolia to
the nations of the west, or over the almost insurmountable Himalayas to
those of the south, is attended by too much risk and expense, in the
present state of the roads, to be prosecuted extensively; but the
Chinese eagerly avail themselves of the marts opened in recent times by
the Russian traders, and throng with their silks and tea to the grand
fairs at Maimatschin. This overland commerce with Russia commenced in
the reign of Peter the Great, by a treaty which stipulated for a
reciprocal liberty of traffic, and by virtue of which caravans on the
part of the Russian Government and individual traders used to visit
Peking; but the Muscovites exhibited so much of their native habits of
“drinking and roystering,” that, after trying the patience of the
Celestials for three-and-thirty years, they were wholly excluded. After
a temporary cessation of intercourse, however, a renewal of negotiations
took place, by which it was agreed that only Government caravans should
proceed to Peking, and Kiachta (distant four thousand miles from Moscow,
one thousand from Peking, and close to the Chinese frontier town of
Maimatschin) was built for the accommodation of private traders. This
market, which has now risen to much importance, is most resorted to in
winter. To the chief Russian merchants the trade is a species of
monopoly, and a most thriving one,—some of them being millionaires, and
living in the most sumptuous style, the “merchant princes” of the
wilderness. “At the present day,” says the _Hamburg Borsenhalle_ of 20th
July last, “the wholesale trade is in the hands of Russian merchants and
commercial companies, while the retail trade is carried on by the
Siberian tribe of Burglaetes. The wholesale trade takes place only twice
a year, and is a complete interchange of goods, of which black tea forms
the staple, and cannot be replaced by any other article. This tea is
brought to Kiachta from the northern provinces of China, and is very
superior to that exported by the English and Dutch from the southern
provinces. The green tea which comes to the market is consumed by the
Kalmucks, Tartars, and Siberians. The duty on tea yields a considerable
annual revenue, which is the sole advantage the Chinese claim from this
important article of commerce. The Chinese will take nothing but cloth
in return; and thus the consumers of tea are the persons who are the
cloth-manufacturers. The Russians themselves derive no pecuniary
advantage from this trade. They might make some profits, and the
consumers pay less for their teas, if the trade were not monopolised;
and if the tea might be exported from St Petersburg to Odessa on payment
of a moderate duty, the northern provinces of China would be obliged to
lower the price of their tea, for which they have no other outlet.”
Although Fine Art has made little progress, and is little prized, great
works, in which genius is joined to utility, are to be met with in China
on a larger scale than anywhere else. Such a work is the Great Wall,
raised by the first emperor to repel the inroads of the Nomades, and
which guards the northern frontier for the space of fifteen hundred
miles, from the shores of the Yellow Sea to Eastern Tartary. It is
carried over the highest hills, descends into the deepest valleys,
crosses upon arches over rivers, and at important passes is
doubled;—being, in fact, by far the largest structure that human labour
ever raised. A work more extraordinary still is the Imperial Canal. The
Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, who fixed the seat of government at Peking,
constructed (or rather completed) the canal, in order to remedy the
sterility of the plain in which that city stands. From the vicinity of
Peking, it extends southwards for a distance of six hundred geographical
miles,—now tunnelled through heights, now carried through lakes and over
marshes and low grounds by means of stupendous embankments,—and
exhibiting not merely a gigantic effort of labour, but sound practical
skill on the part of its constructors, in availing themselves of every
advantage that could be derived from the nature of the ground. Rivers
feed it, and ships of good size spread their sails on its bosom. It is
along this watery highway that the chief supplies are brought for the
immense population of the capital; and another great merit of the work
is, that it acts at once as an irrigator and as a drain to the country
through which it flows, from Tientsin to the Yang-tse-keang; for while
at some parts fertilising the sterile soil by diffusing its waters, at
others being carried along the lowest levels, and communicating with the
neighbouring tracts by flood-gates, it renders available for agriculture
much land that would otherwise be a useless swamp.
Education in China, as we have seen, is directed almost exclusively to
the inculcation of moral and constitutional principles; and with such
good effect, that nowhere in the East are the social relations so well
understood and preserved. Class has never risen against class, and the
religious apathy of the people has prevented any war of creeds. This
social harmony has had the best effects upon the welfare of the people,
by rendering an iron rule unnecessary on the part of the Government.
However absolute the administration may be, the great mass of the people
live quietly and happily, enjoying the fruits of their industry. The
legislation is disfigured by an excessively minute attention to
trifles,—an unavoidable result of the system of regulating the mind of
the people through the agency of external observances; but the code is,
on the whole, a clear and concise series of enactments, savouring
throughout of practical judgment and European good sense; and if not
always conformable to our liberal notions of legislation, in general
approaching them more nearly than the codes of most other nations. The
laws are more generally known and equally administered than in the other
States of Asia,—wealth, comfort, and cheerful industry more equally
diffused; and Mr Ellis pronounces the Celestial Empire superior to them
all in the arts of government and the general aspect of society. Sir
George Staunton says that the condition of the people is “wholly
inconsistent with the hypothesis of a very bad government or a very
vicious state of society,” and conceived that he could trace almost
everywhere the unequivocal signs of an industrious, thriving, and
contented people. But we may go further than this, and fully concur with
Mr Davis that “there is a business-like character about the Chinese,
which assimilates them in a striking degree to the most intelligent
nations of the West; and there is less difference [in this respect?]
between them and the British, French, and Americans, than between these
and the inhabitants of Spain and Portugal, whose proneness to stolid
bigotry and Oriental laziness was perhaps in part imbibed from the
Arabs.”
In regard to slaves, the code metes out less equal justice; but a like
one-sidedness has defaced the legislation of every country—and slavery,
as it exists in China, is infinitely milder than anywhere else either in
the East or West. It is not superior humanity and generosity which
occasions this difference: it results from the social condition of the
nation. Slavery is the apprenticeship which, in one shape or another,
uncivilised man has had to undergo in all countries before becoming
capable of sustained industry and self-government. In this state he
falls under the power of his more civilised fellows, and obtains food
and protection in exchange for freedom; and it is only when he has
raised himself above the indolence and improvidence of savage life that
liberty becomes beneficial even for himself. Resembling the western half
of Europe, the whole Chinese nation is industrious, and has acquired
that relish for the artificial wants of civilised life which tends so
greatly to man’s elevation, and which is so little felt elsewhere (save
in some of the highest classes) in the regions of the East and South. No
political or social distinctions of rank or caste exist in China, and
education is provided by the State for all classes. On these accounts
there is _no servile class_; and those who have lost or bartered their
freedom resemble their masters in everything but wealth, and are treated
rather as menials than as serfs. Slavery exists in China not as a relic
of barbarism, nor from the prevalence of caste or the absence of
industry, but simply, it would appear, as the effect of a redundant
population: it is a man’s last shift for employment.
We can give a most pleasing anecdote in connection with this point,
which recently appeared in the _Java Bode_ newspaper, published at
Batavia, where there is a large Chinese population—which shows at once
the good feeling of the Chinese in regard to the unfortunate objects of
slavery, and the remarkable industry and self-relying spirit of the
slaves themselves. In giving an account of a sale of slaves at the
Chinese camp, it says:—The slaves, who were twelve in number, having
been placed upon the table of exposition, arranged in four lots, rattled
some money in their hands, and addressed a few words, timidly and in low
tones, to the assembly. A person who acted as their agent here stepped
forward, and stated that his clients, having accumulated by long and
painful labours some small savings, solicited the favour of being
allowed to make a bidding for the purchase of their own persons. No
opposition was offered; and the first lot of three, being put up to
auction, made an offer, through their agent, of forty francs. No advance
being made on this sum, the slaves were knocked down to themselves. The
next lot, encouraged by their predecessors’ success, offered only
twenty-four francs for themselves. The public preserved the same
silence, and they likewise became their own purchasers. The third lot
took the hint, and were even more fortunate, picking themselves up, a
decided bargain, for the modest sum of ten francs! The _Java Bode_
rightly sees in these facts signs of a great advance in civilisation
among the Chinese, who constituted the great majority of the persons
present.
Superficial writers on China judge of the whole nation by what they see
of the population at Canton; and are profuse in their charges of lying,
treachery, and inhumanity,—as if it were even possible for three hundred
and sixty millions of human beings to be nothing but one black mass of
moral deformity! The monstrousness of the idea ought to have been its
own refutation. Such writers might as well conclude that the whole abyss
of ocean is a turbid mass, because its fringing waves are “gross with
sand.” In truth, their conclusions are as unjust as if one were to judge
of our own nation solely by the doings of the wreckers of Cornwall or
the mob of London. For the inhabitants of Canton are termed the
“Southern boors” by their own countrymen; and it may safely be stated of
the people of Fokien and the southern coasts of China, with whom alone
foreigners come in contact, that they are all more or less addicted to
piracy and smuggling, and have adopted the nefarious habits which
commerce invariably engenders when carried on between nations who
despise, and whose only desire is to overreach one another. The
inadequacy of the ordinary data for judging of Chinese character is at
once perceived by the few travellers who have got glimpses of the
interior, or of those parts of the country where the manners of the
people are unaltered by contact with foreigners. We have already quoted
Mr Fortune’s pleasing picture of cottar-life in the interior, and on the
general question he says:—“The natives of the southern towns and all
along the coast, at least as far north as Chekiang, richly deserve the
bad character which every one gives them; being remarkable for their
hatred to foreigners and conceited notions of their own importance,
besides abounding in characters of the very worst description, who are
nothing else than thieves and pirates. But the character of the Chinese
as a nation must not suffer from a partial view of this kind; for it
must be recollected that, in every country, the most lawless characters
are amongst those who inhabit seaport towns, and who come in contact
with natives of other countries: and unfortunately we must confess that
European nations have contributed their share to make these people what
they are. In the north of China, and more particularly inland, the
natives are entirely different. There are, doubtless, bad characters and
thieves amongst them too: but generally the traveller is not exposed to
insult; and the natives are quiet, civil, and obliging.” Lord Jocelyn,
who was with our fleet during the late war, and who landed on various
points of the coast, states, as the experience of his rambles among the
villagers, that a kind word to a child, or any little notice taken of
the young, will at once ingratiate a stranger with this humane and
simple-minded people. Mr Abel, also, (one of Lord Amherst’s retinue) in
like manner testifies to the simple kindness of the country people. The
nation at large (thanks to their education) are remarkable for the
virtues of sobriety and filial reverence,—instances of noble generosity
in individuals are said not to be infrequent,—and we may add that no
people in the world, unless it be the French, are so ready to take
notice of and applaud the casual utterance of noble sentiments. In fine,
Mr Lay says, that “no man can deny the Chinese the honourable character
of being good subjects—though, from the venality of their magistrates in
general, they must often be exposed to many kinds of usage that tempt
them to throw off allegiance.” And he attributes their steady obedience
to constituted authority, not to a tameness of disposition that disposes
a man to take kicks without feeling the gall of indignation, but to “a
habitual sentiment of respect and a share of sterling good sense, that
lead him to see and choose what is really best for his own interest.”
We have said that there are no separate castes among the Chinese; but
one of the most curious features that strikes a stranger in their social
life is the division of the people into clans, somewhat resembling the
clanships of the Scottish Highlanders. There are altogether about 454 of
these clans, each of which has its peculiar surname; but no jealous line
of demarcation is allowed to be kept up between these different septs
(some of whom number a million of souls), for, by a wise though somewhat
stringent provision, every man is required to seek a bride in a
different clan from his own,—thus acquiring two surnames. These clans
are results of the Patriarchal or Family system, which forms the basis
of the whole political and social arrangements in China. This system may
seem a very narrow and illiberal one to us enlightened Westerns, and
especially to our Transatlantic brethren, among whom the fifth
commandment is but little regarded; but its influence upon the social
relations in China has been unquestionably good. A Chinese father is a
little emperor in his own household; he is held responsible in some
degree for their conduct, and is invested with unlimited power over
them, so that even the punishment of death is hardly beyond his
prerogative. Yet abuses of power are at least as rare there as here. “I
have reason to believe,” says Mr Lay, “that the sway exercised by
Chinese parents is seldom burdensome, and that their will and pleasure
are enforced, for the most part, with great mildness.” And if we seek to
judge of the system by its fruits at large, we find that the duties of
mutual love and mutual help are fully recognised, as incumbent upon all
who are within the circle of blood or affinity; while the hilarities of
family-feasts, or the sorrows of family-mourning, are entered into with
a keenness of relish, or an acuteness of feeling, which leaves the
Chinese perhaps without a parallel in the world. “Fear God” is a precept
of which the modern Chinese know little or nothing; but “Love, honour,
and obey your parents,” is the fundamental commandment of their moral
system,—and to say or do anything against it, is as shocking and
disgusting to their feelings as blasphemy to those of a Christian. “The
practice of infanticide,” says Mr Meadows, speaking of Canton, “exists
here, as the bodies of infants floating occasionally on the river
sufficiently prove; but it may be fairly doubted whether there is much
more of it than in England,” where the crime is punished with death, and
where, of course, every means is taken to conceal it; “and often having
remarked instances of _deformed female_ children being treated with
constant and evident affection by their parents, I am inclined to
believe that when infants are put to death, it is solely because their
parents are altogether unable to support them.” And Mr Lay says, that
the _rare_ occurrence of dead bodies of children being found in the
Canton river “proves that, among a swarming population of indigent
people, such deeds are none of their customary doings.”
The Chinese are a cheerful light-hearted race, well trained to social
duties, and with no proclivity to the melancholy of the southern nations
of Europe, or to the John-Bull tendency towards reserve and isolation.
Social feeling—or good-humour, mildness of disposition, and a
good-natured propensity to share in the mirth and hilarity of others,
are seen wherever one meets with a company of Chinese. To live in
society is a Chinaman’s meat and drink. In a company of his fellows he
is something,—by himself, nothing. Men of study and retirement are to be
found in China, but by far the greater number seem to have their hearts
set upon social delights and the celebration of public festivity. And
what most strikes the spectator at such meetings is, the _respect_ which
every one is so anxious to pay to all around him,—(another point in
which the Chinese nation is most nearly paralleled by the French). Nor
are such attentions the frigid offspring of mere formality. “Apart from
business,” says Mr Lay, “the intercourse of natives in China is made up
of little acts of homage. The rules of relative duty command an
individual to regard a neighbour as an elder brother, and thence
entitled to the respect belonging to such eldership. These displays of
veneration are not occasioned, then, by dread or hope of gain, but are
the spontaneous results of a propriety essential to the character of the
people,” and strongly developed by their domestic training and the
teaching of their schools. In walking abroad, for instance, the stranger
may wonder what two gentlemen can have so suddenly found to dispute
about; but he soon perceives that each of them is severally refusing to
advance a step till the other has set the example, and consented to go
ahead!
On the other hand, it must be allowed that most of the loftier qualities
of our nature seem to be deficient among the Chinese. The feeling of
patriotism, at least nowadays, is almost unknown,—partly, it may be,
owing to the immense size of the empire, and the imperfect intercourse
kept up between the several provinces. Loyalty, as we understand the
feeling, apparently never at any time had much hold upon the Chinese
mind. Reason, rather than emotion, is the prominent feature of their
mental constitution; and although they have at all times entertained a
profound regard for their sovereign, that regard had reference to the
office, not the man, and is quite different from that chivalrous
devotion to the monarch’s person which plays so prominent a part in the
history of European struggles. Self-denial and self-devotion, in
fact—that fundamental basis of the noblest of human virtues—rare
everywhere, is _very_ rare in China. Even peace has its disadvantages.
Virtues, like talents, require congenial circumstances to develop them;
and probably the long reign of public tranquillity in China—where for
nine centuries it has hardly been broken save at intervals of two
hundred years—has helped to numb the courageous and masculine sentiment
of self-devotion, and allowed the national mind to “settle on its lees.”
Pleasure, money, sensuality,—these are now the objects that most greatly
engross a Chinese. “The Chinese,” says Mr Lay, “are lovers of pleasure,
from the greatest to the least. They study ease and comfort in a way
that leaves them, as a nation, without a rival in the art of ministering
to sensual gratification.” This proneness to sensual indulgence is
unhappily increased by the narrow spirit in which certain portions of
their legislation are conceived,—the rich not being allowed to expend
their superfluous wealth in the erection of elegant mansions, (that
being looked upon as a misdirection of money from more useful purposes);
nor dare they indulge in much public munificence, lest they attract the
covetous eyes of the generally extortionate and unscrupulous mandarins.
“A Chinese,” says Mr Lay, “is licentious in the general turn of his
ideas, and makes a public display of those forbidden pleasures which in
many countries are somewhat screened amidst the shades of retirement.
The floating abodes for ladies of pleasure are generally of the gayest
kind, and are consequently the first thing to attract the traveller’s
attention as he draws near the provincial city of Canton.” The _auri
sacra fames_ is not less strong in the breast of a Celestial. “At a very
early age,” says Mr Lay, “the love of money is implanted in his nature:
indeed, one of the first lessons a mother teaches a child is to hold out
its hand for a bit of coin.” Money, says Gutzlaff, is the idol of the
Chinese. “It is the national spirit, the public sentiment, the chief
good of high and low”—the higher classes being as eager to obtain it in
order to gratify their sensual inclinations, as the poor to procure
food.
To call a man a liar is, in England, and in the European world
generally, the surest way to provoke anger; but such an epithet has but
little weight attached to it in China. This is partly owing to the fact
that “white lies” have there a recognised and reputable existence not
openly accorded to them elsewhere. In the eyes of a Chinese, as in the
code of the Jesuits, a lie in itself is not absolutely criminal, and it
may, on the contrary, be very meritorious. According to Confucius, a lie
told by a child to benefit a parent is deserving of praise; and a
Jeannie Deans, or the stern old father in Mr Warren’s _Now and Then_, so
far from being held models of religion, would be regarded, the one as a
stubborn fanatic, and the other as the most heartless and unnatural of
parents. But another, and, we suspect, a much more powerful cause of
this want of veracity among the Chinese, is their system of government.
Here, as throughout Asia generally, Despotism—or, in other words, an
Executive power from which there is no proper appeal—generates mendacity
in the people, as their sole refuge from irresponsible Power. Duplicity
is the resource to which Weakness naturally betakes itself; and it is
universally adopted wherever the decrees of Government officials are
felt to be unjust as well as unappealable. Everywhere the result is the
same; and in this, as in many other respects, a perfect parallel might
be drawn between those two vastest empires of modern times, the Chinese
and the Russian. In the latter empire, as in the former, the vastness of
the country and consequent impossibility of an efficient surveillance
over the host of officials, joined to the absence of municipal
institutions and a free press to act as checks upon local tyranny,
render it most difficult to detect or repress abuses of power on the
part of the Government officers. And the consequence in both countries
may be told in the words of Alison, applied to Russia:—“So universal is
the dread of authority, that it has moulded the national character.
Dissimulation is universal; and, like the Greeks under the Mussulman
yoke, the Russians have become perfect adepts in all the arts by which
talent eludes the force of authority, and astuteness escapes the
discoveries of power.” And we suspect we ought to add, in justice to the
Chinese, that this disposition has been impressed upon them, as upon the
Russians, by the invasion of the Tartar hordes, which in both countries
reduced the native race to subjection for three long centuries.
In China, however, the domination of the Tartars has never been in any
degree so complete as it was in Russia; and even among the maritime
population, with whom foreigners are brought most in contact, and among
whom lying is probably most prevalent, there exists a check which is
found sufficient for the transaction of all matters of ordinary
importance. Every great, busy, and closely-connected society (which
Russia is not) requires some bond of mutual trust; and this is found, in
China, in the custom of _guaranteeing_, which pervades all domestic and
mercantile relations. Mr Meadows states it as a fact that he has never
known an instance in which a Chinese openly violated a guaranty known to
have been given by him; and though, under strong temptations, they will
sometimes try to evade its fulfilment, yet such instances are extremely
rare, and they generally come promptly forward to meet all the
consequences of their responsibility. “A Chinaman,” says Mr Lay, “is a
man of business, and therefore understands the value of truth.... The
standard of honesty is perhaps as high in China as in any other
commercial country; and strangers who have known this people during the
longest space, speak in the best terms of their integrity. Thieves of a
most dexterous kind, and rogues of every description, are plentiful in
China, because she has a swarming population to give them birth,—but
they are not numerous enough to affect a general estimate of the
national character.”
The imperfections of human language render it a difficult matter to give
a description, at once short and correct, of national character. Thus it
is both true and false to say that the Chinese possess a high degree of
fortitude. They bear pain or adversity without murmuring or despondency;
and, taken individually, they perhaps possess as much constitutional or
animal courage as any other specimens of our race. But they are
deficient in that courage which is based on self-reliance, and which
enables a man to confront danger with a ready intrepidity—because their
institutions and education are as unfavourable to its development as
those of the Anglo-Americans are singularly propitious. They possess a
great command over their tempers, and instances are common of their
bearing, with the greatest apparent equanimity, insults and injuries
which would make a European ungovernable; and this proceeds not from
cowardice, but from their really regarding self-command as a necessary
part of civilisation, and passionate or hasty conduct as indecent, and
giving evidence of a low nature. The readiness they evince to yield to
the force of reason is another quality for which, says Mr Meadows, “the
Chinese certainly deserve to be considered a highly civilised people.”
They settle their disputes more by argument than by violence (a strange
thing in the East); and a Chinese placard posted at the street-corners,
exposing the unreasonable (_i. e._ unequitable) conduct of a party in
any transaction is, if the want of equity be sufficiently proven, to the
full as effective, if not more so, than a similar exposure of an
Englishman in a newspaper. Bullies seem to be kept in check by the force
of public opinion, and the Chinese neither fight duels, nor, though
murders occur as in England, can they be said to assassinate or poison.
Finally, we may round off this _précis_ of Chinese character in the
words of Mr Lay:—“It is an abuse of terms to say that they are a highly
moral people, but we may affirm that the moral sense is in many
particulars highly refined among them. Respect to parents and elders,
obedience to law, chastity, kindness, economy, prudence, and
self-possession, are the never-failing themes for remark and
illustration.”
No people in the world consume so little butcher-meat as the Chinese;
and, unlike the Eastern nations—such as the Jews, Hindoos, Parsees, and
Mohammedans generally—their favourite meat is pork. In fact in China, as
in other parts of the world, the cottar-system of land-holding is found
unfavourable to the rearing of horses, cattle, or sheep, but quite
adapted (as witness Ireland) for the rearing of pigs. The national
system of agriculture, like almost everything else in China, is based
upon the strictly utilitarian principle of turning everything to the
greatest account. We do not pretend to settle off-hand here how far the
stimulating diet of animal food is necessary or advantageous to mankind.
We would simply remark that butcher-meat is matter in a more highly
organised form, and more nearly assimilated in composition to our own
frames than vegetable food. It is in diet what alcohol is in drink; and
the nations who most indulge in it—such as the British, the
Anglo-Americans, and savages who live by the chase, (we beg pardon for
the unflattering conjunction!)—are generally as remarkable for gloomy
strength and perseverance, as the more vegetarian nations are for
cheerful quickness and volatility. But the preference which from time
immemorial has been accorded to grain-crops in China is based upon the
principle (of which our free-trade authorities are too forgetful in
their admonitions to “plough less and graze more”), that grain is the
cheapest form in which food can be produced, and that a much more
numerous population can be maintained in comfort by tillage than by
pasturage. Sheep have been justly styled “the devourers of men;” and the
Chinese monarch who first turned the people from pastoral life, and
taught them the civilising science of agriculture, is still, after the
lapse of more than four thousand years, venerated throughout the empire
by the title of “the divine Husbandman.” Fish, which abound in the
numerous lakes with which the country is studded, and rice and other
kinds of vegetable produce, form the staple of the national diet. From
stern necessity, as well as from a wise and unparalleled economy,
everything is turned to full account, and even hair-cuttings and parings
of all kinds are made matter of traffic,—while everything nutritive,
including “rats and mice, and such small deer,” (however unclean,
according to European notions), are searched out and eaten for food.
Opium is much in use; but both the perniciousness of its effects, and
the extent to which it is indulged in, have been overstated by most
writers on the subject. The misery caused by it is never to be compared
to the plague of drunkenness, which is the bane of our own country.
“Redness of the eyes,” as a mark of intoxication, is very conspicuous in
the Chinese, as it was in the days of Solomon among the Jews; and if you
see two Chinamen walking hand in hand in the street, says Mr Lay, it is
ten to one that they are both flustered with drink!
The Chinese, like most Asiatics, do not dance for pleasure, nor are
their unmelodious voices formed for song. Their favourite amusements are
games of chance,—in which, perhaps, they out-do all Asiatics. The grand
aim of a Chinaman, as we have said, is _to enjoy himself_; and this
colours even his gravest doings. With him, banqueting and religious
ceremonies are the same thing, and he would never keep any sacred
festival if he could not enjoy himself. No festival is without its play,
and only a few temples are without a stage; and so fond are the people
of theatricals, that they will attend a whole night to them, without
showing the least weariness, and will afterwards recount with ecstasy
what they have seen. The people in general never pray, nor have they any
forms of prayer; and the Mandarins, on public occasions, only recite a
formula, in the shape of a simple message, to the idols, but never
address them in their own words. The affairs of this life are ever
uppermost in the mind of a Chinese; and long life, wealth, and male
children, are the great objects of desire. Nothing is regarded with so
much horror as death—gloomy death, after which their souls go to wander
cheerless among the genii; and strange to say, the elixir of life seems
to have been more generally and more perseveringly sought after in
reasoning and materialistic China than among the most spiritual and
imaginative nations of mankind.
“Polygamy,” says Mr Lay, “is not practised by all, and is seldom
indulged in till the husband is advanced in years. It appears that by
far the greater number among the rich, as well as all among the poor,
reap the solaces of connubial life without suffering this hemlock to
grow in their furrows. A few, from the surfeit of too much ease and
prosperity, indulge in this practice, and a few more have recourse to it
for the sake of building up their house with an heir, or a more numerous
progeny;” while on the other side, it is fostered by “the anxiety of
parents to see their daughters provided for in the houses of the great,
and to reap a personal advantage from noble alliances.” For untiring
industry, cheerfulness of temper, fidelity to their husbands, and care
of their offspring, the poor women are every way exemplary. Any one who
visits China will find proofs of this wherever he turns his eyes, and a
traveller has only to lay his hand upon the head of a little child to
earn applause from a whole crowd of bystanders.
Constancy, habit of respect, and the social feeling are easily
recognisable in the character of the Chinese women. Chinese stories are
full of examples of love that knows no bounds. “There is only one
heaven,” said a forlorn maiden, when her parents upbraided her for
spending her days in sorrowful libations of salt tears at the tomb of
her lover, “and he was that heaven to me!” “A native of the United
States,” says Mr Lay, “married a Chinese female, who had never felt the
benefits of education, and therefore could scarcely have learnt to
cultivate this sentiment by lessons from those who were older than
herself. She accompanied her husband to America, and afterwards back
again to Macao, where a friend of mine paid her lord a visit. On his
return, I asked him how she demeaned herself towards her better half.
‘With great respect,’ was the answer. And this testimony in her favour
was not solitary; for the captain who conveyed the pair across the
Atlantic declared he had never met with such passengers before, and that
the wife rendered the services of a stewardess unnecessary in the cabin,
and with her own hands kept everything in an admirable state of order
and neatness.” When a stranger sees that a Chinese lady of the house is
not entitled to receive any civilities or acts of courtesy from the
friend of her husband, and forgets that this interdict is founded upon
motives of propriety, consecrated by the usage of the earliest times, he
is very apt to think her slighted, and that those apartments which the
Chinese have decorated with so many flowery names are but a sort of
prison. This is a great mistake, however, and the women of China are not
only exempt from that rigid seclusion which prevails elsewhere in the
East; but are treated much more nearly on terms of equality with their
husbands. There is nothing abject or mean, either in principle or
practice, in the deference which is paid, among high and low alike, to
husbands; and “the air of a Chinawoman,” says Mr Lay, “has a majesty
about it which is only compatible with sentiments of freedom; and the
tone of her voice, and the glance of her eye indicate a consciousness
that she was not born to be despised.”
The existing monuments of ancient civilisation in China are not of the
same kind as those of Egypt and Assyria, of Greece and Rome. Time has
spared the mighty structures of these latter empires, as if in
compensation for having buried the nations that reared them; but in
China, where the dynasties have succeeded one another without
interruption, and the people have gone on increasing in numbers, down to
our own day, the wars which have swept over it, and the revolutions
which have shaken it, have destroyed almost all the monuments which
would have attested its former magnificence. We refer particularly to
the great revolution effected by the Emperor Che-hoang-te, (about 246
A.C.), who, for political purposes, ordered the destruction of every
monument of the past, whether in metal, in stone, or on paper,—a
proscription which lasted for nearly a century, and which left
comparatively little to be regained by the most persevering researches
of after ages. Nevertheless, the early ages of the Chinese empire seem
to have been distinguished by not a little science, and many rare
discoveries. In their carefully kept ancient annals, we have full
particulars of the circumstances attending an eclipse of the sun, which
happened 2155 years before Christ; and in the reign of Shun, a century
before this, we read of “the instrument adorned with precious stones,
which represented the stars, and the movable tube which served to
observe them”—words which plainly indicate a celestial sphere, and a
telescope, of some kind or other. After speaking of the discussions
which took place in Europe last century, in regard to the high antiquity
of astronomical observations in China, M. Pauthier remarks,—“All that we
know of the reigns of the philosophical emperors, Yao, Shun, and Yu, and
of the state of astronomical science in their time, justifies the
supposition that, in the days of those emperors, sure methods were known
for calculating beforehand the precise date of eclipses of the sun and
moon, and all that concerned the calendar.” Another piece of knowledge
possessed by the ancient Chinese, which is calculated to astonish our
modern astronomers and mathematicians, is that not merely of the general
spherical shape of the earth, but of its oblate form, in consequence of
the flattening of the poles. We have not space to set forth the grounds
we have for holding it probable that they really were acquainted with
this recondite fact in physics; we must hasten on to add that the
_Sacred Book of Annals_ mentions facts which indirectly prove that
music, poetry, and painting were known from the earliest historic times
of China, and we know for certain that in the days of Confucius, the
first of those arts was carefully studied, and apparently highly
developed. Gunpowder was known four centuries before our era, and we
read not only of this “devouring fire,” but of “fireboxes,”
“fire-tubes,” and “globes containing the fire of heaven,”—which latter
expression, by its allusion to lightning, seems to indicate as if
powder, even in those days, was used as something more than a mere toy.
A knowledge of the properties of the magnet or loadstone is another
thing in which the Chinese were some two thousand or more years in
advance of us Europeans; and the art of printing (by means of wooden
blocks—xylography) was in use among them six centuries before anything
of the kind was thought of elsewhere.
The character of Chinese literature may be guessed from what we have
said of their system of education, which eschews speculation, and
attends to little else than the precepts of public and private morality.
The grandest, or we may say, the only grand, achievements of their
literature are in the department of practical politics and morals; and
next to this are their annals and statistical reports upon the various
provinces of the empire. Poetry is much studied by the educated classes
in early life for the sake of obtaining command of language and elegance
of expression, the latter of which is highly valued in the
communications and epistles of the government officials; but the Chinese
temperament possesses little of the _vis poetica_; and of the millions
of Mandarins who have learned to rhyme, very few indeed have written
anything that would pass as mediocre in Europe. They have a good command
of poetic figures and expressions, and their descriptive pieces and
moral odes are fair productions; but that is all that can be said in
their favour. Historical writings occupy a prominent place in their
literature, and the greatest pains are taken to insure accuracy of
statement; but these works are mere annals or chronologies, and have no
pretensions to those intellectual and artistic qualities which
distinguish the Livys and Xenophons, the Gibbons and Humes of ancient
and modern Europe. It is to the credit of China that it has had a drama
from a very early period, although we cannot speak particularly as to
its merits. The writing of novels, also, dates as far back as the third
century, and seems to be a department of literature very congenial to
the Chinese mind. Such works exist in great numbers, and amongst much
trash there are some very able productions.
In the appreciation of beauty, the Chinese are below any other nation
that ever emerged from barbarism. Their painting is of a very
commonplace description,—though not so bad, we believe, as it is
generally supposed to be in this country; and their only notion of
sculpture is, to represent a thing lusty in order that it may look
grand. Their architecture, says Mr Barrow, “is void of taste, grandeur,
beauty, solidity, or convenience; their houses are merely tents [an
exaggeration]; and there is nothing magnificent even in the palace of
the emperor.” One of the few notable exceptions to this remark is the
celebrated Porcelain Pagoda at Nanking, which Du Halde thought “the most
solid, remarkable, and magnificent structure in the eastern world.” For
this want of beauty in their buildings, some excuse may be found in the
circumstance that the law does not permit them to deviate from the
established rules, and that any Mandarin who should venture to indulge
an architectural fancy of his own would quickly draw down upon himself
the vengeance of the Board of Rites; but “when there’s a will there’s a
way,” and had the general taste ever advanced beyond the tent-shaped
domiciles of their early ancestors, the administration of the law would
hardly have proved an insurmountable barrier to improvement.
However flattering to the Chinese some of the preceding statements may
be, it will be seen, on the whole, that they by no means hold a high
place in regard to might of intellect. The discoverers of many important
facts, and inventors of many useful arts, they yet seem as if they had
stumbled upon them by chance, and were unable to appreciate their value;
and the highly civilised race who, ages ago, were familiar with
astronomy and printing, gunpowder and the magnetic needle, are now
incomparably surpassed in their use by nations comparatively of
yesterday. “Their mechanical contrivances,” says Mr Wade, “remain but as
monuments of an originality which seems to have exhausted itself by its
earlier efforts. They appear never to have investigated the principles
of the discoveries by which the requirements of their agriculture,
architecture, or navigation, were first satisfied. The means which their
genius suggested to meet their immediate wants they adopted, and,
without the aid of theory, perfected—in some instances, to a degree not
surpassed, if attained, by the most scientific of nations; but errors
and defects were left untouched; no spirit of inquiry quickened the
dormant powers of their reason, and the lack of a habit of reflection
prevented their pushing their invention beyond a certain necessary
point.” There is something stunted or microscopic in the intellect of
the Chinese, which leads them to magnify trifles, yet to be blind when
great facts stare them in the face,—to keep the steam-engine a toy and
gunpowder a plaything, yet to spend an infinity of skill and patience
upon the manufacture of one of their ivory “puzzles.” Excellent in
imitation, and well adapted for details, they are yet deficient in that
highest quality of genius, which grasps a subject at once in all its
bearings—which reasons outwards and upwards from the centre-object of
contemplation, and which discerns in it its latent powers and the uses
to which they may be applied,—which sees in the vapour of a kettle the
embryo of the mighty steam-engine, and in the fall of an apple the
gravitating force that sustains the universe.
There cannot be a doubt, however, that the Chinese character has never
yet had fair play. It has never had such advantages as those enjoyed by
the nations of Europe, or indeed by every civilised community of modern
times. We will not speak of the over-population, and consequent
ceaseless and absorbing struggle for the necessaries of life, which ever
tends to act injuriously upon the moral and intellectual qualities of
the majority of the people,—by extinguishing all high aspirations, and
bending down the soul in slavery to the wants of the moment; for that
over-population is not peculiar to China, and has, moreover, the
attendant, though hardly compensating benefit of sharpening the national
wits, and placing a large supply of cheap labour at the disposal of
capital. We would rather point out the following peculiarity which
affects this people alone of the nations of the earth, and which must
ever be kept in mind by those who would correctly appreciate China’s
place in universal history.
The Chinese empire belongs to the ancient—indeed, we ought to say to the
primitive, world. It has long survived the empires of Egypt and Assyria,
and the kingdoms of ancient India,—yet it is with these States alone
that the isolated civilisation of China can fairly be compared. Like
them, China has reared a civilisation for herself, without any help from
without. Throughout her unparalleled existence of more than forty
centuries, she has been a world to herself. No influx of new ideas, no
inspection of other civilisation than her own, has been granted to her.
She has grown up like a Crusoe and his children and grandchildren, upon
a solitary island,—forced ever to compare themselves by themselves, and
never enjoying the rare privilege, and help to improvement, to “see
ourselves as others see us.” We Europeans of the present day—in this age
of “running to and fro upon the earth”—are privileged to behold the
endless variety of life, manners, and institutions with which the world
is stored—to judge of them by their several effects, as revealed in the
pages of history, and to draw from them their moral; thus benefiting by
the experience of a whole world, and perfecting ourselves upon the model
of the best of our race. Moreover, the blood of a dozen different tribes
of mankind runs in our veins (as was the case on a smaller scale in
ancient Greece), producing a richly-blended nature, excelling in all
departments, whether of thought or action—producing now a Shakespeare
and now a Napoleon, now a Hildebrand and now a Howard, now a Richard
Cœur-de-Lion and now a Peter the Hermit, now a Luther and now a Mozart,
now a Cromwell and now a Robespierre, now a Scott, a Watt, a Burns, a
Dickens, a Kean, or a Grimaldi. China, on the contrary, presents but one
phase of human nature,—but to that phase it has done marvellous justice.
Good sense is its only idol—practical usefulness its prime test; but we
have yet to learn that the former of these qualities has ever been more
wisely or so perseveringly worshipped, or the latter been so
unflinchingly and universally applied.
An attentive observation seems to indicate that this most ancient of
empires, for long stationary in power and intellect, has of late been in
many respects retrograding. “The arts once peculiarly their own,” says
Mr Wade, “have declined;—neither their silks nor their porcelain, in
their own estimation, equal in quality those of former years.” And Mr
Fortune arrives at a similar conclusion from the signs of decay which he
met with in his wanderings. “There can be no doubt,” he says, “that the
Chinese empire arrived at its highest state of perfection many years
ago, and since then it has been rather retrograding than advancing. Many
of the northern cities, evidently once in the most flourishing
condition, are now in a state of decay, or in ruins; the pagodas which
crown the distant hills are crumbling to pieces, and apparently are
seldom repaired; the spacious temples are no longer as they used to be
in former days; even the celebrated temples on Poo-too-San (an island
near Chusan), to which, as to Jerusalem of old, the natives came
flocking to worship, show all the signs of having seen better days. And
from this I conclude that the Chinese, as a nation, are retrograding.”
Were this falling off only visible in the case of the temples, it might
be wholly accounted for by the increasing apathy or scepticism of the
people in regard to their religion; but, in truth, these signs of decay
extend into almost every department of the State. And, writing
immediately before the present rebellion broke out, Mr Wade says, “With
a fair seeming of immunity from invasion, sedition, or revolt, leave is
taken to consider this vast empire as surely, though slowly, decaying.
It has, in many respects, retrograded since the commencement of the
present dynasty, and in none that we are aware of has it made any
sensible progress.”
It would be a great error, however, to suppose that this vast empire is
now stooping irretrievably to a fall. The whole tenor of its past
history forbids the supposition. Again and again has it reformed
itself;—again and again has it passed through the purifying furnace of
suffering and convulsion, and re-emerged firm as before. Its periodic
convulsions are the healthy efforts of nature to throw off the
corruptions which ease engenders in the system; and however much
temporary suffering may attend the present, like every other of its
score of preceding revolutions, the resultant good will ultimately atone
for all. China will never fall. Its homogeneousness, and the
unconquerable vastness of its population, endow it with an earthly
immortality. We have said that it lacks the variety of Europe; but in
that variety, be it noted, there lurks political weakness, as much as
intellectual strength. Every unit of Chinese society is homogeneous. The
whole population are _one_—in blood, sentiments, and language;—and hence
it contains none of those discordant elements, those unwillingly-yoked
parts, which proved the destruction of the old “universal empires,” and
which are destined ere long to annihilate the present territorial system
of Europe. China, in fact, has ever been, and is, what European Germany
and Slavonia, and every other great State of the future will be—a
_Race-Empire_;—and therefore indestructible. The Monguls may reign in it
for eighty years, or the Mantchoos for two hundred,—and even then only
by adopting the political and social institutions of the natives. But as
time runs on, the wheel ever turns; one after another the foreign hosts
are chased from the land, and a native dynasty is destined still to
wield the sceptre of the Flowery Land.
But we must say more than this in regard to the fortunes of China. What
it has hitherto wanted is, _new ideas_,—and now it is about to get them.
In old times, nations could hardly inoculate their neighbours with their
ideas save by conquest, and new mental life was only produced after a
temporary death of liberty. It is otherwise nowadays, and China is
likely to benefit by the change. As long as she was feeble, and as long
as the sword was the only civiliser, Providence kept her shut in from
the prowess of the restless Western nations. But now that her people
have grown like the sands on the sea-shore for multitude, and that steam
has become the peaceful “locomotive of principles,” China is opened.
Often as she has reformed herself before, the present is her true
second-birth. She will now obtain those new ideas of which she has
hitherto been starved, and will enter into ever-memorable union with the
rest of the civilised world. The energy and science of the Anglo-Saxons
will penetrate the empire, and the Chinese will not be slow to avail
themselves of the new lights. Aversion to change, when such change is
recommended by manifest utility, is not an original element of the
Chinese character,—as we learn on the authority of Jesuit writers two
centuries ago, before the advent to power of the Tartars, and their
jealous exclusion of foreigners. And then, what country in the world can
compare with China as a field for the triumphs of mechanical enterprise!
Its vast rivers and canals present unrivalled scope for
steam-navigation; and its wide plains and valley-lands offer matchless
facilities for railways. And then all this amidst the densest and
perhaps busiest population in the world. The amount of internal
travelling in China is such, that we are assured by those who have
penetrated into the interior, that there are continuous streams of
travellers on horse, on foot, and on litters, as well as long lines of
merchandise, from Canton to the Great Wall, and over distances of
fifteen hundred miles;—in many parts so crowded as to impede one
another, and even in the mountain-passes so numerous as to leave no
traveller out of sight of others before or behind. In what other country
of the world are such phenomena to be met with? And though it were vain
to enter upon the tempting field for speculation which these few
facts—and they could be multiplied indefinitely—present to us; yet we
need have no hesitation to predict a striking future for the Chinese
race, and one which will benefit the world at large, perhaps not less
than themselves.
RELEASE.
I.
Away!—No more, the sport of scorn,
My vassal love shall serve the Past.
The bonded athlete, blind and shorn,
Hath pull’d the darkness down at last!
II.
The gilded wire he once would spurn
The bird shall seek; the slave, once free,
To keep the bonds he burst shall turn;
Ere I return, weak heart, to thee.
III.
I gave thee up my life in thrall.
God wot, it was no silken thread!
Thy pride would make the gyves to gall;
And it has made them break instead.
IV.
Thy smiles might make me smile again:
Thy frowns in me no frown can move:
Thine art is less than my disdain:
Thy scorn is weak, as was my love.
V.
Out of the long lethargic trance
Of tears I wake with sudden strength.
My heart is cold beneath thy glance:
And pain hath grown to power at length.
VI.
The suns _must_ shine: the months _will_ bring
Fresh flowers. New heat my fancy warms.
Young hopes cry out, like birds that sing
Against the wake of thunderstorms.
VII.
A light through tears! new forms, new powers
Arise: new life my spirit fills:
As down dark skirts of drifting showers
The wild light reels among the hills.
VIII.
Where leaves are sear new buds may start:
Spring flowers may blow from winter frost:
But never to the selfish heart
Returns the empire pride hath lost.
IX.
There’s but a moment ’twixt the Past
And all the Future. Now I see
That mystic moment’s o’er at last;
And I am far away from thee.
TREVOR.
TOO LATE.
I.
And we have met, O love, at last!
Thy cheek is wan with wild regret;
The bloom of life is half-way past;
But we have met!—yes, we have met!
II.
My heart was wak’d beneath thy kiss
From dreams which seem to haunt it yet:
But I am I—thou, thou—and this
Is waking truth—and we have met!
III.
Ah, though ’tis late, there may remain
Before the grave—oh yet, even yet—
Some quiet hours; and, free from pain,
Some happy days, now we have met.
IV.
Thine arms! thine arms!—one long embrace!
Ah, what is this? thine eyes are wet—
Thy hand—it waves me from the place—
Ah fool!—O love, too late we met!
V.
Couldst thou not wait?—what hast thou done?
Another’s rights are sharply set
’Twixt thee and me. I come—mine own
Receives me not. In vain we met.
VI.
Farewell! be happy. I forgive.
Yet what remains for both? Forget
That we did ever meet; and live
As tho’ our meeting were not yet,
VII.
But later. We shall meet once more,
When eyes grown dim with care and fret
No longer weep; when life is o’er,
And earth and heaven in God are met.
TREVOR.
THE PROGRESS AND POLICY OF RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA.[36]
It is one of the happiest peculiarities in the construction of the human
mind, that it acquires knowledge so gradually, that it cannot realise
the extent of that ignorance by which it was once clouded; and forms its
opinions so imperceptibly, that no precise period can be attached to
their origin. It is just a year since Prince Menschikoff visited
Constantinople upon a mission which subsequent events have proved to
have been fraught with the most portentous consequences to Europe. If it
were possible now to convey to the public any adequate notion of the
lamentable want of information which then prevailed upon all matters
connected with the Eastern Question, people would be inclined
indignantly to deny its accuracy, if they did not go so far as to
maintain stoutly that they had always penetrated into the true character
of the policy of Russia, and anticipated her schemes of aggression; and,
certainly, considering the prominence which this topic has acquired, it
is not to be wondered at if familiarity with it should lead us into so
natural an error. Nobody now doubts that the occupation of the
Principalities formed part of that system of territorial aggrandisement
which is the very essence of Russian policy, and which has not the less
been successfully at work, because its operations have hitherto been so
silently conducted as not to excite the alarm of the great powers of
Europe.
The results of that policy were always apparent, no less in the history
than on the map of Europe; and if they have only been forced upon our
attention by events which have recently occurred, it has not been
because the facts themselves were wanting which should have taught us
what to expect, and have prepared us to meet that contingency which was
inevitable; but unfortunately, even now, our inquiries and our
discoveries end here, we are content with recognising the leading
principle of Muscovite diplomacy without looking more narrowly into its
workings, and thus acquiring the very knowledge and experience best
adapted to enable us to cope successfully with the wily and ambitious
power which is now defying Europe. For it is a fair inference, that if
success has uniformly attended the aggressive schemes of Russia, nothing
else than a departure from her established policy could lead to a
different result; and therefore it is interesting to investigate the
system of frontier extension which she has hitherto pursued, so that, if
it has been altered, we may not only be able to account for so important
a change, but to show how it may be taken advantage of by the powers
opposed to her in the present struggle.
Peter the Great devised a scheme of territorial annexation, which during
his own splendid career he practised with the greatest success upon
neighbouring countries, which he bequeathed to his successors, and which
a very slight knowledge of Russian history will enable us to recognise
as the formula since adhered to by the successive occupants of the
Muscovite throne. In an able pamphlet recently published, upon the
_Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East_, the process is
thus described: “It invariably begins with disorganisation, by means of
corruption and secret agency, pushed to the extent of disorder and civil
contention. Next in order comes military occupation to restore
tranquillity; and in every instance the result has been, PROTECTION
FOLLOWED BY INCORPORATION.” This process, however, we hope to illustrate
in a more detailed account of some of the acquisitions of the last
century; but first it will be interesting to observe why the system of
Peter the Great was the only one calculated to attain the object for
which it was designed. That object was to extend the frontier of the
empire in _every_ direction, and to continue to do so to an unlimited
amount. There was no single especially-coveted province, which, once
gained, was sufficient to satisfy the ambition of the Czars. It was a
never-ending process, and one which depended for its successful working
entirely upon a strict adherence to the formula; for it is evident, that
in proportion as the frontier became extended did the difficulty of
guarding it increase, and that caution upon which the whole policy was
built became more necessary with every new outpost which was
established, in order that the jealousy of neighbouring States might not
be awakened, or the tranquillity of the newly-acquired provinces
disturbed. Where an influence so destructive to independence, and so
blighting to prosperity was at work, it could not steal over the doomed
country too imperceptibly; and, therefore, not until this latter had
become sufficiently enervated was the disguise under which it had been
acquired thrown aside, and the protecting hand of the friend was now
recognised to be the iron grasp of an insatiable giant.
Hence it is no longer a matter of surprise if we find that, from Norway
to China, the Russian frontier is composed entirely of provinces which
have been added to the empire since the accession of Peter the Great.
But with the principles of annexation which he inculcated, there were
also rules laid down for the guidance of his successors in the
administration of new territory; and the success which has attended
every scheme of aggression, only renders a strict adherence to these
maxims the more indispensable, since the empire is now encircled with a
belt of disaffected provinces five thousand miles in length, and varying
in breadth from three hundred to one thousand miles—a barrier not to be
depended upon, and formed of very combustible materials; indeed, in time
of war, a source of weakness rather than of strength, and from which
much is to be apprehended. It is easy, then, to see why war formed no
part of the policy of the Great Peter. He did not recommend coming Czars
to surround themselves with gunpowder and then to thrust in the match,
but rather by a slow process to decompose and absorb the combustible
particles—and this in many provinces has almost been effected. It is a
work of time, which requires both external and internal tranquillity,
and to engage in a general war is to undo all that has been going on
during some of the quieter years of the last century. Energies which a
long course of oppression have now almost crushed, will again develop
themselves; and when the work of retribution once begins, there will be
a heavy reckoning to be paid.
In all his diplomatic relations hitherto, the Emperor Nicholas has
proved himself a worthy disciple of his great ancestor. He has never
made a treaty without obtaining fresh territory, or acquiring the
exercise of rights over new provinces which have ever proved the
inevitable precursors of annexation. Recent attempts at negotiation,
indeed, have not terminated in conformity with the uniform policy of the
Czars; and we may venture to predict that the history of Russia affords
no precedent for any such treaty as that which will probably be made at
the termination of the hostilities now impending—and yet the Emperor has
nothing to reproach himself with. Everything combined to lead him to
suppose that the time had arrived to justify him in entering upon
another step of the annexing process in the direction of Turkey. There
had been comparatively little difficulty in appropriating Turkish
provinces hitherto, and he is going through the customary formalities
when his proceedings are most unexpectedly nipped in the bud, by what he
had, no doubt, heretofore supposed to be an impossible combination of
powers in the West. If the contingency of a war with Europe has never
been anticipated by Russian autocrats as an impediment in the way of
their aggressive designs, it is simply because the possibility of Europe
combined against Russia has never been contemplated. If England and
France were not now united to resist Russia, a treaty with Turkey might
soon be expected upon conditions no less favourable than that of
Adrianople. But, to the dismay and astonishment of the Emperor, the time
for making the treaty has arrived, and he finds that it is literally
hopeless to attempt to drive a profitable bargain. He has been called
upon to choose between unconditional surrender of the countries he has
occupied and unmitigated war. How, then, is he prepared to meet this
contingency so suddenly forced upon him, how is his position affected by
an emergency which has never been provided for, and how are the allied
powers best able to profit by it? It is apparent, that if the power of
Russia for defence or for attack depended only upon the extent of her
resources, it would be enormous. Fortunately, however, the vital
question is, not how vast, but how available those resources are—whether
their development has been increased with the limits of the empire, or
impeded by the acquisition of those extensive territories, the recent
subjugation of which, to the rule of the Czar, must exercise an
important influence upon the destinies of Russia in a crisis like the
present?
In order thoroughly to appreciate these considerations, it would be
necessary to dissect the whole extended frontier of the empire, and
consider generally:—The political combinations which have in every case
led to the annexation of each individual province—the advantage secured
to Russia by such annexation—the present internal condition of the
conquered province—the reasons which render any further extension of the
frontier line in the same direction undesirable—and also to what country
in Europe these reasons are more especially applicable—finally, with
reference to the war now impending, the comparative strength or weakness
of the advanced posts, and their general merits as points of attack. In
making this survey the most eastern limit to which Russian influence
extends forms the natural starting-point, and, as we explore the sands
of Tartary, we shall soon discover that they possess at least far higher
claims upon the notice of the British public than the snows of Lapland.
At the same time, the information which we possess upon this remote
quarter of the globe is so meagre as to render any very full account of
the Kirghiz Steppes and their inhabitants impossible—and the historical
records are so uncertain as to make it somewhat difficult to follow
every step of the process by which Russia gradually exerted her
influence over those nomadic hordes who wander between China and the
Caspian, between Siberia and Khiva. Nor would there be much use in
pursuing the inquiry, did it not derive its interest from the extreme
anxiety Russia has manifested for a century past to advance and
consolidate her power in this direction—incurring vast expense and
sparing no efforts to carry out the apparently insane project of
subduing two millions of the most impracticable savages that ever defied
civilisation, and annexing a more uninhabitable series of deserts than
are to be found in the whole continent of Asia. It is not to be wondered
at, if an attempt so long and earnestly persisted in, and apparently so
little in accordance with the sagacity which usually characterises
Muscovite diplomacy, should attract attention, more especially since the
motives ostensibly assigned by Russia are by no means sufficient to
account for her course of procedure. The necessity of protecting and
encouraging her Eastern trade has been put very prominently forward as
the principal ground of interference with independent barbarians; and,
in so far as her commercial intercourse with Khiva and Boukhara are
likely to promote her ulterior designs, this is doubtless the case. The
trade of the East once passed through the Caucasian provinces; but when
those provinces fell into the hands of Russia, it was diverted into
another channel by the establishment of a restrictive system which
proved that the encouragement of commerce was merely the pretext used to
acquire a territory, the prosperity of which was a matter of
indifference to the government. Had the same energies been expended in
the formation of roads, or the construction of canals throughout the
empire, which have been devoted to the protection of trade on the
Kirghiz Steppes, the best interests of commerce would have been
immeasurably further advanced; and therefore, so far as they are
concerned, we are fairly entitled to assume that they did not furnish
the real motives for any such expenditure. Perhaps a more plausible
excuse is to be found in the annual captures by the Kirghiz of Russians
who were sold to the Khivans as slaves. But the number of these was very
trifling, and the sums spent in a year, for political purposes, would
have sufficed to repurchase ten times over those who were thus
unfortunately kidnapped.
We have had, indeed, sufficient experience of the intrigues of Russia in
the East, to enable us to perceive at once, that the object which she
has in view in subjugating Tartary is none other than that which she
betrayed in her secret intercourse with Persia; and, in the present
state of our political relations with the Russian empire, it is
important to inquire how far her designs in the East have been attended
with success, in order that we may be able to appreciate at their proper
value those rumours respecting the advance of her armies in this
direction, which find a ready circulation among those whom ignorance
disposes to credulity, and an exaggerated estimate of the power and
resources of our enemy excites to alarm. Thus we have had it regularly
communicated to us as a fact for the last six months from India, that a
Russian army is at Oorjunge, two marches distant from Khiva, with an
occasional intimation received from good authority, that it is prepared
to invade India, reinforced by levies of indomitable cavalry, supposed
to have been raised upon the Steppes of Tartary. Alluding to such
reports as these, the _Journal de St Petersburg_ inquires naturally
enough whether the _Times_ and its contemporaries have correspondents in
the little states of Upper Asia, and records with much amusement some of
the most glaring inconsistencies which have been gravely listened to,
and credited by the British public. Thus, although Russia was said to
have formed a quadruple alliance with the Khans of Khiva and Boukhara,
and Dost Mahomed, it was nevertheless necessary to seize the town of
Khiva, which succumbed after an energetic resistance of thirty-two
days—certainly a most improbable mode this of cementing the alliance. At
the same time, it is due to another portion of the home community to
give them the benefit of holding views of a very different character.
They utterly ignore the influence of Russia in the East—treat her
possible advance in that direction as a chimera—and the power which she
has already acquired as a bugbear from which nothing is to be
apprehended. The fact that views so diametrically opposed to one another
are very generally entertained in this country, induces us to hope that
any information we may be able to afford upon a subject which has
hitherto been scarcely investigated, may prove both useful and
interesting.
Among the vast and varied schemes formed by Peter the Great, for
increasing his dominions and his influence in the East, he early
conceived the design of opening up a trade with those nations to which,
of all European powers, Russia was the most contiguous, and whose riches
at that period found their outlet by different overland routes to the
great markets of the West. In 1717, he sent a mission to the Khan of
Khiva, under Prince Bekevitch, to negotiate a commercial treaty. The
attempt, however, proved abortive, and Prince Bekevitch and his whole
troop were assassinated. This catastrophe served its purpose, in so far
as it proved that the really effective way of attaining the desired end
would ultimately be by coercion, rather than by alliance. But as the
vast tract of intervening country was inhabited by wandering tribes of
savages, their subjugation was involved in any scheme of extended
conquest. The motives which stimulated and encouraged Russia in the
accomplishment of this primary object, have increased in proportion as
the possessions and influence of Great Britain in India have been
extended, and that trade monopolised by the enterprise and capital of
this country, which Peter the Great had destined to flow in a very
different direction. The task, however, has proved one which for a
century has demanded the exercise of a more than usual share of
Muscovite cunning and perseverance; nor has it yet been so perfectly
completed as to render the conquest of Khiva a matter of certain
practicability. It fortunately does not fall within our limits to enter
into any dissertation upon the origin of the Kirghiz Cuzzacks, or to
attempt to chronicle the early history of these tribes, which is as
vague and uncertain as records of barbarism usually are. It appears that
the country now inhabited by the Kirghiz Cuzzacks, was formerly occupied
by the Black Kirghiz or Bouroutes, nomades who attained to some degree
of civilisation by reason of the commercial relations which they
maintained with the Arabs, Boukharians, and above all, with the Khazars,
who, inhabiting the Steppes of Southern Russia, kept up a constant
intercourse with Constantinople. Towards the close of the seventeenth
century, the Bouroutes were compelled finally to emigrate to the
neighbourhood of Kashgar, thus relieving the southern provinces of
Siberia from the presence of a tribe whose warlike and predatory habits
had proved a constant source of annoyance and irritation. The
tranquillity of these provinces, however, was of short duration. The
Kirghiz Cuzzacks, who now extended their wanderings to the borders of
Siberia, claimed to be of Turkish origin, and had formed a portion of
the subjects of the celebrated Gengis Khan. They were originally called
Cuzzacks, and the prenomen of Kirghiz was merely used as a distinctive
appellation. Spreading over the Steppes of Tartary, they made frequent
inroads upon the Russian territory, and in 1717 penetrated as far as
Kazan. Surrounded, however, by tribes of Bashkirs, Calmucks, Zungars,
and Nogais, the Kirghiz were continually attacking or being attacked,
while their division into three hordes, the reason of which has never
been fully accounted for, did not increase their warlike capabilities.
Thus it happened that the great horde was completely subjugated by the
powerful tribe of the Zungars, whose territory extended to the Chinese
frontier; and it soon after became apparent that the middle and little
hordes could not much longer continue to make a successful stand against
the western tribes. In this emergency, Aboulkhair, the most celebrated
of Kirghiz Khans, perceived the advantage of obtaining the protection of
Russia. As, however, both hordes were excessively averse to any such
proposal, the negotiations were carried on with great tact and secresy
by Tevkelef, a Russian agent, who guaranteed to Aboulkhair the
assistance of Russia, in order to enable him to carry his designs into
execution. This, however, did not become necessary; the consent of the
Kirghiz was ultimately obtained, partly through the persuasive eloquence
of Tevkelef, and partly by the influence of Aboulkhair; and in 1734, the
middle and little hordes were formally enrolled as subjects of the
Empress Ann.
The submission thus obtained was not of any very permanent character,
and Kirilof was sent with a small body of troops into the Kirghiz
Steppes to take measures, which should insure the permanent subjection
of these tribes. His instructions afford us the first glimpse of the
ulterior designs of Russia, and the means proposed for their execution.
Kirilof was commanded at once to build a town and fort at the embouchure
of the Ori; to assemble the Khans and ancients of the two hordes, and
obtain from them, in the presence of their subjects, the oath of
allegiance, and having succeeded in this, he was to preserve the
obedience of the Kirghiz by gentleness or by force, by presents or by
menaces, according to circumstances. The Ural was to be considered the
boundary of the empire, and the newly-acquired subjects were strictly
prohibited from crossing it. A caravan was to be despatched across the
Steppes to Boukhara, with the least possible delay, and every effort was
to be used in order to attract merchandise from every part of Asia.
Kirilof was himself to examine the annexed country, in the hope of
discovering mines. A port was to be established upon the Sea of Aral,
and ships built upon the Ural, and kept ready to be transported thither
as soon as the town should be built, and such terms made with the
Kirghiz as would facilitate their conveyance, and that of the artillery
with which they were to be provided.
Among his diplomatic instructions Kirilof was told to avail himself of
the animosity which existed between the Kirghiz and Bashkirs, to
restrain it as much as possible so long as they continued subservient to
the designs of Russia; but, in case of disaffection being exhibited on
either side, he was to excite their mutual jealousies and thus save the
expenditure of Russian troops. The exportation of ammunition was
strictly prohibited, nor was Aboulkhair to be supplied with pecuniary
assistance to carry on war with the Khivans, or to be encouraged in it.
It was considered peculiarly desirable that as much information as
possible should be acquired relative to the more distant frontier
tribes, and more particularly the Zungars, who possessed Turkistan, and
who ranked amongst the most powerful of these. Kirilof, however, had
scarcely commenced to carry out these instructions, and had just founded
the town of Orenburgh, which has since risen to a position of such
importance as the emporium of the Eastern trade of Russia, when he died.
Thus had it been reserved for the Empress Ann to take the first step
towards accomplishing what Peter the Great had meditated, and was about
to attempt after the Swedish war when death terminated his career.
It was not long after Kirilof’s death before a revolt among the Bashkirs
and Calmucks rendered it necessary for his successor to stimulate
Aboulkhair to attack the rebellious tribes. Indeed the subjects of the
Khan, unaccustomed to so much tranquillity, desired nothing better than
to be let loose upon their old foes, and entered upon the war with such
good will that they not only speedily succeeded in suppressing the
rebellion, but created some anxiety to Russia lest a portion of her
subjects might be altogether extirpated, and the counter-irritation,
which she desired to preserve to keep Aboulkhair in check, destroyed;
for it was evidently essential to the success of the system that no one
tribe should acquire such a preponderance over the others as no longer
to dread them, or require the protection of Russia. The ambition of
Aboulkhair, however, was sufficiently restrained by the fear of
endangering the life of his son, who was retained at St Petersburg as a
hostage. Indeed, without these pledges of the good faith of the border
tribes, there was no means of insuring their submission longer than it
was consistent with their own convenience; and throughout the later
history of the Kirghiz, we find them continually intriguing for
assistance with their powerful neighbours, sending hostages to Peking as
often as to St Petersburg, and endeavouring so to bring to bear the
influence of their protectors as to secure their own ends, without
permanently compromising their independence. Thus the allegiance of the
Kirghiz to Russia was in a great degree nominal, and was resumed and
cast off at pleasure. The advantages, however, which Russia derived from
her uncertain dominion over her inconstant neighbours, and the hopes she
entertained of rendering it permanent, were so great as to make it
expedient to deal leniently with such troublesome conduct; and she soon
learnt to discern how far she might extort obedience and make her will
felt, without driving those whom she desired to rule to seek some less
exacting protector.
Thus it will appear that the governor of Orenburgh was in a good school
for diplomatic training, and after a successful administration here, was
competent to officiate as minister at any capital in Europe. To know how
best to profit by the distresses of his neighbours was the sum and
substance of his policy, and just in proportion as they were desirous of
propitiating Russia, did Russia refuse to be easily propitiated. So it
happened that, after the plunder and massacre of the Calmucks and
Bashkirs, Aboulkhair humbly sued for pardon,—for a new bugbear had risen
in the person of the warlike Galdane Tsyrène, Khan of the Zungars, who
held hostages both from the great and middle hordes; and the governor of
Orenburgh, of course, pretended to hesitate before receiving the renewed
allegiance of the little horde. This conjuncture of circumstances was
deemed favourable to the project of a town on the Sea of Aral, which, at
Aboulkhair’s request, was to be built at the mouth of the Syr
(Jaxartes), and an engineer officer was despatched to carry it into
execution: the difficulties in the way, however, proved insurmountable,
and the scheme fell to the ground. An attempt to carry out another
article of Kirilof’s instructions was equally unfortunate, and the first
caravan ever despatched from Orenburgh to Boukhara was plundered on the
steppes. Shortly after this Aboulkhair, who, profiting by the protection
of Russia, if not by her assistance, had possessed himself of Khiva, was
driven out of that country by the formidable Nadir Shah. From this
period his power gradually declined, and he was assassinated not long
after the death of his enemy, the Khan of the Zungars. Russia obtained
the election of Nourali, his son, as his successor, and offered him the
use of a thousand men for fifteen days to erect a tomb to his father, on
the condition that it should be four days’ march on the direct road to
Khiva, and that a town should be built near it. Engineering and every
other assistance was afforded, in the hope that fixed habitations might
be established at least at one spot upon the steppes; but the suspicions
of the Kirghiz were roused, and they positively refused to permit the
attempt, reminding the engineer officer, who endeavoured to overcome
their objections, of the conquest of Astrakhan and Kazan, and assuring
him that if those nomades had not fixed themselves where they did, their
descendants would have been free still. Nourali had not long held the
dignity of Khan before he offered to retake Khiva if Russia would
furnish him with 10,000 men, and the necessary artillery. This was
declined, as it was apparent that the conquest of Khiva by tribes who
wished to strengthen themselves against the authority of Russia, would
only retard her own views of conquest in the same direction, which could
never be accomplished until the Kirghiz themselves were thoroughly
reduced to subjection. One of the most striking illustrations of the
method by which Russia hoped to arrive at so desirable a consummation,
is afforded by an act of singular perfidy, of which Neplouieff, then
governor of Orenburgh, was the perpetrator. The Bashkirs who inhabited
what is now the province of Orenburgh, although they had been subject to
Russia ever since the reign of Ivan Groznoi, had always been most
insubordinate. In 1755 they originated a revolt in which the Kazan
Tartars took part. It soon spread so widely as to cause the government
much alarm, since the possibility of a junction being formed with the
Kirghiz to the south rendered the position of the Russian line extremely
critical. Neplouieff, however, who was a man of resource, devised a
notable plan for extricating himself from his dangerous situation.
Raising an army, chiefly composed of Don Cossacks and Calmucks, he
succeeded in intimidating the insurgents, and, by promising pardon to
those who would submit, he for the time put down the rebellion: those
who did not trust his offer sought refuge with the Kirghiz. Fearing that
the lull was merely temporary, Neplouieff perceived that the only real
safety lay in sowing the seeds of irreconcilable enmity between the
Bashkirs and Kirghiz. He determined, therefore, to deliver into the
hands of the latter the wives and children of those of the Bashkirs who
had trusted in his offers of pardon; upon two conditions—first, that the
Kirghiz should come into the province of Orenburgh, and forcibly carry
off their prizes; secondly, that they should give up the Bashkir
refugees to the Russian government. He communicated this happy thought
to St Petersburg, where it met with the royal approval, and an
intimation was received by the Kirghiz, to the effect that the Empress
in her bounty had made them a present of the wives and children of the
Bashkirs. The voluptuous Kirghiz rushed to the spoil. Their unfortunate
victims, confiding in the promise of Neplouieff, were taken by surprise;
and although they fought well for everything that was most dear to them,
those of the men who did not escape were brutally massacred, and the
Kirghiz returned triumphantly laden with their living booty. The
Bashkirs no sooner came back to their homes than they vowed vengeance,
and applied to the Russian government to be allowed to cross the border
to obtain satisfaction for such deep injuries. Neplouieff publicly
proclaimed that the Empress could not permit so bloodthirsty a
proceeding; and when he had thereby thrown the Kirghiz off their guard,
he gave secret orders to the commanders of the garrisons on the line,
not to stop the transit of armed Bashkirs. When these latter learnt that
the way to the Kirghiz steppes was thus open to them, large bands poured
across the frontier line, pounced upon the unsuspecting Kirghiz—who,
trusting in the promised protection of Russia, were enjoying the
possession of their prizes in fancied security—returned with interest
the pillage and massacre their own tribe had suffered, and, regaining
most of those whom they had supposed lost for ever, conveyed them in
safety to their own homes. Nourali complained bitterly of so flagrant a
breach of good faith. Neplouieff answered that the Kirghiz had given up
all the Bashkir refugees not according to agreement; that the bargain
was therefore at an end; and that he might shortly expect another inroad
of Bashkirs. The Kirghiz prepared for their reception, and the two
tribes continued mutually to slaughter one another, until Neplouieff,
judging that they were so much weakened as no longer to be formidable
separately, and hated each other too cordially ever to be united,
prohibited the Bashkirs from crossing the frontier, and thus put a stop
to the war. About this period the empire of the Zungars was overturned
by the Chinese, and the Kirghiz grand horde delivered from their
conquerors. They increased and spread rapidly under a powerful and
enterprising Khan, vanquishing the Calmucks on the east, and extending
their incursions to Tashkend. One of the most remarkable events,
however, in the history of these steppes, was the Calmuck emigration
from the shores of the Volga to join their brethren on the frontiers of
China who had at the same time been freed from the yoke of the Zungars.
This migration has been ascribed to various causes. Whatever may have
originated it, the Russian government exerted all its energies to
overtake the fugitives. The cupidity of all the tribes of Central Asia
was roused to check the advance of more than twenty-eight thousand tents
of Calmucks, who, with their flocks and families, performed this
wonderful journey; and, in spite of the most incredible natural
obstacles, encountered, with more or less success, the attacks of the
three hordes of Kirghiz, fairly distancing a Russian army that was sent
in pursuit from the lines of Orenburgh. The Black Kirghiz or Bouroutes,
however, made such terrible havoc among these unfortunate adventurers,
that they lost about half their number before arriving at their
destination.
During the reign of the Empress Catharine, the relations of Russia with
the Kirghiz tended more than ever to two results which it had mainly in
view: the first was to establish fixed habitations in the two hordes;
the second, to secure the inviolability of caravans. The forts of Troisk
and Semipalatinsk were built as trading stations, and a town was
projected upon the banks of the Emba nearly one-third of the way to
Khiva. This, however, was not then carried out. Indeed, notwithstanding
the efforts made to tame and civilise the Kirghiz, they ever proved most
pertinacious barbarians. The mosques built here and there for their use
upon the steppe were allowed to fall into decay; and although caravans
were no longer so invariably plundered as formerly, the attempt to erect
caravanserais on the road to Khiva for their accommodation failed
signally. Agriculturists were sent to their encampments from Russia; but
the art of cultivation has scarcely improved to this day, nor has the
extent of cultivated ground increased. Nourali, in spite of many
protestations of loyalty, was always most insubordinate, and, as alleged
by Russia, he encouraged his tribe in the capture of Russian slaves for
the Khivan market, so as ultimately to incur the vengeance of the
government, and render an expedition to the sources of the Emba
necessary to recover the captives. These, however, had been transferred
to Khiva before the arrival of the Russian troops, who compensated
themselves for their trouble and disappointment by retaliating on their
enemies after their own fashion, and capturing two hundred and thirteen
Kirghiz, women and children.
Not long afterwards, the power of Nourali was much shaken by the growing
popularity of an adventurer named Syrym, whose terrible and successful
inroads into Russia soon procured him the support of the greater portion
of the tribe. The policy of Russia on this occasion is worthy of notice.
Perceiving that the ability of the usurper would render him a formidable
neighbour, she offered to withdraw her protection from Nourali, and
place him at the head of the tribe under another title than that of
Khan. Syrym seized the opportunity thus presented of getting rid of his
rival. Nourali was for no ostensible reason deposed, a new constitution
formed, and Syrym was placed as representative of the assembly of the
Kirghiz little horde. The middle horde had some time previous to this
increased in importance under an enterprising chief, who consolidated
his power so successfully, by maintaining relations with China, that he
was enabled to throw off the Muscovite yoke. Meantime Catharine directed
her attention more exclusively than ever to the internal organisation of
the little horde. She constituted tribunals in three of the tribes, the
heads of which were salaried by Russia; presents of land were made to
those of the Kirghiz who would establish themselves in the empire, and
permission was given them to settle wherever they pleased within the
frontier; in consequence of which forty-five thousand tents wintered in
Russia the same year. Syrym, however, proved faithless. He was
discovered to be tampering with the Turks, who were then at war with
Russia, and finally threw off his allegiance. The Empress had now gained
a sort of prescriptive right to the election of the chief of the horde;
her influence assumed a permanent character, and she was enabled to
enforce the regulations she had imposed. It is adduced as an evidence of
the improved state of things, that no less than twenty-two thousand
tents, at their own request, established themselves inside the Russian
frontier, where they have remained peaceable subjects ever since. The
real fact that this emigration was compulsory does not alter the value
of the testimony.
During all this while, the grand horde, whose remote position rendered
them less amenable to Russia, had not been enjoying independence. It
seemed essential to the existence of these wandering tribes that they
should be protected by the countries on whose frontiers they
occasionally encamped—and the grand horde had been subjects successively
of the Khan of Kokan and the Emperor of China. About this time, however,
a large portion of it under the Khan transferred their allegiance to the
Empress, who now found her influence extending more rapidly than ever.
The middle horde was shortly after compelled to follow the example. This
horde had, indeed, enjoyed greater tranquillity and independence than
either of the others; it had neither been exposed to such repeated
attacks from without, nor suffered, except for short intervals, from the
protection of Russia. Now, however, tribunals of justice similar to
those in the little horde were constituted; and not long after, it was
thought necessary to draw out rules for the internal administration of
such of the Kirghiz tribes as were definitely comprised in the category
of Inorodtsï. The Inorodtsï are defined by Russia to be “subjects of
Russia, without being Russians, or being confounded with the general
population of the empire;—colonists, constituting colonies of their own,
with their own regulations. They are half-savage nations, to whom the
empire, interested, no doubt, but always benevolent, allows the
advantage of its enlightened protection.” A few extracts from the
regulations drawn up for the government of the Kirghiz, may not be
uninteresting, as illustrating the mode in which Russia proposed to
exercise over these remote tribes that protectorate which has now become
so proverbial as the distinguishing feature of her aggressive policy.
The Kirghiz are divided into volostes; these volostes into aouls. An
aoul is generally composed of one hundred and seventy tents, and a
volost of ten or twelve aouls. A division contains fifteen or twenty
volostes. The people of these divisions may communicate with one another
without permission, but the limits are fixed by the officers of the
quartermaster’s department attached to the superior authority of the
line. The divisions are divided into those which border with countries
not dependent on Russia—the numbers of which should be as few as
possible—and those which abut upon the Russian frontier, which should be
as numerous as possible.
The aouls are governed by starchines publicly elected every three years.
The volostes are governed by sultans; the office of sultan is
hereditary. In each division there is a chamber of administration
(Prikaz), constituted by a president or starchi-sultan, who is the
highest authority in the division, and is elected for three years by the
starchines, and receives 1200 rubles annually; two Russian members, who
are named by the superior authority of the province, and receive 1000
rubles annually; and two grandees, who are also elected by the
starchines for two years. Should the Prikaz disapprove of the popular
election of a starchine, it cannot reject him, but refers the matter to
the superior authority. None of the members of the chamber can resign
without permission from the same source. The starchi-sultan ranks with a
major in the Russian army. If he is twice elected, he is raised to the
rank of a nobleman of the empire. The other members rank as Russian
employés of the 9th class; the sultans of volostes as of the 12th. The
starchines and grandees rank with mayors of communities. From this it
would appear that, though all the members of the government are
nominally elected, there is not one of the offices, from the
starchi-sultan downwards, that is not under the control of the superior
Russian authority of the province. There is another tribunal presided
over by the starchi-sultan, the functions of which are to make
arrangements for the safety of the people in time of trouble; to watch
over the domestic interests of the community, and encourage industry; to
allow none to take the law into their own hands, no plundering of
caravans; and, after due trial, to punish the offenders with death if
necessary. There is a commanda or company of soldiers quartered near the
Prikaz to keep the peace and protect caravans, and sentinels must be
kept upon the boundaries of each division. Permission may be given to
trade, but Chinese merchants found in the divisions are to be sent back
to the frontier. Migrations into Russia by Kirghiz are not allowed
without permission, and the sultans are personally responsible for the
observance of the prescribed rules, and for the public peace and
security. Houses for the members and officials connected with the Prikaz
are to be built together with hospitals in each division, and a barrack
for the Cossacks. For the first five years no taxes are levied; and
after that the Issak, or a contribution of one animal out of every
hundred, becomes due—except in the case of camels. Horses must be
supplied gratuitously for Cossack regiments; and the line of
communication must be maintained between each division and the frontier.
Intercourse must be carried on daily between the aoul and the sultan,
and the latter is ordered to keep up a weekly communication with the
Russian authority by a courier on horseback. The corn trade is to be
encouraged, and government granaries instituted; but the importation of
corn brandy, or the distillation of it in the divisions, is prohibited.
The cultivation of land is to be encouraged in every way. Five or six
square versts round the Prikaz is the exclusive perquisite of the
starchi-sultan; the other members are entitled to different proportions,
as well as every domiciled Cossack or agriculturally disposed Kirghiz,
provided he steadily perseveres in his new occupation. The land then
becomes hereditary. The Russian members and Cossacks are specially
enjoined to set the example, and show to the ignorant Kirghiz the use of
hedges and ditches. Implements of husbandry, and other assistance, will
be supplied by government. Missions and schools are to be established,
and the Kirghiz to be permitted to send their children to Russia for
their education. The superior Russian authority is commanded to make a
tour of the divisions once a year. Slavery is prohibited. During the
introduction of these rules, it is to be proclaimed as publicly as
possible that the whole middle horde is under the Russian rule, and that
faithful subjects on either side of the frontier shall enjoy the same
rights. They must also be translated, and those volostes who do not
submit to them are to be rigorously excluded from contact with those who
do. So long, therefore, as the little horde will not conform to these
rules, they are to be regarded as strangers. The lines of Siberia and
the forts along it are not to be considered as fixed establishments; but
the frontier is to be gradually extended as the new regime is propagated
and embraces more distant portions of the tribe. The effective movement
of the frontier line is only to take place upon the decision of the
supreme authority,—when a detailed and circumstantial plan is to be
presented, showing a favourable conjuncture of circumstances, and taking
into consideration the interests of the frontier posts and local
situations. Hence it appears that “the effective movement of the
frontier line” into their territory is one of those privileges which
Russia, “interested, no doubt, but always benevolent,” allows to the
Inorodtsï or frontier nations to whom she accords her protection. The
savage character of the Kirghiz, however, has proved their chief
protection; for these rules for an improved system of internal
organisation, so skilfully designed to destroy their nationality, have
never been fully carried into effect, and the larger proportion of the
Kirghiz have maintained their independence more entirely than the
inhabitants of the more civilised countries of the west.
From the account we have already given of the policy of Russia with
respect to these hordes, it is plain that, while she professes to
encourage and protect their advances towards civilisation, her real
object is their total subjugation; and the only possible way of
accounting for her efforts to make an acquisition intrinsically so
undesirable, is by the fact that it is necessary to her ulterior designs
upon Khiva; and therefore it is that our inquiries are more especially
directed to that part of the Kirghiz steppe through which a Russian army
advancing upon Khiva would be compelled to march. So few travellers have
recently visited these remote countries, and the information which we
can obtain from Russian sources is so very meagre, and liable to so much
suspicion, that it would be impossible here to enter into a detailed or
minute analysis of the state of feeling towards Russia which prevails
among the tribes of the little horde, or describe the facilities for
moving large bodies of troops which Russia may recently have established
upon the line of march. We know that ostensibly her influence extends
over all the Kirghiz inhabiting the country between the Sea of Aral and
the Caspian, and that the boundary line between the Kirghiz and the
Turcomans, in this direction, is merely imaginary, following as nearly
as possible the 44th parallel of latitude. On the east of the Sea of
Aral the Syr is the limit of Russian influence; and to the south of
that, the Oozbegs and Karakalpaks extend to Khiva, forming a portion of
the subjects of that government.
There are four routes by which a Russian army could cross the steppes of
Tartary to Khiva. That which is best known is identical with the great
caravan route from Orenburgh to Boukhara, as far as the southeast corner
of the Sea of Aral, where it branches off to Khiva. The country has been
accurately described by Meyendorff and Eversmann, who made the journey
by separate routes to Boukhara in 1820. Meyendorff was attached to a
mission, under M. de Negri, sent to negotiate a commercial treaty with
the Khan of Boukhara; and as he travelled with a heavy caravan and some
troops, his journey gives us some idea of the difficulties which would
be opposed to an army following the same line. For the first three
hundred miles these would not be very serious. The country, though
partially desert and hilly, is well supplied with water. Numerous
rivulets, frozen in winter, dry in summer, and abundant in spring and
autumn, run down the valleys; and upon their banks enough verdure is
found to satisfy the wants of the camels. The aouls of the Kirghiz are
frequent where the pasture is good; and at this short distance from the
frontier they are comparatively submissive, and their assistance in
transporting the artillery and heavy baggage would be indispensable to
the Russians. The camels, though enduring, and of a good breed, are not
accustomed to heavy loads, and are excessively slow as compared with
those of the Arabian deserts. Tombs are the only buildings to be seen
upon the whole route, which is of the most cheerless character
imaginable. The Ilek and the Emba are the most considerable streams.
Beyond the latter river, the road, by a rocky pass, crosses the hills of
Moughodjar, which are accounted important in the steppe country, above
which they rise to a height of nearly a thousand feet. The southern
slopes of these hills are utterly devoid of vegetation; and here the
real hardships of the way commence. The desert of Borzouk, which
intervenes between this range and the Sea of Aral, furnishes a most
scanty supply of water, and is composed of deep moving sand, rendering
the carriage of artillery very arduous. Many of the carts accompanying
Meyendorff’s expedition were burnt for fuel, and the cattle suffered
severely from want of water, which, when it was procurable at all, was
generally very bitter or brackish. It was often found at a depth of five
feet from the surface. Fodder was equally scarce, camel-thorn and
wormwood scrub forming the entire means of subsistence for the camels.
To add to the dreary aspect of the country, extensive saline deposits
are crossed frequently, while occasionally the track skirts a salt lake;
but few inhabitants are met with on these desolate wastes, and those not
to be depended upon. The expedition was upwards of a month in reaching
the Sea of Aral from Orenburgh, and, travelling along its desert shores,
arrived at last at the mouths of the Syr or Jaxartes. It is now reported
that a line of Cossacks has been established along the whole of this
route. But we are almost inclined to doubt the practicability of
permanent posts being maintained across the great Borzouk sands, which
extend from the Moughodjar mountains to the Sea of Aral. Between
Orenburgh and these mountains we know that Cossack posts do exist; and
it is said that a garrison has been placed upon the Emba, which would
serve as a cantonment for reserves. This station was first established
here at the time of Peroffsky’s expedition. This general succeeded, with
ten thousand men, in reaching an intrenched camp half-way between the
Emba and the Sea of Aral; but here (his journey having been undertaken
in the dead of winter) he was stopped by the snow-drifts; and although
he successfully defended himself from the attacks of the Oozbeg and
Turcoman troops, sent from Khiva to arrest his further progress, he was
compelled to retreat from his critical position, after suffering the
loss of more than three-fourths of his men—thus proving that the
obstacles which nature interposed to prevent his invading Khiva were
more formidable than those which were to be encountered from Khivan
troops. Of the _object_ of this expedition we shall speak presently. Its
failure has been held to establish the fact that the transport of an
army across the Kirghiz steppes is utterly impracticable. This is a
point, however, which does not deserve to be thus summarily decided
upon. Russia has evidently not abandoned the idea of invading Khiva; and
in spite of our assertions of its non-feasibility, she may prove some
day that her endeavours to improve the means of communication with the
shores of the Sea of Aral have not been unavailing. She has established
a port at the mouth of the Jaxartes, and launched two iron steamers upon
waters skimmed heretofore only by the reed canoe of the savage Kirghiz.
And the determination displayed, in arrangements such as these, to make
this route available, should teach us not to treat too lightly the
efforts of a powerful and ambitious nation to subvert the existing
political organisation of the states of Central Asia, and direct their
resources against the single European power which has hitherto
monopolised the lion’s share of their commerce. At the same time, it
must not be supposed that the nature of the country to be traversed is
the only impediment to the transport of troops. The southern Kirghiz are
sufficiently far removed from the frontier of Russia not to dread its
punishment; and as voluntary allegiance is never to be depended upon to
the same extent as that which has been enforced, so the insubordinate
tribes of the little horde, tempted by the prospect of plunder which the
camp of the invading army would offer to them, might, by judiciously
planned night assaults, inconceivably harass its movements; while,
should they desire altogether to check the further advance of the army
into their territory, burning the dry shrubs which form the only
pasturage, or poisoning the few scattered wells upon which the army is
dependent, are devices with which such savages are familiar. Moreover,
they alone could supply the camels necessary for the transport of
commissariat and artillery; and were they to desert the army in these
sandy wastes, pursuit would be impossible. Hence it follows that the
co-operation of the Kirghiz is essential to the success of an expedition
through their country; and we gather from the universal testimony of
travellers, that such co-operation is not to be depended upon. They are
avaricious, treacherous, and indolent, yet possessing violent passions.
For a century they have professed allegiance to Russia, during which
period she has endeavoured to coax them into a state of permanent
obedience by a lavish expenditure, and the gentlest treatment; by the
building of mosques, houses, schools, and courts of justice; by the
appointment of khans, and by the encouragement of agriculture; and she
has succeeded no better than China, who uses threats instead of
entreaties, force instead of presents, and who, by the most excessive
cruelty, has fruitlessly endeavoured to force her commands upon the
grand horde. The Russian Kirghiz still continue to misbehave and
apologise as usual: they still sell slaves to Khiva, and deny their
guilt; and Russia, unable to punish them, accords them her gracious
protection, because she hopes to march, by their help, some day to Khiva
to—recapture her slaves! Indeed, it is not to be expected that Kirghiz
will respect Russians when they sell their own children to Russians
themselves, and, in spite of the professed prohibition upon this
traffic, continue to receive, on an average, three bags of corn for a
boy, and two for a girl. No wonder the Russian trader finds this a
profitable investment. The general trade, which consists of the exchange
of horses, cows, sheep and goats, for grain and some of the simple
luxuries of life, has decreased within the last few years. The
population of the grand horde, partly subject to China, and partly
independent, is estimated at four hundred thousand. The middle horde,
the northern portion of which is _really_ subject to Russia, and the
whole nominally so, numbers about a million; and the little horde, whose
allegiance is similarly divided, contains only two hundred thousand
souls.
Hitherto we have only described the route to Khiva as far as the
Jaxartes, because it is probable that a Russian army would embark there
for Khiva. The Jaxartes divides into numerous channels near its mouth,
forming an extensive delta, covered with reeds so tall that, although
Meyendorff and Eversmann visited the embouchure for the purpose, they
could not catch a glimpse of the waters of the lake. These reeds, matted
together, form floating islands; and the natives construct rafts and
canoes with them, upon which to cross the deep broad stream of the Syr.
Forests of rushes fringe the southern and eastern coasts of the Sea of
Aral, which is reported to be shallow throughout its whole extent. The
banks of the Syr are considered the most favoured region in the globe by
the Kirghiz, who there find trees occasionally six feet high, and
rejoice in vegetation of a corresponding luxuriance. Upon some islands
there are singular ruins of tombs and temples. It occupies a caravan
five days of incessant marching through tall rushes to cross the delta.
The principal arm of the river is said by Eversmann to be eight hundred
yards broad. To the south of the Jaxartes, the route passes through a
wood of saxaul, a species of tamarisk, and then crosses the worst desert
in this part of Asia—the Kisil Koum, or Red Sand Desert. A loaded
caravan is obliged to carry with it a five days’ supply of water, and is
exposed to the attacks of the Kirghiz and Oozbegs who are subject to
Khiva, and who inhabit the eastern shores of the Sea of Aral. It would
be madness for a Russian army to attempt this route, and therefore the
port has been wisely established at the mouth of the Syr. On the arrival
of Meyendorff at Boukhara, after a journey of seventy-one days from
Orenburgh, fifty of the horses which formed part of the escort died of
fatigue.
The second route to which we have referred, passes along the western
shores of the Sea of Aral. It was traversed in 1842 by a Russian mission
to Khiva, and has been described by Basiner, a German, who accompanied
the expedition. He left Orenburgh in August, the most trying time of the
year, but found pasture abundant as far as the Ilek; it becomes scarcer
between that river and the Emba. The route followed the line of Cossack
posts at first; then crossing the Moughodjar hills, it enters upon the
desert of the Oust Ourt, at a distance of about six hundred versts from
Orenburgh. This plateau, elevated more than a thousand feet above the
sea, is perfectly level, and is composed of deep sand. For days not a
hill was visible, and our traveller records passing a mound three feet
high as a curiosity. Cliffs overhang the Sea of Aral, and occasionally
rivulets trickle into it, but water is sometimes not met with for two or
three days at a time. For three weeks not even a wandering Kirghiz was
seen; and then, at the south western corner of the Sea of Aral, only the
most savage specimens were met with. Still this is the route which, if
there be any truth in the rumour of a Russian army being at Oorjunge, it
most probably must have taken; unless they had been conveyed across the
Sea of Aral by steam, as, if they had followed its Eastern shores, they
would have marched direct upon Khiva. Altogether the journey lasted
seven weeks, and the description here given of the route does not lead
us to suppose for a moment that it would be practicable for troops, more
especially if their passage was disputed.
The third route, which has ever been regarded by Russia with a more
favourable eye, crosses from Mung Ishlak, on the Caspian, to Khiva, over
the southern portion of this same plateau, and has been accurately
described by Captain Abbott. He estimates the highest point of the Oust
Ourt steppe at two thousand feet above the sea-level, and gives a
picture of the route, calculated to appal the most determined general
that ever led an army. Although it is only four hundred and eighty
miles, or about half as far from the Russian fort of Alexandrofski, on
the eastern shores of the Caspian, to Khiva, as from Orenburgh to the
same place, the difficulties of the traject would be far greater. Not
even the tent of a Kirghiz was seen by Abbott during an interval of
eight days: herbage was always scarce; and on one occasion the wells
were one hundred and sixty miles apart. But the most serious objection
to this route lay in the fact, that the greater part of it passes
through the country inhabited by the tribes of Turcomans, which are
subjects of Khiva, and a far more courageous and enterprising people
than the Kirghiz. For a lengthened period the troops would be obliged to
sustain the attacks of a most pertinacious foe, in addition to the
frightful hardships incidental to the route. Caravans, no doubt, prefer
coming from Russia by Astrakhan and Mung Ishlak, to going round by
Orenburgh; but the requirements of a caravan are very different from
those of an army, and not until every soldier is supplied with a camel
can the same rules be made applicable to both.
The fourth and last route is that which Mouraviev followed, in an
expedition which he made to the country of the Turcomans, and afterwards
to Khiva, at the desire of the Russian government, in 1819–20. The
objects of this mission, undertaken a very short time before that of M.
de Negri to Boukhara, throws considerable light upon the policy of
Russia in these states. After the fatal termination of Prince
Bekevitch’s expedition, it became evident that, without propitiating the
Turcomans, it would be impossible to maintain friendly relations with
the countries lying beyond them; and in 1813, M. Rtichichev, the general
then commanding in Georgia, sent into Turcomania Jean Mouratov, an
Armenian merchant of Derbend, who, carrying on commercial transactions
at Astrabad, had preserved relations with that country. At this period
the Turcomans were an independent race, at war with Persia, and their
alliance with Russia would prove a most opportune assistance to this
latter power, who would thus command the whole northern Persian
frontier. The proposal made by the Russian envoy for such an alliance,
was eagerly received by the Khan of the Turcomans, and deputies sent to
treat with Rtichichev. They found him at Gulistan, in Karabagh,
concluding peace with Aboul Hhussein Khan. The Persian plenipotentiary,
perceiving at once the danger of the proposed alliance between the
Russians and Turcomans, objected to treat unless it were abandoned. This
was agreed to by Russia; and many of the unfortunate Turcomans, feeling
they were no longer able to resist Persia, submitted to that power,
giving hostages to insure their future good behaviour. The Khan,
however, with many followers, retired to Khiva for shelter; while
another portion of the tribe took refuge upon the shores of the Caspian,
in the bay of Balkhan, where they were beyond the reach of a Persian
army—and they have ever since not only maintained their independence,
but have become the most successful slave-dealers in this part of the
world. Five years after the treaty of Gulistan, and while still at peace
with Persia, Russia, anxious to secure the alliance of a tribe whose
hostility to that power would materially affect the existing state of
their mutual political relations, deliberately, and in defiance of an
express stipulation to the contrary, reopened communications with the
independent portion of the Turcoman nation, and Major Ponomarev and
Mouraviev were sent to negotiate the act of treachery. The following
passage from Major Ponomarev’s instructions may serve to illustrate
their general character:—“From address in your conduct, the most
favourable results may be anticipated; and upon this point the knowledge
which you have of the Tartar language will be most useful. In your
character of European, do not consider that flattery is a means which
you cannot employ. It is very common among Asiatic nations; and although
it may cost you something, you will find it to your advantage not to
fear being too lavish of it. Your residence among a people who are
almost altogether unknown to us, will furnish you, better than my
instructions can, with light sufficient to guide you. As I believe in
your capacity and zeal, I flatter myself that this attempt to form
amicable alliances with the Turcomans will not be without success, and
that the knowledge you will acquire of the country will facilitate the
ulterior designs of government.” The first Turcoman encampment visited
was at the southeast corner of the Caspian, near Cape Serebrenoi. The
Turcomans were delighted at the prospect of a Russian alliance, and of
seeing a fort built on Cape Serebrenoi. “We will have revenge,” they
said, “on the Persians for their robberies. We do not know how to
construct a fort; but when we make a general call to arms, we can bring
ten thousand men into the field, and beat the Persians. Only five years
ago we cut their Sardars to pieces near here, and carried away their
cattle.” It is clear that if Major Ponomarev was prone to be too sparing
of flattery, he did not scruple to betray to the Turcomans the ultimate
designs of his government upon its allies the Persians. The Turcomans
are agriculturists; they also possess large flocks and herds, and, from
their proximity to the Persian frontier, have attained some little
degree of civilisation. They dress like Persians, and have adopted many
of their manners and customs; but they are easily impressed by superior
intelligence and civilisation, and Mouraviev anticipates no obstacles,
so far as they are concerned, to the movements of troops. The route to
Khiva is tolerably well supplied with pasture and water for the first
few days after leaving Krasnavodsk; but then the same terrible desert
must be crossed that in every direction divides Khiva from Russia, and
for five or six days water is unprocurable. The nature of the country is
similar to that already described; but this is the shortest of the four
routes, Mouraviev having accomplished it in seventeen days. At
Krasnavodsk, as at Alexandrofski, the Russians have built a fort; thus
having a starting-point for each of the routes to Khiva. The ostensible
motive for building the two forts on the Caspian, was to protect the
Russian fishermen from their Turcoman allies, who occasionally sell them
at Khiva as slaves.
So long, indeed, as stray Russians continue to be kidnapped by the
frontier tribes, will the Czar have a fair excuse for waging war, not
only with those tribes themselves, but with the nations to whom his
subjects are sold as slaves. He will continue desirous to extend the
frontier of his empire, simply because he cannot set at liberty these
unfortunates without doing so. Such was the object of Peroffsky’s
expedition; the origin of which, as told to Abbott by the Khan of Khiva,
is illustrative of what we have been saying. It was to the following
effect: During the war between Khiva and Boukhara, about thirty years
ago, a rich caravan, escorted by two hundred infantry and two guns, was
sent by Russia to the latter state. To reach its destination, however,
it was compelled to pass through part of Khiva, or Khaurism, as the
whole country is called. The Khan, fearing that so desirable an
acquisition might be used by his enemy against him, politely intimated
to the Russian commander his objection to the further advance of the
caravan. In spite of this prohibition, the latter attempted to force a
passage. Khivan troops were sent to oppose him in the Kisil Koum, where
they inflicted serious loss, compelling the troops to retreat to the
Russian frontier, and plundered the caravan. Fifteen years afterwards
the Russians built the fort of Alexandrofski, in what was really Khivan
territory, and soon after seized some Khivan caravans trading in Russia,
and retained five hundred and fifty merchants as prisoners. Upon her
ambassador being sent to demand their release, the Khan was informed
that he must first release all the Russian slaves. As an earnest of his
intention to do so, he sent six to Russia, demanding an equal number of
Khivans. The Russians were retained, and the ambassador’s brother
imprisoned, but no Khivans were released. Upon this a third ambassador,
with a hundred and twenty captives, were surrendered, but no answer was
returned. “I therefore,” said the Khan, “perceived that Russia was only
playing upon my credulity. It is six months since the return of my last
ambassador.” At this very time there was an intrenched camp on the Emba,
and an advanced post half-way between that river and the Sea of Aral. As
we before remarked, the snows, and not the Khivans, rendered that
expedition fruitless; and further attempts of a similar nature were put
a stop to by the gallant exploit of Sir Richmond Shakespeare, who
released nearly five hundred Russian slaves in Khiva, and conveyed them
safely to St Petersburg.
The slave traffic, however, still continues; and in 1842 Danielevsky was
sent to Khiva, upon the mission to which we have already alluded,
charged with obtaining the release of the captives then in slavery, and
securing the inviolability of caravans to Boukhara, together with
certain privileges for merchants trading in Khiva. We have no
information as to the secret objects of the expedition, or how far it
may have been successful; but this is certain, that Russia does not need
an excuse for invading Khiva, and has been paving the way for an
occupation for many years. We have not space now to describe the
condition of this country, the most savage of all the states of Central
Asia; but, from the description of English as well as Russian
travellers, it cannot be expected to offer any very serious resistance
to Russian arms. The army is estimated by Abbott at one hundred and
eight thousand men. It consists entirely of cavalry, and is furnished by
the settled population at the rate of one horseman for fifty chains of
land, and by nomades at the rate of one horseman for four families. The
Oozbegs are the bravest of these, and compose nearly half the army;
still, the encounters they have already had with the Russians prove that
they are no match for disciplined troops; and if ten thousand men, in
good condition, were landed upon the southern shores of the Sea of Aral,
the independence of Khiva would be gone. It remains to be proved whether
this is a possibility. The difficulties of marching an army across the
Great Borzouk to the embouchure of the Syr have been already noticed,
and do not seem altogether insurmountable. The Oxus is too shallow to
allow of their being conveyed up its stream, and they would be compelled
to disembark in the face of a whole population prepared to receive them.
Mouraviev calculates upon a rising among the slaves in the event of any
such invasion. But the mode which Russia would most probably employ to
possess herself of Khiva, would be by exciting Persia or Boukhara to
hostilities with that state, and then offering it her protection. Spring
or autumn are the only seasons of the year at which the expedition could
expect to make a successful traject of the steppes. Khiva, though a
small state, is capable of being made a productive acquisition. Its
annual revenue amounts to about £300,000. At present it furnishes
scarcely any articles of export, and carries on a comparatively small
trade with Russia. Boukhara is the great Eastern emporium; but the
traffic is much intercepted by Turcoman banditti, who are subjects of
Khiva. The aspect of Khiva, after a journey over the steppe, which in
every direction surrounds it, is most inviting. Canals intersect the
country, forming little islands, upon which castellated houses are
situated; tropical produce is abundant and luxuriant; vegetation affords
a grateful relief to the eye of the weary traveller. The most fertile
portion is about two hundred miles long by sixty broad. The entire
population amounts to 2,500,000. In winter the cold is severe; and
though in the latitude of Rome, the Oxus is frozen over.
Having thus attempted to relate the mode by which Russia has extended
her influence over those tribes whose furthest wanderings form the
uncertain boundary which separates her subjects from the nomades of
Khiva, and having described the nature of the country, and of the
inhabitants through which a Russian army invading that state would be
compelled to march, it is time to consider shortly what the object of
such a campaign would be, and what its probable results. It is evident
that, of all European nations we alone could be directly interested in
such a movement on the part of Russia; but it is equally plain that,
even should a Muscovite army succeed in occupying Khiva, its farther
advance through Caubul and the Hindoo Khoosh is an utter impossibility.
Bjornstjerna, the Swedish general, in his work on the East Indies, says
it will require four campaigns before a Russian army could possibly
arrive at the Indies by this route; and, indeed, the slightest
acquaintance with the nature of the country to be traversed, will be
sufficient to justify our discarding as absurd the notion of a Russian
army invading India from Orenburgh and Khiva. But this consideration
does not divest of their importance the designs of Russia upon Khiva,
but should rather lead us to discover what those motives really are
which induce her to entertain them at all; and a due appreciation of the
present position of Russia in the East will quickly enable us to
perceive why, while repelling her aggressions in the West, we should not
neglect to watch her movements in that part of the world in which our
own interests are more nearly affected. The tendency of those movements
has not been altogether concealed. Mouraviev says, unreservedly—“Masters
of Khiva, many other states would be under our rule. The possession of
it would shake to the foundation the enormous commercial superiority of
those who now rule the sea.” It is, therefore, not the invasion of India
which is anticipated, but the acquirement of that influence over the
neighbouring states which would have the effect of undermining the power
of Great Britain in the East. The states here alluded to as bordering
upon Khiva, are Boukhara, Caubul, and Persia. Supposing Russia to be at
Khiva, so long at least as she was confined to that remote and
inaccessible country, the possibility of her alliance with Boukhara and
Caubul against England can scarcely be entertained. The barbarian rulers
of these distant people are far too suspicious of so powerful a
neighbour, and too ignorant of the relative power of European states, to
join in a war between two great Christian empires, the objects of which
they would not understand, and which they would conceive might probably
lead to the extinction of Mahomedanism. While allowing that the conquest
of Boukhara is possible, its acquisition would not facilitate the
designs of Russia against India, for the intercourse between the two
countries is unimportant, and the mountain ranges by which they are
separated are almost impassable. The deserts which intervene between
Khiva and Caubul, the mountainous nature of this latter state, and the
bravery of its inhabitants, would render its conquest by a Russian army
out of the question, as our own experience may testify. Persia, then, is
the only state which would really be placed in imminent peril by the
occupation of Khiva by the Russians, and it is the only state whose
independence is of vital importance to our Eastern interests. “The
independence of Persia,” writes the author of the pamphlet we have
already quoted, “is the only apparent obstacle to a position by Russia
which would enable her to destroy in Asia the power of the Sultan,
already shaken in Europe; to annihilate our commerce in Central Asia; to
force us to diminish our revenues, and largely to augment our
expenditure in India, where our finances are even now embarrassed; to
disturb the whole system of government in that country during peace; to
threaten it with invasion in war; and to oppose to our maritime and
commercial superiority her power to shake our empire in the East.” If,
then, we admit the view, here so ably expressed, to be correct, it only
remains for us to consider how the taking of Khiva would be instrumental
towards the subversion of Persian independence, and how we may best take
advantage of the existing state of our relations with Russia, so as to
relieve ourselves for ever from the anxiety arising from this source.
The frontier of Khiva is conterminous with that of Persia from Herat to
Astrabad, for a distance of four hundred miles. If Khiva became a
Russian province, the whole northern frontier of Persia, from its most
easterly to its most westerly point, from Boukhara to Turkey, would form
the southern boundary of the Russian empire. Already has the Czar
despoiled Persia of territory equal in extent to the British Islands,
but hitherto he has been able to threaten her upon the western shores of
the Caspian alone. It was the object of Mouraviev’s mission to
Turcomania to induce the Turcomans to create a diversion upon the
opposite coast, and, crossing the Attruck, to invade the province of
Astrabad. That project would be rendered still more feasible by the
possession of Khiva, whose influence extends more or less over the whole
of Turcomania. The most bitter enmity has ever existed between these
tribes and the Persians, fostered by the fanaticism consequent upon
their profession of opposite Mahomedan creeds, and they would gladly
seize this opportunity of avenging themselves on a power which has
incessantly persecuted them, while even Caubul might be incited to join
in a crusade against the heretical Sheas. The long-coveted provinces of
Ghilan, Mazenderan, and Astrabad alone separate the Transcaucasian
provinces of Russia from Turcomania and Khiva. Their ports are at the
mercy of the Russian fleet on the Caspian; and if, while the Turks are
being conquered at the one end of the frontier, the Khivans are being
subjugated at the other, Persia must, in her turn, submit to the
omnipotent power from the north, and her most fertile provinces will be
added to the catalogue of “All the Russias.”
But if, on the other hand, by a prompt conveyance of troops to the seat
of war in Georgia, and a strict blockade of the eastern shores of the
Black Sea, we are able, in conjunction with the Ottoman and Circassian
armies, to drive out the Russian forces at present occupying them, we
shall hear no more rumours of a Russian army being at Khiva. A Russian
army in Khiva, unsupported by an army in Armenia, would find itself in a
particularly useless position; and, even in connection with the Affghans
and Turcomans, could hope to gain no advantage over a power who, now
that the tide of Russian aggression had been stayed, no longer believed
in Russian omnipotence, as it saw with amazement that the allied powers
of Europe had been able to maintain the tottering independence of
plundered and enfeebled Turkey.
The conclusion, then, to which our consideration of the present state of
the acquired provinces in Asia has brought us, seems to be, that they
have been acquired only as a necessary prelude to the annexation of
another and more important country;—that, notwithstanding the judicious
treatment of the Kirghiz, their internal condition is by no means
satisfactory, while the natural obstacles which their country presents
to the transport of troops are almost insurmountable;—that even if the
conquest of Khiva were achieved, it would be dangerous only to the
British possessions in the East indirectly, or through the influence
thus exercised upon Persia;—that this influence can only exist so long
as the Russian arms in Armenia are successful;—that, in fact, the
extension of the frontier line of Russia to the east of the Caspian must
be regulated entirely by its progress to the west of that sea;—and that
it is in the power of this country to check that progress at once, and
thus nip in the bud her long-cherished designs upon Persia, and her
deeply-laid schemes for the appropriation of those sources of wealth and
power in the East, which have so materially contributed to raise this
country to her present high position among European nations.
DEATH OF PROFESSOR WILSON.
It is one of the painful duties which devolve on those connected with a
work like the present, to be called on from time to time to commemorate
the removal from this earthly scene, of those by whose original and
inventive minds its peculiar character was impressed, or to whose genius
and labours in after life it owed its continued influence and
reputation. More than once that melancholy task has been ours, for Death
has made more than his usual gaps in the ranks of those who were
associated with the rise of this Magazine and its early success. But the
greatest and most distinguished of that gifted band, whose name has been
identified with it from first to last, had till now been
spared;—withdrawn, indeed, for some time from those circles which he had
enlightened and adorned—and already surrounded by some shadow of the
coming night, but still surviving among us as a link connecting the
present and the past, and forming the centre of a thousand sympathising
and reverential associations. He also has at last been gathered to his
fellows. Professor Wilson expired at his house in Gloucester Place on
the morning of the 3d April 1854. Born in May 1785, he was thus in his
sixty-ninth year when he died;—not prematurely taken, it may be said,
for he had nearly touched the period which is proverbially allotted as
the measure of human life, yet passing from among us long before he had
attained that advanced old age, which, when united with health, wisdom,
and worth, seems to afford one of the happiest conditions of existence,
and of which, in his case, the vigour and elasticity both of his mental
and bodily frame, had seemed to human calculation to promise the
attainment. It is consolatory to think that his period of seclusion and
sickness passed in tranquillity both of mind and body; not perhaps
painless, yet without acute or prolonged suffering;—the bodily energies
waning gently, like the twilight, and the mind, though clear, partaking
of that growing languor which had crept over the frame with which it was
associated. As a proof of how long his mental vigour and capacity of
exertion survived the effects of physical decline, it may be mentioned
that two of the papers entitled “Dies Boreales,” the last of a fine
series on Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, were written by him in August and
September 1852, some months after the occurrence of that calamity by
which his strong frame had been stricken down; papers written with his
usual fine perception and impressive diction, but in a hand so
tremulous, so feeble and indistinct, as to prove the strong effort of
will by which alone such a task could have been accomplished. These were
the last papers he ever wrote: they want, as is evident enough, the
dazzling splendour of his earlier writings: they do not stir the heart
like the trumpet tones of his prime, but they breathe a tone of sober
grandeur and settled conviction; and these subdued and earnest words,
now that we know them to have been his last, sink into the heart, like
the parting accents of a friend, with a melancholy charm.
We leave to others, and in another form, the task of delineating the
character of Professor Wilson as a poet, a novelist, a philosopher, and
a critic: our more limited object is to speak of him only in connection
with this Magazine, of which he was so long the animating spirit; to
recall and arrest for a moment the lineaments of the man as he first
appeared to us—as we were familiar with him in after life—and to embody
in a few words our sense of what he has done for literature and for
society, through the pages of that publication, in which, unless we
greatly err, posterity will recognise the richest outpourings of his
genius, and in which may be traced all the moods of his changing
mind—from the first wild and sparkling effusions of youth, through the
more matured creations of his manhood, down to that period when even
genius takes a sober colouring from the troubles of life, and all those
vivid and truthful pictures of the world around us begin unconsciously
to be imbued and solemnised by the prospects of another.
When we first saw Professor Wilson—now more than three-and-thirty years
ago—no more remarkable person could have attracted attention. Physically
and mentally he was the embodied type of energy, power, and
self-reliance. The tall and elastic frame, the massive head that crowned
it, the waving hair, the finely-cut features, the eye flashing with
every variety of emotion, the pure and eloquent blood which spoke in the
cheek, the stately lion-like port of the man,—all announced, at the
first glance, one of Nature’s nobles. And to the outward presence
corresponded the mind within; for rarely have qualities so varied been
blended in such marvellous and harmonious union. The culture of English
scholarship had softened the more rugged features of his Scottish
education. The knowledge of life, and sympathy with all its forms, from
the highest to the lowest, had steadied the views and corrected the
sentimental vagueness of the poetical temperament: a strong and
practical sagacity pervaded, and gave reality to, all the creations of
his imagination. Extensive and excursive reading—at least in English
literature and the classics—combined with a singular accuracy and
minuteness of natural observation, had stored his mind with facts of
every kind, and stamped the results upon an iron memory. Nature and
early training had so balanced his faculties that all themes seemed to
come alike to his hand: the driest, provided only it bore upon the
actual concerns of life, had nothing repulsive for him: he could
expatiate in the field of the mournful as if it were his habitual
element, and turn to the sportive and the fantastic, as if he had been
all his life a denizen of the court of Comus. The qualities of the heart
partook of this expansive and universal character. Affections as tender
as they were impetuous, checked and softened the impulses of a fiery
temper and vehement will, and infused a pathetic and relenting spirit
into strains of invective that were deviating into harshness. That he
should have been without warm dislikings, as well as warm attachments,
would imply an impossibility. But from everything petty or rancorous he
was absolutely free. Most justly was entitled to say of himself, that he
never knew envy except as he had studied it in others. His opposition,
if it was uncompromising, was always open and manly: to the great or
good qualities of his opponent he generally did justice from the
first—always in the end; and not a few of those who in early life had
regarded him merely as the headlong leader of a partisan warfare, both
in literature and politics, came to learn their mistake, to reverence in
him the high-toned and impartial critic, and to esteem the warm-hearted
and generous man.
His conversation and his public speaking had in them a charm to which no
other term is applicable but that of fascination, and which, in the
zenith of his powers, we never met with any one able to resist. While
his glittering eye held the spectators captive, and the music of the
ever-varying voice, modulating up and down with the changing character
of the theme, fell on the ear, and a flood of imagery invested the
subject with every conceivable attribute of the touching, the playful,
or the picturesque, the effect was electric, indescribable: it
imprisoned the minds of the auditors; they seemed to fear that the sound
would cease—they held their breath as if under the influence of a spell.
Thus accomplished by nature and education, did Professor Wilson apply
himself to his self-imposed task in this Magazine—that of imparting to
periodical literature in general, and to literary criticism in
particular, a new body and a new life; of pulling down the old
conventional walls within which they had been confined, and of investing
criticism itself with something of the creative and poetic character of
the great works of imagination to which it was to be applied.
And in what a noble and true-hearted spirit was that task accomplished.
Much had no doubt been done within the century to enlarge the basis of
our critical views, to exchange the criticism of particulars for that of
generals, to contemplate and decide according to the essence rather than
the form. But we hesitate not to say, that practically the criticism of
the day was sectarian and political: class criticism, not catholic. It
denied or coldly accorded merit to those beyond the pale of the
reviewer’s own opinions; it was too apt to assume in all cases an air of
condescending superiority; and it was in its form inflexible, demurely
decorous, and solemn, banishing from its sphere all that wide field of
illustration afforded by the homely and the ludicrous, from the
judicious contrast and opposition of which so much of added interest and
novelty of view might fairly be derived. These wants the criticisms of
Professor Wilson for the first time effectually supplied. Reverential in
all cases where reverence was justly due, his keen sense of the
ludicrous made him at the same time unsparing of ridicule, when, either
in its moral or artistic aspect, the subject of the criticism required
and justified the application of such a weapon. Strong as might be his
party opinions, they faded out of view whenever he had to deal with any
of the greater questions of literature or the pretensions of its genuine
candidates; while to how many of the humblest aspirants for fame did his
cordial and unstinted praise, blended with just advice and chastened
censure, speak hope and comfort amidst discouragement and poverty and
pain! From every nook of nature, from every mood of mind, he drew his
allusions and illustrations, ever-shifting, iridescent:—under his
guidance, humour and feeling, long separated, walked hand in hand; and
even the gravest minds readily reconciled themselves to his gay and
fanciful embroideries on the web of life, because they felt that none
knew better than he that its tissue was, after all, of a sombre
hue;—because every page of these compositions, quaint and startling as
they were, impressed them with the assurance that wherever the shafts of
his ridicule might light, the nobler qualities of the soul itself—love,
honour, duty, religion, and all the charities of life—were safe as in a
sanctuary from their intrusion.
It would be idle, as it would be endless, to refer to particular
examples in dealing with the criticisms of Professor Wilson. But we
hesitate not to say, humbly, but with the conviction of its truth, that
his contributions to this Magazine contain an amount of original and
suggestive criticism, unparalleled in any publication to which the
present time has given birth. From the _Noctes_ alone what an armoury of
bright and polished thought might be supplied! In his other papers, what
a new aspect is given to old themes! The gentle and devout spirit of
Spenser seems never before to have met with a congenial exponent. The
infinite depths of Shakespeare’s mind are made to reveal new treasures.
Milton’s stately fabric appears to expand its proportions, and to grow,
at once classic and colossal, under his hand. Dryden’s long-resounding
march here meets with a spirit-stirring accompaniment; and he who
“stooped to truth, and moralised his song,” finds a defender, who can
appreciate the sterling vigour and condensation of his thoughts, and the
lucid felicities of their expression. Towards the few genuine poets who
illumined the twilight of the last century—towards those who gilded the
morning of the new—towards Scott, and Byron, and Coleridge, and
Wordsworth—towards the lesser stars revolving within the orb of those
greater luminaries—how just, how discriminating have been his
acknowledgments! And in proof that these judgments, all glowing and
impassioned as they seem, were yet founded on the truest appreciation of
the principles of art, we would ask (and we do so with some confidence),
in how few instances has the public shown any disposition to reverse the
sentence which a deep poetical insight had dictated, and a lofty sense
of duty had kept so impartial and so pure!
Nor is it to the mere professed criticism of literature that these
observations are applicable. The same peculiarities and the same
originality pervaded his numerous and varied essays, where he came more
palpably into that field which Addison and Johnson and Goldsmith had
trod before him. The humblest and most unpromising topics were on system
made the vehicles of important truths; deep reflections “rose like an
exhalation” out of hints thrown out as if in a spirit of dalliance; but
the result was to exhibit man and his nature in many a new light, and to
enforce reflection on many a vital question, where, under a more formal
treatment of the subject, it would unquestionably have been evaded.
Never, perhaps, was the power and value of the principle of surprise
more aptly illustrated than in these essays, where we are suddenly
withdrawn from some vulgar and prosaic foreground; led off—blindfold, it
may be, and through brake and briar—yet, as we feel, by no unfriendly
hand, till, when the journey ends, and the mask drops, we find ourselves
translated to some mysterious mountain height, with the ocean of this
life spread beneath our feet, and around us “the breath of heaven fresh
blowing.”
This, we feel, is no fit place for entering on the social or moral
qualities of Professor Wilson. “Something we might have said, but to
what end?” The depth and tenderness of his domestic affections are not
themes for such discussion. His charities, his generosity, liberal and
unfailing as they were, we would leave in that obscurity to which it was
his own wish they should be consigned. His appreciation of all worth,
however humble; his readiness to assist struggling merit; his utter
absence of all affectation of superiority in himself; his toleration for
the faults or presumption of others; his reluctance consciously to
inflict pain on any one—a feeling which grew on him, as it grows on all
good men, with advancing years; are they not written on the memories of
all who were the objects of his aid or his forbearance? The charms of
his social intercourse, who is likely to forget, whether first
experienced “in life’s morning march, when his spirit was young,” or
when added years and experience had pruned the luxuriance and softened
the asperities of youth, but left all the bright and genial qualities of
the mind undimmed, and the sympathies of the soul at once deepened and
diffused? To those who had the privilege of enjoying his intimate
acquaintance, as familiar friends or fellow-labourers in the same
seed-field; to the many who have been indebted to him for that which he
never failed to afford—wise and considerate counsel; to the thousands
whom he has formed, guided, encouraged, admonished, or corrected, the
thought of Professor Wilson will be among those recollections which they
would most wish to arrest—those visions which, when they begin to fade,
they would be most anxious to recall.
As a proof how completely he was superior to any feeling of party where
a question of literature and genius was involved, and how his kindly
disposition could urge him to exertion, even under the pressure of
disease, we may mention, that the last occasion on which he can be said
to have appeared in public, was when he left his brother’s house, and,
supported by a friendly arm, came up to record his vote for a political
opponent, Mr Macaulay. The last occasion on which he left his own
threshold, was when he drove out to congratulate a friend on an event,
on which he believed his happiness in life was likely to depend.
So lived, so died Professor Wilson—in the union of his varied mental
gifts, in the attractive and endearing qualities of his character, one
of the most remarkable men whom Scotland, in the present or any other
century, has produced. In our remarks we have confined ourselves to his
services to this Magazine, and through that to literature. We have not
referred to his other productions, nor to his academical prelections. If
the value of the latter were to be estimated by the effect which they
produced in stimulating the minds and awakening the interest of his
auditory, they would be entitled to a high rank; but as yet there exist
no materials from which a deliberate judgment as to their merits can be
formed. In other respects, opinion has given the preference to his prose
over his poetry, and to his essays over his narrative fictions. The
judgment has been so general that it is probably just. In poetry, in
prose fiction, he seems overmatched by other men: in the field of the
discursive essay, with its “numerous prose,” he is felt to be unique and
unapproachable—without a prototype, and in all probability without a
successor.
We are aware that in what we have said we have uttered nothing new; that
the marking lines of Professor Wilson’s literary character and
compositions have been often drawn before; that his characteristics as a
man have been indicated by worthier hands. But our object now is, not to
say what is new, but to record what is true—true, as it presents itself
to us, and true, as we should wish it to be for other times. The public
has already pronounced its judgment, and with sufficient approach to
unanimity, on Professor Wilson’s genius; it has formed and expressed its
estimate of him as a man: in both cases we are content to accept the
verdict as it stands; for in both we think it generous as well as
just—we ask only to be allowed to register it in our pages.
_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._
Footnote 1:
Else why quote that gentleman’s evidence in full?—See Report, p. 183.
Footnote 2:
See his evidence appended to Hebdomadal Committee’s Report, p. 74.
Footnote 3:
Evidence, p. 187.
Footnote 4:
See Recommendation 13.
Footnote 5:
Hebdomadal Report, p. 11.
Footnote 6:
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, Nov. 1853, p. 584.
Footnote 7:
“A body of men as accomplished and as industrious [as the professors],
and to whom he would wish to tender his most earnest feelings of
gratitude and respect—he referred to the private tutors of the
University—for he could not help hoping that some from among that body
would be chosen to assist in the government of Oxford.”—Speech on the
second reading, April 2.
Footnote 8:
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, December 1853, p. 697.
Footnote 9:
Hebdomadal Report—Mr Gordon’s Evidence, p. 202.
Footnote 10:
Suggestions, &c., p. 81.
Footnote 11:
_Letter to Endemus_, &c., p. 15.
Footnote 12:
Hebdomadal Report, p. 175, (Evid.)
Footnote 13:
A recent writer in the _Times_ professes great concern at the possible
danger that even the proposed Hebdomadal Council may not extinguish
the power of the Heads sufficiently. Suppose, says this far-sighted
gentleman, in addition to the eight Heads of Houses who _must_ have
seats, Convocation should choose to elect some Heads who are also
Professors, to represent that body, and some also to represent the
members of Convocation. We can only say that we should be very glad to
see our old rulers elected by the popular voice into the seats from
which they are proposed to be so summarily ejected.
Footnote 14:
See Lord Palmerston’s Letter to the Chancellor—Parl. Corresp., p. 95.
Footnote 15:
Hebdomadal Report—Evidence, p. 196.
Footnote 16:
_Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1854, p. 189.
Footnote 17:
_Letter to Warden of Wadham_, p. 8.
Footnote 18:
Hebdomadal Report—Evidence, p. 81.
Footnote 19:
_Tour in Wales_, ii. 306.
Footnote 20:
ROY’S _Military Antiquities_, p. 206.
Footnote 21:
BRUCE _on the Roman Wall_, p. 53.
Footnote 22:
History of the English Army ii. 308.
Footnote 23:
_Firmilian; or, The Student of Badajoz: a Tragedy._ By T. PERCY JONES.
_Printed for private circulation._
Footnote 24:
Pentelicus overhangs the south side of the plain of Marathon,
separating it from the great Attic plain. Those who have seen the
beautiful Bay of Brodick, in the Island of Arran, have seen Marathon
on a small scale, except that Goat Fell, which represents Pentelicus,
is on the north. On the south, or Athenian side, this famous mountain
is sufficiently bare, but towards Marathon it is richly wooded; and
the direct road from the village of Vrana to the valley of the
Cephissus, over the northwest shoulder of the mountain, is one of the
wildest and most picturesque passes in Greece.
Footnote 25:
PAN played a somewhat prominent part in the great Persian
war.—(HERODOTUS, I. 105.) He had a famous cave near Marathon (PAUSAN.,
I. 32), which archæologists have idly endeavoured to identify.
Footnote 26:
Darius was led by Hippias, who was familiar with this approach, to
Attica, having come this way with his father, Pisistratus, when that
tyrant established himself in the sovereignty of Attica for the last
time.
Footnote 27:
Hercules was the patron-saint, to use modern language, of Marathon;
and, where the Athenians conquered, Theseus could not be absent. These
two heroes, therefore, were represented in the picture of the battle
of Marathon in the painted Stoa, (PAUSAN., I. 15). The fountain of
Macaria, the daughter of Hercules and Deianeira, is mentioned by
Pausanias, (I. c. 32), as being on the field of Marathon; and sure
enough there is a well on the road from Marathon to Rhamnus, near the
north end of the plain, which Mr Finlay is willing to baptise with the
name of the old classical nymph.
Footnote 28:
There are two extensive marshes, mostly overgrown with great reeds,
one at each end of the field. The Persians, of course, were driven
back into the marsh at the north end. This was represented in the
painting on the Stoa.
Footnote 29:
The famous mound in the middle of the battle-field, mentioned by
Pausanias, and described by all modern travellers.
Footnote 30:
Madame IDA PFEIFFER’S _Visit to Iceland_, p. 32.
Footnote 31:
_Russian Shores of the Black Sea_, by L. OLIPHANT, p. 335.
Footnote 32:
_A Visit to Europe in 1851_, vol. ii. p. 317. By Professor BENJAMIN
SILLIMAN. New York: Putnam, 1854.
Footnote 33:
IDA PFEIFFER’S _Visit to Iceland_, p. 40.
Footnote 34:
_The Initials_, by the Baroness TAUTPHŒUS, i. 205.
Footnote 35:
Translation of a Chinese song.
Footnote 36:
_The Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East: A Historical
Summary._ London: Murray, 1854.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
539 forgets herself so far as box forgets herself so far as to box
the ears the ears
560 blame they didua get their blame they didna get their
denner denner
605 that ever merged from barbarism that ever emerged from barbarism
620 of land is be encouraged in of land is to be encouraged in
every every
● 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. 75, NO. 463, MAY, 1854 ***
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